Flocks of 21- to 35-year-olds moved to Brooklyn in 2008, as the condo boom gave way to a renters’ market, reports The Brooklyn Eagle.

Almost half of the new renters in the first quarter of this year were between 21 to 25 years old, and 93 percent were under 35. The typical renter in neighborhoods like Clinton Hill, Boerum Hill, Prospect Heights, Windsor Terrace and Boerum Heights is usually attached, works freelance in entertainment or the arts, makes around $50,000 a year, and needs no guarantor to be approved for an apartment.

What's different now is that most of the new renters do not come from Manhattan.  read more »

As a teenager I spent a fair amount of time traversing New York City's urban terrain in search of live music. I was partial to punk. I spent a lot of time at Saturday punk matinees at ABC No Rio and the Dumbo art collective DUMBA. At 16, I marched down to the DMV to get a resident ID to prove to CBGB's Hilly Kristal that I was old enough to shove people to an orchestra of power chords.

I remember the devastation of Giuliani's ruling against dancing in bars and the death knell of advancing gentrification, the demise of the places I used to frequent (except for ABC No Rio, which managed to buy its squatted building from the city in the late 90's and is now planning a serious renovation). In a recent article for The Observer, Chris Shott described the debilitating regulatory environment that many music venues contend with now.  read more »

• What Chelsea really needs is a nice tall condo. Luckily, construction has begun on Chelsea Stratus, "what will be the neighborhood's tallest building." The 40-story condo on Sixth Avenue between 24th and 25th streets will have a billiard room, media lounge, and a rooftop terrace dog run. It was designed by Lucifer. [Real Deal]
• The 12,000-square-foot Pratt mansion at 280 Washington Avenue has dropped from $3,995,000 to $3,399,000. Will it go into the terrible twos? Quoth the experts: "There just aren't a lot of buyers looking to drop more than $3 mil on a place in Clinton Hill just yet." [Brownstoner]
• Does the Brooklyn Papers' headline Hookers To Get Red Light mean that a sleazy legalized prostituion zone has opened in the sleaziest outer borough? Or maybe it has something to do with a new Red Hook traffic light where a pedestrian was killed. (It could be either.) [BP]
• Out in the 'burbs, a 12,000-square-foot (a la Pratt) mansion is listed for $15.9 million in Sands Point, Long Island. "The exterior is a rather standard Mediterranean but the interior reveals a bizarre fantasy of luxury... [The ceiling] is both muraled and coffered (and not once but twice)." [Luxist]
- Max Abelson]]> http://www.observer.com/node/35497#comments Real Estate Chelsea Stratus Clinton Hill Red Hook Sands Point Mon, 18 Dec 2006 11:19:42 -0500 Observer Staff 35497 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/node/35070


Via Gowanus Lounge, on Sunday there will be a rally to protest yet another out-of-scale development in Clinton Hill/Bed-Stuy. Not only are the developers at 335-345 Greene Avenue using the oft-abused "community facilities" floor-area-ratio boost, it appears they're not exactly following safety guidelines:


The demo, being done by the fine folks at MMG Design, has been extremely unsafe and unprofessional. They are the most unpleasant people I have ever spoken to. I called and spoke with the owner Marie Grasso one day when I looked out our back window and they had workmen 20 feet up on the wall above our yard, prying off cinder blocks off directly above the head of my 2 year old son who was playing in the yard and my wife who was hanging the laundry. This is without any kind of protective fence or netting, or even the human decency to yell down and let us know they were working and that maybe we should move the kid.

-Matthew Grace]]> http://www.observer.com/node/35070#comments Real Estate Bedford-Stuyvesant Clinton Hill Marie Grasso Fri, 18 Aug 2006 09:33:39 -0400 Observer Staff 35070 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/node/35002

An oasis of luxury?

Two lucky Clinton Hill warehouses are about to turn into two six-story condos (plus a 60-foot inner courtyard, plus a shiny pool.) The curvy Vanderbilt Apartments, designed by Meltzer/Mandl Architects, will be made of clear and "colored spandrel glass."

According to the designers, all this luxurious shine will set "the benchmark for future new construction in Clinton Hill." Enjoy!

Full release after the jump.  read more »

- Max Abelson ]]> http://www.observer.com/node/35002#comments Real Estate Brooklyn Clinton Hill David Mandl Marvin Meltzer Tue, 01 Aug 2006 10:01:32 -0400 Observer Staff 35002 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/node/34837 "Clinton Hill Apartments' Microturbines Cogenerate Electricity," a press release cryptically alerted us this morning.

"You don't know what that means?" asked Clinton Hill Apartments owner Ed Friedman. "I'm embarrassed for you"

David Ahrens, director of Brooklyn's Energy Spectrum, was more helpful: "Microturbines, basically like a small little jet engine, fire from natural gas. They simultaneously produce heat for hot water and electricity, which is interconnected with the Con Ed grid... We anticipate this project will be the equivalent of taking 1,000 cars off the road every year."

Why? The new energy and heat will mean the apartments' old boilers ("which burn Number 6 oil," Mr. Friedman pipes in, not a wonderful thing") can be intermittently turned off.

"Which means emissions will be reduced," declares Mr. Ahrens.

Thankfully, the $2 million project was partially subsidized by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, plus the Clean Air Communities group.

Will other Brooklyn co-ops be following suit?

Mr. Friedman offers: "They'd be wise to."

- Max Abelson]]> http://www.observer.com/node/34837#comments Real Estate Brooklyn Clinton Hill David Ahrens Ed Friedman Wed, 14 Jun 2006 08:05:00 -0400 Observer Staff 34837 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/node/49187 Lachlan Murdoch, News Corp.'s spiky-haired scion and publisher of the New York Post , has sold the S  read more »]]> http://www.observer.com/node/49187#comments Real Estate Andre Balazs Chris Mitchell Clinton Hill Lachlan Murdoch Sun, 09 May 2004 20:00:00 -0400 Gabriel Sherman 49187 at http://www.observer.com