The Home Depot Inc.

There's a new king in town, but he lives in Minnesota: "Deuce Seven... came to the East Coast for the first time on January 10, arriving with a backpack of spray cans he'd stolen from a Minnesota Home Depot, some painted boards, and an open invitation to sleep on a Brooklyn couch. The lanky 21-year-old spent three and a half weeks... painting New York. Then he went home."

[Voice]

This weather sucks. But, always look on the bright side of life, eh? The Shake Shack in Madison Square Park reopens in less than five days.

[Eater]

Apparently, there's a Communist Party headquarters in Chelsea, and it's embracing real-estate. What does this mean for Communism? More importantly, what does this mean for irony?

[BlogChelsea via Curbed]

Finally, though The Real Estate has barely a drop of Irish blood (hell, one of us is of English descent and another celebrates Columbus Day), we would like you to know: McSorley's opens at 11 a.m. tomorrow. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

- Tom Acitelli

CBS Radio finally found its home of 75,000 square feet at 345 Hudson Street, as Real Estate Weekly reported.

But here's some new information that everyone loves: Rent numbers!

CBS will take the 10th and 11th floors with rents starting at $34.50 a square foot for the first five years, $37.25 in the next five years, $40.75 for the next five, and $43.75 for the last five, according to a source familiar with the deal. CBS will get the first five months free as well as a promise of future work on the Hudson Square space from the landlord, Trinity Real Estate.

Wonder how these numbers will affect Home Depot's strategy. The retail giant, according to various media including Real Estate Weekly, has been dragging its feet on signing a 107,000-square-foot deal at 345 Hudson.

- John Koblin

Bill Clinton is reincarnated.

The chairman of the Working Families Party wants to bet that his party will get more votes than the Conservative Party.

Ben notes that so far, no evidence has surfaced to prove that the Republican robo-calls made in a some close congressional races here are illegal.

Josh Marshall thinks otherwise.

Rick Santorum had a contentious interview with NPR.

John Sweeney isn't hiding. He's campaigning in Home Depot.

Early and Often explains why Jeanine Pirro is down in the polls and Alan Hevesi is up.

Maybe it worked. Perhaps all the sympathy people just couldn't work up for Jeanine Pirro goes to our besieged and embattled state numbers guy.

The Fix has a list of the top 10 campaign commercials.

ReformNY defends fusion voting.

On the eve of a landslide victory in New York and Washington, Daily Gotham posts a list of Democratic Ideals.  read more »

And above is Jeanine Pirro, once the GOP's brightest star, talking to a supporter while her mother, Esther Ferris, [in black] speaks with another. When I asked Ferris about her daughter's campaign, she said, "I'm very proud of her. She's my hero."

-- Azi Paybarah

In its application for another $7 million in tax breaks from the Industrial Development Agency (this time an exemption to the mortgage recording tax), the Related Companies lists some "projected tenants" at Bronx Terminal Market: BJ's, Home Depot, Target, Best Buy, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Marshall's. BJ's, you may recall, had long been rumoured, and its bite was softened by Related's pledge that any warehouse club it took on as a tenant would honor food stamps and W.I.C. -Matthew Schuerman

BLDGBLOG's cri de coeur regarding architectural criticism pushes the theory that saying "Gee, the new Home Depot really sucks" isn't given the importance it deserves. Drop Le Corbusier from your vocabulary, and check out the new games from Electronic Arts if you want to engage ordinary Americans in the architectural game. Otherwise, you're going to have scant opposition to some truly crappy designs. -Matthew Grace  read more »

• Tribeca residents don't shop for food. They get Hermes and BMW instead. (Metro)
• Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to spend $19.5 million on six parks and public spaces in Lower Manhattan, including the lot bordered by Canal, Varick and Laight Streets. Oh, and frozen weeds. (The New York Times)
• The planned Cirque du Soleil theater at West 42nd Street did not receive a zoning bonus meant for Off-Broadway companies, striking a blow to developer Stephen Ross of Related Companies. (The New York Times)
• Brooklyn Bridge Park is approved. Officials wait for big name stores and hotels to buy in. Law suit is on the way. (New York Post)
• Mobsters find Home Depot an overrated supply store for home repairments. Instead, they choose tools with proven use and steal from a house under construction. (New York Daily News)
• Brooklyn Rock Festival begins next week. (BRF)
• Is it surprising that a Times Square venue is the biggest offender on the health department's restaurant inspection list? (Hotel Chatter)
• Table XII is unfashionable, traditional Italian to Frank Bruni. But is traditional the same as retro? (The New York Times)
• Jonathan Miller wonders, if budget surpluses allow politicians to push their agendas without giving sacrificing other necessities, will government housing projects increase, "assuming the housing boom is largely over and the market moves sideways for a while." (Matrix)
• Also, what does it mean that The National Association of Home Builders released a report that shows optimism has grown for rental apartments, but declined for condos? (Matrix)
• Page Six is merely asking: "WHICH scion of a real estate empire was slightly aghast when his surgically enhanced daughter-in-law sat down for dinner at San Pietro in a way too low-cut outfit and both of her new breasts popped out?"

- Riva Froymovich  read more »

• A wrap-around loggia porch makes for outdoor living and memorable parties. (The New York Times)
• The dumbest moments in real estate, including New York developers paying $37 million for air rights. (CNN)
• Mayor Bloomberg wants to speed this business of redevelopment downtown. But, the Port Authority moves at its own pace. (Crain's)
• The Outsider Fair comes to New York. (Sanford Smith)
• Why hasn't Newark experienced an economic boom, like Philadelphia or Detroit? (The Village Voice)
• New York Community Bank gives mortgages to the city's worst landlords. (New York Post) And, the group Housing Here and Now is asking that the bank's planned acquisition of Atlantic Bank of New York be stalled until it "compels its clients to maintain their buildings, which the group said the bank has the power to do under a so-called good repair clause in its mortgage agreements." (The New York Times)
• They serve good meat in Williamsburg. (The L Magazine)
• Hermes may join the great retailers' move to Lower Manhattan, beside the likes of Sears and Home Depot. (The New York Sun)
• A picture of the Long Island City development taking over the Pennsylvania Railroad Power House building, erected in 1909. (Curbed)
• Your Blackberry, one of approximately 4 million used in the U.S., may be shut down. It's must be Vogue editor Andre Leon Talley's scheme. (Inman News)
• It's all in the details, and fabrics, when creating comfort in your home. (Inman News)
• There are actually some 350 American members in the International Feng Shui Guild. (Forbes)
• There are more visitors to New York than ever. Here, the most expensive rentals in the U.S. (Forbes)
• That excitement, gratefulness for warmer city weather, can become a global weather problem. (National Geographic)
• The Underground Marijuana Railroad: 60 feet below ground, the trafficking tunnel began near the Tijuana, Mexico airport and continued for 2,400 feet to San Diego. (SF Gate)
• Central Park is the only park in New York City for which crime statistics are available. Unfortunately, it isn't the only park where crime is committed, but a new law may make the difference. (Gotham Gazette)

-- Riva Froymovich  read more »

Peter Slatin says The Home Depot is close to signing a lease in a Hudson Square building owned by Trinity Real Estate, the second headline-worthy deal since Carl Weisbrod jumped to the church last summer. -Matthew Schuerman  read more »

Ken Langone, who has kind of vanished from haunting Eliot Spitzer in recent days, pops up as expected in Tom Suozzi's campaign filing.

He and his family contributed $64,000 to Suozzi's "liberation" (as Tom has described it); Citizen Action counts up a total of more than $500,000 linked to Langone. (Some of those links seem a bit thin, but much is from Home Depot execs and other friends.)  read more »

An interesting footnote: The liberal groups headquartered in that low-rise on Third Avenue in Brooklyn (Acorn, Citizen Action, Working Families) seem to have it out for Suozzi, as Acorn's Bertha Lewis demonstrated the other day, and as Citizen Action showed today. The Working Families Party has already endorsed Spitzer. Does that make Eliot the candidate of the Left?

Mike's latest play at poaching Freddy's base? The Puerto Rican Day Parade.

Today's spin on the turf war included a letter to Fifth Ave. co-op board presidents, in which Mike implored them to leave parade security to the NYPD. Traditionally, the mayor's neighbors fortify their own digs with sheets of plywood, chain-link, and plastic netting, much to the chagrin of City Hall.

Mike's letter read: "It would mean so much to the city if each of you set an example by refraining from this practice, which is viewed by many New Yorkers as intolerant."

The Mayor's press office also disseminated a letter from parade organizers, who thanked Mike for his "personal intervention" in the matter and called him "a friend in City Hall."  read more »

Don't get too excited, though. Mike dispatched a flurry of Fifth Ave. letters before last year's parade, and it didn't stop the run on Home Depot. This year, two business owners have already boarded their windows. Bloomberg aides have talked one of them down.

And what are we to make, in general, of this Amigos de Mike thing, which has so far amounted to a great deal of free media about a miniature television advertising campaign?

Everybody's choice for villain of the year, beating out even Charlize Theron's brilliant and ghastly  read more »

When I first saw the flyers all over the telephone poles in my neighborhood announcing a community m  read more »

Recently, I was fixed up with a man who announced that he had a stalker. "That's awful," I said.  read more »

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