Upper East Side

It’s that time of year when thousands of recent college graduates descend upon Manhattan for their obligatory, pre-suburban stint in the city.

Manhattan’s rental market is traditionally the tightest from May to August and early September—apartment-hunting season for newly christened young professionals.

After their hopes of living below 23rd Street in quasi-bohemian squalor are dashed by a broker, the Manhattan newbie has just a few neighborhoods to choose from.

The first place they look is Manhattan’s unofficial frat district Murray Hill—er, "Murray Hell," that "mini-Manhattan theme park" full of "coddled post-collegians, armed with marketing jobs and U. Penn diplomas," which The Observer's Lizzy Ratner examined in a 2005 profile.

A decade ago, when the Real Estate Group COO Daniel Baum first noticed the trend, the neighborhood’s main draw was affordability.

Yet, even steadily rising rents have not diminished prepsters' love for the East Side nabe.  read more »

The Upper East Side co-op where the late antique book dealer Madeleine B. Stern lived and worked for over 50 years has been sold for $2.6 million, city records show.

Stern is credited with discovering what The New York Times called, “Louisa May Alcott’s long-lost Gothic tales of murder, sexual subjugation, opium dens and other things simply too dreadful to mention.”  read more »

In my Manhattan Tranfers item today on gold watch guru Benny Shabtai’s townhouse at 870 Park Avenue, I tried to figure out why someone who couldn’t sell his house in 2006 for $19.9 million would try selling it now for $33 million.

The Brown Harris managing director John Burger, who isn’t involved with the listing, gave me this explanation for why Upper East Side buyers might actually like the $13.1 million difference: “A $5,000 dress in a window on Madison Avenue is much more interesting to a woman than a $1,000 dress,” he said. “It’s true.”  read more »

The daughter of Jerry Speyer, Tishman Speyer's chief and the 605th richest man in the world (alongside Sheldon Solow), according to Forbes' 2008 list, has bought a $12 million co-op at 888 Park Avenue, city records show.

Holly S. Lipton, the vice president of GSC Partners Capital Group, won’t be straying far from her old digs on East 87th Street when she moves into the fourth-floor unit on 78th and Park.  read more »

Time was, Upper East Siders had to push their designer strollers quite a few blocks to reach a single shop that sold cashmere mittens for infants or pima cotton polos for toddlers.

Not anymore. Children’s clothing boutiques have taken the neighborhood by storm, joining a few relative old-timers that opened in the 1980’s and 90’s. The stretch of Madison Avenue between 80th and 92nd streets boasts some 20 stores for tots, and the community Web site uppereast.com lists close to 50 in the immediate vicinity.  read more »

Video blogger RyanIsHungry interviews Glenn McAnanama, whose group Upper Green Side is trying to get Upper East Siders involved in neighborhood green initiatives.

For the last 28 years, Jeremiah Oshea has been the super at 18 East 68th Street, the 36-foot-wide, 18,500-square-foot, 103-year-old mansion that just hit the market asking $64 million.

He lives alone in a one-bedroom apartment in the basement; the limestone mansion, now divided into apartments, has 17-foot ceilings and original wood paneling.

When asked about the listing, Mr. Oshea, from Ireland’s County Kerry, said, “I think it is on the market, I’m not told whether it is or whether it isn’t, but I have a feeling it is.” I mentioned that the asking price is $64 million: “Oh my God,” he said.  read more »

Most children dream of moving to New York City, L.A., or another big city when they grow up. Some manage a post-college stint in the Big Apple before they pack it in and move back to the home they know. A few even stick around long enough to earn the right to call themselves New Yorkers.

But what if you grew up in New York, say, in the insulated, quaint little bubble that is the Upper East Side? Twenty-somethings born and bred on the Upper East Side used to flee to the city’s grittier environs for their ephemeral, post-collegiate rebellion, but now such neighborhoods are few and far between on the island; and a subconscious, often suppressed, aversion to crossing the bridge is deeply imbedded in the psyche of most Upper East Siders from birth.  read more »

The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in a non-doorman building on the Upper West Side was $2,478 in January, according to a report (PDF) from brokerage The Real Estate Group New York. The average for a one-bedroom in a non-doorman building on the Upper East Side was $2,439. In doorman buildings, one-bedrooms averaged $3,549 on the Upper West Side and $3,534 on the Upper East Side.

"Fuck yeah, you should write about us. We're from New York, we're totally off-beat, you know, and we want to deconstruct the election process from the point of view of the independent voter."

Speaking was Will Rabbe, a 25-year-old filmmaker working for the Independent Film Channel. He said he lives on the Upper East Side.

"Yeah, I live there. What are you going to make a judgment call?"  read more »

I didn't want to write this about the CW show Gossip Girl, but I feel I have to before it's too late.

As it stands now, Gossip Girl; is spreading throughout the United States a disjunctive, distorted, ultimately dangerous, view of what buys what in New York City right now, and the show's doing so mostly through its depiction of real estate. Like Friends in the 1990's and Sex and the City earlier this decade, Gossip Girl is giving the impression to Suzy in Nebraska and Mandy in Alabama (and Clay from Texas) that real estate in New York is as affordable as anywhere and that poor in New York means living in a $2 million Williamsburg loft.  read more »

First, it was the "water leak in the kitchen" voice message. Now, it's a "Closed for Renovations" sign.

Given all the buzz in the papers (here, here, here ...) and on TV (here, here, here ...) about the mice and cockroaches, does Serendipity 3 honcho Steven Bruce really think he can fool anyone with this deceptive signage?

Won't people just look beyond the simple white sheet of paper and notice those glaring yellow "CLOSED BY ORDER OF THE COMMISSIONER OF HEALTH AND MENTAL HYGIENE" stickers in the background?

Random passer-by at 2:32 p.m. on Friday: "Awwww! Closed for renovations? That sucks!"

Guess there's something to this oft-used restaurateuring strategy after all.

Eater is reporting that Serendipity 3 -- the backdrop for that horrendous 2001 John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale flick -- has been shuttered by the Health Department after its "second consecutive failed inspection in a month."

"Both inspections revealed rodent and fly infestation and conditions conducive to pest infestation, including stagnant water in the basement.  read more »

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It’s official—the era of the Cerf family on East 62nd Street has come to an end. The Capote, Faulkner and Sinatra dinner parties from the family’s first generation, the impromptu meetings for the National Lampoon projects from the second, are all memories of the past.  read more »

We just got word from Besen & Associates’s Adelaide Polsinelli that she’s brokered a deal to sell 316 East 83rd Street. The five-story prewar walk-up between First and Second Avenues has 20 units and was sold for $4.5 million. The seller was the Punnett Family, and the buyer an LLC.

The units rent for an average of $1,400 per month. Looks like the Upper East Side really does have a good number of apartment deals.

The New York Times Magazine this weekend came up with a top 5 of the most expensive micro-neighborhoods in the city. Not surprisingly, they were all on Manhattan's East Side (three were on the Upper East Side).

The Real Deal turned a similar trick earlier this year, but broke it down to the city's most-expensive blocks and covered ones in each borough. Anyone up for a little Todt Hill?

Stonehenge Partners continues to add to its already impressive Manhattan portfolio. The real estate company recently closed on a seven-story, 90,000-square-foot apartment building at 330 East 63rd Street for $39 million, according to city records. (UPDATE: The Real Deal in late June reported the purchase closed.)

The acquisition of the 93-unit building between First and Second avenues brings the total number of city units owned by Stonehenge to over 2,000.

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The illegal poker scene in New York just got a little more dangerous.

Last night, an underground poker club at 328 East 61st Street was robbed at gunpoint by two men, according to City Councilwoman Jessica Lappin’s office. The men stole approximately $50,000 from the establishment and the patrons.

According to sources, the establishment, located on the third floor of the building, had been operating for about six months. Prior tothat, another poker room had existed at the same location for approximately a year and a half. It had been robbed as well.
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Being the ex-wife of Romancing the Stone’s romantic lead has its perks. Diandra Douglas (who used to be married to Michael Douglas, of course) and her new husband, guitar-maker (really) Michael Klein, have paid $15.25 million for an 1899 townhouse at 114 East 65th Street.  read more »