Wednesday, March 19, 2008

*Everyday Chatter

Remarkably, after much construction and stop work orders, 27 E. 7th Street has become a (illegal?) hostel. Down by the Hipster reported this, Curbed commented, and Hostel World has all the details (free pizza parties!), but I didn't really believe it until I looked up last night and saw the rooms filled with bunkbeds and sleepy-eyed young Asians:


CBGB's will be a John Varvatos, but the 313 Gallery will still be a gallery--Morrison Hotel is moving into #313 and a little bit of rock-n-roll history remains on the Bowery, if only in museum form. It's better than another bank. The first show will feature work by rock photographer Steve Joester. [Stupefaction]

Here comes Karl Fischer. Despite protests to the plans to demolish these little buildings on 13th Street and replace them with a giant hotel, the first sign of demolition has appeared: The rat poison is out!


Celebrate 125 years of the Chelsea Hotel at the Museum of the City of New York. [Living w/Legends]

NYC construction accidents only to get worse--as billions of building dollars and another million people flood into the city. [Curbed]

Go inside an East Village open house--where you can get a teeny studio and access to a crappy rooftop "deck" for just $2,900. [EVG]

Ah, the disparity of NYC economics: See a family of 5 living in a two-room on Ludlow ($?) and then check out an empty two-bedroom in the Plaza ($16,500 per month!) just waiting for a single out-of-towner to call "not home."

What was once the Tiffany Diner, once beloved of drag queens, club kids, and leatherdaddies, and situated in a 1929 landmarked building, will now be...a Bank of America:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for picking up my open house item, Jeremiah. I went back and looked at what I wrote...To be fair, the rooftop deck was nice...I sounded sarcastic when I wrote "lovely" -- I often sound sarcastic even when I'm being serious!...the photo that accompanied the text mostly shows the adjacent building's ugly roof...Regardless, a nice rooftop hardly makes up for the steep rents. I should have taken a photo of my reaction when I heard a studio started at $2,900.

Anonymous said...

Two interesting items re; that million people in 10 years prediction-

Last year, according to the NY Post, the city (all 5 boros) gained a whopping twenty-four thousand people.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03202008/news
/regionalnews/big_apple_coming_to_its_census
_102755.htm

Then there is this link that shows how NYC challenges the census figures because a higher population means more federal and state money.

http://nyc.metblogs.com/2007/03/22/nyc-population-growth-stagnant/

Of course, illegals and the transient section of the population make it hard to get a real number. So what does the city use to argue it's case for higher population growth?

Data on residential construction.

Neat, huh?