With the economy sinking fast, area day laborers struggle to find work—some even consider returning to their homelands. [NY Times]
A Sunday morning kayak race around Manhattan ends in a perilous rescue operation near Battery Park. [NY Times]
Twenty-seven gleaming steps to nowhere in the middle of Times Square. [NY Times]
Hoping to transform Governors Island into an integral part of New York’s cultural landscape, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council will oversee an artists’ studio and exhibition space on the 172-acre island. [NY Times]
More and more New Yorkers are turning to their relatives to help purchase a new home or keep an old mortgage. [NY Times]
Kimchi, karaoke, and other all-night wonders of Koreatown. [NY Times]
With the economy in tatters, celebrity properties struggle to attract new buyers. Just ask Julian Schnabel or Spike Lee. [NY Times]
A Millstone, N.J., couple win architecture award for restoring their Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home. [NY Times]
Two piano factories in Astoria are reborn as moderately-priced condos. [NY Times]
What homebuyers really want. [NY Times]
The elderly—many of them now debt-free homeowners—ensure senior housing remains a relatively stable market. [NY Times]
As the number of area foreclosures increases, so too does the risk of property damage. [NY Times]
Homebuyers may be thinning out, but UES condos keep multiplying. [NY Times]
In South Jamaica, Queens where 28 percent of homes have been in some phase of foreclosure since 2004, only a shell of a community remains. [NY Times]
A mysterious, long-abandoned Soho building continues to languish despite neighborhood complaints and a multiplying rat population. [NY Times]
Gray’s Papaya’s “Recession Special”—a fixture in good times and bad—is forced to raise its price. [NY Times]
Borough President Marty Markowitz to demand MTA refurbishes the dilapidated Jay St. subway hub. [NYDN]
Doubting a full renovation can happen with MTA’s budget constraints, Park Slope residents advocate for simpler improvements to the Fourth Ave. subway stop. [NYDN]
Lincoln Equities to build 2,400 residential units (including both condos and rentals) along Hallets Cove in Queens. [NYDN]
Chintzy street venders illegally clog Ground Zero. [NYDN]
South Brooklyn’s murder rate rises an astonishing 31 percent, while neighborhoods to the north see a 20 percent drop. [NYDN]
Thai furniture, not food, takes off in the Meatpacking District. [NYDN]
Mortgage scammers lived large in Atlantic City off cash stolen from Countrywide and WaMu. [NY Post]
A 96-year-old women living above Carnegie Hall for the last 60 years demands $10 million from the concert hall to move out. [NY Post]
LIRR inquired into the Railroad Retirement Board’s disability swindle years ago, but its efforts were stymied by an honest mix-up. [NY Post]
Feeling the effects of the credit crunch and declining home prices, the nation’s consumer sentiment index falls 13 points to 57.5 in October. [WSJ]
