1) Under the grim headline "A Downturn Begins" the Times' Vivian Toy breaks down the third-quarter reports into a neighborhood-by-neighborhood look at the ups and downs of the market. It's a long read and heavy on the stats, but 'hoods down notably from last year include Harlem & East Harlem, Midtown East & Turtle Bay and Midtown West & Hell's Kitchen. Harlem seems to be in the worst situation, with one broker telling her clients to automatically price their apartments 10 to 15 percent below the latest comparable sales. ['A Downturn Begins']
2) More than 10% of the apartments at Downtown by Starck, the former J.P. Morgan building at 15 Broad Street, are currently on the resale market. One hedge-funder is listing three apartments for a combined $11 million, which would make it one of the most expensive in the Financial District, if it sells and if we count three apartments as technically one if they are still pre-combination. [Big Deal/'Many Options in Financial District']
3) The Real World cast members have had surprisingly little impact on their Red Hook surroundings, mostly minding their own business and keeping their drunken arguments confined within the walls of their pier house. In fact, some residents didn't even know the photogenic youngsters had even moved in. [The City/Red Hook]
4) A single lawyer is unhappy with her 1BR Yorkville co-op, wanting something with a balcony a little closer to her job in the Financial District. After nearly signing on for Co-Op Village on the Lower East Side, a walking tour of Brooklyn Heights turns her onto this Brooklyn place, and she plunks down $620,000 for a co-op on Henry Street (and gets her balcony!). [The Hunt/'The Great Outdoors, City Style']
5) Isn't it funny how every story about Park Slope begins with a disclaimer asking readers to temporarily suspend their hatred for Park Slope? In this case, a story about the shuttering of a popular local day care begins thusly: "If, in this time of economic hardship, there is a little more empathy circulating among New Yorkers, it might stop short of parents who can afford to spend upward of $24,000 a year to send their 1-year-old to the Berkeley Carroll Child Care Center, a popular nursery school in Park Slope." If the story was about the Upper East Side, would it begin in the same way? [The City/Park Slope]For more stories from Curbed, go to curbed.com.
