Jim Parsons

Jim Parsons of The Big Bang Theory has officially bought a luxury condo at 36 Gramercy Park. The asking price on the 911-square-foot two bedrooms and one bath condo was $1.975 million.

But Parsons and his partner, Todd Alan Spiewak, apparently bought the condo for $1.822 million. Broker Ryan Serhant told the New York Observer, “It’s a phenomenal two-bedroom in the condo on Gramercy Park…it was hardly even on the market.”

The building was made in 1908, and a feature to owning a condo in this Gothic construction includes a key to the coveted two-acre Gramercy Park. If you’re looking to be neighbors with Jim Parsons, or are looking in another neighborhood; why not call us? Give us a call at 1-877-852-6636 or visit our website!

President of China Hu Jintao

According to a new report from the New York Times this past week, Chinese banks are behind some major deals in the luxury real estate sector in New York City; contributing over one billion dollars in loans last year alone. These investors mean business and they’re working throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, and beyond.

According to The Observer, “Mr. Hu represents the Chinese investors who have beat a steady march to iconic New York properties recently.”

But you won’t see much about Chinese investors in the media. They are strictly business. Managing director of Real Capital Analytics, Dan Fasulo states “It’s truly amazing how much they’ve been able to do without being highlighted in public.”

China has always moved forward in industry throughout the world; so it’s no surprise that they are now seeking opportunities right here in the city. The business people who are working on these projects are planning their moves carefully.

According to Xue Ya, president of the China Center “New York is the starting point for going global…Everybody wants to come to New York because New York is the starting point for going global.”

And the money Chinese executives are pouring in doesn’t stop at just real estate. It has also moved into construction, including projects like “the Tappan Zee and Alexander Hamilton Bridges, the No. 7 subway line extension and the $91 million Metro-North Railroad station at Yankee Stadium”.

It will be interesting to see the reaches of Chinese investment into the New York City landscape as time moves forward. If you have questions about leasing a condo; why not give us a call at 1-877-852-6636 or visit our website? A representative would be happy to help you with all your needs today!

The Village Voice is giving us an irreverent retrospective of the year in loud protests, observing that “activism replaced bottle service” in the city as Occupy Wall Street made grassroots activism cool with its loud and showy encampment that was impossible to miss for anyone in downtown NYC. Walking around the area was a surreal experience during the protest, as the pedestrians in the area had a remarkably different look and feel to the norm of the neighborhood. The Voice goes on to observe:

The marchers stomped against financial institutions all over the city—and ultimately, the world—while the OWS home base at Zuccotti Parkbrought back a ’60s-ish rebel-yelling community, complete with old-style folk singers, fringed ponchos, and new-style celebrity drop-ins.

The hypocrisy and absurdity of the event hasn’t gone unnoticed by the Voice’s writers either, who remind us that Alec Baldwin has played both sides of the fence by supporting OWS while shilling for Capital One as their spokesman. New York City has had its fair share of champagne socialists over the years.

The OWS movement is mobile and ensconced in more heated digs now that the police tore down the encampment, and Zuccotti Park still has some radicals hanging about the place, although not as much as in the heydays of November. If the economy doesn’t improve soon, we might find yet another show against income inequality in the new year after the ice thaws and flowers start to bloom. Spring is a lovely time for rallying cries.

The production company has taken over two abandoned buildings at the west end of Chelsea at 530 West 27th Street, which they have transformed into the spooky and dimly lit McKitterick Hotel, where we observe a largely wordless (but by no means silent!) rendition of Shakespeare’s Macbeth in an erotic and intense display of acrobatics, choreographed vivant tableaux, and mysterious dancing, running, crying, laughing, and screaming as the actors run through the hotel, while you are free to follow them and observe what they do for as long as you like.

No two theatergoers will have the same experience, as they can go to any part of the hotel and are free to come and go as they please. This means no one is guaranteed to see everything there is to see, and it could take hours to experience the thrill of the play to its fullest.

Such experimental theater has become de rigeur in New York City, where theatergoers are difficult to please and performance standards are through the roof. Still, Sleep no More sets a new standard for experimental theater and has quickly become the talk of the town. With tickets still available, there is still a chance to experience one of the city’s most thrilling and exciting new cultural experiences.

There are a number of reasons for this, but one big driver is international buyers. Amongst the major cities in the world, New York City retains its crown as the most important financial and cultural hotspot, and the bragging rights that a NYC pad affords foreign investors cannot easily be duplicated in other major cities. Thus it is no surprise that Russian buyers are snapping up properties in the city.

Additionally, new visa rules that allow foreigners visas if they invest $500,000 or more in the American economy is encouraging more wealthy immigrants to come to the United States, and what better place to come to than New York City?

The market for luxury properties is quickly becoming a seller’s market, as properties in the Time Warner Center are starting to sell for over $10,000 per square foot. With Central Park at the property’s door as well as a luxury shopping center and midtown just a short jaunt away, there is plenty of reason for this Columbus Circle property to be in high demand with high flyers.

Will property prices continue to rise? The sky is the limit for the city’s skyscrapers, and even as the American economy struggles, the property market in NYC is giving investors ample opportunity to make money in the city’s real estate.

Residents are largely mixed on the impact that the new campus will have on the city, but there is no doubt that it will transform a little known piece of the city. Roosevelt Island has been chosen as the spot for the new science graduate school, which is being developed by Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Israel. Located in the middle of the East River between the Upper East Side and Queens, Roosevelt Island has benefited from a couple of condominium developments in the past decade, but these will soon be dwarfed by the world-class campus, which costs over $2 billion according to the New York Times.

The Times quotes 77-year old resident George Ohring, who beams that the island “can be a part of the rest of the world” thanks to the new school. The school will certainly change the island’s quite, small-town feel, which can be a surreal experience considering that the Manhattan skyline is visible from every part of the island. Amblers can be seen walking about the main road or buying fruit and vegetables from the stand outside the single subway station on the island. The New York Times says that the island is like a “quaint college town”, but there are usually few college students to be found on the island.

That will all change soon.

The new school will come with state-of-the-art laboratories, classrooms, a conference center, and student housing on top of current nursing facilities at the southern tip of the island.

Gizmodo has posted several beautiful pictures of a new hotel that will be next to the Williamsburg Savings Bank and near the Williamsburg Bridge. The location is ideal for some stunning views of Manhattan.

Williamsburg has been a trendy hotspot in the city for a while, so it is no surprise that an ultra luxury spot will be gracing the once grimy and now edgy hipster enclave. Designed by Oppenheim Architecture, the new building will extend over 400 feet into the sky, but it will remain svelte with a 16-foot deep footprint in a shape familiar to most Manhattanites, where the grid has encouraged long, tall, slender skyscrapers for decades.

The hotel will feature rhomboid windows to give it a unique shape and texture from the outside and breathtaking views of the Manhattan skyline from the inside. The architects hope to produce a “kaleidoscope” effect from the window shapes, reflecting light throughout the interior. This will surely give it an airy, roomy effect while maximizing exposure to the architectural marvels of Manhattan just across the East River.

The building also has a number of green features that should please environmentalists, such as the use of geothermal, wind, and solar power that will help the building to generate its own energy. The project has already received a Platinum LEED rating.

While the design and technology behind the building look toward the future, the architects have also tried to create a building that would flow freely with the traditional architecture and building styles of the area. According to chief architect Chad Oppenheim, the designers “did not want the hotel’s form to be in constant battle with the adjacent historic bank. We tried to accomplish more with less, opting for a timeless solution that delivers grace, and drama through powerful manipulations of scale, proportion, and materiality.”

The 86,000 square feet project has only just begun, so it will take a few years to see the project’s completion. With Williamsburg property values constantly on the rise, the new project will surely help that trend continue.

Despite the thin actress’s physique, Sarah Jessica Parker has begun a search for the best pasta in the city.

For ravioli, she has already found the place–Gradisca, in the West Village on 13th street between 6th and 7th. The actress told the New York Times that the eatery’s ravioli “is absolutely gorgeous. It is light as air. I always tell people to go visit Gradisca because I think it’s such a surprise.”

She’s also fond of the restaurant’s pasta carbonara, which she calls “beautiful” with its perfect balance of bacon, cheese, olive oil, salt, and pepper. She is still on the prowl for the perfect carbonara, telling the Times that she has an obsession with it. “Like, I comb the Internet,” she said in an interview. “I call in advance to make sure it’s still on the menu. I ask for double portions.”

Gradisca is a great and underrated place to go for pasta. Opened in 2000, the eatery seeks to provide New Yorkers with “the soul of authentic Italian cooking.” The restaurant has become popular, and residents throughout Manhattan are happy to travel to the west side of the island to encounter the delights on offer.

When you go, you might meet Caterina Schenardi, the 65-year old who makes the pasta fresh every night, just for the diners at Gradisca. You may even hear her speaking in Italian to the restaurant’s owner, Massimo Galeano, who is also Ms. Schenardi’s son.

Her craft is not limited to ravioli; tagliatelle, tortellini, linguine, and a variety of other pastas can be had at the small restaurant.

Beyond Gradisca, The West Village is well known amongst city dwellers for its wide array of gourmet eateries, where the competition to get and keep customers is fierce. As a result, only the best survive, and only the best are available for those who wander the neighborhood.

On Wooster Street just south of Houston in the hip Soho neighborhood, a new condominium is taking shape. 139 Wooster Street is a six-story luxury development with a mixture of modern minimalist design and classical features that make it fit seamlessly with the neighborhood.

The development includes two penthouses on two levels with a spiral staircase in pure white connecting the floors. All apartments appear spacious thanks to the tall 11-foot ceilings and oversized windows facing east, which bring in a lot of light and the beautiful urban street view below.

Each apartment is finished with plank flooring made out of oak flooring which, alongside the oversized windows outlined in cast iron, give this apartment a quintessential Soho feel while maintaining its sleek, modern elegance.

The development also offers a number of luxury features, such as Miele, SubZero, and Bosch appliances as well as granite countertops by Cashmere Gold and Oyster Beige marble floors in bathrooms.

Another rare luxury afforded by the units at 139 Wooster are the private balcony spaces that each unit has to itself. Combined with the garden connecting the two buildings that make up the project, the building offers plenty of tranquil outdoor space to enjoy in the warm months.

Complimenting the modern, Soho-like charm of the building are its luxury amenities, such as a 24-hour concierge, a doorman, and private health club for residents.

Apartments at 139 Wooster begin at $2.2 million and are available now. However, there are plenty of other developments in Soho, as the area is fully revived as the arts and shopping center of New York City.

One such fact that blew me away was the figures; the park took over $100 million in private donations to renovate the space, which has probably increased the property values in the area enough to raise nearly half a billion dollars in property taxes for the city. Such an increase in value demonstrates how a bit of conservation, public investment, and elbow grease can transform a neighborhood.

And it also demonstrates how there is energy in abundance to make such transformations in New York City. It is a typically NYC development: take an old piece of rusting infrastructure and transform it into a new, lush, gorgeous refuge from the urban jungle around it—all the while celebrating the urbanity of the space. Robert Hammond, one of the men who got the project off the ground and has written a story about the experience, told NPR that the project was about celebrating the past as well as creating a new green space in the city: “this was the magic we wanted to save. Like right now, we’re alone. It’s just us, up here [in] this private garden right in the middle of New York.”

Now that private garden is transforming Chelsea and the Meatpacking District along 10^th Avenue.

More work is to be done as the High Line isn’t completely finished, and I’m certain that this is just the start of a number of similar projects throughout the city. The High Line has transformed a derelict freight train line that opened in 1934 into a new park that both celebrates the historical roots of the space and creates a brand new, modern getaway for current residents.

What will be the next High Line in Manhattan? Why not come take a tour of the island for yourself with one of our agents and see for yourself. Or give them a call at 1-877-852-6636 to see what properties are available near this amazing space—and the many other amazing spaces in Manhattan.