Apartment rentals New York with Manhattan Neighborhoods

Experience the Magic of Christmas in Manhattan: Neighborhood Delights

As the snow blankets the city and twinkling lights adorn the streets, Manhattan transforms into a winter wonderland during the festive season. If you're lucky enough to be living in one of our luxury rentals, you're in for a treat! Here's a guide to the best Christmas and winter-related sights, events, and activities in different Manhattan neighborhoods.

Apartments For One: What NYC Neighborhoods Are Best For Singles?

At a certain level, the question of which Manhattan neighborhood is best for singles is kind of a silly one. Silly because, New York being New York, just about every Manhattan neighborhood is a pretty good Manhattan neighborhood in which to be single. But, of course, there are degrees of goodness -- which means that singles hunting for their own NYC studios or one-bedroom apartments might do well to check out a new study from the New York Daily News that uses a simple formula to ascertain which Manhattan neighborhoods are best for solo NYC apartment-hunters. Besides, you know, all of them.

Kids Stuff: Was The New York Times Fair To Murray Hill?

By the admittedly pricey (some would even argue too-damn-high) standards for Manhattan rental listings, Murray Hill rental listings are among the best value per square foot in NYC real estate. Which, come to think of it, probably has something to do with why they're among the most popular rental listings on Luxury Rentals Manhattan. But while there's plenty to recommend about Murray Hill, it's also a neighborhood with some image issues. Yes, it's home to a host of appealing luxury rental buildings, from the venerable Windsor Court to new construction blockbusters like the Costas Kondylis-designed Anthem. But Murray Hill's reputation as a party-happy 'hood favored by younger twentysomethings has led it to be labeled something of an urban suburb. Which is fair only insofar as any suburb anywhere can boast the knockout Indian food on offer in Curry Hill, or a bar scene half as lively as that spanning Third Avenue in Murray Hill. A new essay in the New York Times on the post-grad scene in Murray Hill won't help that reputation much, which is no doubt fine with the twentysomethings (and thirty-, forty- and so-on-somethings) who call the neighborhood home. But is it fair?

Hudson Square, Ready For Its Close-Up: Call It West SoHo Or South Greenwich Village If You Wish, But Re-Zoned Manhattan 'Hood Is On The Rise

Hudson Square Manhattan Rental Apartments

The first rule of Manhattan real estate -- of real estate in general -- is said to be "location, location, location." Which, as conventional wisdom goes, isn't the silliest thing in the world. But Manhattan real estate observers could be forgiven, in recent years, for believing that at least one of those "location"'s could be swapped out for "branding." New Manhattan neighborhoods are nothing new -- New York City is a study in flux, and all it takes is one zoning decision and a few bold luxury rental developers to turn a neighborhood like the nowheresville around the Lincoln Tunnel entrance into "The Linc," a newly branded neighborhood complete with its own green luxury rental listings and superstar new rental developments such as Emerald Green. What sets Hudson Square apart from The Linc, besides a much cooler name -- The Linc? You're sure about that? -- is that this new neighborhood is actually one of Manhattan's oldest neighborhood. Hudson Square is, for all intents and purposes, West Soho. And it's not exactly "new," either, given that it has been around for centuries -- the Ear Inn, one of Manhattan's oldest nightspots, is a Hudson Square landmark -- and was Manhattan's printing district back when Manhattan had things like printing districts. But a recent re-branding campaign has helped Hudson Square re-make itself as one of the hotter residential neighborhoods in lower Manhattan, and a new campaign to remake the city's streets into leafier, more pedestrian-friendly thoroughfares suggests that it's time for all of us -- those looking for apartment rentals in SoHo and those of us who just dig NYC real estate -- to give this old-new neighborhood a new look. So, yeah: let's look at Hudson Square.

The Upper East Side Is Delicious, Part Two: UES's East 86th Street Scores Another Iconic Manhattan Food Spot, Neighborhood Rejoices

Fairway Upper East Side Luxury Rentals Manhattan

Beloved Manhattan grocery institution Fairway bills itself with the slogan, “Like No Other Market.” Which is true insofar as no other NYC market we at Luxury Rentals Manhattan can name has higher stacks of produce, a more competitive olive bar -- even Amar'e Stoudemire could get boxed out in there -- and a better selection of gourmet foods. For Upper East Siders, though, the sad fact of the matter was that Fairway was like no other market on the Upper East Side. Which takes nothing away from the Upper East Side, which has its own unique charm and charisma (and some very nice luxury rental listings, naturally). But the Upper West Side-envy with which Upper East Siders were previously afflicted should be ameliorated by the news that a new Fairway outpost will be moving into the old Barnes and Noble spot on East 86th Street this winter. While it's tempting to say that the Upper East Side's new Fairway is is Like No Other Asset To The UES, there is actually one with which it has something in common -- that would be the new Upper East Side Shake Shack, which opened just a couple blocks west on East 86th Street. The Upper East Side has always been one of Manhattan's elite places to live, and home to some of the finest luxury rental listings in Manhattan. Now, belatedly, it's increasingly home to the sort of fun, Upper West Side-y foodie joints that it had previously been missing. If you're wondering how this makes Upper East Side rental listings more appealing, you obviously haven't been to Fairway (or Shake Shack) recently.

Main Street, Out Of Exile: Roosevelt Island, Home To New York City's Dullest Retail Strip, Heading For Long-Awaited Makeover

Roosevelt Island Main Street Apartments

There's a scene in the otherwise not-so-good horror flick Dark Water that packs a solid laugh for New York City real estate watchers. Well, several scenes if you're the sort who finds the idea of haunted bathtubs amusing, but the one we're thinking of is when John C. Reilly's real estate agent proudly describes a Roosevelt Island apartment building (spoiler alert: it's haunted) to Jennifer Connelly as featuring "brutalist school" design. Which, as much as we love newer Roosevelt Island rental developments like Manhattan Park, is certainly a fair enough way to describe the East Berlin-style retail strip (above) that runs down the center of Roosevelt Island. While the community's quiet, city-within-a-city vibe is a big part of what makes Roosevelt Island apartments appealing, no one will mourn the passing of those identical, charmless facades. The good news, of course, is that those facades are indeed on their way out -- Roosevelt Island Operating Company is soliciting bids for a company to give that drab main street a long-overdue makeover that could make this loveliest of non-Manhattan Manhattan neighborhoods that much more appealing.

Home Comes To The Financial District: FiDi Rental Apartments Soon To Come With Farmer's Market, Possible Greenway

It's not exactly news anymore that the Financial District has been pretty thoroughly reinvented from a center of international commerce into a very desirable Manhattan residential neighborhood... that also happens to be the center of international commerce. But for all the top-notch apartment listings in the Financial District -- and there are many, from pre-war rental apartments like those at 37 Wall Street or 71 Broadway or The Crest to the ultra-luxe new construction rental apartments at 90W -- one thing the neighborhood has lacked is, for lack of a better word, the things that make Manhattan neighborhoods feel like Manhattan neighborhoods. Slowly but surely, though, that's changing. With the announcement that the Financial District's Andaz Hotel will be sponsoring a new Financial District Greenmarket, FiDi foodies will finally have a place to get the fresh local produce, meat and seafood their neighborhood has been missing. And an ambitious plan to reimagine traffic-saturated Water Street as a green byway suggests that more neighborhoodiness could be in the offing for the Financial District. This is good news for a bunch of reasons.

Birth of a Neighborhood: Meet "The Linc," The Lincoln Tunnel-Adjacent Semi-Neighborhood That's Home To Numerous New Manhattan Rental Listings

Manhattan is a lot of things, but it isn't a terribly big island, space-wise. Which is nice if you're walking, but presents a problem for the NYC real estate developers whose job it is to ensure an ever-growing number of Manhattan rental apartment listings. But just because Manhattan is full of millions of people -- and already home to many thousands of apartment rental listings -- doesn't mean that it's impossible to carve a new neighborhood from one of the last swaths of unused space in Manhattan. Meet "The Linc," a hopefully named semi-neighborhood rising in the hazy post-industrial area around the Lincoln Tunnel on Manhattan's west side. A recent rezoning -- in concert with that unslakeable thirst for new residential space -- has opened up The Linc (we can go without the quotes, right?) to a flurry of new construction residential development. In the Daily News, Jason Sheftell writes about what NYC dwellers can expect to see in The Linc over the next few years. Spoiler alert: the answer is new construction rental apartments, and lots of them, from such blue-chip developers as Glenwood and Related Companies.