Apartment rentals New York with New York Times

Upper West Side Table-Turn: New York Times "Hunt" Author Becomes Hunted, Reveals Upper West Side Rental Apartment

Manhattan real estate heads already know that Joyce Cohen's "The Hunt" column in the New York Times is one of the more enjoyable Manhattan real estate reads out there. But as entertaining as it is to read Cohen's interviews with people seeking (and finding) rental apartments in Manhattan, there's always the matter of authorial distance. That is -- and we're not going to get too lit-crit on you, both because it's been a long time since college and because this is the blog on a website about luxury rental apartments in Manhattan -- the question of where and how Cohen herself lives. Does it color her perspective? Bias her discussion of neighborhoods? Are her ceilings higher than yours?

Heard the One About the Rent-Stabilized Luxury Rental Building in the Financial District? No, Seriously.

The meticulous renovation of the pre-war luxury rental building at 37 Wall Street in the Financial District speaks to the care with which architect Costas Kondylis turned famed architect Francis Kimball's original Beaux-Arts structure into one of the more desirable rental listings in the Financial District. It's a luxury rental through-and-through, but 37 Wall Street is also something else -- a test-case in a lawsuit that's looking to extend rent-stabilization to all buildings, luxury rental buildings in the Financial District notwithstanding, that were constructed with the benefit of New York's 421g tax breaks. The renovation of 37 Wall Street benefitted from those tax breaks in funding its overhaul into luxury rental apartments, and the New York Times reports that a December housing court decision could pass those benefits on to the residents at 37 Wall Street through eviction protections and, maybe, rent reductions. Suffice to say that the developers behind 37 Wall Street are not pleased.

Verdesian, Solaire Developer Sheds Some Light on Green Rental Apartments (Among Other Things) in New York Times

When Christopher Albanese speaks, the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog listens. This is because Albanese's real estate development company, The Albanese Organization, has developed some truly extraordinary green rental buildings in Battery Park City: the Solaire and Verdesian. Two of the greenest green apartment listings in Manhattan, the Solaire and Verdesian were trend-setters in the burgeoning market for green rental apartments in Manhattan, and happen to be pretty beautiful buildings beside. Given your blogger's admitted soft spot for green apartment buildings, the Solaire and Verdesian are sentimental favorites of a sort, but the apartments for rent at the Solaire and Verdesian are also among the most popular rental listings here at Luxury Rentals Manhattan, so the favoritism isn't entirely sentiment-driven.