New York is a city of art lovers. Be it in the relaxed spaces of the city’s charming art galleries, or even by scouting out the various public installations on the streets, New Yorkers are always on the lookout for their daily dose of art. This could explain why many luxury rental buildings in the city are using some of their space to host and display impressive pieces of artwork, which, besides serving as a conversation starter for their residents, also amps up the glamor quotient of the buildings. Here’s a list of three Manhattan buildings that showcase some impressive pieces of art in their premises:

Although it is one of New York City’s “newer” residential neighborhoods, the real estate scene in Long Island City has been on an upswing for quite some time now. The neighborhood’s luxury housing market in particular has been doing extremely well, with many New Yorkers dismayed by the high rents of apartments in Manhattan looking to Long Island City for more affordable alternatives. However, this increased demand has led to hikes in the rents here as well, with a recent market report saying that Long Island City rentals have seen a $50 monthly rise from their values last year.

Here’s something that should put a smile on the faces of apartment hunters in New York City. Rental reports from Douglas Elliman and Citi Habitats for the month of December say that average rents for apartments in Manhattan have once again decreased, with the average rent coming to just $3,284 a month, an appreciable dip from the whopping average rent of $3,461 that was seen in August. With tight credit conditions forcing many New Yorkers to abandon plans for buying a home, rentals continue to be very much in demand, resulting in a very tight market.

2012 was an interesting year for the luxury rental apartment market in New York City. New Yorkers saw rents for homes in the city zooming upward over the course of the year, while the number of vacant apartments in the market stopped to extremely low levels. But as tumultuous as these occurrences may seem, members of the real estate sector were smiling, as they could see that the market was not only alive, but it was doing extremely well too! With last year putting on such a good show, one wonders: will 2013 be able to repeat the performance of its predecessor?

When compared to the cost of buying an apartment in Manhattan, rental prices in the borough aren’t actually that bad. A study released on Friday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York says that apartment prices in New York City have risen considerably faster than rents have in recent years. This split has raised some serious questions about the outlook for housing prices in the city as well as the sustainability of current prices. “Manhattan price-rent ratios, although off their 2008 highs, are still up dramatically over the past two decades, suggesting less financial ‘value’ today in an apartment purchase there,” said New York Fed economist Jason Bram, writing in the bank’s Current Issues in Economics and Finance.