Do you want to live with a New York Times reporter? How about a New York Times blogger? 'Tis your chance! Former TVNewser Brian Stelter is hitting up Facebook to look for a roommate up on 170th Street. It's only 700 bucks a month, and that includes laundry in the building and knowing which show Jeff Zucker is canceling next. CONTINUED »
How come the Chelsea Barnes & Noble, right down the street from Jossip HQ, had to close its doors after 14 years? Because the broker re-negotiating their lease "came in and put crazy numbers in [the landlors'] minds. We can’t pay those kinds of rents. We’ve been looking two, three years for a replacement. We have not been able to find a suitable location at rents that are affordable."
So what type of rents, exactly, did B&N's propery owners want? One rumor we were hearing before it was announced the location would close is $2 million per month.
Not that you'll actually miss the brick-and-mortar Barnes & Noble. Don't you people buy your books on Amazon.com like normal people?
The layout of crazy-person institution Bellvue is more suited to be reinvented as a hotel than the luxe condos city officials originally imagined. [NYP]
Good news, discriminatory real estate agents: You can continue posting your lists that violate fair-housing rules without any fear Craigslist will get into trouble. But you might! [SF Chron]
With Manhattan's rental vacancy rate hovering around 1 percent, digs are in hot demand. Which is why Heath Ledger's abode of demise on Broome Street is already back on the market. "You don't wait around in a hot rental market like this," one disgusting broker had the balls to say. The 4,400 square feet, with 3 beds, 2.5 baths, balcony, wood-burning fireplace, and 15-foot ceilings, is also getting a rate hike: While Ledger's stay was billed at $22k/month, the new tenant will be shelling out three grand more. [NYP]
Newsweek, the magazine of dental offices and free trials, is thinking about moving south.
The magazine’s lease at its eponymous building on Broadway and 57th ends next year. The magazine is working on a lease at 100 Church Street, near the World Trade Center. Never forget.
Despite being in south Manhattan, that location is not hip at all. That area of Manhattan is actually worse than midtown. There are tourists and disgruntled city employees everywhere. Newsweek copy editors should fit right in.
"I looked and looked and looked for a place in New York. I just didn’t find anything. Prices have just skyrocketed!"
–Hilary Swank, traumatizing New Yorkers and real estate brokers alike by suggesting that not even A-List actresses can afford Manhattan rentals [via the current issue of W magazine]
If there's one thing we here at Jossip never get tired of, it's heartwarming tales of how the rich get richer. Which is why we were thrilled to read all about how ambiguously gay designer type Tommy Hilfiger bought his oceanfront East Hampton summer home for $18 million last May, and just sold it for a staggering $26.5 million.
That's "more than $8 million profit!" Page Six excitedly points out. (Also known as $8.5 million). As it turns out, however, there's an excellent explanation for the sudden increase in property value. And it has to do with some combination of Mariah Carey and a cornucopia of bathrooms.
According to rapper-slash-property owner 50 Cent, "You don't have to buy a $50 million home to build a lifestyle that's equivalent." Of course, that proverbial widsom didn't stop 50 himself from investing in a decadent 52-Room, $10 million residence, but you get the point. Besides, he's trying to sell! After which point, the rapper avows, his future house "might be a lot smaller…the basics—maybe four or five bedrooms." Then again, odds are it might not. [Stereohyped]
Stop right here if you’re thinking about buying a home and live in Tampa.
We at Jossip wouldn’t want to do anything else to depress the real estate market by reporting on how bad it really is.
Robert Toll, the chief executive of Toll Brothers, a luxury home builder, is blaming the New York Times for its declining numbers. The company's sales fell 36 percent this quarter, and 39 percent of customers backed out of their home orders. CONTINUED »
• Turns out Cindy Adams was having another one of her senior moments. That whole thing about Nicole Richie chain-smoking wildly despite toting around a giant, protruding unborn baby? Never happened.
• The Arcade Fire to Sasha Frere-Jones: We steal shit from black people all the time!
• Check out the 20 most frightfully anti-gay Halloween costumes. Then imagine a calm, peaceful existence where rampant homophobia only exists but once a year.
• Coolio gets turned down by MTV; inks deal for upcoming reality show with Oxygen network instead.
• As it turns out, there are times when a Sam Adams isn't always a good decision.
"WNYC Public Radio, New York magazine, Viacom, CBS Radio, and movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s company have recently taken office space in Hudson Square, joining Community Media L.L.C., publishers of Downtown Express, The Villager, Chelsea Now, Gay City News and Thrive NYC." [DE]
"There’s a lot of pieces of crap here for a lot of money," Bass complains. "And I don’t think anyone here has any style. I was looking at fully furnished places and it was like, you can either have a bunch of floral prints or some dusty couch from the 1960s."
Angry words! Especially coming from the self-proclaimed style connoisseur who once wore this. And this. And, lest we forgot, this.
In other news, does anyone else find it strange that the main advertiser for the Lance Bass Picture Gallery (at www.teenidols4you.com) is none other than…WSJ Online?
[via Queerty]
Second note to Paula Zahn: If you feel you must keep an uncomfortably detailed sex-diary of your illicit extramarital trysts (and we're totally not saying you should) please at least have the foresight not to gush like a "16-year-old schoolgirl" and/or "illustrate it with photos."
Also, what's up with the whole "accounting" probe thing? (We get it, you're trying to override the prenup by proving your super-rich husband is financially irresponsible). But don't you think you just might have a sliiiightly stronger case if your "my husband kicked me out after finding my illustrated sex-diary" apartment weren't costing an estimated $40,000 per month in rent?
Just who is Barbara Corcoran's "friend" who tattled to Page Six about how she cuts through real estate ad hype? "According to a friend of the legendary residential super-broker," says P6, "'cozy' equals too small. 'Charming' means too old and 'original condition' implies appliances that are 50 years old."
Perhaps that "friend" was … the Today show from two weeks ago?
IHOP is in talks to open a location on 45th and Broadway. Anything to make those tourists feel at home! [NYP]
Hearst is buying up building around its HQ – July: "a 21,000-square-foot apartment building at 811 Ninth Avenue for $17.1 million"; June: "a four-story building across the street for $4.9 million at 828 Ninth Avenue"; May: "an 8,100-square-foot building at 304 West 56th Street, a block from its skyscraper headquarters, for $7.6 million" – but won't reveal why. They swear they're not planning to build a new glass monstrosity, and onlookers suggest it might just be for tax purposes. Or, maybe they're keen on snapping up lots that will look even more appealing to a developer willing to pay a premium.
Who cares, the new Good Housekeeping is here! [NYO]
Not sure yet whether you've made it financially? Ask yourself the following: Are you living in a $6.5 million Soho loft with 13-foot ceilings, with original "hand-hewn timber columns?" Is Lenny Kravitz your next door neighbor? Have you ever sold your apartment to an anonymous buyer with "old European money" and then described the hard-working members of the "building staff" as "little puppies wagging their tails eager to do something to help you out?"
• Times Square without the sex shops, prostitutes and now…cars? Jeez, next thing you know, they'll be outlawing tourists.
• Ahhhh, there's nothing quite like riding your motor scooter down the Coney Island boardwalk…and then hitting one of those loose boards, and falling flat on a rusty nail and/or syringe.
• And if the rusty nails don't kill you, maybe a runaway oil tanker will.
• Turns there are perks for keeping your virginity. Oh no wait, it's just crappy play tickets.
"In the marketing of Hala," writes the New York Times, "nonbillionaires need not apply."
Confused? So were we! Until we realized they were obvs talking about Hala Ranch, a sprawling 95-acre estate (with 15 bedrooms, 16 baths and "a private barbershop and beauty salon just off the master suite") located just northwest of downtown Aspen, Colarado and built in 1991 for the family of Prince Bandar bin Sultan.
Which, for a paltry $135 million, could be yours! So it's no wonder that broker Joshua Saslove has gotten a little, shall we say, "choosy."
