1) Design expert Suzanne Slesin takes a peak at 310 E 53rd (above) and finds a variety of layouts, terraces galore and some breathtaking views?and some not that are not so memorable. The standouts are 40-foot-wide townhouses, loft spaces "for professionals who work in banking and want a loft space but don’t want to be downtown,” and six foot tubs because, as everyone knows, “it’s all about spa bathrooms.” [Suzanne Slesin/Window Shopping]
2) Two recent grads dead-set on being roomates struggle with Male Indecision Syndrome and wind up in a two-bedroom on Classon Avenue on the Clinton Hill/Bed-Stuy border. Fifty-minute subway rides have worn one roomate down, who now laments that a little more research could have meant "living in a nicer neighborhood or getting an apartment in the city.” [Joyce Cohen/The Hunt]
3) Murray Hill is going to the buyers! Maybe! Recent developments have included more than the normal cookie-cutter rental buildings, and developers are hoping that people will want "nonstudent-type housing" in the land of white hats. Will they sell? Who cares?! Dude: dollar drafts! [Posting/C.J. Hughes]
4) Downtown Brooklyn prepares to welcome its own Flatiron Building on Flatbush Avenue, the one that has been described as "looking like the lovechild of the Flatiron Building and a spaceship.” Some worry that it may be out of context with the neighborhood, but “maybe it’s in context with the new Brooklyn.” [The City: Downtown Brooklyn/Jake Mooney]
5) More on Upper East Villager's concerns about Extell's giant property buy-up in the neighborhood: "Even rent-controlled tenants can be evicted if a developer proves a building needs to be demolished." [NYPost]