1) More lawsuits are coming out of the Ansonia, the stately Upper West Side condo buildings where a "biblical-type explosion of roaches" caused actor Alan Arkin to sue the building's management last year. This time around, a couple is suing their fourth-floor neighbor over cigarette smoke. The fight is getting dirty, with one of the nonsmokers alleging that Puffy encourages her chihuahua ("Bobo") to urinate on their kid's stroller. ['Suing the Smoker Next Door'/Anemona Hartocollis]
2) The January numbers are in, and Manhattan prices were again pushed to the highest levels yet, but take away 15 Central Park West and the results weren't so astonishing. The number of closings was pretty flat, and the median price was about $857,000, slightly above last quarter's median but below the summer's level. [Big Deal/Josh Barbanel]
3) In this edition of "Living In," the curtain is pulled back and the East Village is revealed as an edge-less snoresville where moms push strollers through Tompkins Square Park and studios average $2,000/month. And this surprises...? [Living In/Gregory Beyer]
4) NOMA 175 is the "first of a kind" in Inwood, and not just because it's trying to rebrand the neighborhood. It represents a Manhattan-style type of condo development, which is good, because contrary to popular belief, Inwood is in Manhattan. [Posting/C.J. Hughes]
5) ACORN, the activist group usually seen protesting outside of fancy buildings and making out with Bruce Ratner over Atlantic Yards, took over the notorious Pleasant East apartments in East Harlem after the city failed in its attempt to tear the buildings down. Now, after two years of renovations, most residents seem pleased. Most. [Dispatches/Jake Mooney]
6) Another story aimed at luring artsy hipsters to Jersey City, where they will be bound and burned upon arrival and turned into fuel for the big, scary machine that makes New Jersey the soul-sucking force that it is. ['Arts Developers, Now Hear This'/Antoinette Martin]
7) This twentysomething couple traded in the Upper West Side for Sunnyside, Queens, because the guy read somewhere it was "the next Williamsburg" (please say he didn't read that here). They hated it, so they started looking for a new place, but they kept getting deeper and deeper into Queens that it started to become depressing and we couldn't finish the story to see where they wound up. Somebody let us know. [The Hunt/Joyce Cohen]
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