1) Theater director Sturgis Warner has lived in a 700-square-foot apartment above Lafayette's famed Colonnade Row since 1978. The place was a wreck, and in exchange for renovating it, his rent was kept ridiculously low (it's now $500 a month). Now the Blue Man Group is his landlord(!), and the producers have been ousting long-term tenants and taking the apartments for themselves. Warner is planning to fight for his right to hold on to this steal. [Habitats/'A Production Called Home']
2) Ostensibly an article about how bachelor pads are getting de-pimped, this story could also be headlined, "Where Weird Dudes Live." Like the former MTV host and rocker who gave up his $5,000-a-month Tribeca loft for a tiny Soho studio and a puppy named after himself, or the guy paying an eccentric antiques collector $750 a month to live in a crumbling Brooklyn Heights building. And let's not forget the architect whose firm is named Fake Industries Architectural Agonism, and the Bushwick condo buyer who moved to New York for a "Sex and the City lifestyle" and makes his friends sit in kiddie pools. Weird dudes. ['The Decline and Fall of the Bachelor Pad']
3) The East Harlem Resident Relocation Bureau can add another tip to its welcome brochure for new neighbors: "Generally, people in the area told that restaurants would not deliver above 96th Street." ['Feud made to go'/NYP]
4) Can a condo building in Ridgewood ever be considered "too hip?" That's how this young couple from Brussels (both work for the Belgian Mission to the UN) feels about Ridgewood's Times Building, and their aversion to hipsters?and desire for as much space as possible for under $400K?leads them to "uncool and unhyped" Prospect-Lefferts Gardens. [The Hunt/'Going With Uncool']
5) According to the West Side Neighborhood Alliance, the city's tally of illegal hostels has climbed to 284. That's a lot of Swedish backpackers crammed into bunk beds! The city is cracking down on some for being dangerously overcrowded, but hopefully they're not trying to hard, or else Greenpoint's economy will get totally wiped out. ['NYC fights the hostel takeover'/NYP]
6) In a row of nine townhouses on West 94th Street, there is but one homeowner left. The rest of the cute little houses have been gobbled up and combined into the deep-pocketed Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School. They pay slightly above market value, and neighbors?some of whom bought the houses cheap when the neighborhood was shitty a million years ago?just can't refuse. The one holdout, who's been there for 41 years, says, "I love this place, I love my block and I dont know what to do." Hopefully he likes kids! [Big Deal/'Overtaken by a School']