It Happened One Weekend: Luxury Condo Auction in Jersey City, Every UWS Townhouse Has a Price, More!

1) In a very cool history lesson, Christopher Gray tracks the three remaining garages built as companion pieces to some of Fifth Avenue's grandest mansions. Two already have been altered (that's Otto Kahn's garage in 1939 and now in the pictures above), and the third?at 162 East 92nd Street?is gaining additional floors for a conversion to a single-family house. The buyers found a full gas tank in the basement. [Streetscapes/'A Mansion for Me, Another for My Cars']

2) Condo auctions continue their creep into and around Manhattan, and this time it's Jersey City's Beacon, a restoration and renovation of an old medical complex that once boasted about being the first JC development to sell an apartment for over $2 million. Suggested starting bids for the 25-unit "closeout" auction are $150,000 to $250,000, with the first 12 being sold "absolute," regardless of the suggested starting price. [In The Region/'Luxury Condos, All Bids Considered']

3) Last week it was revealed that film mogul Bob Weinstein was quietly listing his spread at the Beresford on Central Park West for $34 million, and now we know why: he just paid $15 million cash for a brownstone on West 70th Street that never even made it to market. The process was draped in more secrecy than Waterboarding Day at Guantanamo. ['Big Deal/Town House, Dream Home']

4) The Obama-created mortgage modification program has the potential to help many New Yorkers on the verge of losing their homes, but most of the applications flooding in (many from southeast Queens and eastern Brooklyn) are bogged down by a variety of factors, including lenders that don't understand the program. About 500,000 people in the city meet the basic criteria for eligibility into the rarefied air of 2% mortgages. ['Penetrating the Maze of Mortgage Relief']

5) A gay couple from Manhattan pays nearly $900,000 for a duplex in a Fort Greene church converted to luxury condos, and complains about the lack of cellphone reception. Did Rosie Perez's brain just explode? [The Hunt/'When Nothing Compares']