It Happened One Weekend: Bulge Reigned In at 2 Fifth, More!

1) Following up on Friday afternoon's story about a possible wall collapse and/or brick ejection from co-op 2 Fifth Avenue, a Curbed tipster sends along the above photo and this note: "The fire department braced the wall by screwing 2x4 looking pieces of wood into each other, one from the inside and one from the out." Separately, this note also arrived in our inbox: "I am the board president of 2 5th Avenue and I would appreciate it if you would do a follow-up story to the inaccurate one that was posted. There was never any imminent danger of a collapse of any sort. Not one brick fell from the facade and no one was hurt. A small section of the facade appeared to be bulging and management, proactively, notified the proper
authorities so that immediate action could prevent the possibility of any danger." And all was well on Fifth Avenue. [CurbedWire]

2) The Times real estate section takes the measure of the rental market, finding, lo and behold, that in some cases renters are getting price breaks without even asking for them. Fun fact contributing to landlords' pain: "almost 14,000 new rental units are expected to come online through 2010 in Manhattan alone." [NYTimes]

3) Also PriceChopping: Brooke Astor, who has further reduced her duplex at 778 Park Avenue by another $4.1 million, putting the new asking price at $24.9 million. Original May 2008 price: $46 million. [Big Deal/NYTimes]

4) On The Hunt in the Upper East Side real estate market, $2.5 million to $3.5 million edition. Dog names of the week: Bracken and Clucas. [The Hunt/NYTimes]

5) Hey construction maven Frank Sciame, what's it like to work with starchitects, anyway? "It's really fun to work with these great architects and to cost-effectively build their buildings." Awww, c'mon. Tell us what you really think! [Square Feet/NYTimes]