This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.
Yes: there was some strange smell in Manhattan today.
But no, the City did not blow up; the appropriate authorities have no idea what is was/is.
And yes, I’m OK; and thank you for your concern. It must have been a slow news day, because everyone was emailing me about it. I was glad to hear from you, and write to you about it.
Although, I wish it was the Maple Syrup smell, this time.
This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.
Map of SoHo, by CitiDex
Yesterday I wrote about the exploding rents of SoHo Mall, and there were some interesting comments, specifically:
To see a jump from 70 bones a sq ft to 200 within 6-12 months has to have something more than location involved. I wonder if there was competition for the new space and it became a bidding war?? Sounds like a research project!!
So this got me thinking: what is the theoretical maximum leasable square footage in what is now, the SoHo Mall?
First, some ground rules:
OK, for those following at home, the SoHo mall (for this exercise) looks like this:
SoHo Mall
Inside the SoHo Mall boundaries, there are 21 blocks of roughly the same size: 200′-0″ x 375′-“0 which gives us an average block area of 75,000 SF, which gives us an estimated area of:
1,575,000 SF
Multiply that by the .85 efficiency factor and we get:
1,338,750 SF
Now to the fun part: let’s see what the owners of the SoHo Mall take in yearly from commercial retail rent. Which, when using the average cost-per-square-foot provided yesterday of $66/SF and the “premium” number quoted as $200/SF, we get this:
Nice! Of course, not everyone is paying the premium, and many commercial tenants are paying “sub premium” rent because they were smart and locked their rent down with a 5-10 year lease (but watch the yearly escalation costs!).
This was a fun exercise, if you have any comments leave it below. Nonetheless: Congratulations owners of the SoHo Mall! I’m sure you are hoping you have some lease renewals coming up so, don’t you?
This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.
untitled, originally uploaded by Keisuke Omi
Looks like the New York Times woke up, and figured out that SoHo Bounces Back as a Fashion Center:
Before Sept. 11, 2001, SoHo seemed on the way to emerging as one of the most prestigious shopping districts in Manhattan. But after the attack on the World Trade Center, many retailers eventually left their stores after it appeared that shoppers had abandoned the district.
Now, SoHo is on the rise again, particularly among foreign clothing retailers seeking to establish stores in New York.
I’ve been calling the areas around Broadway, Prince, Spring, and Green the SoHo Mall
for ‘nigh on two years now. But no bother, let’s get into some real retail porn.
The article lists rent between $62-$70/SF for the area, and gives specific rents for the following stores:
But get ready for this:
Mr. Staav and another senior managing director with Lansco, Christine Emery, both retail specialists in the SoHo area, recently assisted the landlord at 92 Greene Street, a 50,000-square-foot loft condominium building under construction on a former parking lot, in two leasing transactions with foreign designers. Evisu, a Japanese jeans maker, took 3,200 square feet, and Cotélac, a French women’s clothier, leased 2,500 square feet.
The asking annual rent for both spaces was about $200 a foot. “Just two years ago, the area was dead,” Ms. Emery said. “Now we’re seeing a return to pre-9/11 rents,” which were about $500,000 a year for a 3,500- to 4,000-square-foot space on Greene Street.
$200 a square foot! That exceeds Ms. Emery’s pre-9/11 rental rates which were $125-143/SF!
Looks like the SoHo mall is staying for good.
This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.
skating, originally uploaded by introspectrum
Today’s New York Times has an excellent article featuring reviewing the of Ice Rinks in NYC:
Some of the most arresting and otherworldly photographs of New York are those turn-of-the-century black-and-white pictures of people skating on the lake in Central Park: the women in bustled skirts, the men in bowlers and the lonely outpost of the Dakota in the background. That was back when we had winter. Anyone trying to skate in New York these days, except on artificial ice, would surely drown, and lately it has been so unnaturally warm that unwary, overdressed skaters venturing out onto the city’s several outdoor rinks have even risked heatstroke.
A list of notable ice rinks you should skate in:
My favorite is the Kate Wollman Rink in Prospect Park because of the setting, even though the ice was well-worn; and The Pond at Bryant Park because the setting and price – free!
This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.
Routes, originally uploaded by Triborough
Check out this great New York City Transit Authority Graphics Standards Manual, I have one from British Rail, I need to scan.
This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.
Madison Square Garden from The New York City Journals
Via Gothamist, comes The New York City Journals, a blog about simulated New York City in Sim City; a frighteningly accurate simulation of NYC three years in the making. The author even simulates what happens in the real world: UES Townhouse Explosion, September 11th, and the Liddle Plane crash in the UES.
SimCity New York by The New York City Journals
Fifty years ago, this guy would be building model railroads in his basement, now he can do it from the comfort of his laptop. I think Baudrillard is spinning in his grave. I never know how to react to these sorts of things: on one hand, I am fascinated by the determination and detail of people’s obsessions; on the other hand, what happens when he finishes? What then?
This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.
This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.
Fire Patrol No. 1, originally uploaded by plemeljr
Today at 0800 hours the New York Fire Patrol officially stood-down (final roll call) and will ceasse responding to calls. I’ve written about the Fire Patrol before, and I still believe that a vestige of old New York died this morning.
For those not in the know, the New York Fire Patrol was a 203-year-old department privately funded by the New York Board of Underwriters, charged with protecting property during fires. They would go in after the FDNY would secure the area; Fire Patrol members have the same equipment, but wear red helmets, and are dispatched by the FDNY. Here is a google cache with some good info. I also heard that there isn’t a lot of love lost between the FDNY and the Fire Patrol.
The argument for shutting down the Fire Patrol by the Underwriters was that the patrol was too expensive:
With dozens of patrolmen in attendance, patrol representatives called insurance companies greedy. The patrol costs $8.5 million a year to run, and patrol members estimate that they salvage more than $50 million in merchandise a year. “These people invented the bean counter,” the president of the Uniformed Fire Patrolman’s Association, James Nunez, said of the underwriters.
I always figured that the reason why the Patrol was being shut down was because the three remaining station houses are in prime real estate locations – one is in Midtown and one is in Cobble Hill; regardless, those properties will soon most likely be up for auction.
Today, an interesting comment was left on a previous entry:
as a former member of the fire patrol its said (sic) to see it go. I was at the happy land social club fire (ed link), the empire state building and so on. I don’t recall us doing much good. By the time the firei departmenr (sic) would let us in all the property was alrteady damaged. as far as the 1000+ runs a year nonsense. We would stay in quarters and then listen for the officer in the f.d. to call in the i.e.”10-35″ (ed10-35 is an alrm system emergecy), defective alarm and record in the book under then seargent Leonard that we responded. If my word is not sufficent check the logs they were always, the book runs, for 30 mins
If there are any current or former New York Fire Patrolmen who could contact me for interviews to chronicle your experience in the New York Fire Patrol, please email me at ima@grubbykid.com. I am interested in any ephemera which could be recorded and anything I could scan, such as any sort of general orders, pamphlets, insignia, etc besides your stories.
Full confidentiality is always honored. Also, if anyone has keys to the three firehouses, I would love to photograph the station houses.
This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.
, originally uploaded by Jenblossom
Breaking: Helicopter Fixed Wing Aircraft Crashes Into East 72nd Building
… it appears that the small craft crashed into the 50 story condo at 524 East 72nd Street at York Avenue.
…CNN reporting that NORAD is scrambling fighter coverage over major cities as a precaution.
…listening to the alarm calls online (sorry can’t get a link), and FDNY has increased this fire to a Four Alarm fire, which includes the following equipment:
…reports are coming in that the fire has been extinguished, Gawker has photos.
This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.
Gmail has a built-in RSS reader, which sometimes will list advertisements. After viewing an email regarding the upcoming UN-Habitat Conference on
Sustainable Urban Design (pdf), I noticed the RSS reader had the following advertisement:
Just for good measure (and for google), the ad says: Bofill Architects – The most prestigious architectural studio in the world.
My, we think highly of ourselves – and pay google to tell it to the world.