It’s an exciting day in a publicist’s life when you return from a holiday weekend to find that the Wall Street Journal has named one of your listings as “House of the Day”.  As CORE’s Director of Communications, I’m responsible for making sure our brand, agents and listings are granted maximum exposure. Doug Bowen and Win Brown’s 74 Conselyea Street listing in Williamsburg immediately struck me as an interesting property – from its unique, blue façade to the interesting, sculptural  staircase inside, to the gorgeous outdoor garden – I’m glad my friends at the WSJ agreed. You can check out a full article on this fantastic property as well as embark on a photo tour online here:

‘Williamsburg Townhouse Makeover‘

Now that’s a kick off to fall we can all be happy about.

I spent the weekend in LA with my dear friend Colin Dusenbury– Partner at Magni Design, a luxury residential interior design firm based in LA. We tend to talk a lot about space, innovation, design, and lifestyle- as we both live our work so closely.

On Friday Colin attended a dinner to welcome the new curator of the Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art, Franklin Sirmans- alongside his client Jillian Michaels.  Michael’s recently bought a piece by the legendary contemporary artist Ed Ruscha- also in attendance Friday. This got us talking about the idea of, “life” in the home. Does art bring all the elements of design together? But the even bigger question is- does it actually bring the interior to life? Art is energy-and has the power to hold a space like no other. It demands your attention, speaks volumes about your you/your host, and reminds you of the moments it represents. Art is the breath of the home.

Next time you are in LA- check out LACMA, as the new curator Sirman’s will be focusing on work created in the last four decades.  To get your contemporary art fix in Manhattan head to The New Museum.

A new building at 257 Bowery is making the elevator its prime asset. More than just an elevator it is a 12’ by 20’ feet moving room with a gallery space and surrounded by milled glass. The lift will also boast a red glow that will be sure to light up a late night stroll down the Bowery

Sundays are no longer lazy thanks to the Sunday Night Film Club at the Crosby Street Hotel. The dinner and movie concept is upgraded with the Crosby’s plush interors and gourmet food/drink offerings from the Crosby Bar. All movies are screened in the hotels state of the art cinema.

“What kind of discounts can I really get in today’s market?”

“I want to buy in a new-construction condo.  Is it a good idea?  Will I get a loan from a bank?”

“I read in the news that it’s really hard to get financing—is it true?”

“The Case-Shiller housing index seems to portent the end of the real-estate free-fall, but unemployment is still up in New York, and the stock market is gyrating.  Where do you think the market is going?”

For these and other good questions you may have, come to an expert roundtable discussion, where Caroline Grane and Arthur Hung, 2 of Downtown’s most accomplished brokers, and a top mortgage professional from Bank of America will help you separate the wheat from the chaff.  All in a casual setting, over fine wines and appetizers, at CORE’s elegant new flagship retail space at 127 Seventh Avenue (at 18^th Street).

Date: Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Time: 7:30 – 8:30 PM

R.S.V.P. requested, but not required, to ahung@corenyc.com.

COME SEE WHAT WE HAVE TO OFFER

The weather channel predicts a gorgeous Summer weekend in the city. Here’s our weekend open house schedule for Manhattan and Brooklyn. We’d love to see you stop by. Click the links below for a complete list.

7_18_09 Open Houses_ Manhattan

7_18_09 Open Houses_ Brooklyn

……..in spite of a falling market. I contend that some of the most creative thinkers and innovators have come to the surface with their best work in times that seem dire. Some of history’s greatest works come at times that seem the most depressed. Art and commerce act independantly.

Axis Mundi has designed an alternative to Jean Nouvel design for the Hines site on 53rd Street next to MOMA. While it has received some unfounded criticism for trying to replace an already well conceived design , I applaud this work. This type of creative process is what pushes the boundaries of the ordinary and evokes ideas that will ultimately advance our status quo.

John Beckmann sent me this email today, and has graciously allowed me to post it here below.

New York, NY July 15, 2009 — As the city takes stock in a post-boom era, architect John Beckmann sees this as the time to rethink the tall buildings that have become synonymous with New York City’s identity.

“Instead of disguising the rich potential of towers that have a mix of uses, we looked for a way to express that diversity,” Beckmann noted. The firm used parametric computer-modeling software to test a wide range of possibilities. Out of this iterative process, Beckmann and his firm, Axis Mundi, proposes a new way to organize and express tall buildings: the Vertical Neighborhood.

“A more diverse, complex, heterogeneous, and environmentally minded city need no longer be represented on its skyline by one-note architecture that makes a singular visual image and little else,” explained John Beckmann, the founder of Axis Mundi, a Manhattan-based architecture firm.

Rethinking Hines Tower Site
Beckmann proposes a conceptual alternative to business-as-usual, choosing the site of the proposed 53W53rd, among the city’s largest skyscraper proposals in one of the most overbuilt parts of Midtown. Hines, the developer, engaged Paris architect Jean Nouvel, who designed an 82-story hotel and residential tower higher than the Chrysler Building. The site was purchased from the Museum of Modern Art with the proviso that the project would house additional gallery space for the museum.

The Axis Mundi proposal is timely since the Hines MoMA tower is currently moving through the city’s Urban Land Use Review Process (ULURP).

Flexible Floors, Open to Views
The architectural diversity Beckmann envisions starts with a double-ring, multi-level floor-plan unit, anchored by two cores that run the full height of the building, containing elevators, stairs and other vertical services.

The ring units called “SmartBlocks” make possible a wide variety of floor plans. Single-unit layouts can mix with duplex, or triplex layouts. The units can shift in and out, adding rich texture to the surface, creating vertical garden space, and linking the units in unique ways.

The malleability of the ring units accommodates living and working, extended families, and new forms of tenancy and ownership. Any grouping of these could be purposed for a hotel. The building is enriched by the multiplicity of forms and textures people create within their vertical neighborhoods.

By varying the mix of the floor plan units, the Axis Mundi design leaves space for vertical fissures that move irregularly up the tower. These bring light and breezes into the open centers of the double-ring units and frame spectacular, theatrical vistas to the city through the building’s own structure. Neighbors can see and greet each other along spacious bridges and balconies rather than scurry by each other in long, dark hallways.

Fitting In With Porous, Richly Variegated Surface
“Historically, the skyscraper was a unitary, homogeneous form that reflected the generic, flexible office space it contained,” Beckmann says. “The Vertical Neighborhood is more organic and more flexible–an assemblage of disparate architectural languages. It reflects an emerging reality for tall buildings as collections of domestic elements: dwellings, neighborhoods, streets.”

Axis Mundi has conceived the tower at a scale akin to, rather than dramatically exceeding, the heights of this very densely built-up Midtown neighborhood. The richly modeled surface and the fissures of space help to reduce the structure’s apparent scale and join it more seamlessly to a neighborhood that mixes offices and residential towers, brownstones, apartment buildings, hotels, and clubs.

A dramatic through-block public arcade connects W. 53rd and W. 54th streets, offering access to new MoMA galleries on up to three levels above. Contiguous with the museums’ existing exhibit space, the galleries twine back on themselves, like a Möbius strip.

Above that, Axis Mundi sets aside a three-story-high volume that can be developed as a community-gathering space.

Their proposal seeks to inform the discussion of it and other tall buildings. “The design reinforces the urban identity of tall buildings,” observes Beckmann. “It suggests new expressive possibilities in an urbanism of difference rather than of homogeneity.

In a city where more than 300 languages are spoken, architecture can celebrate that diversity rather than see it as a problem that must be solved.”
Height: approx. 600 ft
Floors: 50 above (2 below)
Building Footprint: 17,000 square feet
MoMA Expansion Galleries: 32,500 square feet

This morning I spoke with Erika Schnitzer from Multi-Housing News and gave her my opinions about where the market is, and might be going. Read the story here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

On January 11th, 2007 I predicted that West 19th Street in Chelsea would become the most architecturally distinct block in Manhattan. The Real Deal was there to cover a guided tour we gave of the high line and our project. (See video above).

It is extremely rewarding to see the dream and vision of all the architects, developers, builders and marketers become a reality. The project Core represented, 520 West Chelsea, is sold and closed, but for one unit (which has a contract out). I consider it the most successful project to date, in a neighborhood that has evolved into a worldwide destination and desirable residential address.

I tip my hat to John and Keith Jacobson for being visionaries, and delivering 26 elegant, understated new homes. I thank Annabelle Selldorf (who I sat down with and had a conversation with) for designing the most gorgeous building in the neighborhood. I also thank the entire brokerage community for embracing this project and helping us successfully sell this building.

Chelsea Garden

The skies are grey, the real estate market is cloudy, and the unpredictability of both has never been more apparent. The New York Post’s Katherine Dykstra wrote a story today that featured apartments with outdoor space. Will this will clear the air and give us hope for brighter days ahead?

I still contend that THIS IS THE TIME TO BUY! I say this not because I own a brokerage that relies on transactions, but because of the fundamentals underlying the opportunity for buyers and their ability to transact.

It’s June.

July and August are supposed to get hot.

Let’s see what happens.