WHO: Keri Russell, who plays a Russian spy on “The Americans,” says she could never handle the job in real life because of the stress of all the wig changes. Really, Keri, that's the only thing that stresses you out about that job?
WHERE: The actress lives with her family in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn where the median sales price is $630,000 and the median rental price is $3,200.
Your Celebrity Neighbor is a weekly heads-up on the A-listers who call your neighborhood home and (in theory) shop the same Duane Reade as you.
In New York, space comes at a premium, especially if you're living in Manhattan or one of the more happenin' outerborough neighborhoods. Today, we kick off an every-so-often roundup of stuff that will help get each of your very precious rooms more organized.
First up: the kitchen, which very often gets shortchanged in divvying up space in the average NYC apartment. Sometimes it is incorporated into the living room--you know, "for easy entertaining"--or it's simply a refrigerator and a cabinet in that weird space behind your front door. Other times you get lucky and find the elusive separate kitchen that actually offers room to cook and store food.
Whichever one describes yours, here are five items that will make it feel spacious, or at the very least, more organized.
Can’t stand apartment-hunting in the cold? Don’t. Rental website Naked Apartments makes it easy to search hundreds of no-fee and even low-fee apartments (with broker’s fees of 0-9% of a year’s rent vs. the typical 12-15%) from the privacy (and warmth) of wherever you are huddling down with your computer. Check out the places listed here in our Low Fee Rental Roundup or head over to Naked Apartments and hunt by “no fee” or “low-fee.”
Willing to brave the cold to see one of these places? Naked Apartments will make sure a broker’s there to meet you with its Showings on Demand feature.
Our trio of longtime renters tackles a no-fee pre-war Gramercy Park 2-bedroom with its original crown molding and a large sunken living room in this week’s Take It or Leave It. Our panelists—who have 43 years of combined rental experience between them—are RentHackr founder Zeb Dropkin, freelance writer Lambeth Hochwald, and BrickUnderground’s own senior contributing editor, Lucy Cohen Blatter.
The Apartment:
Location:145 E. 22nd St. between 3rd and Lexington Aves. in Gramercy Park Cost & concessions:$4,495/month+no broker’s fee Flexible Layout:No Days on the market: 56 days Subway: 6 at 23rd St.; N, R at 23rd St.; L at 3rd Ave.; L, N, Q, R, 4, 5, 6 at 14th St.-Union Sq.; F, M at 23rd St.; PATH at 23rd St.
Thinking about swapping your only bathtub for a walk-in shower? Think again.
Drawing up your reno wishlist? Here are twenty ideas that your architect is going to try to talk you out of. Go ahead and ask, if you must, but be prepared for a "no." The reason: your idea is unadvisable for structural, aesthetic or practical reasons.
1. Let’s reconfigure the layout of the apartment.
If your plan involves a dramatic change in the apartment layout--meaning that the fixtures link sinks and toilets will have to be moved further away from the plumbing risers--it will require extensive branch piping work to connect the new fixtures to the immovable risers in addition to probable wet-over-dry resistance from the board.
2. I want to use the least expensive contractor.
Does ‘you get what you pay for’ mean anything to you? It should.
In this interactive map of NYC parking garages put together by PropertyShark.com, the blue and green cars mark all condo and co-op buildings that offer on-site parking.
If you’re among the rarest type of city dweller—one with a car, that is—it may behoove you to know where exactly you’d be able to park that ride before you fork over a down payment on a new apartment.
And while a parking garage in the neighborhood is all well and good, the cherry on that cherry-red convertible is a garage located inside your co-op or condo building, where you'll be able to lug groceries only a short distance, duck the polar vortex, and eliminate the stress of the double-parking loading/unloading zone.
To help you find these basement carparks, real estate data powerhouse PropertyShark.com has put together an interactive map of all co-op and condo buildings with parking garages in NYC. Condos with parking garages are signified by a blue car, and co-ops are marked with a green car. (Rental buildings with garages are denoted in red, though the map does not include every rental with on-site parking.)
Q. What's the worst that could happen if I install a washer-dryer without permission? If the co-op board finds out, I'll just have to remove it, right?
A. Whether you're in a co-op, condo or rental apartment, you can be forced to remove the unauthorized washer-dryer, says Roberta Axelrod, a real estate broker and asset manager at Time Equities who sits on many boards as a sponsor's representative.
Additionally, she says, "in many coops there is a fine for unauthorized installations and alterations. The severity of the consequences also may relate to circumstances."
This $10 million triplex condo in TriBeCa has an original Keith Haring mural, painted while he was student at SVA. The mural was discovered during renovations back in 2010.
Street artists have embellished walls all around New York, why not bring the art inside? And if you're going to have art in your apartment why not really go for it with a large-scale masterpiece?
We found an assortment of impressive creative expressions in NYC apartments current for sale or rent, from a rare uncovered Keith Haring mural to a dining room with a panoramic forest scene.
The Real Estate Survival Guide for NYC Buyers, Sellers, Renters & Dwellers
As New York City's most popular and trusted source of real estate advice, BrickUnderground speaks directly to 100,000+ monthly unique visitors seeking solutions to their NYC real-estate and aparment-dwelling needs. read more»