Sandy’s devastation could bring a boom to the construction and real estate industry
“Our building industry, our landscaping industry, our retrofitting industry, they will have work for the next decade,” said Ron Shiffman, a professor of urban planning at the Pratt Institute and a former member of the City Planning Commission. “If we really take seriously the lessons of Sandy, it will kick-start a whole new economy.”
LIKE iced tea, perhaps, or casual Fridays, outdoor pools are in many minds forever linked with summer. After all, the sensation of sun on wet skin after a few dips in the deep end just about sums up the season.
But that pleasure is denied to most apartment-dwellers in New York City. If their building has a pool at all, it is probably of the enclosed kind.
Of the approximately 150 pools in residential buildings in Manhattan, only about 15 are outside, according to the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene; some of those 15 are in private town houses.
JEN PEPPER and Matt Jones, from opposite ends of a lime-colored hall, are furtively dating. Constantine Boym throws 100-guest vodka-fueled parties across from a room with a disco ball, under which sits Michelle DiBona, who sometimes sports a tie-dyed blouse. Gossip swirls about Ted Gottfried, whose nude seaside ukulele strumming is a source of fascination. No one seems to know who stole a sandwich from the common refrigerator a few months back, prompting a minor scandal.
Welcome to 131 Varick Street, which for better or worse might be New York’s most college-dorm-like office building.
BLAME the extra sirens, cars or just people, but many New York streets are noisier than they’ve been in decades, according to experts.
Residents seem to agree. In 2006, for example, 285,681 noise complaints were lodged on the city’s 311 line. That was the most since the line was established four years ago, according to the mayor’s office, which last July revised the noise code to tackle the problem.
City developers are trying to respond to the issue from their end, too.
Earth-friendly flooring
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When it came time for Simon Lewis and Wendy Smith to replace the floors in their Edwardian-era home in the Potrero Hill section of San Francisco, they struggled with the options. “It had to be beautiful,” Lewis says, “but we also wanted to make sure we were conserving nature.”
EVERY summer, hundreds of thousands of people visit Woods Hole, Mass., a Cape Cod port town with secluded beaches, warm Gulf Stream waters, prime fishing and a charming main street. Typical length of stay: about half an hour.
Some (the ones who race into town, tires screeching, lurch to a stop and jump out of their cars in a panic) are gone in five minutes.
It’s not that lovers of summer are recoiling from Woods Hole — house prices there now average $700,000, and one opulent place on the water sold last year for more than $10 million. It’s simply that most people are on the way to the pricier, higher-cachet Martha’s Vineyard. Woods Hole is where they park the car and catch the ferry.
As a Business Steps Up, a Group Takes Steps to Preserve a Landmark
FOR decades, northbound travelers on Interstate 95 knew they had arrived in New Haven when they spotted the Pirelli building on the left-hand side. With its five-story upper tower improbably supported by two slender shafts — like a piece of wedding cake on toothpicks — the Marcel Breuer creation has become an odd if distinctive symbol of the Elm City, especially for those just passing through.
Overboard
Was it recklessness or bad luck that cost Arthur Moffatt ’41 his life on a 1955 canoe expedition in Canada’s Northwest Territories? The survivors have never agreed.