Meet the New Neighbors

Update from yesterday, according to Curbed, 50 of the Solaria apartments sold yesterday at a range from35 to 45 percent off the original asking price. Why pay retail?

A link: http://curbed.com/archives/2009/11/23/more_than_50_units_at_riverdales_solaria_sell_at_45_percent_off.php

“To a Deluxe Apartment in the skyy -y”

According to amNY, 200 came out for today’s Solaria auction: http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.812039/luxury-condo-units-at-riverdale-s-solaria-sell-for-discount-at-auction-1.1616977

Where’s Waldo?

A Riverdale area is one of the latest installments in the NYDaily News continuing series on the best neighborhood deals. Take a look at the good stuff you can find near West 238th Street and Waldo Avenue.

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/bronx/2009/11/17/2009-11-17_deals_down_by_the_river.html

The Wild Life

Everybody loves lists, here’s a great one in the NY Daily News about the 100 to know about the Bronx Zoo. Happy 110th to this Bronx gem!

 

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/bronx/2009/11/15/2009-11-15_the_bronx_zoo_turns_110_here_are_110_things_you_need_to_know_about_this_nyc_favo.html

Acquisition Mode

From the sounds of it, Riverdale-based real estate mogul (for lack of better term) Jacob Selechnik is always in acquisition mode. He owns many of the vacant stores on the Central Riverdale stretch of Riverdale Ave.

In today’s NYT article by Christine Haughney, Selenick has been buying Bronx apartments for more than 50 years (at one point he owned more than 7,000). The article says he does his business from a”graffiti-etched red brick building behind a parking lot in the northwest Bronx” …. one of our neighbors? Good bet considering his company operates a group named Riverdale Ave. LLC.

Recession, code violations, bed bug rumors, and angry tenants be damned, modest-living Selechnik says this may be a good time to add to his empire. Quite a character and quite a story, take a read here:

New York Region

Flush in a Recession, a Bronx Landlord Is Ready to Shop

By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY

Published: November 19, 2009

Jacob Selechnik amassed an empire of more than 7,000 apartments. After selling many of them recently, he says he is poised to go bargain hunting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/nyregion/19landlord.html

Here’s an early 2009 Riverdale Press story for a local look at Selechnik’s part in our current landscape http://riverdalepress.com/atf.php?sid=7250&current_edition=2009-01-15

Riverdale in Met Diary

Mr. Miller recounts a slice of Riverdale in NYT’s weekly Metropolitan Diary:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/nyregion/16diary.html

(Pssst, it’s the second item)

From Gawker: Speech Deemed Too Free?

They call it “Breaking Horace Mann news” and those words are always intriguing around these parts. http://gawker.com/5404405/adorable-pc-battle-at-horace-mann

Curiouser and Curiouser

Don’t have a photo of this week’s Riverdale Review, but thought I’d mention this.

First … last week there’s an admission (serving as an apology?) for the deliberate Pro-Thompson/Anti-Bloomberg slant in coverage.

Now… no letters to the editor this week. Very odd. Or is it, really?

Sweet Travels

Good and bad news for East-side travelers on the BxM1 line. Cupcake emporium Crumbs has set up shop twice on the route. On Lex. Ave. and 43rd St. (outside perimeter of Grand Central) and 3rd Ave. b/w 79th and 80th Streets.

Good news: have something to celebrate when you get home? You’ll find something to make jaws drop in a good way. It’s also great place to kill (esp. the Third Ave. location) when you need to wait for the bus; you can see the stop from the front window. And besides the obvious sweet temptations, the place makes decent coffee. Also, if you have a crap day, here’s a quick comfort.

Bad news: Can’t make it a habit. If you do, it’ll cost you. In the wallet and on the waistline. The place has the potential to be a mean meltdown spot for children …

P.S. Taking the BxM1 line southward, it’s unbelievable how many unfinished or unoccupied residential buildings you see not only as you head through Riverdale, but Inwood and Harlem. Business plans must be a roulette spin all over this city, like the Solaria.

P.S.S. I’ve learned from my brief visit that I’m a cupcake purist. Chocolate. Vanillla. Lemon. Hypnotized by all the colors and flavor choices, I picked a cappucino cupcake. Cake was delish. Coffee frosting, not so much. Rookie mistake.

Going for the Green

Nice piece of criticism in this week’s New York Observer. Steve Cohen takes a brief snapshot of what New York today looks like, and the city’s adaptability, physically, to changing times in relation (and in praise) Mayor Bloomberg’s vast re-zoning and his Big Picture PLaNYC2030.

It can be argued-successfully, I believe-that Riverdale has been on the short end of re-zoning issues in the last decade. Empty buildings dotting our landscape are proof. I want to have hope that good will prevail over blind greed; maybe we have a greater chance of that now than in the last few years.

Will hopes of a (more) sustainable and livable city be taken up as a champion cause in the Mayor’s last term?

Here’s the piece: http://www.observer.com/2009/zoning-sustainable-city

And for more on PLaNYC: http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/html/home/home.shtml