The Real Estate

Another crazy day on Wall Street, as the Dow swings 1,000 points before closing 100 points down. [NY Times]

The leaders of New York’s biggest companies met at the Stock Exchange today to discuss solutions to the nation’s financial crisis, and no, they didn’t mention more taxes or regulation. [City Room]

Swig suspends condo sales at 25 Broad. [Curbed]

Pieces of condo are falling from the sky at Williamsburg’s mega-development, 184 Kent. [Curbed]

Construction on the Whitney’s dowtown branch—due to open in 2012—officially begins. [Curbed]

More legal trouble for the Plaza: the building’s developer is suing its award-wining architecture firm for poor workmanship and breach of contract. [TRD]

DUMBO architect recycles buildings as he renovates them. [Brooklyn Eagles via TRD]

Guess where the oldest standing townhouse in Manhattan is? [Lost City via BoweryBoogie]

Revamped South Ferry subway station to open in December. [TransitBlogger]

Trader Joe’s coming to the Upper West Side next year. [Grub Street via City Room]

New York’s other Little Italy. [BoogieDowner]

Manhattan's celebrities are nesting as the economy tanks. [Daily Transom]

We learned that:

• There's unfinished condos haunting McCarren Park.
• Douglas Durst had to add another digit to the national debt clock.
• Advocates and critics continue to spar as the Willets Point vote nears.
• Mort Zuckerman's not too fond of the Wall Street bailout.
• Columbia bought a warehouse in its West Harlem expansion footprint.
• Manhattan's office vacancy rate's expected to climb into double digits.
• CB Richard Ellis is the new leasing agent for the Hearst Tower retail.
• Sex shops and dominatrix schools are weathering the recession.
• Brooklyn open houses are empty.
• The city picked General Growth to lead a team to build big on East 125th.
• REBNY pegged the average city home sales price at $783,000.
• CBRE wants everyone in commercial real estate to calm down.
• Sam Chang wants to build a 25-story hotel on West 36th.
• Lehman's ex-mortgage banking chief bought a 10-room condo.
• The city projects fewer tourists this year than last.
• The city's environmental commissioner joined Trinity Real Estate.
• Former Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff hired a former Spitzer deputy.
• NBC Universal keeps mulling its midtown office options.
• MTV promised contest winners a stay at "luxurious" Hotel Penn.
• A new Web site tracks New Yorkers' carbon footprints.
• Gentrification has started to roll back in some neighborhoods.
• Prices are jumping for four-bedroom Manhattan co-ops.
• New operators are making plays for Scores' buildings.
• A lawyer wants to flip an East 65th townhouse for $15 million.
• Two Lower East Side apartment buildings traded for $170.8 million.

A firm called Endland LLC has purchased two 26-story apartment buildings at 251 Cherry Street on the Lower East Side for $170.8 million, according to city records.

Endland LLC, an entity affiliated with Pembroke Companies, bought the buildings from Helen Drew on Sept. 24.

On its Web site, Pembroke describes itself as "a privately held real estate investment, development and management firm. Pembroke makes significant, usually lead investments in both public and private real estate companies, whose portfolios include multifamily residential properties, net lease retail and shopping centers, industrial properties and other mixed-use properties."

Calls to Pembroke's founder were not immediately returned.

Pembroke got some bad press earlier this year when it sought to purchase the 200-unit, Mitchell Lama Trinity House, on the Upper West Side.

The city's Landmarks Preservation Commission may vote on developer Aby Rosen's proposed Norman Foster-designed commercial tower at 980 Madison Avenue at its meeting next week, according to a Landmarks spokeswoman. Such a move would bring to an end a more than two-year debate over a planned tower at the site, which has sparked a firestorm of criticism in the Upper East Side from nearby residents and author Tom Wolfe (see our Q&A with Mr. Wolfe here).

Lisi de Bourbon, the Landmarks spokeswoman, said in an e-mail that the commission would "comment, and possibly vote" on the tower on Tuesday.

Barclays Capital has fired Mark Walsh, the man in charge of Lehman Brothers' commercial real estate investments, along with nearly all the rest of Lehman's commercial-mortgage-backed securities team, according to the trade mag Commercial Mortgage Alert.

Mr. Walsh has often been described as the "man behind the curtain" who made Lehman Brothers loads of money during the heyday of the CMBS market, but also as a man who took far too many risks and ultimately played a significant role in Lehman's demise. Indeed, Mr. Walsh financed Tishman-Speyer's ill-conceived $22.2 billion acquisition of Archstone-Smith, a luxury apartment building portfolio that has since been devalued; and financed SunCal's $110.2 million purchase of a 2.25-acre plot of land in Southern California.  read more »

Can money still be quadrupled in the Manhattan real estate market? Someone seems to think so.

Elliman put a townhouse at 333 East 65th Street on the market yesterday for $15 million, even though records show that the place sold only 13 months ago for $3,736,765.

The ambitious owner is a Washington personal injury lawyer named Simon Forgette. (Personal injury lawyers adore Manhattan real estate; read this or this or the second item here for proof.)

The listing says there's been an "impeccable renovation" (the picture above is old, but the listing doesn't have anything newer). "The owner did a total renovation, a gut renovation, and that's what he feels the property is worth," listing broker Beth Roberts said today when asked about the listing price.  read more »

Rival operators appear to be scavaging over what's left of the bankrupt Scores empire.

Robert Gans, owner of Manhattan's Penthouse Executive Club, has applied for a liquor license at the former Scores West strip club at 533-535 West 27th Street.

Meanwhile, proprietors of the Las Vegas-based strip club Sapphire--who earlier caused such an uproar over plans to open a new location on West 23rd Street--are seeking a license at the original Scores location at 333 East 60th Street.

Both applicants are scheduled to appear before the State Liquor Authority (SLA) next week.

State regulators earlier stripped Scores boss Richard Goldring of his license at the West Side location, after employees were arrested on prostitution charges.  read more »

It doesn't say much about our learning curve, but as frightening as all of this economic news seems, we've been through it all before. More than once.

GVA Williams broker and history buff Richard Warshauer and political historian James Kaplan, also an attorney, will lead this year's 20th annual financial history tour of Lower Manhattan, sponsored by the Museum of American Finance, on Oct. 25 at 1 p.m.

The tour promises to commemorate "the Great Crash of 1929, the Panic of 1907 and the 1987 stock market collapse, as well as [delve] into the political, financial, real estate and architectural history of Wall Street and New York City. The tour shows that despite such adversities as the Great Fires of 1776 and 1835, financial panics of the 19th century, the 1920 Wall Street explosion, the Crash of 1929, the stock market collapse of 1987, the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 and the mortgage crisis of 2008, New York and Wall Street have always recovered their position as the world’s financial capital."

Here's the full release below:  read more »

Mid-market brokerage Massey Knakal has cut its team of brokers from 63 to 46, according to The Real Deal:

"The latest round of cuts was last month. Compared to the start of the year, the number of agents in Brooklyn and Staten Island has dropped to 14 from 21; and Queens and Nassau has declined from 15 to eight, Massey said. Manhattan, the Bronx and Westchester has fallen by three to 24 brokers."

Paul Massey, CEO and co-founder of the brokerage, told the real estate monthly that the cutbacks had nothing whatsoever to do with the dramatically tanking economy--and the dramatic dip in the volume of investment sales.

"Everyone will think this is in reaction to economic externalities, but the planning for the growth in territory size has been going on all year," he told The Real Deal.

We are incredulous.  read more »

The folks at the New York City Human Rights Initiative sent over an advisory about a bus tour today to criticize a set of Bloomberg administration development initiatives brewing right now. "All of the stops will focus on projects which in some way divide communities, displace longtime residents, and deny their right to adequate housing and jobs," the advisory says.

The stops: Willets Point, Harlem, Chinatown, and Sunset Park (where a mostly contextual rezoning is planned).  read more »