Leaving Brooklyn? Fuhgeddaboudit!

In Mark Lotto’s story about the latest Brooklyn boosterism, this nugget about how Peter Braunstein’s dad knows what he knows:

It’s not Whitechapel during Jack the Ripper, but ever since the former Women’s Wear Daily reporter allegedly assaulted a woman in her Chelsea home on Halloween night, Peter Braunstein, or his unlucky doppelgänger, or some mass-hysterical hallucination, has been spotted sipping lattes and annoying dry cleaners all over Cobble Hill. Every day the police dragnet continues, and every day drags nothing up.

But Alberto Braunstein, the suspect’s dad, knows that Peter wasn’t the suspicious coffee drinker or the irate dry-cleaner customer. His son, Mr. Braunstein assured the Daily News, wouldn’t be caught dead outside Manhattan. “I have never known my son to even go to Brooklyn,” said Mr. Braunstein. “So I was stunned.”

Forget the massive manhunt. Is Peter Braunstein the last freelancer in New York who thinks he’s too good for Brooklyn?

Then again, there is that counter-intuitive thinking: I’ll just hide out in Brooklyn — no one would expect it!

They Sell . . . Air?

The price of unused air rights for buildings has reached a new high:

The price of air has gone up in Manhattan.

It’s now $430 a square foot.

Two New York City developers have agreed to pay a record-setting amount for “air rights” so they can build a 35-story apartment tower with views of Central Park from the high floors.

The brothers William L. and Arthur W. Zeckendorf are set to pay $430 per square foot — more than twice the going rate — for unused air rights over Christ Church and the Grolier Club at Park Avenue and East 60th Street. Christ Church will collect more than $30 million; Grolier will get about $7 million.

Air rights allow developers to build taller by buying the space over low-scale buildings and transferring it (on paper, if not in reality) to spaces over adjacent buildings. Although such transfers occur elsewhere in the country, the prices do not run as high as they do in Manhattan, which, after all, is an island and generally provides developers with one option: up.

The rights will be transferred to a site west of the Grolier Club on East 60th Street, where the Zeckendorfs and their partners own three tenements that are to be demolished.

If it all goes as planned, the developers will be able to build a taller tower than the zoning ordinarily allows.

Not only did Christ Church sell its air rights, but it apparently sold its address as well:

In a separate deal with Christ Church, the tower will also have a coveted Park Avenue address, despite its location on 60th Street.

All of which leads one to wonder just what else you can sell . . .

See also: Christ Church United Methodist.

Historic Blunders Were Committed

As official results are tallied, it turns out that Bloomberg’s victory actually wasn’t the widest margin ever for a Republican. That, and Fernando Ferrer’s unsportsmanlike whining, may unfortunately sabtoage Bloomberg’s “place in history” bona fides. In fact, I think Ferrer is doing it on purpose:

Mr. Ferrer, who does not place blame on himself at any point in the El Diario interview, said the news media did not sufficiently cover the issues he had raised in the campaign. Reporters, he said, “will always assert that there was nothing persuasive to report.” He added, “Aren’t hunger and housing persuasive issues?”

He also suggested that he might have been taken more seriously and could have closed in on Mr. Bloomberg if the polls had not forecast an inevitable runaway victory by the mayor. Some newspapers used opinion polls to predict a Bloomberg blowout, with The New York Post declaring “It’s Over” in a headline three days before the election. Polls suggested that the mayor would win by up to 38 percentage points.

“Historic blunders were committed, but they’ll never be held responsible for the harm that they did to me with the public and the fund-raising,” Mr. Ferrer said.

Forty Miiiillion Dollars . . .

No matter how many times you read about Compensation Day (that’s close to but different from Evacuation Day, which for New Yorkers falls on November 25), when Wall Street year-end bonuses are doled out, it never ceases to amaze me just how much money these fuckers get paid. The bonus pool at Goldman Sachs this year is estimated to be as much as $11 billion — for an average of $500,000 per employee.

This year, New York Magazine takes it one further, explaining the pecking order of bonuses and how every year some at Goldman Sachs actually feel shafted by their package:

In Goldman’s offices around the globe, but especially inside the gilded walls of 85 Broad Street, the annual bonus dance is about to reach its climax. On the day they’re told their numbers, those who are richly rewarded will do their best to contain the feeling that comes along with being $2 million, $10 million, or even $40 million richer. And what of those who get the shaft? “They try to be professional,” says the former EMD [executive managing director]. “Although you can see from their trembling lips or the intensity of their stare that they’re disappointed. They’ll go out to their station, slam a few things down, grab their coat, and walk out. Some of them won’t come back for several days.” At which point, it will nearly be 2006, with the meter running on next year’s bonus.

Look, if you’ve somehow found yourself in a position in life where you’ve made billions speculating on crude oil, then you’re probably worth a $40 million bonus — what’s really impressive here is the money they cough up for just showing up (even if “showing up” means working until 3 or 4 in the morning most nights):

Goldman also pays its supporting cast handsomely. Bankers whose jobs consist merely of pitching the capabilities of other people at the firm can make as much as your average NFL starter. “The amazing thing about Goldman,” says a hedge-fund executive who does business with the firm, “it’s not that a few talented people make $20 million — it’s all the mediocre talents that make over $1 million.”

At Least It’s Good For Something

Amid misplaced concern that its mall-like atmosphere would not catch on in Manhattan, New York Magazine reports that the new Time Warner Center is establishing itself as a convenient cruising spot:

It seems gay men might be picking up more than just Cole Haan loafers at the Time Warner Center—especially in the third-floor restroom. Ryan Haase, who works nearby, recently detected an “air of ill repute” when he saw several men at the urinals. “They all turned and looked at me almost in unison,” he says. “I went to wash my hands. No one had moved.” A shopboy says rumors of the rendezvous spot have circulated for about a year — colleagues reported “uncomfortable sounds coming from the stalls” — and a blogger called spriteboy pinpointed it as “a cruising spot,” adding, “Ohhh nobody even needs to know the scandal my eyes witnessed today.” A former restaurant employee says, “It was a known thing. The security guard would tell me stories about it.”