Maybe When Community Boards Tire Of Protecting Bar Owners They Can Work On Gas Stations

Bradley Hope writes in the New York Sun about disappearing gas stations in Manhattan:

Just months after the City Council paved the way for big residential projects in Chelsea, gas stations are quickly disappearing as developers seek large plots to capitalize on the housing boom.

In the last few months, an Exxon station on 23rd Street and Tenth Avenue, a Gulf station on 28th Street and Tenth Avenue, a Mobil station on 42nd Street and Eleventh Avenue, and another gas station on 53rd Street and Tenth Avenue have closed, inconveniencing drivers near key entrances to the West Side Highway and contributing to the recent run-up in city gas prices.

. . .

The far West Side has more gas stations than most parts of Manhattan, but the neighborhood’s ongoing transformation into an upscale residential enclave is in part possible because gas stations — with their unused air space, relatively large square footage, and prime locations — are seen increasingly as weak business enterprises.

“The property in Manhattan is more valuable as something else besides a gas station,” Mr. Bombardiere said. “We’ve been closing stations steadily.”

In 2005, Manhattan had a total of 58 stations, four fewer than in 2002, according to the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs. The numbers for 2006 aren’t out yet, but with the West Side and Chelsea closings, the number could drop to close to 50 stations to serve the tens of thousands of driving commuters and taxi and delivery truck drivers who enter Manhattan every day.

The city has seen similar transformations in recent years along Houston Street and on the Upper East Side along First Avenue. Gas stations have been demolished to make way for apartment towers, hotels, and office buildings. Even the emblematic Gaseteria stations have thinned out across the boroughs.

Where Have You Gone, Ned Wertimer?

Poor doormen. First, there may be labor strife. Now, no one seems to want them anymore:

“The biggest utility of having a doorman is that there’s someone to accept the packages,” said Andrew Rosenblatt, 33, a bankruptcy lawyer at Chadbourne & Park. Several years ago, he and his wife, Courtney, left a full-service theater district high-rise for a nondoorman co-op on the Upper West Side, with a live-in superintendent to handle most deliveries.

He much preferred the new arrangement. “We just felt like they really didn’t do anything for us,” Mr. Rosenblatt said of the doormen. “If anything, you sort of feel obligated to engage in idle chitchat. And the whole tipping thing presents another moment of tension. Our doormen weren’t too helpful, but if you were carrying a bag you wanted to take yourself, and they’d come and take it, did you tip them?”

Holiday tipping is an exacerbated exercise in misery for those already ambivalent about their doorman. And for others, the need to make conversation is so annoying that it alone is enough to drive them into nondoormen buildings.

“I had one young guy who moved from a fancy condo doorman building in California where he had a very cheery doorman,” said Hy Rosen, a senior vice president at Bellmarc Realty. “He wanted a building without a doorman, and his biggest reason seemed to be he didn’t want to have to say hello to someone twice a day.”

Michele Golden, another broker for Bellmarc, lived in two luxury buildings before buying a Chelsea loft that came with just a full-time superintendent. She doesn’t miss the constant socializing, which she found cloying. “It’s like a really good restaurant — the lower key the service, the more I like it,” she said. “When they’re fawning all over me, I’m not enjoying that. I don’t want service to be intrusive in my life.”

(Who the fuck is Ned Wertimer — besides a famous Fiji, that is — and where do I remember him from?)

All This Proves Is That Craig’s List Is Full Of Stupid Shit That Nobody Wants

The Daily News unsuccessfully tries to establish a rent-for-sex trend, despite the many ads on Craig’s List offering such deals:

Though offering shelter for sex has probably existed since the cavemen era, never before has it been advertised so openly or explicitly.

“All I am looking for is a [sic] attractive, playful, and submissive woman who is uninhibited to my proposal … substituting rent for sexual encounters,” reads one Craigslist ad, titled, “Are You a Submissive Female and Want to Live Rent F.”

In the posting, the 33-year-old man living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, adds that the room comes with a TV, DVD player, an Internet-ready computer and a phone line.

“I don’t need the rent but would like to fill it up with a woman who would love to show her appreciation for my generosity,” he wrote.

The Daily News contacted the authors of several of the salacious online posts, but received no replies.

Does anyone believe this actually exists? On the other hand, the armchair anthropologist in me is quite curious about this supposed shelter-for-sex exchange among cavemen, since it wasn’t portrayed like that at all in Quest for Fire . . .

First Coyotes, Now Toll Brothers: New York City’s Exurbanization Is Nearly Complete

Toll Brothers, widely blamed for creating “McMansions,” have five projects currently underway in New York City:

Toll Brothers is perhaps the best-known builder of luxury homes in the country, having honed the art of upper-middle-class living into the science of large-scale suburban development. But now the company is entering the New York City real estate market, with five sites in various stages of development from the East Village to the Gowanus Canal neighborhood in Brooklyn.

. . .

Some real estate specialists say that Toll Brothers is moving into the New York market for two reasons. The obvious one is purely a growth opportunity. But the other is that the company’s traditional market — single-family suburban development — is being curtailed both by local ordinances designed to limit growth and by a lack of premium buildable land.

In recent months the company has also encountered problems related to broader market trends; Toll Brothers announced in February that the company was experiencing increased cancellations of new home orders, and that new contracts fell by 21 percent compared with the previous year.

Backstory: “Chasing Ground,” New York Times Magazine, October 16, 2005.

The Perverted Chess Match And Its $600,000 Stake

Until recently zoning laws in Staten Island allowed for two 15-foot-wide two-story houses to be built on one lot, leading some to wonder what to do with that giant pleather sectional:

Horrified Staten Island residents are living next to two homes under construction that are just 15 feet wide, but twice as tall as most houses in the neighborhood.

The two-story structures — jammed onto one lot — are strikingly out of place on a suburban Jefferson Ave. block in Grant City dotted with low-rise homes, neighbors gripe.

It’s also the latest example of what critics call the overdevelopment of the boroughs.

“Most of the houses here are ranches. Then you have these huge monstrosities built on top of us,” said Susan Fontano, an unhappy neighbor of the two new houses.

“We’re suffering. This has to come down,” said next-door neighbor Ivan Valic. “They built their bay windows on the side facing our house. I feel like I’m in a sardine can.”

The city agrees the houses are wildly inappropriate.

Even so, because the plans met zoning regulations when they were submitted in October, they were approved and are legal. Zone rules that would have prevented the buildings from going up went into effect in December.

. . .

“This is a perverted chess match,” said City Councilman James Oddo (R-S.I.). “This is a very ingenious industry. They’ve made money, and they are always looking to maximize their profits.”

The developer of the Jefferson Ave. homes defended the structures — and himself.

“I’m not doing anything wrong,” said builder Ely Reiss. “If they want to change the zoning, that’s what they should do.”

Reiss said the homes will likely be listed for more than $600,000 each.