A Spot in the Big Apple: April 2012

Hey guys! So I'm sure everyone has seen, or at least heard of, HGTV's show Selling New York. If you haven't, it's basically House Hunters, just in Manhattan. They have a spin off now too about selling properties in LA, but I haven't seen if that one is better or worse. Anyway, this post is all about New York apartment hunting.

Recently I expanded my personal assisting business to a grand total of 2 clients. I wonder how many clients I need before I can get my own assistant?... Anyway, my most recent client is looking for a new apartment. I snapped a few photos along the way, and thought I would share them with you so that you could have an idea of how much money people can spend around here.

First stop: his current abode. He lives near the East Village in a smaller division called NoHo, which stands for North of Houston Street. You probably have heard of SoHo (South of Houston), which is where lots of upscale boutiques and other shops are located. The East Village runs from about 1st Street up to 14th Street and is bound to the East by the River. It is considered one of the "up and coming" neighborhoods in Manhattan and is known for its bars and restaurants. Anyway, to the left is a picture of a similar apartment to my client's, not bad eh?

The building has all of the bells and whistles... a gym, 24-hour doorman, roof deck, pool, outdoor BBQ area, basically anything you could ask for. To keep everything anonymous, I don't want to disclose the exact amounts for each apartment, but all of the places in this post range from $12,000 to $20,000. Per month!

Our next stop is to the Blue Building (see below). This is a recent construction designed by artchitect Bernard Tschumi in 2007. Bloggers love to write about this building, and there are tons of articles online (like this one) that discuss all of its details, if you're so inclined.

Anyway, the apartment that we saw in this building was the penthouse, which was custom-designed for the building's owner when it first opened. It has really cool angles - all of the windows are slanted - and has its own private balcony with views of the entire city (and surrounding states!). Here are few photos I snapped while visiting this place...

You can see the Empire State Building in the left part of the picture in the distance

Another view of Manhattan - same balcony

Here is a professional shot of the lower level interior... I loved the slanted windows! This one was in the Lower East Side, a neighborhood just south of the East Village. All of these neighborhoods are hispter central, by the way, which I happen to quite love. Some people couldn't be paid to live in a neighborhood with hipsters.. but to each his own. I like them.

Another place we visited was back in the original neighborhood - NoHo. I didn't catch any photos myself, so we'll have to settle for professional shots. This apartment was cool because the entire thing was rigged with electronic controls. I was really hoping they were voice-activated, but we weren't that lucky. There were blackout windows that came down with one click on a monitor... kind of cool.

And for the grand finale... the last apartment is three levels, the third being completely outdoor space. It also includes a pool. Not even a hot tub, a pool! Check it out:

And just to remind you how normal people live in New York... here's one last shot of a more average apartment:

We may end up moving out in July, so if we do I will update the blog with photos of our own apartment search. Stay tuned!

Hey folks! This is my first non-NY post since moving. Casey and I went back to Austin for Easter weekend since he got Good Friday off! We were actually surprised that his company had that as a holiday, but then we realized it was because the stock market is closed then. So they couldn't do any work anyway! We were so excited to be back in Texas - the last time we were in Austin was last July for our friends' wedding... couldn't believe it had been so long!

Fortunately since my schedule is so flexible, I was able to stay for a whole week. It was nice taking a break from... well, all of my free time. :) And Casey flew in Friday and was supposed to fly back on Easter Sunday, but his flight was cancelled so he had to fly back Monday. Which was great, because if he had flown Sunday he would have arrived in NY at 11:45pm and gotten home probably around 12:30, only to wake up at 5:45. This way, he got to sleep in and only had a half day of work!

Dad and I did some yard work during the first part of my trip - trying to make the backyard look less like a miniature golf course. We didn't finish the project, but I think we met our goal. Saturday we went out to a local park with Snickers and hiked around a few trails. The weather was great, sunny and in the 70's, and compared to NY there were no people anywhere! That night we were out at Lake Travis listening to the Derailers at a BBQ place - Uncle Billy's. Then Easter Sunday we went to church and Becky & Paul came over for dinner. It's interesting how events that were routine years ago can easily become so once again, in just a second.

It was a pretty relaxing trip, and nice to be back in wide open spaces again. I'll end this short post with a few pictures from the week. Take care, and be on the lookout for a longer NY-centric post soon!