AUGUST LINX Extreme Thrills And Chills In NYC

When it comes to danger, without the threat of imminent natural disasters or even indigenous poisonous critters that many other major metropolitan areas of the US enjoy, for decades, crime was really all New York City ever had to make living here exhilarating in that death-defying sorta way.

But now that the FBI has rated NYC America’s Safest Large City for several years running, your cozy Manhattan apartment or twee Brooklyn condo may no longer be the thrilling residential experience you’d been pumped for.

But fear not! There’s still fear to be had in NYC if you're willing to take your fear-mongering 'tude to the extreme!

EARTHQUAKES!
According to the New York Times, new research has revealed there is “some danger”:

“New York City may seem immune to earthquakes, at least compared with its West Coast megacity counterpart, Los Angeles. But there is some danger.”

But if you’d like to find a New York City apartment in a neighborhood where you can maximize your earthquake potential, move to Coney Island and prepare to have your dishes righteously rattled every 100 years!

“[A] magnitude-5 earthquake in or around the city occurs on average once a century… The historical record includes three earthquakes of magnitude-5 or larger, the most recent in 1884. That quake originated offshore near Coney Island and toppled chimneys in the city.”

FLOODS!
A new storm surge modeling system can help you find NYC real estate designated as future beach-front property with this graphic.

“If a category-3 hurricane hit NYC, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that nearly 30% of the south side of Manhattan would be flooded.”

But if you’re mega hardcore and want an awesome rush, city officials recommend a Brooklyn or lower Manhattan apartment within 10 blocks of the water:

“If you live within 10 blocks of a coastal area, it is more likely that you will be directed to evacuate before a severe coastal storm or hurricane.”

BLOODSUCKERS!
No, not the sad-eyed, misunderstood undead like Edward and Lestat. Think smaller. And itchier...

According to the New York City Health Department, there have been six cases of West Nile Virus in humans and one fatality so far this year, down from 18 cases and six fatalities this time last year. But just because there's less virus to go around this summer, doesn't mean you can't open every window and every screen in your NYC apartment and feel the intense rush of risking infection to the max!

And be sure NOT to follow these other buzz-killing recommendations by the NYC Health Department for avoiding infection:

• Use an approved insect repellent containing DEET
• Wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts when and where mosquitos are most active.
• Eliminate or clean standing water

Dude, that would be like doing motocross with a helmet, totally not extreme...


GHOSTS!
Lots of people die in NYC apartments every day... But knowing how hard it can be to find a great place, can your really blame them for not wanting to go?

Apparently horror writer H.P. Lovecraft—dead since 1937—has no intention of giving up his huge, 2-bedroom Brooklyn apartment, even though his lack of affection for his neighborhood was evident in his short story, "The Horror at Red Hook." But nor do the apartment’s living/paying tenants have any intentions of moving on, despite the creepy and apparently bigoted ghost’s best efforts to make them leave. After all, truly great NYC real estate deals don’t come along all that often.

Best. Staycation. EVER!

If the word “staycation” (“staying home” + “vacation”) were a person? By now it would probably be a chalk-outlined stain and peculiar odor on the doorstep of a NYC apartment building where the neighbors didn’t see or hear nothing. And if you happen to be one of the 36% of New Yorkers forced to postpone or cancel this summer's travel plans due to high gas prices and the weak dollar, I wouldn't be surprised if the suspicious stain trail lead straight from the crime scene right to your NYC apartment door.

But even if it was you who bumped off that cutesy term for “summer of suck”, Americans work longer hours (New Yorkers, the longest) and get far fewer vacation days than the citizens of any other industrialized nation. What jury of your peers would convict you of lexi-cide?

So maybe there never was a word more lucky not to be a person than “staycation.” But then just maybe, there never was a person luckier to be a “staycationer” than you. See, all you had to do was fall out of bed in your NYC apartment, and you’ve already landed in the Number One Vacation destination in the US! Sure people are falling out of bed in Orlando and Las Vegas, but since last year, they’ve been landing in Number Two (or Three, whatever that is).

Yep, in 2007, New York City beat out the Mouse and the House for the top spot and NYC will probably eat both cities' Velveeta this year as well. With an estimated 12.5 million fanny-packers swarming our shores this summer alone, even New Yorkers who left Manhattan apartments to live in Brooklyn apartments and to be smug about things like the tourists in Manhattan can no longer escape the slow-walking hoards. It's important to remember however, not matter what neighborhood you live in that the tourists will eventually go home, leaving billions of their dollars behind in our fair city...

Still, most New Yorkers would prefer a refreshing water-boarding to staycationing with record numbers of tourists in their neighborhoods. We've all been there: the minute you step outside of your Brooklyn condo and you are cursed in a foreign tongue by a family in matching track suits who don't believe you don't know where Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. is. Nevermind they almost punched you in the face when carelessly unfurling their map in the middle of a busy sidewalk... But remember, they're off to Times Square tourist traps, but not you.

Nope, you're clever enough to find an NYC apartment, so you're clever enough to find fun stuff on NYC's funkier To-Do lists like Flavorpill and FreeNYC, social sites like Yelp, MetroMix, and Going, and even off-the-beaten-path day trips in NYC, upstate NY, New Jersey, and Connecticut. And, the city estimates that the local economy will take in an additional $1,365,000 for every 1000 New Yorkers who take a one-week stacation.

REAL WORLD, RED HOOK: Let the Shooting Begin!

Few NYC apartment dwellers can probably recollect being more nostalgic for the “bad old days” of the violence- and vice-ridden Brooklyn waterfront than when they heard MTV would be installing the The Real World’s ragtag cast of equal opportunity racist, sexist, and homophobic moppets in a renovated luxury apartment on Red Hook’s Pier 41. But walling off the drunken twenty-somethings in a relatively isolated NYC neighborhood and on a concrete slab jutting a hundred feet into the East River, is also acceptable—though less sporting—than seeing how they would fare as the most dangerous game of all.

Back in May, when MTV announced that the 21st season of The Real World’s cast would be unleashing their “meaningful conflict and powerful stories” upon an unspecified Brooklyn neighborhood, the ever-frisky Brooklyn blog-o-sphere just about seized from a heady mixture of joy, contempt, and sweet, sweet speculation. Executive producer, Jim Johnston tells the Times:

“Generally we don’t like to announce where we are. We like to work in complete anonymity when we can.”

The Smart Money had Williamsburg, where the neighborhood’s population of skinny-jeaned hipsters celebrate their own "meaningful conflicts" and "powerful stories" every day in the unending, unflatteringly edited episode of The Real World that is their real world. But the Smart Money would have lost. Like most NYC apartment hunters, however, not even MTV probably could have predicted exactly where they'd finally end up.

The first Brooklyn apartment show producers contracted for was a two-story, five bedroom, 6,000-square-foot penthouse in the 27-story art deco-style BellTel Lofts in Downtown Brooklyn. MTV’s Remote Control Blog refers to BelTel’s Downtown location as their “original Fort Green-ish digs,” but according to the Times, BelTel is Downtown, Old Skool:

“Not near downtown, like Brooklyn Heights, but downtown-downtown, hard by the state and federal courthouses, the city’s emergency-response command center and the rows of barber shops, check-cashing services, fast-food joints and vendors selling counterfeit DVDs, religious statues and floor soaps that promise to remove jinxes.”

But a spokesman for BellTel Lofts tells the Times that MTV can help rescue Downtown Brooklyn from all that:

“It’s a chance to market the kind of MTV lifestyle to people who want to live like this. People have a chance to live an MTV lifestyle. People who buy apartments in the building. We think this building will continue to gentrify Brooklyn, and certainly having MTV there will only accelerate that. We expect that it will increase property values.”

MTV lifestyle, indeed… According to the Brooklyn Paper, other than the addition of a Jacuzzi, many of the major renovations planned for the $6 million dollar Brooklyn apartment were intended to prevent cast members from interacting with and irritating the 100 families who already call BellTel home, such as a separate elevator for accessing their retro-fitted aerie.

But then came word from the Brownstoner that BellTel was unable to complete the necessary renovations on the duplex penthouse in time for cast members to move in and to begin shooting the show by mid-August, and later that day, the Real Deal reported that MTV packed up all of it’s film equipment and moved it to 116 Third Place, a beautiful, six-floor, five-unit brick building on a quiet leafy street in Carroll Gardens. According to Curbed:

“The real question is: will cranky Carroll Gardens residents greet Real World with pitchforks & torches if they try to set up shop on one of their quiet ‘place streets’?”

Yeeesss. Yes, they would.

And so, Children, under threat of fork and fire, the cast members of The Real World: Brooklyn now find themselves out on Pier 41 in Red Hook. And while most renters and buyers would be happy to find themselves in a luxury Brooklyn apartment in Red Hook at the end of the exhaustive NYC apartment search, it might be a little tough on our seven Real World exhibitionists. In their new palatial but isolated digs, only Ikea and the camera crew will hear them drunkenly scream about hook-ups in real time. Everyone else will have to wait for the 13 cruelly edited episodes that will begin airing in January, 2009.

JULY LINX The NYC Real Estate Market Loves Me... It Loves Me Not...

Without a doubt, the hot topic for July has been the speculation about meaning of the second quarter market reports, which--like the first quarter--showed that NYC real estate prices are at a record high, but sales are down from this time last year.

If that isn't a mixed message, then what the heck is or isn't it? Is NYC just some sort of conceited jerk real estate market? Or has it been hurt in the past and now it's just too afraid to love?

NYC Real Estate Loves Me... These Manhattan apartments love you long time by bringing you fresh cut flowers every month and fancy-pants chocolates, and tucking you in: Every. Single. Night. Sweet dreams... [NYM]

NYC Real Estate Loves Me Not... When do you NOT tell NYC property values "I love you" after they go down on you? That would be when it's your property. [TRD]

NYC Real Estate Loves Me... When these condos pitch woo, you better duck! Otherwise, you might just get beaned with designer furniture, panel TVs, or $10,000 in custom closets. Now while that all might hurt so good to you, my guess is that getting hit with closet space is a lot less painful than taking 50 inches of flat screen to the back of the head. I'm just saying... [NYM]

NYC Real Estate Loves Me Not... What's happened to you, Investor? You've changed, let yourself go! We used to have fun! Your bitterness has aged you. Badly... [NYO]

NYC Real Estate Loves Me... You, a selfish and patient suitor, may be rewarded with real estate bubbles of the warm, sudsy, and sexy variety! Make sure you're good and dirty first so your sure to get the biggest band for your buck... [NYP]

NYC Real Estate Loves Me Not... It's not you, it's me! It's about me not liking you... [NYSun] [NYM]