News

Another Apparent Suicide On Center Boulevard in LIC

August 10, 2020 by editor 3 Comments

Gantry Plaza State Park wedding — No better setting for a wedding

A reader tipped us off that according to the Citizen App another person jumped from the tower 4545 Center Boulevard last night. Around 9pm a passel of police cars zoomed to the site, followed quickly by a large area cordoned off with police tape – though the app mentioned this person landed on the 7th Floor rooftop of the building. If so, this is the second jumper this year in this building, and the fourth known fatal jumper along Center Boulevard this past decade.

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LIC Rocks But Doesn’t Roll In Tropical Storm

August 5, 2020 by editor Leave a Comment

Gantry Plaza State Park - Tropical Storm Isaias — A sad casualty

Long Island City got rocked by Tropical Storm Isaias yesterday, especially near the waterfront, but when all is said and done it’s still rolling. As one long time resident with a battered terrace described it “the wind was even worse than Hurricane Sandy.”1

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yet Sandy inflicted much more severe flooding [↩]

Prescient But Not Precocious In LIC

July 28, 2020 by editor Leave a Comment

Metal Fabrication Shop Long Island City — just hangin’ out in LIC this summer

Call me Nostradamus. No, no I wouldn’t want the heavy weight of knowing what the future holds, especially these days. How about the second coming of John Paulson? Sadly it would just be a fantasy as my large wager was only in my head. Like the bottom of the Mets batting line-up, two strikes and I may as well be out. Nevertheless my call for a 15% reduction in monthly apartment rents is looking very prescient these days given a recent Crain’s report indicating two months free rent1is becoming more normal in NYC.

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14 months for the price of 12 = 15% lower per month (12/14 = .85) [↩]

Long Island City Real Estate: The Latest

July 7, 2020 by editor 4 Comments

LIC Skyline — Condo’s, Commercial, or Rentals, the storm clouds are rolling in

It’s been almost two months since we gave our predictions for real estate in Long Island City in the shadow of Coronavirus, what’s transpired so far? Well inspiring me to do an update so quickly, was an article late last week in The New York Times highlighting the number of new apartments available in LIC. Less inspiring have been the multiplicity of articles saying prices are going down/haven’t really gone down much/dire predictions for the future of NYC real estate/minimal sales & leases signed since the shutdown, blah blah blah – all of which contained spotty data and little of value.

The NYT article had facts, and best of all they were specific to LIC. Oh, and Greenpoint too. And the combination of available units and soon-to-be available units in both locales ain’t good – unless you’re a prospective buyer!

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Yes Long Island City, We Had Macy’s Fireworks Tonight!!!

June 29, 2020 by editor 1 Comment

Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight

Macy’s opened the first segment of their 4th of July 2020 Coronavirus Fireworks Tour in familiar territory along the LIC waterfront tonight. It began around 9:45pm and came in three short explosive bursts each lasting 2-3 minutes. Unveiled to the press around two hours prior, it was a resounding success in terms of garnering just the right amount of viewers onsite to be completely safe and being a very welcomed respite and resumption of normality. Oh, and though short they were also spectacular. The planners get an A+ for tonight’s event.

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