Rented Spaces

Sweet N.Y. Rental: West Village Charmer for $3,695

Coryn Brown — 2010-02-18T14:00:00 00:00

Paying rent in the West Village can be a cash-hemorrhaging experience, and this sweet rental at 3 Bedford Street is no exception, but that's the price one must pay to live two floors under Justice Sotomayor.

Or maybe that's just the price to pay to live on a tree-lined West Village block. The one bedroom, one office apartment (located in the prewar building where Sotomayor owns a unit) is listed at $3,695/month and features a small bundle of treasures in its 850 square feet. We're totally delighted by the wood burning fireplace set against a narrow strip of brick wall, the small terrace in the master bedroom that looks out onto a garden, and the bathroom's unexpected dollop of throwback swank -- think black-and-white diamond walls and dressing-room-esque strip lights.

Tons of quaint eateries populate the West Village, which means your only blocks away from brunching on truffled egg toast at 'Ino on Bedford street and some serious sugar/liquor intake at Sweet Revenge -- a cupcake and spirits bar two minutes north to Carmine street where wines and beers are expertly paired with raspberry red velvet, malaysian coconut, expresso-swirled mexican vanilla cupcakes...okay we'll stop...with milk chocolate ganache filling...okay, really, we'll stop.

But our favorite thing about this rental is something that the listing claims -- that at 3 Bedford Street you can hear birds sing -- which must mean pigeons aren't the only avian breed that roosts in this 'hood. We hope.

For more Sweet New York Rentals click here.

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Jay-Z Won't Spend a Night in This Hotel

Coryn Brown — 2010-02-05T15:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Entertaining

Rapper Jay-Z may run this town, but he won't be staying at the J Hotel. The famed M.C., nee Shawn Carter, filed a $3.7 million lawsuit against investment firm Highland Capital Management and a small financial institution, NexBank, over dragging out renegotiations on a defaulted loan that would have financed Jigga's (tanked) West 21^st building project - J Hotel.

A sign that "big pimpin'" is on the outs?

According to the New York Post, the music mogul alleges that Highland purposely stalled his efforts to dodge foreclosure, abandon ship, and turn over the deed for the West Chelsea property to the company's investment chiefs. In doing so, Jay-Z claims that the firm leeched him of daily interest and fees that amounted to tens of thousands of dollars a day for a $52 million loan.

This is the latest (and hopefully final) news for the Brooklyn-bred-lyricist-turned-Tribeca-resident's hotelier saga after 2008's economic nose-dive halted development on J Hotel, turned financers into endangered species, and had The New York Times spewing building-boom doom in an article that quoted research positing that the city's landscape would be "virtually unchanged for two years."

Bad timing for Mr. Beyonce whose tycoon dreams led him to purchase the West Chelsea plot for $66 million in 2007, with hopes of turning the property into a 150,000 square foot flagship to a chain of J Hotels.

If this isn't a sign that "big pimpin'" is dead, maybe it's a sign that Jay-Z shouldn't retire his mike just yet. Patience, grasshopper.

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