Three people get to attend The Real Deal’s 6th annual forum at Alice Tully Hall on Oct. 13 for free

Where am I? 47 West 12th Street!

The Real Deal kicked off a contest yesterday to identify the building in the photo with a prize — a free ticket to The Real Deal’s sixth annual forum, a $90 value — going to the first three people to answer correctly. Well, the winners are Bryan Rubin of Tribeca Associates, Jonathan Nachmani of the Jackson Group and Thomas Nakios of New York-based fashion line Lilla P. And the building address is 47 West 12th Street. The forum is being held Oct. 13 at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. The theme this year: “The Road to Recovery.” Click here for more information about the forum. Panelists include Ian Schrager, chairman and CEO of Ian Schrager Company, Jeff Blau, president of Related Companies, Daniel Tishman, CEO of Tishman Construction and Howard Lorber, chairman of Prudential Douglas Elliman. Fox Business News anchor Brian Sullivan will be moderating the event. TRD

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200 West, at 200 West 72nd Street

There are few corners of Manhattan as ill-served by architecture as the northwest and southwest corners of Broadway and 72nd Street. In the 1990s it saw the emergence of the Alexandria, a well-intentioned exercise in classical contextualism which, through a combination of weak design and poor construction values, resulted in a pallid eyesore at what should have been the focal point of the Upper West Side. As for 200 West which has just sprung up across the street at 200 West 72nd Street (with an alternate address of 2075 Broadway), the best that can be said is that, if anything, it makes the Alexandria look almost good by comparison. Its mongrelized aesthetic, devised by Handel Architects, is basically art deco in the heavily geometric and vaguely Chrysler-esque flanges that make up the staggered set-backs, starting around the 14th floor. But such adornments do little to enliven or relieve the sense of value engineering and general tedium of this 19-story development, undertaken by the Gotham Organization. The rest is a boxy mass that rises out of nowhere, curving, in true art deco fashion, round the corner where Broadway turns into 72nd Street. More

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The new Apple store at 1981 Broadway

“Critical mass,” admittedly, is an overused term, unless you take a professional interest in particle physics, and I don’t. But I know it when I see it on the streets of New York, and I have just seen it on the Upper West Side. As anyone who has walked along Broadway from Columbus Circle to 72nd Street can attest, this stretch of Manhattan has been continually improving over the past 10 years. And as someone who grew up right around there, I can assure you that it is incalculably finer, safer and more fun than it ever was in the 1970s. But it wasn’t until, on a recent winter evening, that I passed the new Apple Store at 1981 Broadway on the northwest corner of 67th Street, that I understood what was afoot. The new Apple store succeeds in being even bolder and more inventive
than the cube in front of Edward Durrell Stone’s GM Building on Fifth
Avenue and 59th Street.  More

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From left: Pamela Liebman of the Corcoran Group and Dolly Lenz of Prudential Douglas Elliman

Two new additions have been announced for The Real Deal’s fifth annual forum, “Distressed Opportunities: Taking advantage of distress and searching for a real estate recovery.” Dolly Lenz, vice chairman of Prudential Douglas Elliman, and Pamela Liebman, president and CEO of the Corcoran Group, will join the all-star panel of real estate executives, analysts and economists. Other panelists include economist Nouriel Roubini, co-founder and chairman of RGE Monitor and NYU professor of economics; Coney Island developer Joseph Sitt, CEO of Thor Equities; Plaza developer Miki Naftali, president and CEO of the Elad Group, and Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. The event, to be held Oct. 14 at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, will be moderated by Brian Sullivan, an anchor at Fox Business News. The forum will kick off at 3 p.m. with a networking and exhibition period, followed by the main event at 6:30 p.m. More panelists will be announced. Seating is limited. Tickets cost $80 and can be purchased by clicking here or calling Centercharge at (212) 721-6500. TRD [more]