From the May issue: Usually when I return home from JFK, the taxi driver takes me into Manhattan across the Triborough Bridge (or, if you insist, the newly rechristened Robert F. Kennedy Bridge). But a few weeks ago, as I left the airport, my driver took the 59th Street Bridge (or, if you insist, the newly rechristened Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge). I do not often come this way. And so, as we were speeding toward the entrance ramp, I found myself wondering: “What on earth is that massive, curved structure we just passed?” With a quick Google search, I was able to learn that this building, with its crescent-shaped footprint, was the nearly completed 2 Gotham Center, which is being developed by Tishman Speyer and designed by the architectural firm Moed de Armas & Shannon. [more]

From left: Studley’s soiree was in its new offices at 399 Park Avenue; Charles
Rutenberg Realty celebrated the holidays at bowling alley Lucky Strike
Lanes, and Halstead Property held its bash at Guastavino’s at 409 East
59th Street, where Brown Harris Stevens also celebrated the season

In a real estate market that’s been challenging at best, knowing how to celebrate the bounty of the holidays is a tricky thing.

Celebrate too much and you risk looking out of touch with the economic climate. Too little, and your firm could look like it’s struggling.

“Perception is everything,” said Cindy Seidowitz, a senior vice president at Studley. It could seem terribly gauche, for example, “if [people] are canceling parties and scaling back and you’re throwing this lavish bash,” she added.

Most years commercial real estate firm Studley would decamp to a restaurant or club for its annual Christmas party — this year, it stuck to its home base. The firm, which is planning to move into its new 11th-floor office at 399 Park Avenue in the first quarter of 2010, decided to celebrate the holidays and its relocation to the 60,000-square-foot space by holding its annual holiday bash there. [more]

Another strip club may be coming to Long Island City, whether local community board members like it or not. GLC Entertainment, the company that owns Sin City in the Bronx, is seeking a liquor license for its property near the Queensboro Bridge, despite previous reports that its plan to open a club in the spot had been abandoned. Community Board 2 members had believed their initial opposition to owner Gus Drakopoulos’ attempt to obtain a liquor license had curtailed his plans to turn his two-story brick building, which used to house Smiley’s Flowers, into another Sin City-like venture. Now both Drakopoulos and the Liquor Authority are saying Drakopoulos never withdrew the application. Construction plans for the venue show 12 karaoke rooms and a main lounge with two cash bars on the lower floor, a service bar on the upper floor, and a maximum occupancy of 299 people.This isn’t the first time Long Island City community leaders have butted heads with strip club owners in the area. As The Real Deal first reported Scandals, at 24-03 Queens Plaza North, is suing the city and the
Department of Buildings for trying to remove its authorization to
operate as an adult club in that location.

From the July issue: Soaring high above the Queensboro Bridge, the giant Silvercup Studios logo stands like a sentinel over the beige brick building where many iconic modern films were made. Amid half-empty warehouses and taxi parking garages, this slice of Long Island City is where the Devil put on Prada, Harry met Sally and the Godfather met his end. But the growth of the entertainment industry in the city is facing some tough realities, with space fetching a bigger premium than stardom. Demand is reaching record levels for shooting in the city, and Silvercup and New York’s two other major studios — Steiner Studios and Kaufman Astoria Studios — are planning to add about 979,000 more square feet of studio space to the city’s current 1.21 million square feet, bringing the total to 2.19 million square feet. more By Sushil Cheema