A tour of homes under $500K, Mario Batali throws hat into Tavern on the Green ring … and more

1. A tour of homes that cost $500K or less, from Barbara Corcoran [MSNBC]
2. Rent-a-Gent is there to assist NYC’s ladies with furniture assembly, moving [Gothamist]
3. Mario Batali considers throwing his hat in the ring to take over revamped Tavern on the Green [DNAinfo]
4. BofA to sell 222 Broadway [Reuters]
5. Trulia head talks about how the real estate market will shape the presidential election [PBS]
6. Meanwhile, Obama to announce plan to let mortgage borrowers who are current refinance, despite likely opposition [WSJ]
7. LES building at 51 Hester Street sells for $2.2M [Lo-Down]
8. Board game “The Modern Architecture Game” now available in English, but you have to go to the Netherlands to buy it [Unbeige]
9. NJ office and industrial markets will grow, but lag behind the nation’s [NJ Biz]
10. Pictures of North Brother Island, not far from the Bronx, a former leper colony where Typhoid Mary was once quarantined [Daily Mail]
11. New NYTimes architecture critic Michael Kimmelman to write book [Curbed]
12. The Observer sits down with the head of architecture firm the Spector Group [NYO]
13. Jamaica Bay could collapse into Beach Channel Drive [NYDN]
14. Interview with Richard Anderson, head of the New York Building Congress [NYT]
15. Sewing studio opens Williamsburg branch [Brooklyn Paper]
16. Franklin Avenue in Crown Heights “next stop on the gentrification express” [NYT]