From the Irony Department: Blogs covering housing bust going bust
Forget a housing bubble burst. How about a housing blog burst?
Several Web logs dedicated to the national obsession that is real estate have recently bit the digital dust, including one run by the mighty New York Times. Last month, the Times discontinued “The Walk-Through” after weeks of dwindling numbers of posts by its business reporters. Also, many thought the blog lacked a distinctive voice.
The Walk-Through, too, might have been stymied because of its parentage — it was one of the first blogs produced by a larger media company, and that opened it to threats of lawsuits for its posts, said Manhattan appraiser Jonathan Miller, who runs his own housing blog, Matrix.
Despite The Walk-Through’s final steps, the blog medium remains popular, especially in the Big Apple, where real estate sits firmly between politics and the Yankees as a topic of conversation. Popular sites including Curbed.com, the New York Observer’s blog “The Real Estate,” Brownstoner.com, and The Real Deal’s own blog, TheRealDeal.com, continue to thrive.
“The change in market hasn’t had an effect,” Miller said. “In fact, they’re poised for more traffic because people have more questions.”
Don’t pound on the ceiling. Imagine the drama, instead.
The built-in drama of the New York real estate market is paying off for Brooklyn-based Partial Comfort Productions. The theater company ran its third real estate play in September.
Artistic director for Partial Comfort Productions, Chad Beckim, wrote “Nami,” a glimpse into the lives of apartment neighbors who don’t know each other at the beginning of the play.
“A lot of people don’t think about their neighbors,” Beckim said. “New Yorkers live in such tight, confined quarters, but they remain anonymous — it’s kind of remarkable.”
The play, which ran through September at the Kirk Theater at 410 West 42nd Street, received excellent reviews from most city publications.
“Real estate is not a tame subject,” Beckim said, “but it’s one that people may not pay that much attention to.”
The young, upstart theater has been unintentionally addressing real estate, says Beckim. “We’re producing plays on places you live or work and the confines of those spaces,” he said.
Last year “….A Matter of Choice” addressed eviction because of the Second Avenue subway construction through Spanish Harlem.
Forget drive-in movie theaters — watch on water
Brooklyn movie theaters are thin on the ground, but the idea of a riverside movie theater for Greenpoint was, well, floated several weeks ago during a city Parks Department presentation of plans for a $100 million refurbishment of the Brooklyn neighborhood’s waterfront.
“The movie screen could be one of the many potential additions to the waterfront,” said Phil Abramson, a spokesman for the Parks Department. “It’s not in the actual design, but it is a potential future use and it would be in a good location.”
Proposed waterfront fixtures included a boathouse, a boardwalk for the 25-acre Bushwick Inlet Park and a performance center, among many other uses. But Abramson said the plans are still in the preliminary stages and will evolve with community input.
Despite the need for movie theaters in the area, the floating movie screen might just be wishful thinking. The idea of a floating screen was also mentioned during the Hudson River Park renovations in Tribeca, between Chambers Street and Pier 40 at Houston Street. But the idea didn’t pan out during renovations completed in 2003.