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2006-08-09T02:03:00.000-04:00

Twilight of the Summer Share

2006-08-07T13:09:00.000-04:00

July 7, 2006 Friday
Escapes

By ANNA BAHNEY

CAROLINA FLYNN remembers those summers -- from 1982 to 1985, from Olivia Newton-John's ''Physical'' to Sheena Easton's ''Strut'' -- as carefree fun. She was in her mid-20's, working as a temp, and she and five girlfriends from her childhood in Park Slope, Brooklyn, shared the same rental house in Hampton Bays on Long Island.

''It was very plain, and we had to drive to get to the beach,'' said Ms. Flynn, who is now 47 and lives in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn. ''It had only a few rooms, so usually someone would sleep on the extra sofa. And maybe someone would crash on the floor.''

Still, it was a summer house, and each weekend the women would join the exodus of teachers, lawyers, secretaries, accountants and assorted other professionals fleeing their city apartments (which were sometimes not air-conditioned) and heading to Fire Island or the eastern end of Long Island. Their goals: sip a few cool drinks, have some laughs and find some sun -- and maybe even the one -- on the beach.

The young Carolina Flynns of today may still be interested in finding Mr. Right. But they're much less interested in summer shares.

''I think it is ridiculous to spend $1,000 a summer to sleep on the floor in a share,'' said Lauren Best, 26, a Manhattan lawyer. ''I'm hoping that back then it was a lot more glamorous, rather than the disgusting frat party it is now. I'm a going-out girl, but I don't think I could do that all summer.''

The summer share was once something almost every young New York professional worth his or her shoulder pads and power suit did in the 1980's. But while today's 20- and 30-somethings might wear leggings and Izod shirts and even enjoy ''Strut'' on their iPods' playlist, many of them say that the summer share, as an object of desire, is over.

The reasons are many -- finite financial resources, the real estate boom that turned many share houses into desirable weekend family homes, the stricter enforcement of antishare regulations, the increasing allure of travel. But more and more, young New Yorkers are opting to spend their summer weekends hanging out with friends at rooftop parties in Manhattan or places like McCarren Park in Williamsburg, or heading to backyard barbecues in Brooklyn, or playing volleyball on a beach in Queens with a view of Manhattan -- or wandering even farther afield -- rather than weekending in the Hamptons or on Fire Island. Come dusk, they're heading to outdoor and even rooftop film festivals, concerts or theater performances, or stopping by clubs and roof-deck bars before going home.

It's a choice that also involves a studied lack of interest in the whole East End enterprise. ''The Hamptons is passe,'' Ms. Best said. ''It is the biggest nightmare you could put me in. I prefer to go out in New York in the summer.''

MS. BEST is the type of young professional who might have spent weekends in a five-bedroom beach house with 20 other people in 1983. She has an income healthy enough to afford a summer share and an interest in having a good time that's hefty enough to justify the expense. But for her the cost, weighed in time, money and unwanted drama, isn't worth it.

She said that she and her friends stay planted in Manhattan, enjoying the rooftop terrace of her building in Battery Park City, going to nightclubs and frequenting outdoor bars. And if they do need to get out of the city, it is most certainly not via bus or train. They fly to Los Angeles or Miami for the weekend. ''If someone is like, 'I'm going to the Hamptons for the weekend,' '' she said, ''I'm like, 'You are so generic.' ''

A withering insult, to be sure, but nothing quite as blunt as the ''To Hell With the Hamptons'' party Melissa McCaig-Welles threw last year and again this year in June at her art gallery in Williamsburg.

''None of my friends are into the idea of the weekend thing anymore,'' said Ms. McCaig-Welles, who had a summer share with about 15 people two years ago on Fire Island. ''It was a stressful thing getting out there on a regular basis, and once you pay for it, then you feel obligated to be there.''

Instead, she keeps the gallery open all summer and is host to exhibitions that open twice monthly. ''Our summer months are some of our best months,'' she said. ''All of the other galleries are closed, and people are looking for something to do.''

But it isn't just that young people have changed. The Hamptons and Fire Island have changed, too.

''The only time you see these kids now is when they are visiting their parents,'' said Michele Wilkinson, who grew up in Quogue, N.Y., just west of the Hamptons, and has been a real estate agent there for 20 years.

For many young people, already strapped by paying rent in New York City, there isn't much money left over for a summer share, and since several popular beach towns, like Southampton and Long Beach, have cracked down on communal rentals in the last few years, there is a feeling that their money isn't wanted anyway.

''The 25-year-olds who live in New York City are using all the money to pay their rent, never mind get their hair done,'' said Grace Corradino, an owner and broker with Fire Island Living Real Estate. ''I don't think there is a lot of money left at the end of the day to even think about a share.''

''A group of 20 young people in a rental house now?'' Ms. Corradino continued. ''I can tell you it isn't going to be a great house. Most of our owners don't want it.'' Many of the owners, she said, are fixing up the houses and renting them out to couples or smaller groups for a week or two at a time or keeping the homes for themselves.

Joan Woletsky of Fire Island Sales and Rentals in Ocean Beach said that ''a lot of the group houses have sold to families.''

''Over the last four or five years,'' she said, ''as prices of houses have gone up, people have bought in to fix up the house for themselves. If you bought it and rented it as a share, you can't cover your mortgage.''

She said that the rental market is still strong, but that each season has brought more requests for short-term weekly rentals (ranging from $3,000 to $10,000) rather than for the entire summer season (from $15,000 to $75,000).

Her firm handles rentals in Seaview, which she called a family community, and Corneille Estates, which, she said, used to be a big share area but has more families now. ''In Ocean Bay Park, there are some streets that are still share houses,'' she said, ''but many families have bought there.''

MANY communities and the families that live in them don't want the shares. Politicized crackdowns on communal living and the revival of long-dormant town ordinances have resulted in curbing the party atmosphere in many areas.

''In the 70's and 80's there was a lot more rental activity than there is now, especially problem rentals,'' said Donald Kauth, a code enforcement officer in Southampton. ''It was a free-for-all then, and through the 90's it toned down a lot due to ordinances that the town has enforced.''

Even Long Beach, in Nassau County, where summer shares peaked in the 90's, has put teeth in ordinances that curtail rowdy shares. Neil Sterrer, the owner of Sterrer Realty, in the west end of Long Beach, said that the town began enforcing its ordinance about six years ago -- that no more than two unrelated people can rent together -- which contributed to the summer rental market's dropping by about 80 percent.

Back in the 70's and 80's, it was virtually expected that a young person would want a summer share. ''It was what you did,'' said Dr. Scott Sokol, a pediatrician in Hicksville, N.Y., who spent time in shares on Fire Island, the Hamptons and even the Berkshires in the early 80's.

An article in The New York Times in April 1981 looked at a ''grouper'' party, in which people answered a classified ad inviting ''Friendly, attractive, intelligent, professional people, men 28-40, women 26-35,'' to come to a party and vie for acceptance in a summer house. ''It was absolutely a rush party,'' said Dr. Sokol, who attended that event. ''I was in a college fraternity, and it was just like that. You had to have the right look, the right feel to be accepted.''

By comparison, a notice recently went out inviting sexy people between 21 and 30 who work hard and like to unwind on the weekends to join a house share on Fire Island. But it wasn't a pick-your-share-mate-party. It was a casting call. ''One Ocean View,'' an ABC reality show about a summer share, has been taping episodes, and will have its premiere later this month. ''Are you looking to spend your weekends vacationing on the beach?'' the casting notice asked. ''Would you like us to pick up the tab?''

Still, even though that ''reality'' house is, in reality, fiction, the summer share isn't exactly dead. A search on the user-posted photo Web site flickr.com revealed groups of 20-somethings lifting cocktails this summer at clubs in the Hamptons. But it certainly takes a lot more money, planning and foresight to find a legal, hospitable share. It isn't something you fall into because everyone's doing it.

There was a time when a share was about freedom, particularly for city kids who might not have lived in a college dorm or been apart from their families. Or so recalled Stephanie Wortman, who is now a travel agent in California but who 20 years ago was a teacher in Brooklyn when she attended the grouper party mentioned in The Times.

In a summer share, ''you have a place to stay,'' she said. ''There are no hours to keep. You can get up when you want, go to bed when you want. The ocean is right there. It really is beautiful.''

But today, she said, young people check their computers and can find a hot deal for $300 or $400 in a place that has nothing to do with the Hamptons. ''That may be what it costs to be in the Hamptons for the weekend,'' she said, and ''for that price they could be somewhere much more exotic.''

Or even not so exotic. ''Who has the money for a share?'' Nicole Griffis, 29, a nurse and graduate student, asked while sipping a pina colada last Saturday at Water Taxi Beach, an enclosed sandy area with a burger stand, bar and a D.J. that is open to the public and is run by New York Water Taxi. It is on the East River near the ferry stop in Hunters Point, Queens.

Her husband, Ted, 26, a film and television editor, who was sitting across from Ms. Griffis at a table, said that it was good to be at a beach and sit on the sand ''without having to get on a train to get here.''

The two had walked from their home in Astoria and were lounging on a picnic table with the skyline of Manhattan behind them.

Mr. Griffis said that even if he had the money for a share (which he doesn't) and had weekends off (which is often not the case), he wouldn't pick the Hamptons as a destination. ''The Hamptons isn't a place where you can have what I would consider an adventure,'' he said. ''I'd rather rent a car and go to Maine, or just go driving. Do different things.''

Nearby, Allison Niedermeier, 23, and her friends expressed similar sentiments as they lounged in bikinis and swim trunks on a beach blanket on the sand. They had come from Manhattan for an afternoon in the sun. ''Why are we at Water Taxi Beach rather than the Hamptons?'' Ms. Niedermeier, an actress, said, looking over the top of her large, round sunglasses. ''Give me a break.''

She gestured widely to people playing beach volleyball, burgers being grilled, a D.J. who was playing music. ''We've got the sand,'' she said. ''We've got music. We've got the skyline. Then at 3 o'clock they said they were having $2 beers, and we loved it even more.''

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

How Friday Became a Great Day to Marry

2006-08-07T13:08:00.000-04:00

June 22, 2006 Thursday
Thursday Styles

By ANNA BAHNEY

THE average wedding this year will cost more than $25,000, and most couples will pay for it themselves, so they can hardly be faulted for wanting it the way they want it.

Even if it means that friends who wish to remain friends must haul their freckled skin to Cancun for three days or use an entire vacation to fly to South Africa for the nuptials. And if the invitation is to a much simpler event like a Saturday ceremony an hour's drive away? Opening the envelope can still feel like playing roulette with your leisure time.

But before despairing at the sight of the invitation, it's a good idea to check the date. The wedding may actually be on a Friday.

The end-of-week wedding, once only done as a ''Friday Night Special'' by those looking for deep discounts on the food, the flowers and everything else, is stepping up to a respectable prime time slot as a first choice of many brides and bridegrooms.

''It sets the tone that your wedding is about the party,'' said Carley Roney, the editor in chief of The Knot, a magazine and wedding-resource Web site. ''You could have even more cost savings on a Sunday afternoon, but that doesn't say 'We're cool.' ''

Ms. Roney and other wedding experts said Friday weddings can be more attractive to couples than a traditional Saturday soiree or a perfunctory Sunday afternoon event because they can have the sophisticated feel of a cocktail party. And a Friday event not only saves a little on the cost and reduces competition for caterers and photographers, but it can also be unexpected.

It may be a little too unexpected for some guests, who consider taking a Friday off from work to attend a wedding an imposition. But many brides are finding that their guests are happier to cut into work time than personal time.

''I just went to a Friday wedding this last week, and it really did open up my weekend,'' said Alexis Bettis, 24, a law student in Chicago. ''I could recover all day Saturday. Then I still had my Sunday, which felt like my day.''

She is something of an expert guest this summer, with seven weddings between May and September. Of those, two are on Fridays. Which is good because she can take only so many Fridays off in a summer.

''If everyone had a Friday wedding, I couldn't do it,'' she said.

Alan and Denise Fields, the authors of ''Bridal Bargains: Secrets to Throwing a Fantastic Wedding on a Realistic Budget'' (Windsor Peak Press, 2002), said that they have seen an increase in Friday weddings. They estimate that in most areas couples can shave 15 to 20 percent off the cost of a Saturday-night wedding by choosing Friday.

''It extends your options to move into Friday night,'' Mrs. Fields said. ''When people want to get married in the popular months and they can't get the site they want or the caterer they want, they will go for a Friday to get them.''

There are no social taboos about a Friday wedding, said Elizabeth Upham Howell, a spokeswoman for the Emily Post Institute, the etiquette specialists. ''People have weddings over Fourth of July weekend, Labor Day, New Year's Eve,'' she said. ''There is no reason why a Friday-night wedding would be any less appropriate.''

There are a couple of things to keep in mind about a Friday wedding, she said. It is very important to send a save-the-date card if many of those on the guest list will be traveling because it will involve a weeknight and a day off from work. Also, Ms. Howell said, ''If you're having a Friday-night cocktail event, it makes it clear it is for adults and not children.''

Like most modern brides, Paulette Brown knew she wanted her wedding to be different and special.

''I loved the idea of having a wedding on Friday instead of Saturday,'' said Ms. Brown, a controller at a private equity firm in Washington who plans to marry on Friday, Aug. 18, in Upper Marlboro, Md. ''It sounds posh, like an elegant party.''

And, she's quick to add, the cost was reasonable.

Last summer she rented a historic house, Mount Airy Mansion, for her wedding for $900. Its manager, Marsha Schlossberg, said that was a special deal to attract interest in Fridays, but that this summer they have dropped the special rate and even raised the regular price, to $2,000.

The interest is still strong, Ms. Schlossberg said: ''The difference between $2,000 on Friday and $3,200 on Saturday is still substantial.''

But because of the popularity of Fridays many of the top wedding sites in the New York region are discontinuing Friday discounts.

''Friday doesn't necessarily save them a whole lot of money anymore,'' said Andrea Most Gottschall, a wedding planner and an owner of A Most Creative Affair, wedding coordinators. ''Why give a discount if you can sell the space anyway? If you are looking to save a lot of money, go with a Thursday-night wedding.''

But the Friday wedding is not accepted everywhere.

In places like Crete, Neb., where a college graduation and a job start still commonly bookend a summer marriage, the wedding is invariably on Saturday. And so Friday weddings take some explaining. At least that is what Amanda Bennett and Griffin Lothrop found.

When Ms. Bennett and Mr. Lothrop learned that their jobs as actuaries for Deloitte Consulting would start in July, rather than in the fall, they had only eight months to move up their wedding, which was scheduled for a Saturday in August.

By then, all things Saturday, ''venues, music, food, you name it, was booked,'' Ms. Bennett said.

So they chose a Friday as a day of last resort.

''We're getting a kind of weird reaction from it,'' Ms. Bennett said. ''Some of our friends were like, how do we get off work?''

Other couples, though, are embracing the creativity that can come with being married on a Friday night.

''It was 'My Big Fat Caribbean Family Wedding,' '' Janelle Wood-Small said of her Friday-evening ceremony last March.

She and her fiance, Mark Small, had eloped in March 2004, after he was called up for service in Iraq as a medic. With Mr. Small safely home again, they called in friends and family from England and the Caribbean to witness their affirmation of vows.

''It was perfect for them to come on a Friday,'' she said. ''They had the whole weekend to explore New York.''

Meanwhile, since Mrs. Wood-Small had to be back at her job at an after-school program in Brooklyn on Monday, the couple had the weekend for a short honeymoon in Manhattan.

Perhaps, though, the biggest reason for the burgeoning Friday wedding is the need for another tactic to manage overscheduled lives. ''We're all booked,'' said Sherri Williams, a wedding planner and an owner of Williams-Sossen Events, who splits her time between New York and Philadelphia. ''This lifestyle begs for the Friday-night wedding, when it gives people their weekend back.''

And when it lands in summer? It's another excuse to ditch work on a Friday for a getaway.

''I won't be here on Friday,'' a publicist said last week. ''I'm going to a wedding.''

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

A Life Between Jobs

2006-08-07T13:06:00.000-04:00

June 8, 2006 Thursday
Thursday Styles

By ANNA BAHNEY

TAYLOR AIKIN'S new job is across the street from his current one, but he loves to tell people he'll be taking the long way getting there.

Next Wednesday, on his last day as a senior designer at a Manhattan architecture firm, he will roll out of work early on his 2006 Ducati Monster S2R 1000 motorcycle and not stop until he reaches the Virginia state line. Before starting his new position three and a half weeks later, he'll cruise through the South, head to the Rocky Mountains and return across the Great Plains.

Mr. Aikin, 28, who has been with his firm for three years, said this is the first time he is taking a real vacation.

''Talking to the guys who take care of my bike,'' Mr. Aikin said, ''they're jealous, because you can really only do this when you quit your job.''

Many young people in the workplace are finding that quitting their job is becoming the satisfying new alternative to the standard, entry-level benefit for vacation. As they found out, the two weeks allowed to most young employees is barely enough time to visit their parents for Christmas, go to a friend's wedding and take a long weekend.

''Normal life,'' Mr. Aikin said, ''maintaining relationships with people who don't live nearby, requires at least two weeks of your life a year.''

For others like him, the solution is simple: Stop jockeying with senior employees for the prime vacation weeks. Quit and start again -- but first, get away.

''The transition between jobs is just about me,'' Mr. Aikin said. ''It is a trip that I've wanted to do, not something that is going to benefit a bunch of people.''

Generations before them, studies have shown, valued tenure and career advancement. But this group sees the chutes in the world as interesting as the ladders.

There are no recent studies of the employment patterns of Generations X and Y by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But it reports that even those born at the tail end of the baby boom held an average of 10.2 jobs between age 18 and 38, from 1978 to 2002. A 2004 study by the Families and Work Institute, a nonprofit research group, polled Generation Y employees and found they were significantly more likely to leave their job than employees who were their comparable ages in 1977 -- 70 percent, compared with 52 percent.

Some use quitting as an opportunity for a good, long visit back home, or to spend time with a dying grandparent. Others want the time to embark on real vacations or adventures.

And what's wrong with taking all that ambition and putting it into a bus trip through India? A climb up Kilimanjaro? A month studying Russian in Moscow?

The trend, career experts said, is an outgrowth of today's nomadic job culture, as well as an attitude among many young people open to adventure and big experiences -- and, yes, a bit of indulgence.

Why not walk away when you are young, energetic and have the opportunity to camp at the Grand Canyon? Or to visit all the national parks?

That was Jesse Keller's big ambition.

After 10 years as a software engineer for a company in San Diego, Mr. Keller, 32, was ready for a break. He rarely used all of his vacation days. But last year he quit to pursue his goal: to visit all 58 national parks.

On the phone from Montana after crossing off Grand Teton National Park (No. 38), he said there is more than whim behind his expedition.

''As the retirement age pushes farther back and the finances for that time of life are less and less certain, it was almost unconscionable to not take advantage of the opportunity to travel now when I had the money and the health,'' he said.

He is not afraid of finding another job -- believing his skills are in demand -- and he is not tied down to any location. What worries him more is keeping from burning out again.

''The trick is finding a job that has the balance built in so that I don't have to go off on a grand adventure to recover from work,'' he said.

There are some risks to dropping out, career counselors said.

''Gaps in the resume are still a red flag,'' said Carol R. Anderson, director of career development and placement at Milano the New School for Management and Urban Policy. But for those who are not following rigid career paths, ''the cross-cultural competency that is best gained from living in a different country,'' for instance, can be a resume builder, she said.

Employers are more or less at the mercy of those alternative ambitions.

''Gen-X'ers have demographics working for them: there aren't a lot of them,'' said Judith Gerberg, who has run her own career counseling company in Manhattan since 1985. That's particularly true as baby boomers begin to retire.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Gerberg said, young people ''are used to creating wonderful opportunities for themselves.''

A study done by the Society for Human Resource Management found that when human resource professionals were asked to select character traits from a list to describe age groups, baby boomers were characterized as ''results driven,'' and ''plan to stay with the organization over the long term.'' Generation X, though, was described as ''like informality,'' and ''seeking work/life balance.''

So younger professionals, unlike older workers, are more willing to chuck it all away whenever things get to be too much, optimistic that they'll be able to start over.

Valerie Karasz, 33, had been working as a bankruptcy lawyer in New York for three years when she quit last November. After spending a leisurely holiday with family in Washington and Florida, she went to a wedding in New Zealand, then spent four months traveling in Australia, Southeast Asia and central Europe.

She started a new job at a law firm doing compliance work in the alcoholic beverage industry last Monday.

''I'm excited to go back to work and start in this new industry,'' she said. ''I feel cleansed.''

And maybe that's what the younger generation gets that their parents didn't: There's always another job. Having grown up in an era of relative prosperity and upward mobility, it's easy to come to that conclusion.

''Less employer loyalty is a product of this age group -- watching their parents' lives turned upside down by layoffs, downsizings, plant closings,'' Ms. Anderson of the New School said. ''The children of these parents understand that the 'employment contract' that existed only from the end of World War II has been broken.''

So quitting is not such a big deal, as surveys show. While overall worker loyalty has improved slightly in recent years, young people are still highly mobile. According to a 2005 survey by Walker Information, which conducts research on customer and employee loyalty, 50 percent of employees 18 to 24, and 39 percent of employees 25 to 29, reported having a neutral or negative attitude about the employer and did not plan to stay. The study terms this group ''high risk.''

''The younger group weren't always negative about the company, they may be neutral, but it was clear that they didn't plan to stay for the next two years,'' said Chris Woolard a research consultant at Walker. ''They weren't all that attached to the company and they don't really plan to stick around.''

Kimberly Thrush, 35, never thought she was the type to quit and run. But when it all got to be too constricting, she left her job in Japan as a vice president at a large American bank, after working in banking for 13 years, and headed home.

''I am the type of person who would never think of quitting a job without having one to go to,'' she said, expressing misgivings about finding her next job. In the meantime, she has ambitious plans. ''I'm going to look for travel specials and go somewhere different,'' she said. ''Maybe Africa.''

J. R. Briggs and his wife, Megan, had six weeks off between jobs. Mr. Briggs, 27, a nondenominational evangelical pastor and Mrs. Briggs, 26, a ministry coordinator and a counselor, recently left their posts at a 5,000-member church in Colorado Springs. Both have jobs at a church in suburban Philadelphia. But before they started last week, they visited family members in Chicago and Ann Arbor, Mich., and also spent 10 days in Costa Rica.

''To be unemployed for six weeks is a healthy thing to help you say 'I am not defined by what I do,' '' he said. ''It helps to understand who I am, who my wife is, and that our identity is more important than anything we do.''

Todd Harvey, 32, found it almost impossible to take vacation time from his job caring for the homeless as director of housing development at a faith-based nonprofit in Berkeley, Calif. He finally quit last July and traveled the country until he stumbled upon the Appalachian Trail and started walking all 2,200 miles from Georgia to Maine with his dog, Soren Kierkegaard.

By renting out a duplex he owns in California, he is able to finance his backpacking adventure until he needs to report for graduate school in San Francisco on Aug. 28.

Others sock away money for months or give up expensive apartments so they can, at least temporarily, leave their paycheck behind.

In the end, timing is everything.

''Why now when I'm 28?'' said Mr. Aikin, the architect, about his coming motorcycle trip. ''Retirement is too far away. And I was too broke in college.''

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Interns? No Bloggers Need Apply

2006-08-07T13:05:00.000-04:00

May 25, 2006 Thursday
Thursday Styles

By ANNA BAHNEY

ON the first day of his internship last year, Andrew McDonald created a Web site for himself. It never occurred to him that his bosses might not like his naming it after the company and writing in it about what went on in their office.

For Mr. McDonald, the Web log he created, ''I'm a Comedy Central Intern,'' was merely a way to keep his friends apprised of his activities and to practice his humor writing. For Comedy Central, it was a corporate no-no -- especially after it was mentioned on Gawker.com, the gossip Web site, attracting thousands of new readers.

''Not even a newborn puppy on a pink cloud is as cute as a secret work blog!'' chirped Gawker, giddily providing the link to its audience.

But Comedy Central disagreed, asking him to change the name (He did, to ''I'm an Intern in New York'') and to stop revealing how its brand of comedic sausage is stuffed.

''They said they figured something like this would happen eventually because blogs had become so popular,'' said Mr. McDonald, now 23, who kept his internship. ''It caught them off guard. They didn't really like that.''

This is the time of year when thousands of interns and new employees pour into the workplace from college campuses, many bringing with them an innocence and nonchalance about workplace rules and corporate culture.

Most experienced employees know: Thou Shalt Not Blab About the Company's Internal Business. But the line between what is public and what is private is increasingly fuzzy for young people comfortable with broadcasting nearly every aspect of their lives on the Web, posting pictures of their grandmother at graduation next to one of them eating whipped cream off a woman's belly. For them, shifting from a like-minded audience of peers to an intergenerational, hierarchical workplace can be jarring.

Companies are beginning to recognize the schism and, prodded by their legal and public relations departments, are starting to adopt policies that address it.

''It is important that corporations make a choice as to what type of blogging they will allow,'' said Alfred C. Frawley III, director of the intellectual property practice group at the law firm Preti Flaherty in Portland, Me.

While there are differences in laws among jurisdictions, from a legal perspective, he said, it is generally accepted that companies have the right to impose controls on their employees' use of computers and other equipment used for communication.

As for content -- information generated within a company -- the law also allows employers to set limits, even on airing the company laundry outside the office, he said. Private employees do not receive the protection of the First Amendment because there is no government action involved, he said.

''If an employee deviates from the policy, it may be grounds for termination,'' Mr. Frawley said.

Viacom, the parent company of Comedy Central, now has an explicit policy. In a section on confidentiality, it states that the employee is ''discouraged from publicly discussing work-related matters, whether constituting confidential information or not, outside of appropriate work channels, including online in chat rooms or 'blogs.' ''

The problem for the employers is that, in a few highly publicized cases, public airing of workplace shenanigans has proved to be lucrative -- and young people entering the workplace know it.

''The Devil Wears Prada,'' Lauren Weisberger's veiled account of her time working as an assistant to Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor, ushered in the modern ''underling-tell-all'' genre, abetted by other revenge-of-the-employee tales like ''The Nanny Diaries,'' by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. Both became best sellers that will be showing up on movie screens, with ''Devil'' opening next month.

Busted bloggers like Jessica Cutler (a former Capitol Hill intern whose blog, Washingtonienne, is now a novel), Nadine Haobsh (a former beauty editor whose blog Jolie in NYC earned her a two-book deal) and Jeremy Blachman (a lawyer whose blog Anonymous Lawyer is being released as ''Anonymous Lawyer: A Novel'' this summer) were all interns, entry-level employees and worker bees who traded up on in-the-trade secrets.

The generation entering the work world has noticed.

''Everybody I've read about that got fired for having a blog is on to such great things,'' said Kelly Kreth, 36, who was fired from her job as the marketing and public relations director at a real estate firm in Manhattan last fall for blogging about her co-workers.

''I've had my online diary for six years, and it is very important to me,'' Ms. Kreth said, calling the firing the best thing that happened to her. ''It led to me opening my own business and making triple what I was making before.''

Corporations have been slower to get the message.

''The vast majority of organizations don't have policies in place,'' said Jennifer Schramm, a workplace trends and forecasting manager at the Society for Human Resource Management in Washington.

The group found last year that only 8 percent of the 404 human resource professionals it polled had blogging policies, while 85 percent did not. (The other 7 percent did not know.)

Ms. Schramm said that is just as bad for the employee as for the employer. ''Right now it is tough for individuals to know what is happening because so few organizations have a clear policy about employee blogging,'' she said.

Of course, as long as there have been managers and underlings, there have been disgruntled workers gabbing around the water cooler or over drinks at happy hour. E-mail and instant messages are merely a quicker way to say, ''You wouldn't believe what a jerk my boss is.''

Blogging takes the grumbling to another level, but one that makes sense when considering how much of it is going on out there. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, about 11 million people have created blogs at one time or another.

A blog and a job don't necessarily have to clash, some bloggers say.

Alexx Shannon's celebrity blog, www.britboyla.com, came up during his interviews for his internship at Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles this spring because he lists it on his resume.

Mr. Shannon, 21, who is British and is spending a year at the University of California, Los Angeles, before finishing his studies at Kings College, London, said he signed an employee confidentiality agreement with both Paramount and Beacon Pictures, where he is now an intern. Beacon made clear that his blog, while about celebrities, would not include information he picked up at work.

''I suppose they did take kind of a risk,'' said Mr. Shannon, who confessed he sometimes had to sit on some truly juicy bits of celebrity gossip that he encountered at work.

Neither Paramount nor Beacon returned calls for comment.

''I just knew that I didn't want to jeopardize anything for my career,'' Mr. Shannon said. ''My real life is more important to me than my online life.'' But other young employees don't see it that way.

Ms. Schramm of the human resources group said young people do not see their job as their identity. Dennis Kennedy, a lawyer and legal technology consultant with his own firm in St. Louis, said that attitude makes them more willing to take chances.

''It's like, 'This is who I am,' '' he said. '' 'Consequences are what they are. I'll go work for someone who doesn't have a problem with it.' ''

But that's not as easy in fields with only a handful of jobs, as Jessa Jeffries Werner, a marine zoologist, found out.

This month, Ms. Werner, 25, who blogged under the name Jessaisms about jobs she held at Adventure Aquarium in Camden and the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, was fired by the academy. Officials there also asked her to remove posts and pictures related to them from her site and her myspace.com page, and she did.

The confrontation was traumatic, Ms. Werner recounted, not always with perfect spelling or grammar, on another Web site: ''I was still sobbing kind of quietly but I didn't want them to think that I was ashamed of what I had written. My parents read my blog. My old college friends keep up with my life through my blog. I took my badge off and looked at the mean HR lady who was smiling smuggly at me. She told me perhaps next time I would be more wise in my lifestyle and decision making choices regaurding work.''

In an interview, she said she regretted crossing the line: ''I came to the realization that I probably shouldn't have been blogging about work.''

But it is the success stories that can embolden a determined blogger. Ms. Kreth was able to create her own public relations business out of the fallout. Because of his blog, Mr. Shannon was asked to be on a television pilot. For Mr. McDonald, the Comedy Central intern, it was the call of literary agents.

Now back in Kenosha, Wis., where he is finishing up his degree in English at the University of Wisconsin, Parkside, Mr. McDonald is hard at work on a book -- a novel about a guy from Wisconsin who gets a job in New York.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Lindsay Lohan Is an All-Star

2006-08-07T13:04:00.000-04:00

May 18, 2006 Thursday
Thursday Styles

By ANNA BAHNEY

LINDSAY LOHAN is the Albert Pujols of her game: consistent, versatile and kicking the Manolos off the competition.

A certain crowd is as rapt when Ms. Lohan, out to promote one of her movies or just on the town, strikes a pose as Cardinals fans are when Mr. Pujols, the first baseman for the St. Louis team, smashes one out of the park. This set tracks each flutter, smile and flip of her hair. Not just because its members are entertained, but because they have something riding on it: their own score in a fantasy celebrity league.

''The female celebrities are photographed more, like Paris and Lindsay,'' explained Antonella Cahill, who used both women on a core roster of stars, part of a strategy that made her the winner of the inaugural season of the Fantasy Celeb League, which ended last Friday. ''They are always in the magazines.''

Like those who play in fantasy football or baseball leagues, participants in the celebrity league, a Web-based strategy game, select major leaguers as their game currency. Only in this case they are major league pop stars and actors: four female stars, four male stars, one celebrity couple and one television show. Rather than posting statistics for stolen bases or yards rushing, players accumulate points when their celebrities appear on the cover of W or on Oprah's sofa.

If the star's public presence wanes? The player can relegate Eva or Jennifer back to the V.I.P. bench.

This game, and sister leagues for fashion and country music, are among the newest in alternative fantasy games, which are attracting a different crowd from the 15 million people who join fantasy sports leagues.

For people who see the Academy Awards as their Super Bowl, these games are a way to finally put that accumulation of heretofore useless knowledge -- and the passion behind it -- to use.

A new season of the Fantasy Celeb League begins on Monday, as well as the debut of the Fantasy Country Music League. Fantasy Fashion League, in which players select a roster of designers and celebrities, is in the midst of a 12-week miniseason to keep in shape for the Emmys to Oscars run, which starts in August. All three fantasy leagues were created by a former teacher and magazine editor who lives in New Jersey and can be found at www.fantasycelebleague.com.

In a culture in which marriages, breakups and even the birthing methods of movie stars and singers dominate newsstands and television programs, who is surprised that the stars -- and their coverage -- are being turned into currency?

Dr. P. David Marshall, chairman of the communications studies department at Northeastern University, said these days people are not content to be passive observers.

''This generation isn't going to sit back and enjoy their People magazine,'' said Dr. Marshall, author of ''Celebrity and Power: Fame and Contemporary Culture.'' ''They are going to engage in these celebrities in a user-invested way, rather than just as an audience.''

In other words, if I can't be them, at least I can play them.

Those who do play say the game provides a distraction from daily life.

''This is mine,'' said Ms. Cahill, 39, calling it a welcome break from her job as a secretary to a judge in Philadelphia as well as the active lives of her two daughters and mundane chores like bills and laundry. ''I get such a thrill out of the competition.''

Erica Salmon, who thought up and runs the game, got the idea watching her husband obsess over fantasy football.

Today Mrs. Salmon, 31, has three employees who monitor media outlets and keep score, and Web developers who manage the sites for her celebrity, fashion and country music games. She charges fees to participants -- the Fantasy Celeb League is $10 for 10 weeks, but the fashion league fee will be $20 for the 27- to 28-week season -- though she said she's not making any money yet.

But, she said, 88 percent of the 7,500 participants log in daily to play a game that is a combination of celebrity know-how and math.

Players go to the Web site and select a roster from a list of more than 200 celebrities. A typical lineup consists of Ms. Lohan, Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson and Eva Longoria; Jake Gyllenhaal, George Clooney, Denzel Washington and Josh Lucas; Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes; and ''Desperate Housewives.''

Points are awarded for how many times the celebrities appear daily in various media outlets, including certain Web sites (People.com and Instyle.com), on talk shows (''The View'' and ''The Tonight Show With Jay Leno''), in weekly magazines (Us Weekly and Entertainment Weekly) and monthly magazines (W, Vanity Fair or Latina).

Unlike fantasy sports, the celebrity leagues do not have a salary cap or trade deadlines -- there are no trades. But players can drop and add celebrities at any point. And there's no restriction on how many teams can have Mr. Cruise and Ms. Holmes, for instance, on their rosters.

That makes the game more about strategy and knowledge -- who to pick up and drop from the team, based on the news of the day and red-carpet events rather than any long-term team loyalty.

''The monthlies are very big points. You can catch up very quickly with just a couple covers,'' said Ms. Cahill as she prepared for her Friday evening ritual of spreading out her weekly magazines and tallying her points.

During the final week of the season, Ms. Cahill gained points for picking up Tori Spelling, who had managed to creep back into the magazines because of a new marriage.

She dropped Ms. Lohan to add Denise Richards for a few days, a good move given Ms. Richards's custody battle with her husband, Charlie Sheen, and her public canoodle with the guitarist Richie Sambora.

She picked up Mr. Lucas because his movie, ''Poseidon,'' was opening, and tried the couple nicknamed Brangelina in the starting lineup for two days before going back to the pairing nicknamed TomKat as the celebrity couple.

Then, on Tuesday, a windfall.

''At 11 at night, I saw that there was breaking news,'' Ms. Cahill said. ''Britney Spears says she is going to have another baby. I knew that was going to be all over, so I rushed to get her on my card.''

Sean Corcoran and Katrina Olivares, who live in Washington and are engaged to be married, play the game, but separately.

''People pretty much go with the most popular ones,'' said Mr. Corcoran, who keeps his roster of stars so close to the vest that even Ms. Olivares doesn't know who is on his team. ''Lindsay, Paris, Jessica Simpson, Britney.''

''Britney?'' Ms. Olivares exclaimed. ''You have Britney?''

''As far as the celebrity couple,'' he said, changing the subject, ''everyone has TomKat right now. With the baby and his movie.''

''I'd keep TomKat until Brangelina has its baby,'' Ms. Olivares said.

The game, she said, was a welcome contrast from what she called the drab lifestyle of Washington.

''Us Weekly comes out on Friday,'' Mr. Corcoran said. ''You need something to do during the six days in between.''

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

The Bank of Mom and Dad

2006-08-07T13:03:00.000-04:00

April 20, 2006 Thursday
Thursday Styles

By ANNA BAHNEY

AT 23, Jason McGuinness lives a postcollege life in Manhattan that is very nearly typical. He works as a media research analyst, making about $30,000 a year. Sharing a two-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor of a walk-up building with a roommate on the Upper East Side, his portion of the rent is $1,100 monthly.

The walls are decorated with pennants and posters from Syracuse University, his alma mater. He orders takeout dinners, carries peanut-butter sandwiches to work and occasionally takes in a Mets game with friends.

And like many of his peers -- educated, employed, urban-dwelling young adults -- he receives monthly assistance from his parents, in the form of a $300 check and the payment of his cellphone bill.

This is not the largesse of wealthy families doled out through trust funds. Nor is the money a couple of $20 bills tucked into a card at the holidays. Mr. McGuinness and others like him are the beneficiaries of an increasingly common subsidy arriving regularly from Mom and Dad, something like a family fellowship.

It helps to pay for housing, bills and travel expenses, and the support has been increasing for the past two decades as education is extended, marriage is delayed and young people take the scenic route from adolescence to adulthood.

''Everybody I know is supporting their children in some way,'' said Gail Horowitz, Mr. McGuinness's mother, a vice president of the Zlokower Company, a public relations firm in Manhattan. Unlike young adults who ''boomerang'' back home to live with their parents -- the subject of the recent comedy ''Failure to Launch'' -- these young people live independently. But they need help to make ends meet, or put another way, to maintain a middle-class way of life.

The bottom line is that the assumption that financial obligations to children ended after graduation from high school or college is going the way of the pay phone. Today, parents are finding that they are on the hook for more, sometimes much more -- contributions of thousands of dollars a year to help young men and women get on their feet economically, often into their 30's.

The economic dilemmas facing young adults were chronicled in two recent books: ''Generation Debt'' by Anya Kamenetz and ''Strapped: Why America's 20- and 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead,'' by Tamara Draut. Both explore how paychecks have stalled, housing costs have risen, education costs have skyrocketed and credit has become so available as to be dangerous.

Ms. Draut, the director of the economic opportunity program at Demos, a New York think tank, said students now leave college with an average of $20,000 in loans, which ''added to these flat-lined paychecks and high costs of living, tips people over the edge.''

While economic stresses may be exacerbated in cities like New York, people in other areas of the country are feeling the pressures as well. Nationally, 34 percent of those between 18 and 34 receive cash from their parents annually, according to a study by the Institute of Social Research at the University of Michigan published in ''On the Frontier of Adulthood'' in 2005. Cash is only part of the picture; parents also make generous presents of clothes, cars and help with down payments.

''We have not seen any signs of it decreasing,'' said Bob Schoeni, an associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, who is an author of the study. ''Certainly over the last couple of decades it has been increasing.''

Middle-income parents earning less than $72,600 a year can expect to spend $190,980 on a child through age 17, according to 2005 government statistics. But Dr. Schoeni said that parents can plan on paying almost 25 percent of that amount again over the next 17 years, or $42,280 in 2005 dollars. This sum includes higher education but also much more.

Parents pay $2,323 a year to help support children 25 and 26 years old, said Dr. Schoeni, and $1,556 annually for offspring 33 and 34. (All amounts are in 2001 dollars and reflect support to children living both independently and at home.)

Nearly half of children between 18 and 34 also receive aid in the form of their parents' time -- driving them home to the city after a visit, doing laundry, taking care of grandchildren -- that has financial value. Time assistance from parents averages about 367 hours a year, or nine weeks of full-time work.

Although some may argue that the willingness of parents to subsidize adult children is prolonging their coming of age, Dr. Schoeni said his study suggests that extended education, the exploration of career options and delayed marriage are the causes of the long transition to self-sufficiency. Parental support ''is not the driver of a delayed transition, it is a response to it,'' he said.

Other experts say that young adults with material support from families make a smoother transition into adulthood than those struggling entirely on their own.

''It may mean that they don't have to take the first job available,'' said Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a developmental psychologist and the author of ''Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens Through the Twenties.''

Parental support allows adult children to explore careers with low earning potential, to make career shifts or to maintain a quality of life.

''So many of the things that I'm able to focus on now are great career-wise, but they are not monetarily rewarding,'' said Daisy Press, a singer who performs classical and avant-garde music. At 27, Ms. Press has just completed eight years of college, four at Sarah Lawrence and four more at the Manhattan School of Music. ''I wouldn't be able to do this without them,'' she said.

That would be her parents, Reinhold and Linda Press, who are also musicians. As a bassist and singer, respectively, they have toured with Neil Diamond for the past 30 years. In addition to paying for her education, they bought her a one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side and are supplementing the income she receives from teaching music history part time.

Mr. and Mrs. Press said they believe their daughter's energy and thoughts should be on her education, and now that she is pursuing a music career they want her to have the best chance possible in an unforgiving field. ''What if she had to stop and spend her days at Starbucks?'' said Mr. Press, who lives with his wife in Laguna Niguel, Calif.

Mrs. Press is careful to say the money is not endless; she is 57 and her husband is 68. ''It is the hard work and the passion that makes us want to help Daisy,'' she said. ''She's not a lazy slug with no direction. She keeps moving forward.''

Like other young people in her position, she has mixed feelings about accepting money from her parents. ''I think the down side, if I can even say there is a down side, is not necessarily feeling like an adult,'' Ms. Press said. ''There is a part of me that feels like I'm 19 or 20. I don't have the emotional experience of knowing what I cost and earning what I spend. I can only imagine what it may feel like.''

Alanna Lopez, 27, knows very well the value of money. After leaving college before graduating and returning to Manhattan to be with the man who is now her husband, Benjamin Lopez, she began working in hotel management. Then 14 months ago, she had a baby, Abigail.

''Customer service was draining,'' Mrs. Lopez said. ''I would be getting home very late. It was going to be 5, 6 or 10 more years until I had a major promotion.''

She decided to quit and study art history and education at Hunter College. But losing her income put the self-sufficiency she and her husband, a hospital receptionist, had achieved in peril. Her mother, Suzanne McGrattan, came to the rescue.

''She is paying for my education and a monthly stipend to cover my portion of the bills,'' Mrs. Lopez said. She'll also watch Abigail and she recently renovated the couple's kitchen and helped to furnish the apartment. ''I'm thrilled she's going back to school,'' Ms. McGrattan, a lawyer, said. ''She saw she didn't have a life. She wants to spend more time with the child.''

Dr. Arnett, the psychologist, said young people are ambivalent about receiving money because it represents parental power. Most young people, he said, are striving for independence, to feel they have reached adulthood.

''But they are also generally quite ambivalent about adulthood, in general,'' Dr. Arnett added. ''You feel grown up. You have more status, more position. But it is annoying, too. You have to pay your own bills, and take on all these responsibilities.''

While some parents earmark contributions for food and rent, others expect their children to take care of the basics while they pick up special expenses like a vacation.

''I'm enjoying watching them spend their inheritance,'' Judy Maysles, a real estate agent in Manhattan, said about the support she provides to two grown children, John, 30, who works with a hedge fund in New Jersey, and Celia, 27, a filmmaker. ''I'd rather spend it now and watch them and enjoy it with them. I think that a lot of my generation feel that way.''

She bought her daughter appliances for a house in Portland, Ore. Now the proceeds from selling that property are enabling Celia Maysles to make a documentary about her late father, the documentary filmmaker David Maysles.

Eventually, most children outgrow the need for a stipend. But the instinct of parents to give -- and of children to receive -- can linger on. When John Maysles got a dog four years ago, his mother told him he couldn't leave it alone all day.

''So I pay for doggy day care,'' she said. ''It is $16 a day. Probably he could afford it, but it has been on my credit card and I haven't changed it.''

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

So You Think You Can Just Adopt a Dog?

2006-08-07T13:01:00.000-04:00

March 23, 2006 Thursday
Thursday Styles

By ANNA BAHNEY

ALMOST as soon as Michele Pusateri and her two daughters chose a black-and-white terrier at a humane society shelter near their home in South Pasadena, Calif., they were told they did not qualify to own the dog.

Mrs. Pusateri took her daughters, Mira and Zoe, back twice more and met with different adoption counselors. Each time she got a no. ''It was insane,'' Mrs. Pusateri said. ''Their concern was that I had never had a dog in my life and that I had a 6-year-old daughter.''

Her chances of pet ownership didn't improve when she turned to groups whose mission is to rescue abused and unwanted pets. She found herself explaining to her crying children that they couldn't adopt because the organizations suspected the family had a hole in the backyard fence or the yard was too small.

Ultimately Mrs. Pusateri went to the county animal shelter last May and found Piper, a mutt. She paid $80 for the dog to be spayed and picked her up two days later, to the girls' delight.

The process left Mrs. Pusateri thinking that animal adoption gatekeepers can be so concerned about their charges that they forget about the people in the equation. ''They make you jump though all these emotional hoops,'' she said. ''You feel so judged. You start wondering, Am I dog worthy?''

Even as adopting a stray dog or cat -- rather than buying one from a store or breeder -- has become politically fashionable, a badge of pride for some because of the millions of animals that are euthanized each year, the hurdles that some humane societies and rescue groups make potential owners leap -- including multipage applications, references, background checks, interviews and home visits -- can make the process feel nearly as daunting as adopting a child.

Animal adoption groups say they want to avoid giving pets to owners who will abuse them and, perhaps more important, to make sure an animal that has been given up once will find a permanent home. Yet would-be adopters who expect exacting standards from top breeders are surprised when shelters and rescue groups ask more from them than a pulse. Many families feel stung when they are denied and are left to ask: Is it better for the animal never to find a home than to live with us?

While some 8 million to 12 million dogs and cats end up in shelters in the United States each year, and 4 to 6 million are euthanized, those who place pets say that the high standards they demand of owners rarely leave animals without homes. Eventually almost everyone who wants an animal will get one, somewhere. So why put would-be adopters through a process that makes them feel inadequate, their privacy invaded?

''The home visit weirds out a lot of people,'' said Jill Blasdel-Cortus, the president of Dachshund Rescue of North America, a network of about 100 volunteers, who give temporary homes to daschshunds claimed from overcrowded shelters or families who surrender them because of a behavior problem or lifestyle change. The group places the dogs in permanent homes. ''We're not going to judge if you've dusted or if it's clean,'' Ms. Blasdel-Cortus said.

Nonetheless she defends the practice of requiring would-be adopters to fill out three-page applications that ask if the home is owned or rented, as well as open-ended questions like, ''If your dog bit a child at a backyard barbecue, what would you do?''

References are checked. The home is visited. Adopters must sign a contract specifying the care of the dog. In the last nine years the dachshund group has placed some 4,300 dogs, Ms. Blasdel-Cortus said, and she could recall only one family turned down after a home visit, because it lived in an upstairs apartment with rickety stairs and refused to carry the dog up and down.

''I am a dog advocate,'' Ms. Blasdel-Cortus said. ''I'm not a people advocate. If you don't want to fill out the form, go to your local shelter. Some people may find that uncooperative, but a rescued dog is not for everyone.''

Animal rescue groups, which seem demanding in approving new homes for their charges, are part of a ''very intense, very big and rapidly expanding movement,'' said Jon Katz, who has written about them in ''The New Work of Dogs'' (Villard, 2003).

He estimates the number of people involved in rescue (the overwhelming majority of them women) in the tens of thousands. An animal rescuer can be an established urban nonprofit shelter or a woman in Idaho with a Web site. Sometimes a rescuer travels hundreds of miles to meet another, who has traveled hundreds of miles with a pet, in a sort of underground railroad handoff.

Cocker Spaniel Rescue of New England will not place a dog with a family with children under 7, said Gerry Foss, its president. German Shepherd Rescue, in Burbank, Calif., receives six dogs a day from people who don't want them, said Grace Konosky, the founder, and she denies about 70 percent of the people who want to adopt them.

Janie Regnier filled out an application to adopt a dachshund through Dachshund Rescue. ''It was a surprisingly long application, but as an animal lover, I thought it was a good application,'' she said.

Ina Eaves, of the rescue group, visited Ms. Regnier's home in Fairfax, Va., this week. The prospect made Ms. Regnier nervous because she is a renter, not an owner. Ms. Eaves wanted a fence repaired, but by the time she left, Ms. Regnier felt they were friends, she said. She was approved.

For those denied a pet, the experience can be bewildering. Tamara Burke, who lives near Stowe, Vt., where she owns a consulting company and writes a column for The Stowe Reporter, has owned animals all her life. But when she and her husband decided to get a second golden retriever as a companion for their older retriever, Mercedes, a rescue group still wanted to visit her home.

''There is nothing about my house that says upper middle class,'' Mrs. Burke said of the century-old cottage that has been in her family for generations and where she raises sheep and chickens. ''It is a funky, cobbled-together little thing, but it has nothing to do with how much money I spend on my dogs or how much attention I give them.''

The rescue-group representative said, Mrs. Burke remembered, that while she and her husband were nice people, theirs was not a suitable home for the dog because they did not have a fenced-in yard. ''I own 150 acres,'' Mrs. Burke said. ''I'm looking at her saying: 'What am I going to do, fence in all 150 acres so I can have a dog? This is absurd.' ''

In response Mrs. Burke became involved with rescue organizations herself. And she found that lots of other people didn't ''qualify'' for a dog. In her experience home visits don't mean a lick.

''I cannot make a determination based on how a person lives,'' she said. ''I have friends who have trust funds, and they live without running water. They also happen to have dogs, and the dogs don't seem to mind.''

Mrs. Burke said that potential owners can feel bullied by the process, and the gatekeepers justify it because they are advocates for homeless animals. ''These are people who would bully in other aspects of their lives if they could, but this is a socially acceptable way to get away with it,'' she said. ''You're talking about individuals who develop this attitude because they know they have something that you desperately want. They are demanding an emotional response.''

Most rescue volunteers strive to balance what is best for the animal with what is best for a would-be adopter. But everyone defines a successful home differently, and there are no uniform requirements for owning a pet. Some publicly owned shelters also require home visits.

The Animal Care and Control Department in Palm Beach County, Fla., requires a home visit in the case of breeds that are top biters --like pit bulls, Rottweilers, German shepherds and Akitas -- to ensure the yard is fenced. Adoption can be denied if a family lives in an area where the department is regularly called to seize dogs, said Kelly Diegert, a department official.

In the view of some adoption specialists, elaborate vetting of clients and home visits are overkill. They are trying to lower the hurdles, though they don't envision letting people drop in and simply take home a dog with no questions asked. That would make them pet shops. ''We are interested in making adopting an animal less like applying to college,'' said Gail Buchwald, the vice president of shelter and adoption programs at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Manhattan, which places more than 2,000 dogs and cats each year. ''Most people who have been asked to go through a process like that tend to feel intruded upon.''

She said that her organization asks for an application form and makes contact with each member of the household to be sure they want to have a pet. They ask about landlords, but they do not make home visits. ''When pets are easy to come by,'' Ms. Buchwald said, ''it doesn't make sense to push adopters away to the point that they'll say: I don't need your college-application process. I'll go to the deli down the street and take that stray from the box.''

When Chris Coates, 23, and his partner Zach Denison, 24, adopted Buddy, a Labrador-pit bull mix, at the A.S.P.C.A. this week, Mr. Coates said the process was thorough but not invasive. He first visited last Friday, then took Mr. Denison on Sunday. They went back on Monday and played with six dogs before selecting Buddy, who had been at the center for two years and received a full-staff sendoff.

''As an animal rescuer, you want to have control,'' Ms. Buchwald said. ''You may have nursed the animal back from the streets or illness or injury. You want to know beyond any doubt what the home looks like. But this work involves trust and restraint. The best thing you can do is say, 'Go with my blessing,' and you clap when they find a home.''

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Don't Talk To Invisible Strangers

2006-08-07T13:00:00.000-04:00

March 9, 2006 Thursday
Thursday Styles

By ANNA BAHNEY

SANDI LESTER went to a safety meeting last week at her daughter's elementary school in Irvine, Calif., because she was concerned. When she left, she was frightened.

The presentation, given by a police officer, was not about drug use or under-age drinking. It was about the latest parental fear: social networking Web sites.

Although parents have been cautioned about Internet safety for years, a wave of news reports suggesting that predators monitor chat rooms and Web sites like MySpace.com for potential victims has sparked a sharp rise in the number and intensity of parent meetings since January, Internet safety experts say.

Last week alone there were meetings at schools in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, California, New York, Georgia, Florida, Alaska, Kansas, Texas and Maine.

In such forums, which may be run by school administrators, police, F.B.I agents and even federal prosecutors, parents are advised to examine their children's Web pages and to talk to them about their Internet activity. They are counseled to become familiar with social networking sites -- MySpace.com, Livejournal.com, Xanga.com and others -- that encourage teenagers to post photographs, blog entries, music clips and otherwise share more personal information than earlier online communities like chat rooms.

The new wave of concern has led some parents to curtail their children's Internet use, and it has increased many young people's awareness of the potential for online stalking. But some Internet safety experts say that a fear of networking sites has grown disproportionately to actual demonstrated threats, and that there is an unjustified paranoia about the sites.

''Everyone is freaked,'' said Parry Aftab, the director of Wired Safety, a nonprofit group of volunteers who conduct safety meetings for parents. ''They are convinced the Internet Bogeyman is going to come into their window,'' she said. ''To date that has not happened.''

When parents return home with plans to visit their children's MySpace pages or to restrict Internet access, their fear is often met with adolescent exasperation.

To many teenagers, social networking sites are merely places to hang out, not unlike malls in the 1980's or malt shops in the 50's.

When Ms. Lester asked her 14-year-old son, Sam, about MySpace, he told her most teenagers know enough to limit personal information, just as they know not to accept a ride from a stranger.

''Parents are going to panic,'' Sam said. ''They are going to overreact.'' He said they went on ''wild rampages'' about online chat rooms two years ago, and now they are doing the same with MySpace.

''Suddenly somebody, some random person in Illinois or somewhere, gets kidnapped, and then it's a problem,'' Sam said.

MySpace, which was created in 2003 and has exploded to include some 60 million registered users, has become the dominant social networking site, eclipsing others like Friendster.com, Tribe.net, Xanga.com and Meetup.com. Because the users' pages are often available to the millions of other members, they can draw unwanted visitors, including predators.

Last month in West Milford, N.J., police charged a 21-year-old man with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl they say he met on MySpace.

And last week, in what prosecutors described as the first federal sex case involving MySpace, two men -- one from New York and one from Pennsylvania -- were charged with assaulting girls of 11 and 14 in Connecticut. Police say the men met the girls on MySpace.

Chris DeWolfe, the chief executive officer of MySpace, said the company is working to protect users. It has posted safety tips and has established a hot line for law enforcement.

MySpace, he said, has a staff of 90 dedicated to policing the site for inappropriate content like nude pictures and users who are under the minimum membership age of 14.

Mr. DeWolfe said that members can restrict access to their pages to a select list of friends, a strategy often recommended in meetings of parents about Internet safety.

The Justice Department has 45 Internet Crimes Against Children task forces nationwide. Agents posing as under-age Internet users produced 600 arrests in 2005, a Justice Department spokeswoman said.

Yet actual assaults stemming from online encounters are rare, said Ms. Aftab of Wired Safety. In no instance, she noted, has a predator met a child in person without first communicating with the victim online.

That is encouraging, Ms. Aftab said, because it means that real encounters with predators are ''100 percent preventable'' as long as children do not reveal where they live or agree to meet someone.

The latest wave of parental concern seems to have been largely spurred by ''To Catch a Predator,'' a series on the NBC news magazine program ''Dateline'' that began in September 2004. The series included three programs in which hidden cameras captured men arriving to meet people they believed to be teenagers. The teenagers turned out to be volunteers with a group dedicated to policing Internet stalking.

''The 'Dateline' special was a complete and utter tipping point,'' said Danah Boyd, a cultural anthropologist and doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies social networking sites like MySpace.

The men the ''Dateline'' series exposed included a high school teacher, a rabbi and a doctor. Ultimately the men come face to face with Chris Hansen, a ''Dateline'' reporter and, in the latest episode, police officers, who arrested them.

''We've had an overwhelming response,'' Mr. Hansen said. ''People are surprised at the extent of the problem and are wanting to know how to protect their kids, especially with these social networks.''

Some law enforcement officials who lead community meetings about online predators acknowledge that they are dramatizing the potential threat to get parents' attention.

Steve Wolf, an Irvine police officer, who has given many presentations in Southern California, said he deliberately picks ''racy pages'' from the Web sites. ''I try to pick pages that get oohs and ahs,'' he said.

Similarly, Colm F. Connolly, a United States attorney in Delaware, said he tells ''war stories,'' among them one about an agent who introduced himself as an available teenager online and within minutes was contacted by a pedophile. When the agent arranged a meeting, the man showed up with an ice pick and a box of condoms.

''Am I trying to scare people? Absolutely,'' Mr. Connolly said. ''But I'm not trying to cause panic. I just want people to know what the dangers are.''

Erica Hoegh, the principal at Eastshore Elementary School in Irvine, questions whether sounding the alarm is the best strategy because parents already seem panicked. ''You need to tell those people, relax,'' Ms. Hoegh said.

Most important, Ms. Hoegh said, is that parents be told to ask their children who they are meeting online. ''A lot of people, they don't take the time to talk to their kids,'' she said. ''This is an opportunity to connect with them.''

The new wave of parental concern follows a historic pattern, said Ms. Boyd. In the 1820's, they were terrified of novels, she said, and in more recent decades, rock 'n' roll. But as the unfamiliar becomes accepted, the fear dies down.

''Now we don't think of rock 'n' roll as even remotely sordid,'' Ms. Boyd said. ''Elvis Presley? It is laughable.''

Last month, at Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn, Bruce Dennis, the headmaster, held a meeting to warn parents about social networking Web sites.

''A lot of students were immediately really angry and outraged,'' said Jenni Carosone Cieselski, 17, the editor of the school's newspaper, The Prism. ''They felt their privacy was being violated because the headmaster addressed it with parents before the students.''

But after the meeting a poll conducted by the newspaper showed that 80 percent of Packer students had restricted access to their MySpace pages to their friends. Before the meeting, only 14 percent had done so.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

C'mon, Pooch, Get With the Program

2006-08-07T12:58:00.000-04:00

February 23, 2006 Thursday
Thursday Styles

By ANNA BAHNEY

IT took the success of ''Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog'' by John Grogan, which has bounded to the top of best-seller lists, to expose a secret not easily given up by dog owners. Their dogs are often bad dogs.

''I held my dog up as the world's worst dog,'' Mr. Grogan said. ''But I've heard from hundreds and hundreds of people who can match my story point for point.''

Marley -- the indelible rascal of a yellow Labrador retriever that placed himself at the core of Mr. Grogan's family despite always seeming to have some household object in his jaws or heading down his gullet -- has so resonated with readers that Mr. Grogan has received thousands of ''that darned dog'' letters, e-mail messages and comments at his Web site, www.marleyandme.com. The letters express relief at finding others with misbehaving dogs and challenge Marley's claim as ''world's worst.''

Dog experts have noticed other signs of a growing concern over bad behavior by dogs, despite all the gourmet biscuits, educational toys and $70 dog sweaters lavished on them. (Perhaps because of that treatment, others argue.) Enrollment in obedience classes is escalating, veterinarians are seeing an increasing demand for help with behavior problems, and ratings for ''Dog Whisperer,'' the National Geographic Channel's dog-behavior program, are rising. Figuring out how to make the dog mind, it seems, has become a national obsession.

The problem, some dog experts suspect, is not that there are more bad dogs, only more demanding owners. People expect their dogs to cooperate with their busier lives -- to behave at cocktail parties, at real estate open houses and in cafes and shops -- and to respect their better-appointed homes. And in a culture that values achievement and excellence, they readily assume that dogs value the same things, especially when there are obstacle courses to master and social graces to display.

Some dog experts wonder whether the focus on behavior is the best thing for the dog or just the latest form of self-help for people: with their furniture, their clothes and their cooking skills already up to snuff, the only way to make their lives better now is by improving the dog.

''This is the generation that invented the gifted and talented kid,'' said Jon Katz, the author of books on the human-dog relationship, ''so now you have the gifted and talented dog.''

Mr. Katz, who has written ''Katz on Dogs: A Commonsense Guide to Training and Living With Dogs'' (Villard, 2005) and ''The New Work of Dogs'' (Villard, 2003), which discusses the changing role of dogs from outdoor protectors and retrievers to indoor nurturers and soul mates, said there has been an explosion in the number of companion animals, almost a fivefold increase since the 1960's.

This increase, combined with many other social changes, Mr. Katz said, has brought about a revolution in the relationship between people and dogs. Dogs are now expected to play the role of the best friend, confidant or child, who can be taken everywhere, including the mall and a friend's house. ''Dogs are a blank canvas,'' Mr. Katz said. ''You can paint anything you want on them.''

Chris Hoffman and Ann Shih put Senshi, their American bulldog, through basic dog training, twice. Then, to socialize Senshi, they took her everywhere they could: shopping, the library, cafes. And the better socialized the dog became, the less they left her at home.

Mr. Hoffman, who works in Internet marketing in San Francisco, said Senshi is a bigger part of his life than the dogs of his childhood, dogs that would spend a lot of time in the backyard. ''We don't have a backyard, but if we did, she wouldn't spend much time there,'' he said. ''She's more a part of our family.''

Annie Teillon and her husband, Geoff, who live in Manhattan, found that formal training was vital for their two dogs -- a Lab and a golden retriever -- because they are so large and strong. ''I live in an apartment with my two dogs,'' Ms. Teillon said, ''and it is necessary for them to be very well behaved.''

The number of obedience classes nationwide is not known, in part because dog training is often an informal arrangement, ranging from one-time classes in a schoolyard to intensive home visits from doggy gurus. But many trainers say waiting lists for their classes are growing.

Andrea Arden, a dog trainer in Manhattan, and her staff give 18 dog training classes a week: 10 for puppies and 8 for adult dogs. Last Thursday morning Ms. Arden put a notice up on her Web site announcing three new agility classes, which train dogs to run obstacle courses by following commands like run, jump and weave. Since these are advanced courses and cost $350 for six weeks, she expected it would take weeks to fill the sessions, but they were fully subscribed in two hours. Later in the day she added another class, and it too was quickly booked.

Annette Rauch, a research assistant professor at the Center for Animals and Public Policy at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine of Tufts University in North Grafton, Mass., cited a survey of new pet owners that showed 75 percent wanted counseling on behavior, and 85 percent said they intended to participate in a training course. ''Over the past few decades there has been a larger push to train vets in behavior,'' she said. Behavior problems, she noted, are the leading reason people give their pets away.

''As we've seen an increase in the popularity of large breeds of dogs,'' Dr. Rauch said, ''we've seen an increase in the number of behavior problems.''

By far the most popular dog in the country for the last 16 years has been the Labrador retriever, which had 137,867 American Kennel Club registrations last year, more than twice as many as the second most popular dog, the golden retriever, which had 48,509.

Large dogs like these need more exercise than many owners realize. And if they don't get enough, they may chew the furniture or become aggressive.

Ms. Arden said small dogs present a different kind of trouble, which she calls small dog syndrome. Many owners (especially those who think of themselves as parents) treat their Yorkies and Chihuahuas like babies, she explained, and this leads to spoiling. Owners often fail to discipline small dogs when they relieve themselves on the carpet, for example. ''Because it was just a couple of drops, owners wipe it up and say, 'Oh he just didn't want to go outside and get his little feet all wet,' '' Ms. Arden said. If it was a Lab, she added, the owners wouldn't say the same.

The lack of discipline can lead to aggressive snapping, biting, barking and chewing, Ms. Arden said.

Pet owners tend to respond to bad behavior in two ways, said Prof. Nicholas Dodman, the director of the Animal Behavior Clinic at Cummings: by getting rid of the dog or by taking extreme measures to improve the behavior immediately.

Dr. Dodman cautioned owners to be patient, to maintain realistic expectations and to aim to control their dogs without shouting or violence.

Methods of training vary, but most favor rewards for good behavior over punishment for bad. Cesar Millan, who runs a dog psychology center in Los Angeles and is in his second season as the host of ''Dog Whisperer,'' calls for asserting dominance, so that the dog learns that the owner is the leader. Mr. Millan preaches that dogs need exercise, discipline and affection, in that order. He aims, he said, to create a balanced dog, but has drawn criticism for techniques like pinning a dog down or jerking on its leash.

Dr. Dodman said: ''My college thinks it is a travesty. We've written to National Geographic Channel and told them they have put dog training back 20 years.''

Mr. Millan's response: ''Some people don't like me. I know I'm doing good.''

Teoti Anderson, a dog trainer in Lexington, S.C., and the president of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, said owners often avoid obedience classes for fear that their dogs will not measure up to the others.

''They are so focused on their own dog acting like an idiot,'' she said, ''they don't notice everyone else is doing the same thing.''

Dog owners take consolation from Mr. Grogan's book. ''I am the spiritual leader of the bad dog owners of America,'' he said. ''I can't give people tips on how to be a better owner, but I can give them support that they are not alone.''

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

High Tech, Under the Skin

2006-08-07T12:57:00.000-04:00

February 2, 2006 Thursday
Thursday Style

By ANNA BAHNEY

WILLIAM DONELSON'S left hand gripped the paper-covered arm of an antique barber chair at a tattoo and piercing shop in Cambridge, Ontario. His feet bounced gently on the chrome footrest as he waited for his implant.

The piercer -- whose day is usually spent inserting rings into the eyebrows and navels of teenage girls -- snapped on purple latex gloves and lifted a four-millimeter-wide sterilized needle to Mr. Donelson's hand.

''I'm set,'' Mr. Donelson said with a deep breath. He watched as the needle pierced the fleshy webbing between his thumb and forefinger and a microchip was slid under his skin. At last he would be able to do what he had long imagined: enhance his body's powers through technology.

By inserting the chip, a radio frequency identification device, Mr. Donelson would literally have at his fingertips the same magic that makes security gates swing open with a swipe of a card, and bridge and tunnel traffic flow smoothly with an E-ZPass. With a wave of his hand he planned to log on to his computer, open doors and unlock his car.

Implanting the chip was a relatively simple procedure but highly symbolic to Mr. Donelson, a 21-year-old computer networking student so enthralled with the link between technology and the body that he has tattoos of data-input jacks running down his spine. They are an allusion to an imagined future when people might be plugged directly into computers. His new chip, complete with a miniature antenna and enclosed in a glass ampoule no bigger than a piece of long-grain rice, has a small memory where he has stored the words ''Embrace Technology.''

''People are already using their cellphones as an extension of their communication ability,'' Mr. Donelson said, indicating the wireless cellphone earpiece affixed to his ear. ''It is pretty much a part of you anyway.''

The difference between a device resting in one's ear and inside the body is ''a pretty small step,'' he said.

Mr. Donelson and three friends, who had driven 100 miles from their homes in Lockport, N.Y., to have the implants inserted by a piercer, Jesse Villemaire, whom they had persuaded to do the work, are part of a small group, about 30 people around the world, who have independently inserted radio frequency identification chips, known as RFID tags, into their bodies, according to Web-based forums devoted to what participants call getting tagged.

The tiny silicone chips, which for years have been safely implanted in pets and livestock to identify their owners, come with an encoded string of numbers. (Some chips have a small amount of memory that can be updated.) They are read by a scanner two to four inches away, much like a bar code except the chips don't need to be visible to be read.

Digital visionaries have long foreseen a future when people and computers merge. In most cases the convergence is imagined as a nightmare, as in ''Blade Runner'' or the ''Matrix'' movies. But Mr. Donelson is part of a pro-convergence camp that points out the future is closer than many people imagine, and argues it is not nearly so threatening.

Digital products people use every day are becoming more integral to the human body, they note. Cameras, storage drives and MP3 players are designed with mirrored surfaces or crystals to make them more attractive to wear as necklaces and pendants. Bluetooth wireless technology enables jackets and sunglasses to double as electronic devices, and a new cellphone earpiece, the Motorola H5 Miniblue, sits inside the ear almost like a hearing aid.

People who feel naked without their cellphones, who carry around a set of keys with storage devices like flash drives that contain their digital life, who have their entire music collection on an iPod, have already created an information envelope around themselves, said Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, a research director at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Calif.

''They are living a life in which they have a symbiotic relationship with communication technologies that are as familiar a part of the body as braces or glasses,'' Mr. Pang said. ''For these people, the idea of putting an RFID tag in themselves is no stranger than putting in fillings.''

Implanting chips in people is not new. Some employees of the Mexican Ministry of Justice are implanted with chips that give them a fast track through their building's security, and a Barcelona dance club offered chips to V.I.P.'s.

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration gave approval in 2004 to a Florida company, Verichip, to implant RFID chips in people as a means to retrieve medical information. The information is not on the chip; it is in a computer database that hospitals gain access to by scanning patients who carry a chip beneath their skin. In the last three years, Verichip says, it has implanted more than 2,000 people around the world and 60 in the United States. Its chips are a proprietary technology and cost about $200 each.

''The physical reality of the chip in the body is no big deal,'' said Amal Graafstra, who in March 2005 became the first known person to independently have himself implanted with a chip by having a surgeon friend place it in his hand. ''But the symbolism of the tag is much more of a big deal as a social marker.''

Mr. Graafstra, along with Mr. Donelson and his friends, consider themselves part of an informal underground of implanters, self-styled ''midnight engineers'' who are dedicated to designing applications for their chips and exploring the philosophical implications. They buy cheap RFID chips on the Internet for as little as $2 and wire scanners to their computers, car doors and other devices to exploit the technology.

Mr. Graafstra, 29, the owner of a mobile technology company in Bellingham, Wash., has an implant in each hand, which he uses to get in the front door of his home, unlock his computer and occasionally get into his car. He has written a book, ''RFID Toys: 11 Cool Projects for Home, Office and Entertainment,'' to be published this month by Wiley.

His girlfriend, Jennifer Tomblin, a 23-year-old marketing student, thought Mr. Graafstra's hobby was odd at first. But over time she became convinced of their usefulness. She got an implant in December.

''I like not having to fumble for keys when I'm coming in with groceries and everything, you just lean up against the door, and it opens,'' she said.

Certainly RFID implants have their detractors.

''We have to look down the road and think more than about how cool it is today,'' said Liz McIntyre co-author of ''Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID.''

''We have to look at how it may be ushering in a society in which we are all numbered in the future,'' she said. ''Maybe stores would require us to scan our hands or an insurance company says unless you have this chip we can't insure you.''

Other objections to implanting chips include the safety of procedures done in nonmedical settings.

Some doctors have done the procedures in people's homes, and others have implanted chips in their offices after patients signed forms acknowledging that long-term studies have not been done on their safety. Piercers treat the implants much like any other procedure, instructing people to keep the site dry to avoid infection and advising them that swelling and redness should last a week.

On Web forums some people profess to have implanted themselves with an injector gun used for animals, but the consensus among others is that doing so is dangerous.

Christian Rigby, 31, who runs a Internet forum for people independently ''tagged'' (tagged.kaos.gen.nz) describes the forum as a resource for those interested in sharing experiences and technology. ''You get to be a part of a leading technology which is, at the heart of it, what all geeks really want to do,'' he said.

The circle may be widening as implants intrigue a growing number of people. Mr. Rigby's Internet forum had 2,278 hits in December. As of mid-January, it had 1.1 million for the month.

Another spur to recent interest is a video posted on the Internet (www.electric-clothing.com/chipped.html) by Mikey Sklar of his implant procedure in November, performed by a surgeon friend in New York City. Mr. Sklar, 28, formerly a Unix engineer at an investment bank, said that because the hardware is relatively inexpensive, small and technical, college students will pick it up. ''Freshman students will modify their dorms with RFID readers,'' he predicted. ''That's where the growth is going to be.''

At least one supplier of RFID chips, Matt Trossen, owner of PhidgetsUSA in Westchester, Ill., is skeptical about the ultimate appeal of implants. ''Think about how many people have never gotten their ears pierced,'' he said. ''A lot of people just don't want to stick themselves.''

Mr. Trossen sells his chips to people who use them for education and robotics and his Web site includes a disclaimer stating that the company does not advise consumers to implant them in humans or animals because the tags are not sold as medical products and are not sanitized.

He said that one could use an RFID chip just as easily for turning on computers and opening doors by putting it on a key chain or card. Although he could see a day when society would deem it acceptable for babies to be tagged at birth with chips bearing their Social Security number, now the technology for making the chips useful for home applications is beyond most people's reach.

''For a kid to say, 'Mom and Dad I need this implant,' '' Mr. Trossen said, ''it would be like me running out and buying an atom collider. It is a nice conversation piece, but I can't really use it.''

The Telltale Party

2006-08-07T12:55:00.000-04:00

December 25, 2005 Sunday
Real Estate

By ANNA BAHNEY

MOST people don't like to think about their real estate broker throwing back drinks and gyrating on a dance floor to ''It's Raining Men.'' But like the holiday party, it happens once a year, ready or not.

For a buyer or seller looking to discover what a firm values, its demographic, its ''personality'' (let alone its quotient for fun), much can be gleaned from the annual holiday party. While the success of the soiree is no indication of whether these real estate professionals can close a deal, the parties do give an indication of how the company may treat clients based on how they treat one another -- and themselves.

Some are over the top, like the $100,000 party given by Prudential Douglas Elliman, at which more than 1,000 guests stormed the Four Seasons 10 days ago. Others were intimate affairs at a broker's home, a traditional dinner party at a private club or a laid-back hangout session at a downtown lounge not yet open to the public. Still others involved draining mozzarella and singing drag queens -- although not at the same time or place.

Bellmarc Realty

Bellmarc was the early entrant, kicking the season off on Nov. 29 with a by-the-book holiday party at a TriBeCa party space, complete with holly-themed name tags.

A buffet dinner featured four kinds of pasta, baked chicken, filleted fish, carved roast beef or turkey. Dancing followed, heavy on Motown and ebullient wedding favorites like Kool and the Gang's ''Celebration'' and Aretha Franklin's ''Respect.''

This was a festive affair, not too showy, not too stingy.

And not surprising, because Bellmarc is a ''just right'' kind of company. With about 220 agents, it is squarely in the middle of the 10 largest companies. The agents tend to be older, ranging from about 30 to 70, many on their second or third career.

Most of the agents have accents that leave no doubt they grew up in New Jersey, Long Island, Manhattan or Queens -- like the owners of the firm, Neil Binder and Marc Broxmeyer.

People whispered that the party was held so early in the season because it was cheaper to rent the space.

But by the looks of the dance floor at TriBeCa Rooftop, awash in bodies swaying, shaking and twisting, no one thought it was a bad deal.

Gumley Haft Kleier

On Dec. 7, Michele Kleier, who co-owns and co-manages the boutique firm Gumley Haft Kleier with her husband, Ian, was host to a cocktail party for 40 people at the nine-room Park Avenue prewar apartment where they have lived for the last 25 years.

A beaming Mrs. Kleier greeted guests in the foyer flanked by her two smiling daughters -- and vice presidents at the firm -- Sabrina Kleier Morgenstern and Samantha Kleier Forbes. Each of the three held one of the family's Maltese dogs -- Lola, Roxy and Dolly -- bedecked in red and green collars.

There was a lot of cheek kissing and puppy nuzzling.

It felt more like a book party than a holiday event (and not just because the three Kleier women are writing a book about being a family-run David against the consolidated Goliath firms). The parlor and living room were filled with chic-looking middle-aged agents and their spouses. There were some younger brokers looking like Junior Leaguers and some real estate reporters happily munching food.

Partygoers sipped wine and ate chocolate-dipped clementines and cheesy jalapenos on tiny biscuits as Billy Joel and Frankie Valli played on the sound system.

Just as one would expect at a party held amid Kleier photographs, family and friendships are central to the company. They are the company. Ms. Kleier has been in real estate for 27 years, and in addition to having her daughters close, many of the brokers are old friends.

Brown Harris Stevens and Halstead

Brown Harris Stevens's annual party was held on Dec. 7 at Au Bar, a velvet-roped celebrity magnet in Midtown off Park Avenue, which reflected the company's idiosyncratic mix of the traditional and the trendy.

While there are agents at Brown Harris Stevens who have developed long relationships with prominent New York families, there are also young brokers who handle newer clients. Everyone's clients share one trait: wealth.

In a parlorlike party space, where several courses of food were served, including sushi, pastas, salmon and desserts, the younger agents gravitated to a dance floor with music ranging from rock to rap.

Expressly for the firm, and not for spouses or guests, the party was also attended by some principals of the parent company, Terra Holdings, including members of the Zeckendorf family.

Halstead, also owned by Terra, had a very similar party, held at the same place on a different night. Just a little bit later, for a crowd just a little bit younger.

Warburg Realty

Each Warburg agent donned a red apron on arrival at the Tuscan Square restaurant in Rockefeller Center on Dec. 12. They were assigned a culinary station -- fish, meatballs, mozzarella, tiramisu -- and worked with one of 10 chefs to learn how to prepare the dish for the dinner.

The party was in keeping with the creative and academic background of Warburg. Its president, Frederick Peters, has a master's degree in music from Queens College and went to Yale as an undergraduate. He likes to keep the firm ahead of similar-sized ones, and Warburg was the first to open a luxury property office in Harlem.

Jane Bayard, a vice president there who was charged with creating the party, said that she tries to come up with a new idea each year for the company's 150 agents.

''We're not a mega-giant, so we can have a warmer atmosphere,'' Ms. Bayard said. The best part, she said, was that ''we weren't talking real estate all night.''

Citi Habitats

The soiree for about 1,000 was held at the enormous and ornate Cipriani Wall Street. With a supper club theme, it felt more like a senior prom than an office holiday party.

The decoration committee did some impressive work with the palm-tree table-toppers with feathers for fronds and a silken trunk lit from within. There were hors d'oeuvres and a buffet dinner of sushi, shrimp, pasta, salad and grilled beef.

Gaggles of young women wore strapless, backless or deeply plunging formal dresses in all manner of black, red and sequin. The men, who also came in packs, were no slouches either, wearing velvet pinstriped blazers and black suits.

Professional swing dancers performed to ''Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,'' inspiring some flirty shimmying by agents on the dance floor, before the band retreated to dance fare with a cover of Madonna's ''Holiday.''

A projection screen above the stage flashed pictures of those overachievers who made the real estate equivalent of the honor roll, earning the ''Top Sales Agent'' and ''Top Rental Agent'' titles. There were pictures of the company's extracurricular activities like team sports and service projects. It was shown without the accompanying misty-eyed Alphaville version of ''Forever Young'' playing in the background. Which is unfortunate because Citi Habitats is forever young, made up of a seemingly endless supply of new agents, and the turnover is high.

Agents tend to be in their late 20's or early 30's, which speaks to attracting the young people that are the firm's bread and butter. For many people arriving in New York fresh from college, Citi Habitats is their introduction to Manhattan real estate.

Stribling & Associates

Elizabeth Stribling loves throwing a party, and like the firm that bears her name she does so with a strong sense of tradition.

It is held each year at the same Upper East Side private club. There are cocktails and a buffet dinner. For the last five years, the event has been decorated by Renny Reynolds, a Park Avenue-based designer who has created spectacular spaces through flowers from Studio 54 to the White House.

This year the party took a Caribbean island theme, with oodles of orchids, parasols, pretend iguanas and lanterns with printed birds. Sheer fabric was hung across the room, giving it what Mrs. Stribling called a ''warm magic carpet feel.''

''It demonstrates her personal style,'' said Kirk Henckels, the director of Stribling Private Brokerage. ''I would never use the word 'classy'; I would say classic.''

Mrs. Stribling personally greeted the agents and staff members who arrived with their significant others. Some of the firm's 200 agents come from prominent Upper East Side families with educations from schools like Chapin and colleges like Smith and Vassar, while others are from Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Paris; London; and South Africa.

''People said I looked like a snowflake,'' Mrs. Stribling said, describing her glittering white gown with lace and silver sequins that was made for her by Pilar Rossi.

Dwelling Quest

The Dwelling Quest identity -- a hip, independent, boutique firm -- could be read in the party's invitation, which was a slick e-vite with stylized pictures of candy canes and a red drink in a martini glass. The firm has 80 agents spread out over three locations, in Midtown, Harlem and Brooklyn, but the sensibility of the firm, as well as the location of the party, is very downtown.

It partied in a new cafe in west SoHo called Giorgione 508 (owned by Giorgio DeLuca, co-founder of Dean & DeLuca), which would not be open to the public until a week after the party. The vibe was low-key hangout, with the men in dressy open-collared shirts and the women in clingy knitwear as music by the Killers, the White Stripes and Moby played.

Since the company is growing -- both the Brooklyn and Harlem offices opened this year -- Daren W. Hornig, its chief executive, said planning a party is a delicate balance.

''If you do too much,'' Mr. Hornig said, ''people say, 'Why did you spend so much money on one night when you could have put it back into infrastructure?' If you do too little, people say, 'You don't appreciate us?' ''

JC DeNiro & Associates

From the mountain of coats piling up in front of the quickly fogging windows, to the scented candles set on filing cabinets and the wrought-iron decorative pieces bedecked with garlands and tinsel, this party had the welcoming effects of coming into someone's home.

But it was held in the JC DeNiro & Associates' office at Ninth Avenue and 21st Street in a storefront designed by Christopher Mathieson, the managing partner of the company, with the attention many give to their own homes.

Without the budget for a big flashy party, this firm used its people and its creativity to pull together an elaborate and attractive party.

The catering crew handily balanced convection ovens on top of desks and put glass Pyrex pans on top of printers, setting up their kitchen in a raised and open office space in the back. Another open office became a stage where a D.J. set up his gear, playing high energy club music and tracks from the new Madonna album. Throughout the evening two drag performers, Sherry Vine and Hedda Lettuce, tag-teamed the stage for stand up and singing.

The agents, who seemed to be friends as much as colleagues, mingled amid the festive wrapping-paper detritus of a secret-Santa celebration. They were invited to bring whomever they wanted -- friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses, parents -- and each category was represented.

Prudential Douglas Elliman

By 9:30 p.m., the doorman at the 52nd Street entrance to the Four Seasons had abandoned his duties to Julian Niccolini, an owner of the restaurant. Mr. Niccolini announced to the two dozen unhappy guests jammed into the vestibule with their fur coats that it would be a half hour wait.

For those fortunate or patient enough to get inside, the party was on corporate holiday overdrive. Hundreds of men in charcoal suits lifted glasses and screamed over the music at hundreds of women in formal gowns, cocktail dresses and pantsuits. Suits slid past, the guests with plates of lobster and curry in one hand, a cellphone in the other, trying to make their way through the sprawling venue.

Everything about the party said big -- the venue, the band, the buffet; the personalities, the crowd, the noise. And that was fitting, because the company is among the top in the city in terms of numbers of agents.

In Manhattan, the ''big 10'' firms are more like a fuzzy 11 or 12, with the companies changing rankings depending on the measurement, and who is measuring.

Typically, firms floating around the top include Prudential Douglas Elliman, the Corcoran Group, Halstead Properties, Brown Harris Stevens, Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy, Bellmarc Realty, Stribling & Associates, Warburg Realty, Fenwick-Keats, Citi Habitats, Sotheby's International Realty and Manhattan Apartments.

A study done by the trade publication the Real Deal last April showed how they ranked in various categories. At that time it was Corcoran for the highest dollar sum in total listings ($2.79 billion), Sotheby's for highest median price per listing ($5.09 million) and Fenwick-Keats with the highest percentage of brokers without listings (63.1 percent). Douglas Elliman had the highest number of listings and the most brokers.

Last year, Gloria Gaynor performed at the Douglas Elliman party. This year the hired band performed Ms. Gaynor's signature song, ''I Will Survive.'' But the dance floor hit its peak during a cover of Bon Jovi's ''Living on a Prayer.'' Perhaps a telling shift in the market place?

Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy, the Corcoran Group, Manhattan Apartments

These three firms are having their holiday party in January, a trend started by Corcoran a decade ago because the holidays are too heavy with competition for people's attention. Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy will have a different kind of party this year, a black-tie event with dinner and dancing at the Doubles Club at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel.

Manhattan Apartments, which seems to be trying to keep up with everyone else, doesn't know what kind of party it is going to have, but it will have one, it promised, on Jan. 11.

Corcoran will take over Cipriani Wall Street on Jan. 10 with a ''God and Goddess'' party. The party, which will include models in period costume, also reflects the company's inherent competitive spirit.

''Every year they try to outdo themselves,'' said Lara Berdine, vice president of public relations. ''The agents have pretty high expectations.''

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

The Tricks Of the Trade In Coping With Slower Sales

2006-08-07T12:54:00.000-04:00

December 11, 2005 Sunday
Real Estate

By ANNA BAHNEY

WAITING for an apartment to sell is surprisingly vexing, and the wait is growing longer. In Manhattan, properties are taking a month longer to sell than they did a year ago at this time, 133 days on average, according to third-quarter data from the appraisal and consulting firm Miller Samuel. As agonizingly long as that may sound to a seller, it is still within the norm for the last 20 years, which was 120 to 150 days.

Dottie Herman, chief executive of Prudential Douglas Elliman, said that for buyers and sellers, the current market feels like being on an expressway going 100 miles an hour and suddenly dropping to the speed limit when a state trooper appears. ''Now the speed limit feels like you're not even driving, it feels so slow,'' she said. ''But it is a healthy pace.''

Still, while brokers have begun to bring back the time-honored tactic of offering incentives and gifts to increase interest in their sluggish listings, and restless owners are scrambling to have their underachieving apartments staged for sale, the most critical indicator of time on the market is the most obvious: the price.

An apartment needs a price adjustment, according to Jonathan J. Miller, president of Miller Samuel, if it has been on the market at its current price longer than the average selling time. The current problem in the market, Mr. Miller said, is a spread between list price and actual value.

''When you have market conditions that change, quite often there is a delayed reaction time for sellers, of two to three quarters, after the actual change,'' he said.

''If things stay subdued for the next couple of quarters, you're going to see sellers getting the message next spring or summer.''

The wild card, in this scenario, is the annual Wall Street bonus money. Typically infused into the real estate economy during the first and second quarter, this money may reduce the average time on the market and increase prices because it will create greater demand at the beginning of next year.

Sometimes price is only a part of a larger collection of issues -- ranging from furnishing an empty apartment to firing an ineffective broker.

Christine Graifman realized a month and a half into a three-month exclusive agreement with her agent that her two-bedroom co-op was getting overlooked, in part because of a less-than-impressive appearance on the brokerage firm's Web site.

''There was only one photograph of the exterior of the building and an outdated floor plan,'' Ms. Graifman said, and it vaguely referred to a Carnegie Hill location when it could have trumpeted its location on Museum Mile.

''The apartment was empty and I felt like staging would be helpful,'' she said. ''I suggested that to the broker, but he was against it, saying it would cost too much and take too long.''

Her agent's solution to the lack of traffic and a single -- very low -- offer was to cut the price. Again and again.

It went on the market in October 2004 at $925,000 and was cut to $915,000 before landing at $899,000. After three months she did not renew the agent's contract.

When Ms. Graifman had Andrew Phillips and Amelia S. Gewirtz, both senior vice presidents and agents at Halstead Property, look at it, they thought it was not just a good apartment but a great apartment. It did not need a price cut, they decided, but some furniture, marketing and a price increase.

Three weeks and $3,000 later the empty apartment was filled with rental furniture as well as accents like coffee-table books and candlesticks pulled from the agents' own homes. They put the apartment back on the market in March for $1.05 million and received three offers the first week, including the one the owner accepted, an all-cash bid at the asking price.

For sellers who feel that their apartment is accurately priced, Mr. Phillips suggested thinking like a buyer. By going to look at other apartments in the same area and price range, owners can gauge how their apartment measures up.

Another thing to remember is to pick the most suitable season for the apartment.

''If you're not crazed to sell something with great outdoor space you might as well wait until the spring and put it on in March or April,'' Mr. Phillips said. ''You might sell it before that, but not at full value.''

Ground-floor apartments that are dark, he said, should be put on the market in the warmer months when the sun is higher and comes in directly, while an apartment with a partial river view should go on in the winter, when there are no leaves on the trees.

And in general, Mr. Phillips said, during the summer, ''if it is over $1 million, those buyers tend to be thinking about the beach or the mountains, not the city.''

Many sellers, restless and wanting to feel as if they are doing something, hire a stylist to stage their apartment for sale.

Ellen Reilly, 70, an artist, has had only fair to middling interest in her two-bedroom Upper East Side apartment since putting it on the market in July. Although her agent, Katherine Slattery, a senior vice president with the Corcoran Group, did not think the apartment needed staging, she put Ms. Reilly, who wanted to be proactive, in touch with Barbara Brock, a home stager based in Manhattan.

Ms. Reilly was advised by Ms. Brock to remove several paintings that were at eye level to create more blank wall space. ''We just left three little pictures over the sofa,'' Ms. Reilly said. A table and little pine sideboard in the bedroom were removed, creating more space, and 90 percent of the books were put into storage.

''It looks clean and fresh and welcoming,'' Ms. Reilly said of her staged home. ''It looks livable but without my personality.''

Whether this will help her find a buyer (or simply helps her to feel more involved) is unclear, but the first showings after it was staged have been positive, Ms. Slattery said. One couple expressed relief at the serenity of the space. ''I hadn't had that happen before,'' Ms. Slattery said.

Brokers, meanwhile, have their hands full getting clients and other agents to view properties. Last Wednesday, Dolly Lenz, an executive vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman, and her colleague, Sandy Papale, a senior vice president, held a ''Women in Showbiz'' panel discussion for Variety and New York Women in Film and Television at an $18.5 million town house at 37 Beekman Place. The month before, Ms. Lenz also had an event for Yves Saint Laurent and Bergdorf Goodman at the penthouse of the Trump Park Avenue building, which she has listed for $31.5 million.

Ms. Herman said that these events are a way to attract a group of buyers who may not know they are in the market for a high end property.

''These are people who have something and stumble upon a property and realize that they love it,'' she said. ''They do not have a need for it, they want the lifestyle.''

Even brokers for new construction are providing incentives. Rob Gross, a senior vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman, recently offered a Vespa motor scooter to the buyers and their agents for the last seven units at a luxury condominium he is marketing on Attorney Street on the Lower East Side. ''Brokers and developers are spending more money than before to accelerate the process,'' he said.

Sometimes, the inducements brokers use need to be addressed to a power greater than clients or even other brokers.

When a beautifully renovated apartment at 80th Street and Madison Avenue lingered on the market earlier this year, Katie Rosenberg, an agent with Warburg Realty, decided to try the St. Joseph approach.

This custom involves burying a statue of the saint to hasten the sale. Ms. Rosenberg recalled phoning her client and telling her, ''I know we're both Jewish, but I'm taking St. Joseph in there.''

The Manhattan version of this custom, Ms. Rosenberg said, requires leaving a statue of the saint in its plastic wrapping and wedging it into a house plant.

A couple of days later, however, the plant was all but dead. ''I thought, 'Oh no! St. Joseph has done his work on the plant,' '' Ms. Rosenberg said. ''He's gotten rid of the plant, not the apartment.''

She watered it, and the plant came back to life. The next day the apartment sold.

''I think owners, unless they have no sense of humor, are open to it,'' Ms. Rosenberg said, adding, ''I've got another place in mind to take him next.''

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

STILL ON THE MARKET

2006-08-07T12:52:00.000-04:00

October 16, 2005 Sunday
Real Estate

By ANNA BAHNEY

WHAT do Jack Welch, the former chairman of General Electric, and Britney Spears, the former princess of pop, have in common? Both have real estate that will not sell.

Those who watch the market know that there are some listings that languish on the market for months, even years. Mr. Welch's 1985 seven-bedroom Georgian-style manor in Fairfield, Conn., has been on the market off and on for three years, after starting at $13 million. Last March, the price was lowered to $9.5 million as listed with the local broker Rick Higgins of the Higgins Group, who represented the seller at the time but no longer does.

''I was surprised it didn't sell,'' Mr. Higgins said.

But the house is 20 years old, he said, and he suggested that buyers in that price range might be looking for newer details. The house is now listed with William Raveis Real Estate for $8.4 million.

Ms. Spears's 4,400-square-foot, four-level condo at East Fourth Street and Broadway was reduced from $5.25 million to $4.995 million in March, and there it has remained.

That was a pretty modest cut. Laffey Associates of Greenvale took a different approach with the estate of Alan King, the deceased comedian, when selling his property in Kings Point on Long Island. It cut the price nearly in half.

Mr. King's house, a 6,457-square-foot Tudor built by Oscar Hammerstein II in 1926, with five bedrooms, eight bathrooms, a guest house, a pool and a tennis court on 2.38 acres with 800 feet of shoreline, went on the market for $22 million in June 2004. By August the price was $16.5 million, and after 34 more days on the market the property sold for $12.75 million.

All three of these properties, as well as 346 others in New York and surrounding areas, were included in the ''On the Market'' column in the last 15 months.

By returning to the agents, buyers and sellers involved with some of the properties that were in the column, we followed up on what didn't sell and why.

Certainly the vast majority sold, and quickly, too, especially at the beginning of 2005. Luxury properties tend to spend a longer time on the market, and with recent reports from brokerages about the third-quarter results, there are indications that the time may be stretching.

More difficult to explain was the unlucky fate of the $477,000 fifth-floor walk-up in the West Village, the viewless two-bedroom co-op in Washington Heights, and the $275,000 income-restricted apartment in Harlem. Why do they sit on the market?

Some say brokers price properties too high.

''They kind of pig out,'' said Leslie Lalehzar, an associate broker and managing director at Warburg Realty Partnership. ''They think it is going to sell higher, but it just lingers.''

Others in the industry say properties languish because of a stalemate between the buyers and sellers. ''The buyers are saying we are not willing to pay these prices,'' said Jacky Teplitzky, an executive vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman. ''The sellers are saying you are asking me to lower the price, but I see that if I compare it I am very well priced. My answer is everything is overpriced.''

For signature properties, the price may not change because the owners can wait for the market to come to them.

A four-bedroom modernist home in New Canaan, Conn., which has won awards from Architectural Record and is near other modern structures by Frank Lloyd Wright and Philip Johnson, sits on the market, more than a year later, still priced at $2.995 million.

In Brooklyn, a 20-room, Tara-like mansion in Prospect Park South has stalwartly moved from brokerage firm to brokerage firm over the last year carrying its $4 million price. That was the highest asking price the area has seen, and now it is even higher; the price has been raised to $4.2 million.

A new five-story, single-family town house in SoHo designed with antiques and salvaged objects from around the world is on the market for $6.9 million. That price is more than the $6.495 million it was listed at a year ago, but much less than the $8.9 million it was originally listed for in 2002.

A 3,100-square-foot co-op at East 72nd and Madison Avenue that had been renovated from a three-bedroom to a one-bedroom was included in the column on Dec. 26, 2004, at $7.975 million. After changing brokers, the seller is offering the option of buying two more bedrooms from an adjoining property, for $9.995 million, or as is for $7.85 million.

The list could go on.

Meanwhile, some high-end properties have had their prices reduced but are still waiting for buyers. On Seventh Avenue in Chelsea a custom-designed duplex penthouse with an atrium and translucent glass floors that allow light to filter through was priced at $7.5 million in May and is now listed at $5.9 million.

On the West Side, three noncontiguous apartments at the Hotel des Artistes, including a two-bedroom duplex with two separate studio apartments, was originally priced in July at $4.685 million. Now the agents are primarily marketing the duplex and its price has fallen $345,000, from $3.295 million to $2.95 million.

The repricing must come quickly enough so that the property is not relegated to the old-listing pile. That's what may have happened to a sprawling 2,500-square-foot four-bedroom, four-bath prewar co-op at 108th Street and Amsterdam Avenue that came on the market in February at $2.3 million and is still on the market eight months later at $500,000 less.

''When we went on the market in February, it was an insane, hugely active market,'' said Susan Abrams, an agent at Warburg Realty, who along with a colleague, Robert Elson, represents the apartment. ''We aggressively priced it.''

Had the apartment been listed at its current price in February, Ms. Abrams surmised, it most likely would have gone into a bidding war. But now, eight months later and priced at a low $719 per square foot, she fears that it looks too good to be true.

''I think buyers think there must be something wrong with it,'' she said. ''Instead of being happy it is such a deal, they think, 'there must be something they aren't telling me.' If you don't sell something, in this kind of market, in the first few months, brokers get lazy and buyers start thinking something's wrong.''

On the Lower East Side, another sprawling apartment of three combined units is in search of a large family. On Grand Street, in a Cooperative Village building, the seven-bedroom apartment went on the market last spring for $1.995 million.

Since May, the price has been reduced to $1.795 million, which is enticing for nearly 3,000 square feet -- only $598 a square foot. Recent market reports have said that the segment experiencing the steepest drop in price per square foot is large apartments.

To expand the pool of potential buyers, the agents, Florean Mader and Nathalie Jaggi of Halstead Property, are now also marketing the property as a five-bedroom (two apartments) for $1.15 million and a two-bedroom (one apartment) for $675,000.

Pricing becomes most flexible when buyers need to sell their properties to get another place to live.

Ross and Stacy Gibby planned to relocate to Los Angeles and put their two-bedroom prewar co-op on Riverside Drive in Washington Heights on the market in May 2004 with a broker who often had listings in the building. It was priced at $599,000.

''I resolved that we would get at least $500,000,'' Mr. Gibby said. ''I wanted to be conservative, so in L.A. we were only pursuing stuff in the high $400's, low $500's.'' The couple got on a list for a five-bedroom home to be built in a new development in Santa Clarita and watched as their name moved up.

The apartment in New York, however, did not move at all. After two months the price was cut to $555,000,then a month later reduced to $539,000. Still no offers.

By September, the Gibbys were beginning to get restless, seeing their broker sell similar apartments in the building for $100,000 less, and hired another broker.

''They came to me in desperation,'' said Felicia de Chabris of Halstead. ''They really needed to sell quickly.''

She wanted to drop the listing to $465,000 or $485,000 but cut it first to $495,000, based on comparable properties.

''It was a dramatic shock for them to be down $100,000 from where they started,'' Ms. de Chabris said. ''It made the listing look like it was all over the place.''

Offers glimmered, but fell through for one reason or another, as the price slash continued: three weeks later $485,000, a month later $465,000. By November it was $450,000.

They got an offer the first week of December and went to contract for $444,000.

''Every time she wanted to drop the price it hurt,'' Mr. Gibby said. He had to adjust his down payment in California from 20 percent to 10 percent and now carries higher payments than he would like. ''But that's what the market was telling us,'' he said. ''It came down to offers -- we just weren't getting offers.''

Price is an easy thing to fix compared with events out of the agent's and seller's control, like a collapsed retaining wall.

A 1,250-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bath co-op with Hudson River views in the Castle Village complex in Washington Heights that was on the market for $869,000 had an accepted offer within months. The contract was to be signed on May 12, the day the 75-foot-high stone retaining wall that belongs to Castle Village collapsed onto the Henry Hudson Parkway. The deal fell apart and the apartment is now listed with a different agent for the same price. The buildings continue to be structurally sound, and the co-op is dealing with insurance claims.

Co-op boards can also stymie a deal, leaving an attractive property dangling. A $477,000, two-bedroom, fifth-floor walk-up in the West Village was cute but had an obvious drawback: the stairs.

''A good hundred times I went up and down those stairs in the West Village showing that apartment,'' recalled Ms. Lalehzar, the Warburg agent who handled the sale, which took nearly a year.

The apartment, which was less than 500 square feet and had great light but needed some cosmetic updating, was listed in April 2004 at $495,000. By October it had been reduced, but was looking a little stale and got some attention when it was highlighted in both The New York Post and The New York Times on the same weekend. Open-house traffic increased and there was some interest, but no takers.

Finally, on Dec. 23, after nine months on the market, the seller accepted a bid that was $30,000 under the asking price and went to contract for $445,000.

Then, in March, the co-op board turned down the buyer.

''It was so sad for me, let alone the owner,'' Ms. Lalehzar said. The tender consolation of the turndown, Ms. Lalehzar said, was that she felt the galloping pace of the market after the first of the year would bring renewed vigor to the listing. She felt so confident she put it back on the market at the higher price, $495,000.

''We had just missed the market in 2004,'' she said. ''I knew the pulse of this market and in March of 2005 I knew we were hitting the best time of the market.''

As if the past year of toil had never existed, Ms. Lalehzar had a signed contract at the asking price within a month.

Less happy is the owner of an income-restricted co-op in Harlem whose two-bedroom apartment has been on and off the market for a year, starting at $275,000 and increasing it to $330,000. Buyers must make less than $72,500 a year, and offers have been strong, but the building will not release the financial information of the co-op, leaving the seller in limbo.

Still, moments of frenzy do punctuate the market, even this fall, suggesting that demand for appropriately priced properties is still strong.

Last month, Julia Klise and her husband, Joe Augustine, sold their two-bedroom, two-bath co-op in Brooklyn Heights in just under two weeks. It appeared in the column on Sept. 11, the day it went on the market for $699,000. They had 300 people at their open houses that week and an accepted offer above the asking price 10 days later.

The broker who nailed the price and managed to generate a buzz about the co-op?

It was for sale by owner.

Last spring, Ms. Klise said, she received estimates from two agents who told her if she was lucky she could get more than $700,000. She wanted to get a good price and not drag it out.

''I thought prices had gone up since then,'' she said, ''but I didn't think that things were selling at those prices.''

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

The Very First Time

2006-08-07T12:51:00.000-04:00

September 4, 2005 Sunday
Real Estate

By ANNA BAHNEY

HOW do people do it? Or rather, how do people who have not been given a trust fund or a condo for graduation do it?

For people at the bottom of the property ladder, it is sobering to try to enter the real estate market in New York, where the average price of an apartment, $1.3 million, is up 30 percent from the same quarter last year. Even the median, $775,000, is up 24 percent, according to Miller Samuel, a real estate appraisal firm. In lower price ranges, first-time buyers find themselves competing against empty-nesters and investors for what used to be known as ''starter'' apartments.

In interviews with five recent first-time buyers, from various situations and at separate stages of the purchase process, several recurring and overlapping themes appeared. Buying takes a little hard work and a lot of old-fashioned savings. It helps to have an eye for investments and openness to small gifts. Also it doesn't hurt to compromise and, as E.B. White wrote in ''Here Is New York,'' have a ''willingness to be lucky.''

The Lucky One

Ten years ago, when Heather Zeller, now 32, rented a triplex apartment on East 26th Street in Manhattan, her landlady mentioned that she eventually wanted to sell it. Ms. Zeller realized she might be able to buy the co-op, if she was prepared.

''It became a race against the clock,'' Ms. Zeller said. ''She could call at any time and say, 'I'm ready to sell.'''

Every August the owner raised the rent by $100 (starting at $1,300 in 1995). During each annual discussion Ms. Zeller assured her landlady she still wanted to buy the apartment, but she didn't have the money yet. Although the apartment faced the back of the building and didn't get much light, Ms. Zeller never considered buying other apartments, seduced as she was by this one's charms: the three separate levels, the fireplace and the plush aquamarine bedroom carpeting she was able to install.

Five years passed while Ms. Zeller crawled out of credit card debt, paid off her college loans and moved up to a well-paying job in record label marketing. She took another job and always had a roommate in her one-bedroom apartment by sacrificing her living room.

After paying off her debt, she began socking away $1,000 a month by placing herself on a very tight budget. If her friends were going out for dinner, she'd have food at home and meet them for drinks. She avoided clubs, clamped down on travel and put off upgrading her furniture. Eventually, she had $10,000 to put into mutual funds and continued saving toward a goal of $30,000, even though she knew that would still fall short.

Finally, last January, the call came. The owner would sell the apartment to Ms. Zeller for $350,000.

Unfortunately, as Ms. Zeller had feared, she did not have 20 percent of the purchase price, or $70,000, for a down payment that the building required. But it wasn't as if she hadn't made an effort -- she did have 10 percent.

She decided her luck was not going to stop at getting a direct sale from her landlady; she also wanted to win over the co-op board with an appeal that traded on her model tenancy and willingness to put six months of maintenance in escrow, in return for a purchase with only 10 percent down.

To her amazement, her landlady and the co-op agreed. The final price was settled at $352,500, the apartment was appraised for $425,000 and she put $32,500 down. (The board did not require her to put away six months' maintenance, about $6,000.)

Ms. Zeller, who now works in marketing for a magazine, borrowed $20,000 from her 401(k), which went toward her fees of nearly $15,000. She had planned on borrowing against it, or using what she has in her fund as leverage for a separate loan that has interest but is not taxed as income. Because the 401(k) had been set up by a company where she no longer worked, she couldn't. She had to take money from it. Come tax time, she estimated, because of this maneuver she will owe about $7,000 in income tax and have to pay an early withdrawal penalty of $2,000.

''I will get killed in taxes next year,'' Ms. Zeller said.

Sitting at the table during her closing with manila folders bursting with copies of e-mail messages and letters and signing animal print checks, she noticed with alarm an inaccurate interest rate on her agreement with the bank.

Her closing had been delayed past the life of the rate on her interest-only loan and she had been trying to contact her mortgage broker all week to find out how much she would have to pay to extend her rate of 5.5 percent.

Ms. Zeller immediately got on her phone and tracked down the officer, who said she would have to decide between paying $1,200 to extend her rate or take the new rate at 5.625 percent, which would have meant paying $30 more a month or $360 more a year. Suddenly, $1,200 not in her budget stood between her and her apartment.

After several phone calls with her loan officer, the fee was reduced to $762, and the sale closed.

Ms. Zeller acknowledged that it would have been easier if her parents, who had left Staten Island, where she grew up, and now live separately in North Carolina and Florida, could have helped her, but they weren't in that situation.

''Having done this myself it feels 1,000 times more rewarding,'' she said. ''This is the biggest thing I've ever done.''

She plans renovations and wants new furniture, so she'll keep a roommate for six months. But she will also keep the rent.

The Hard Worker

Where do you start if you don't live in the apartment already?

Renee Butler-Maslikhov, an agent with the Corcoran Group, suggests serious buyers begin by getting a credit report, contacting a lawyer and meeting with a mortgage lender for a preapproval. ''Otherwise, you are window-shopping,'' Mrs. Butler-Maslikhov said. ''You see stuff you love, but you don't know if you can afford it and you don't know how to get it.''

She began working with Jason Scott, 29, more than a year ago, when he didn't know much about real estate except that, intuitively, he should buy it.

''I'm in an industry with a lot of musicians and hip-hop artists,'' said Mr. Scott, who is a broadcast graphic designer for MTV and other networks. ''I wanted to get the cars, the clothes and stuff, but realistically I knew it was more important to get the house first.''

For two years he saved, first by living with his mother in the South Bronx for six months, then by moving with his girlfriend to Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where his monthly rent was only $650. All the while, he worked as many as three jobs.

Last fall, he felt ready. ''I have the money now; the government is taking a chunk of it,'' he recalled thinking. ''I'm hating where I live. I'm going to get out of here.''

He contemplated buying a brownstone in Bedford Stuyvesant, but decided he wanted more amenities and set his sights on new construction condos in Dumbo, Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights and downtown Brooklyn. After looking at more than 50 apartments he was struck by a two-bedroom, two-bath model near Brooklyn Bridge Boulevard in downtown Brooklyn. It was $620,000 and required only 10 percent down, but to lower his monthly payments he put 20 percent down in August 2004.

He had to move fast to get the floor plan he wanted. ''I took a higher level because I knew that the higher you go, the better value you have,'' Mr. Scott said. ''I also got a two-bedroom, even though I don't need it, because of the investment and resale.''

Closing on the property was delayed several times, as is common with new construction, and he lost a 4 percent interest rate on his loan, and ended up with a rate of 5.25 percent.

Even when a buyer is not looking at new construction, the timing of the shelf life of a rate is vital. Beth Divney, a loan officer with Manhattan Mortgage, said the most important thing when working with first-time buyers is that they realize that a mortgage rate quotation is just a quotation until it is locked in, in writing.

Also, it eventually expires. ''If a rate is not locked in for a long enough time to close, it is nothing,'' she said. Finally, Mr. Scott moved in last April.

Now that he is familiar with the developer's work -- he is particularly fond of the generous size of the rooms and the radiant heat in the bathroom floors -- he is looking to buy another condo in a new building to rent out.

The Investors

Like Mr. Scott, Keri Resnick and David Kasdan, both 26, are part a new breed of first-time buyers: investors.

When Ms. Resnick, who works for the real estate sales firm Shvo Marketing, began handling Bryant Park Tower at West 39th Street and the Avenue of the Americas, she thought the condos were a wise investment.

''I always tried to save, but I never could,'' Ms. Resnick said. She did, however, receive a bonus that was burning a hole in her pocket. Still, her bonus did not a down payment make.

She called up the son of a colleague of her mother, Mr. Kasdan, who does small-scale real estate development in New Jersey, with a 50-50 proposition.

They each put in about $25,000, or half of the down payment for the 37th floor 500-square-foot one-bedroom that Ms. Resnick will live in while Mr. Kasdan continues to rent in Fort Lee, N.J. They hope to sell it for a profit in a few years, before the details of who owes whom money becomes too complicated or acrimonious.

''It is a creative way to invest in New York,'' Mr. Kasdan said. ''The building is in an area that is otherwise lacking in residential space and that was attractive to me.''

''Most renters are saying, 'I should have bought something five years ago,''' Ms. Resnick said. ''They shouldn't worry about the money, too much. There are many banks that will do 100 percent financing or 95 percent financing.''

The Compromisers

''We've recently refocused our search to Brooklyn,'' James Bachman said haltingly from the middle of an apartment search with his fiancee, Tiffany Handshoe. ''It is very painful.''

''My preference is not to go into a co-op,'' Mr. Bachman, an administrative director for the radiation oncology department at New York University cancer center, explained. ''My preference is to go condo in Manhattan. I'd like to have some nice stuff in a nice building and put down 10 percent.'' If resources were unlimited.

But they are not, which is why he and Ms. Handshoe, both 29, signed a contract a week later for a co-op in Brooklyn.

Not only did the couple, who met in a sixth-grade English class in Greenville, Ohio, compromise on the location, but they compromised on what they were willing to spend.

Granted, they both choked when they found out they were preapproved for $750,000.

''We were very uncomfortable with that,'' Mr. Bachman said. ''We talked about our lifestyle. We like being able to do things like entertain or go out of town and eat out at fun restaurants.''

Mr. Bachman said he was willing to go to $600,000, but Ms. Handshoe said she wanted payments that would leave them with something at the end of the month and her limit was $2,400.

''Tiff is more conservative than I am,'' Mr. Bachman said. ''We negotiated the comfort zone. Are we going to be staying home eating peanut butter and jelly and water every day because we got this beautiful apartment that we can afford, but we can't afford to do anything?''

With their agent, Paul Saran of Prudential Douglas Elliman, they crunched the numbers of what they could afford given a 10 percent down payment and very low carrying charges. They realized quickly they were Brooklyn bound, finding that some co-ops there required only 10 percent down and were surprised when they experienced their first heartbreak.

They put in a bid on a two-bedroom co-op in Park Slope with exposed brick, a fireplace and a bay window they thought suited their style, at a little over the $489,000 asking price. When the agent asked for best and final bids, they went a little higher. They came out as the backup bid.

''When we didn't get that one, it was crushing,'' Mr. Bachman said. ''We spent a few days sulking.''

But they went out the next Sunday and looked at more. They liked a duplex on Atlantic Avenue so much they put a bid on it the next day, and were accepted.

That Tuesday, Mr. Saran called and told Mr. Bachman and Ms. Handshoe there was a situation: they were the accepted offer on two apartments. The buyer for the two-bedroom with the fireplace had backed out and their backup offer had been accepted.

They, in turn, pulled out of the duplex and signed a contract on their first love.

The Gifted

Everyone wants to know how much they need.

''When people come to me with no money available to put down, I have to say, 'Call me in a year,''' said Amy Schulman, an agent at Corcoran. ''Or maybe they've been saving for two years and they've gotten somewhere and you have to tell them it is still not enough.''

Ms. Schulman, whose buyers are mostly looking at Manhattan co-ops, said that building requirements can be daunting.

In general, the co-ops require a 20 percent down payment and co-op boards want to see that a buyer has two years' worth of monthly payments in liquid assets after closing. For most co-op buildings, a buyer needs to have a 25 percent debt-to-income ratio.

What this means is that a person earning $10,000 a month (or a pretty significant $120,000 a year) can take on carrying costs, including mortgage and maintenance payments as well as any ongoing fees like school loans or car payments, of only $2,500 a month. What is more, after the 20 percent down payment and closing costs, this person needs to have two years' worth of $2,500 payments (or $60,000) available.

A search for apartments in Manhattan last week with combined carrying charges of less than $2,500 a month, given a $50,000 down payment, gleaned four one-bedrooms between $250,000 and $350,000 in Washington Heights and Inwood, a 425-square-foot studio on the Upper East Side and a 220-square-foot studio in Tudor City.

''As you can see,'' Ms. Schulman said, ''even people who make $100,000 a year can't get the apartment they want.''

That's why so many people need a company bonus or a family gift to get to the next level of purchasing power.

''With any first-time buyer, I start with, 'We need to prepare your parents that they might need to help out,''' said Judy Maysles, an agent with Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy.

''A down payment used to be $10,000, $20,000,'' she said. ''Buyers had saved $100,000 or $200,000 and had plenty left over. Now they are really wiping out their life savings to pay the 20 or 25 percent down. So I'm seeing a lot more parents helping with the down payment.''

The times that Deborah Siegel, 36, accepted help from her parents before she was married were tinged with ambivalence. As a writer and academic who works at a nonprofit organization, she had spent much of her 20's and early 30's in walk-up apartments with chipping paint and was happy to be where she was. After she was married, she and her husband shared a comfortable lifestyle.

When she and her husband separated last year, Ms. Siegel became interested in owning real estate. ''It became symbolic for me,'' she said.

She threw herself into research and found that she did not have enough money to get the kind of place that would make her feel as if she was moving forward and not back to chipped paint and walk-ups.

''My husband and I parted very amicably,'' Ms. Siegel said. ''We decided on a sum for the settlement that when added towhat I had saved would be enough for a down payment.''

Once she started down the path of co-op ownership, though, she realized that she would need even more in her bank account to be approved by the board. In addition, the building she happened to be smitten with required 25 percent down.

So her family stepped up.

''My parents aren't wealthy, but they are professional,'' she said. ''Because I'm an only child, there are no other kids' expenses, no other college tuitions. I am the fiduciary beneficiary of my family situation.''

Her down payment ended up being equally divided among savings, her divorce settlement and a gift from her parents and grandmother. The gift overflowed to the monthly payments she needed to have available.

''I feel like I've been able to negotiate a relationship with my parents where it is O.K. to accept their help,'' Ms. Siegel said.

With a job at a national women's research organization and two book contracts (one is about being an only child), she said she thought she had proved that she can be financially solvent. ''New York is expensive, but it is where I want to live and be a do-gooder and work at nonprofits.''

And because she also wants to -- and gets to -- live on West End Avenue, she feels lucky.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

ON THE MARKET

2006-08-07T12:50:00.000-04:00

August 28, 2005 Sunday
Real Estate

By ANNA BAHNEY; With Valerie Cotsalas, Suzanne Hamlin and Antoinette Martin

River House on Long Island
$2,970,000

SUFFOLK: 664 Horse Race Lane, Nissequogue

A three-year-old Greek revival home on 4.7 acres overlooking the Nissequogue River. There are four bedrooms, three full baths and three fireplaces: in the formal dining room, the living room and the master bedroom. Miriam Ainbinder, Daniel Gale Real Estate (631)689-6980, ext. 216; http://www.danielgale.com/

TAXES: $21,185 a year

PROS: The mahogany pocket doors, 12-foot ceilings, polished floors and tall windows make for a stately interior, but the sizes of the rooms are not overpowering.

CONS: Getting to major roads requires a drive along a three-mile-long, winding, hilly road, likely to be a tense ride in bad weather.

41st-Floor Condo in Olympic Tower
$1,899,000

MANHATTAN: 641 Fifth Avenue (at 51st Street), #41F

A 1,200-square-foot, one-bedroom condo with one and a half baths. Tom Cooper, Sotheby's International Realty (212)431-2474; http://www.nyc.sothebysrealty.com/

COMMON CHARGES: $1,318 plus $1,212 in taxes, monthly

PROS: Only a handful of apartments in New York have views this good, and with wall-to-wall windows and understated dark floors, the cityscape -- with St. Patrick's Cathedral below, the Empire State Building framed in the picture window and the Statue of Liberty visible on the horizon -- really pops.

CONS: Those looking for a neighborhood feeling may find this corner, heavily trafficked by office workers, high-end shoppers and tourists, lacking. Having the shops of Rockefeller Center and Fifth Avenue at your feet is one thing, but you might also need a grocery store or a dry cleaner.

Duplex With Garden
$759,000

MANHATTAN: 36 West 35th Street (between Fifth Avenue and the Avenue of the Americas), Penthouse E

A one-bedroom, one-bath, 750-square-foot duplex with a 200-square-foot private garden. Andrew Rosen, Citi Habitats (646)643-7264; http://www.citihabitats.com/

MAINTENANCE: $1,235 a month

PROS: Although legally a co-op, the building behaves like a condo, requiring only 10 percent down and allowing sublets. The price includes two flat-screen HDTV plasma televisions and a home theater system.

CONS: The building is on a block that is not very residential, with Irish pubs and midrange hotels.

Prospect Heights Co-op
$925,000

BROOKLYN: 135 Eastern Parkway, #5K (Turner Towers)

A 1,700-square-foot co-op with three bedrooms and three baths in a prewar doorman building. Sheba Forrest, the Corcoran Group (212)941-2565; http://www.corcoran.com/. Open House, Aug. 28, 2 to 4 p.m.

MAINTENANCE: $1,214 a month

PROS: The 1925 building is opposite the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Botanic Garden. The apartment could be reconfigured into a four-bedroom.

CONS: There are many windows but, because the apartment is in the back, they all face other buildings.

1888 Tudor
$629,000

NEW JERSEY: 5 Enclosure Street, Nutley

A historic four-bedroom home with enchanting nooks and crannies, designed by a Swedish nobleman and architect in what was an artists' enclave. It has an updated bath, a powder room, large leaded-glass windows, a finished basement and an attic loft. Larry Whitehaus, Weichert Realtors (973)746-1515; http://www.weichert.com/.

TAXES: $7,397 a year

PROS: The house gets a generous amount of natural light and has five fireplaces.

CONS: It has only one-and-a-half petite bathrooms, and the kitchen needs a rehab.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

A Room With No View

2006-08-07T12:49:00.000-04:00

July 3, 2005 Sunday
Real Estate

By ANNA BAHNEY

FOR many apartment dwellers, a home office is an indeterminate breed, a cross between a region of the house and a piece of furniture. Perhaps it begins as a docile desk with computer but grows into an unruly beast, covered in bills and power cords, spreading out from a corner of a room used primarily for something else, like cooking or sleeping.

A real office would be nice, but what sense does that make, really, in a city where an extra bedroom can double the price of an apartment and push it beyond $1 million? Increasingly, there is a way to get that extra room, something more than a closet but less than a second bedroom -- and much more affordable than paying for a true second bedroom. Call it an office or den, library or study, media room, combo room or guest room. Just don't call it a bedroom. And don't expect a view.

Apartments with windowless rooms are becoming more common as office buildings are converted to condos. Because each floor of an office building is typically quite large and not designed to have all of its space windowed, there are rooms that simply cannot command a view, no matter how creative the floor plan. The appearance of this new kind of room has also created a new size of apartment, a half-size between one- and two-bedroom apartments.

With some priced nearly $500,000 less than similarly sized two-bedrooms in the same building, they come at a half-size price, too.

But searching for such a place is difficult, as it doesn't yet have its own name on even the most evolved real estate search engines.

''I was looking for a two-bedroom, two-bath,'' said Monica Mitro, executive vice president for public relations at Victoria's Secret. She was looking for a modicum of the space lost after moving out of a large house in Ohio, and because she had gone through renovations on that house, she wanted new construction in New York. Her friend Donald Mikula, a celebrity hair and makeup artist, told her about apartments available at the Lion's Head Condominium, a former office building at 121 West 19th Street between the Avenue of the Americas and Seventh Avenue in Chelsea, where he was buying. When she arrived on the third day of sales, which began in April, only eight of the 66 apartments were left.

''It reminded me of a Barneys shoe sale,'' Ms. Mitro said of the atmosphere, ''although I've spent more time picking out shoes than this apartment.''

She signed a contract for a 1,600-square-foot one-bedroom with two baths and a home office. It was not worth it to her to buy the extra window for the few nights a year she has overnight guests or for the little job-related work she would do in the room. She plans to keep it from being too ''officey'' by creating a music room for playing her cello. ''This, to me, is the ultimate one-bedroom,'' she said.

Mr. Mikula and his wife, Mary Catherine, are trading in their two-bedroom, two-bath in Chelsea for a one-bedroom with a den at Lion's Head. It is about 100 square feet smaller but more affordable and, he said, more flexible.

''Our whole feeling is about making it seamless,'' Mr. Mikula said of the den, where he plans to put a pullout sofa, a computer with wireless Internet connection and a flat-screen television with mini surround sound. His 11-year-old daughter, Sofia, will stay there when she visits several times a year from Europe. ''It's a treat for her,'' he said. ''She's in the media room, and she gets the best TV.''

The list of backup buyers for the 20 apartments at Lion's Head with extra rooms like Ms. Mitro's and Mr. Mikula's stretched 100 deep with people attracted to the chance to get a full room at a reduced price. Indeed, a 1,553-square-foot two-bedroom, two-bath went for $1.525 million and a one-bedroom with home office and two baths (one has a shower but no tub) went for $1.17 million. That's $355,000 for a window and the legal right to call it a bedroom.

At the Grand Madison, a 192-unit condominium at 225 Fifth Avenue in the former Gift Building, at the northwest corner of Madison Square Park, the gap can be even greater. There is a $485,000 difference between a 1,280-square-foot two-bedroom unit available for $1.81 million on a high floor and a slightly larger 1,320-square-foot one-bedroom with a den on a middle floor. Both have two baths and neither has a park view. The difference in price on those same two apartments on a middle floor would be $285,000. Of course, from a developer's perspective -- in this case Elad Properties -- a one-bedroom with an office garners $385,000 more than a similarly sized straight one-bedroom.

It is a rare meeting of the minds between developers and buyers, with home offices solving the odd problem of a surfeit of space: developers are able to create apartments out of buildings designed for commercial use and buyers have a space for the entertainment system or computer that have virtually become members of the family.

Kenneth S. Horn, president of Alchemy Properties and developer of Lion's Head, said that the home office presented itself as an option because the floor plates of the building were so deep -- 100 feet front to back.

''Twenty-five by 25 feet, that is a huge living room; there was no reason to make it 35 by 35,'' Mr. Horn said. ''I know it sounds crazy. It is loft-type housing, but it gives people a lot more flexibility to have a separate room.''

Mr. Horn sees such a demand for these multipurpose rooms that 13 of the 45 apartments in a new construction condo he's building at 199 State Street in Brooklyn will have windowless dens. When sales start in the late fall, every apartment, including the two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath with a den, will be priced under $1 million.

Still, most home offices are found not in new construction but in conversions of buildings from the turn of the 20th century. Steven Kratchman, an architect working on a condo conversion called the Morgan Lofts, at 11 East 36th Street, said that the solution usually presents itself when a building is more than 65 feet deep, the length of a typical apartment. But it isn't easy, because dens are discretionary and require approval from the Department of Buildings.

''Everything that is discretionary raises a question,'' Mr. Kratchman said. ''Everything that is as of right is straightforward and approvable.''

According to the New York City building code, he explained, the windowless rooms are classified as occupiable rooms, like bathrooms and kitchens with their own set of rules for ventilation and light, rather than habitable rooms, like living rooms and bedrooms.

(Mr. Kratchman, by the way, knows firsthand about windowless rooms. He uses the one in his Hoboken, N.J., apartment for desk space, a library and a guest room. ''I have my closet in there, because my wife uses the one in our bedroom,'' he said.)

''It can be seen as an exaggerated one-bedroom or an ersatz two-bedroom, but we can't sell it as a bedroom,'' said Richard Cantor, a principal at the residential sales firm Cantor & Pecorella, which handles sales in several buildings that offer home offices.

His current properties include the O'Neill Building, a 49-unit condo in the cast-iron O'Neill department store built in 1887 at 655 Avenue of the Americas between 20th and 21st Streets; the Downtown Club, a 288-unit condo in the 45-story former Downtown Athletic Club, built in 1930 at 20 West Street in Lower Manhattan; and the Grand Madison.

''It is a neglected category,'' Mr. Cantor said of the space he calls a jack-of-all-trades room. ''A large number of people are not looking for a second bedroom, but they want a place where they can get away and do whatever they do in an office, whether it's clutter it or just have a computer and a clear space to think about things.''

Elena Compton, a 21-year-old investment banker who is finishing her final year at Duke University, bought one of the one-bedrooms with a home office at the O'Neill Building last month. While she doesn't plan to work much at home, she said, ''it will be nice to have a space for the computer and not be staring at it from bed.''

The developer of the Downtown Club, the Moinian Group, has designed that tower for people like Ms. Compton -- young professionals climbing up the financial industry ladder. The building will have only one-bedrooms and studios, but more than a quarter of them will have one home office, some will have two and many will be loftlike. They will be priced at $400,000 to $1.5 million when sales begin this fall. The building will also have a 12,000-square-foot fitness center and a social club atmosphere with a lounge and pool tables.

Joseph Moinian, the president of the development group, said that the extra room is naturally appealing to people with hobbies. Or, he said, ''maybe I like a lot of Italian suits; I could make it a closet, or books -- I've seen the most magnificent libraries.'' But there is a fiscal bonus for people who use it for business, Mr. Moinian said. The zoning for some loft conversions, particularly in the lower reaches of Manhattan, allows for up to 49 percent of the residence to be used for a home occupation. ''Zoning in Midtown only allows you to use 25 percent,'' he said.

The economic benefits of home offices in the resale market are only beginning to become apparent, but if Jeff McLaren's experience is any indication, appraisers may have to start a separate statistic for apartments with windowless rooms.

In 2000, Mr. McLaren, a partner at a health care management consulting firm, bought a one-bedroom with a den in the Chelsea Mercantile building, at 252 Seventh Avenue, at 25th Street, an early conversion in that area that turned a 1906 building into 354 condos.

Now, only five years later, his apartment recently went into contract at $1,270 a square foot, more than double the $460 a square foot he paid. What's more, his sale is higher than similarly sized one-bedrooms in the building without home offices.

''The building's belief at the time it was converted was that the more open units would be worth more,'' he said, describing other apartments with fewer but larger rooms. ''I disagreed with them. I bought the cheapest one in the building -- the one with a home office. So far I appear to be right.''

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Are Commissions Really Negotiable? Sort of.

2006-08-07T12:48:00.000-04:00

May 15, 2005 Sunday
Real Estate

By ANNA BAHNEY

NEW YORK CITY real estate agents are beginning to hear a rumbling under them, something that makes them stop cold and stand at full attention: the sound of sellers asking, ''Do I have to pay 6 percent?''

Although the vast majority of commissions in Manhattan are still at 6 percent, some sellers realize that, with agents starved for listings and prices strong, they not only have the upper hand with buyers, but with brokers as well.

Brokers peering into their company's computer system like a crystal ball -- a tool powerful enough to see the commission offered, something that remains the Great Unknown for consumers -- say that fees less than 6 percent are showing up more frequently on their screens.

''Everything under 6 percent appears in red -- it's an alert,'' said Arina Yakobi, an agent for the Corcoran Group. Commission fees are not disclosed and agents don't like to tell each other what they made, let alone anyone outside the industry, but they acknowledge that fees below 6 percent are showing up more often. Ms. Yakobi said lower fees have become so problematic that her firm has sales meetings addressing them.

In other parts of the city, and elsewhere in the country, the commission system is under vigorous attack, and fees are falling. Alternative and discount brokerage firms, online auctions for low-commission brokers and flat-fee firms are percolating up from the online ether, challenging the traditional notions of what agents do and what they should be paid.

The established real estate businesses are in some cases responding, and in ways that are attracting the attention of the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission. Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the two agencies are planning an antitrust suit against the National Association of Realtors for illegally enacting a bylaw that would allow agents to prevent their listings from being viewed by online or discount brokers.

A similar situation already exists in Manhattan, where few firms belong to the national association and most are members of the Real Estate Board of New York. A lawsuit was brought against the board last fall by a Web-based company alleging monopolization of listings. The suit is in discovery and will go to trial in the fall.

Trying not to step over the fine line of a dangerous phrase like ''price fixing,'' Manhattan brokerage firms are putting up a unified front against any erosion of the 6 percent standard.

They argue that any buyer negotiating a lower commission risks cutting down on the number of potential buyers who will see the place.

Because the commission is typically split with the broker who brings a buyer, brokers may not want to show properties that will bring them less than a 3 percent cut.

Greg Kammerer, a Corcoran Group senior vice president, tells customers: ''Here are the other competing listings. They are at 6 percent; yours is at 5. Which apartment would you veer away from? The 5. Be tough with me on the selling price, not on the commission fee. I need the co-brokers.''

Barak Dunayer, president of Central Place Realty, which has an office on the Upper West Side and fewer than 30 agents, said that if sellers wanted to pay only 5 percent, his firm would take the listing as long as sellers understood the consequences.

''The first thing everyone wants to do is negotiate the commission,'' Mr. Dunayer said, ''but it is not in their best interest to negotiate the commission.'' He said that buyers who negotiate 1 percentage point off the fee may lose 6 to 7 percent in traffic to their property. ''If I offer 2 or 2.5 percent, or anything less than standard 3 percent to another broker, natural instinct is to go to where you can make more money first,'' he said.

But for some sellers, the fee has now become such a huge chunk of cash that they figure it's worthwhile to negotiate.

When Bruce Kahne decided to sell his Upper East Side apartment last summer, he put it on the market himself. The listing didn't bring a buyer, but it did attract several brokers hungry for the listing, and after finding the showings hard to manage, he decided to sign with an agent.

''I tried to hire one of the more reputable firms,'' said Mr. Kahne, a lawyer. ''They all wanted 6 percent and they wouldn't budge.''

But then he found that some brokers were offering 5 percent, and he chose one of them. He was happy with the broker, and the sale went well. ''If someone says I can do something for you for 5 percent,'' he said, ''and someone else says 6 percent, why wouldn't you try 5 percent first? In this case it worked out.''

Another homeowner, an investment manager named Marty who asked that his last name not be used because he wanted to maintain a relationship with his broker, arranged for a 5 percent fee when he used the same broker for the sale of one apartment and the purchase of another. The cautionary refrain from some agents that fewer buyers will go to see apartments with a fee under 6 percent is ''not true at all,'' he said. He had plenty of traffic through his apartment. ''The buyer knows value,'' he said. ''It has nothing to do with the commission.''

Plenty of people who are listing their properties for sale never even think about negotiating for a lower fee. Laura Van Bloem and her husband, Eddie, had thought about selling their two-bedroom co-op at 97th and West End Avenue on their own. But they hired Mr. Kammerer, who, after his 6 percent was taken out, earned them $150,000 more than they had anticipated.

Mrs. Van Bloem was pleased. But she admitted that she never thought there was any other way to proceed. ''There was never a point where I thought it was negotiable,'' she said. ''We assumed 6 percent.''

Some Manhattan firms, however, have figured out a way to cut the cost to the seller without discouraging other brokers.

Christopher Mathieson, a managing partner at JC DeNiro & Associates, a real estate firm with three locations in Manhattan, said his company will occasionally take a fee from the seller for 5 percent of the final price but still gives 3 percent to brokers from other firms who bring in buyers. ''We are giving the seller a discount, but not discounting their property,'' he said.

That breakdown helps brokers snag those so-elusive listings. Especially for new agents, Mr. Mathieson said, ''taking a listing at 5 percent can help agents beat out Corcoran and Elliman,'' two of the largest real estate firms in the city.

Outside of Manhattan, brokerage firms are also using lower fees to capture business.

When Jonathan Murgolo and Gary Kerber opened New Way Home in the Staten Island Mall last year, they initially tried to develop a ''choose your own commission'' structure. When that proved too confusing, they settled on a fee of 2.5 percent. The fee rises to 3.5 percent if another broker brings a buyer, with 2.5 percent going to the selling agent and 1 percent to the buyer's broker.

For that price the property is digitally photographed and videoed for a virtual tour, placed on several Web sites and put into a monthly circular distributed in Staten Island. A video of the home also appears on television screens at the kiosk in the mall, which draws about 10 million people a year.

On a sale totaling $385,000, a typical home price in the borough, Mr. Murgolo said, ''if I charge people 6 percent, I'm charging them $23,000.'' He added: ''No way is my service worth $23,000, and I'm offering them better service than other firms. I'm charging them $9,625 -- that is 2.5 percent on a $385,000 property. There is still enough money to go around.''

Sellers seem to be responsive: already New Way Home is one of the top 35 firms in Staten Island.

Nevertheless, Mr. Kerber admits that there can be a downside for sellers to lower fees. He said that he cannot prove that his company is being blacklisted by certain agencies but that he suspects some brokerage firms are not showing his properties because of the low fees. ''When a phone call comes in, it gets logged into a computer,'' Mr. Kerber explained. ''Agents know who has shown their properties. Some firms are nonexistent on that list. In a year, they would have shown up once at least.''

Foxtons, a British company that widely advertises its 3 percent listings, has had similar suspicions.

''Many of the traditional agents don't particularly like it,'' said Van Davis, the president and chief executive of Foxtons North America. ''Our agents will come back and say that certain agents are not pleased with the model, that they won't do business with us. It is possible that there are whole agencies that won't do business with us.''

Nevertheless, he said that his firm does more deals with other firms than he had anticipated. He said he thought that co-brokering would make up about 20 percent of their transactions, but has found that so far this year the rate of co-brokering has been 40 percent. The firm, based in West Long Branch, N.J., offers 1 percent to a buyer's broker and 2 percent to the selling broker. Its 3 percent structure is possible because the company has hired agents as paid employees.

Although some say the challenge to fees is coming from pressure created by the Internet, Steve Murray, the editor of Real Trends, a research firm covering the national residential real estate market, said there is as much heat on commissions coming from within the industry as from outside it.

There are more agents than ever, and that means they have an incentive to offer something extra, like a lower fee, to get business. There are 12.5 percent more agents in New York State then there were last year, a percentage that mirrors the national increase, according to the National Association of Realtors.

At the same time, the real estate industry is going through a natural retail evolution from ''mom-and-pop shops'' to dominating regional firms to companies offering discounts. ''There is warfare at the fringes,'' Mr. Murray said. ''Eventually it settles out so that there is a full-service luxury option and a low-end discount option.''

One thing is clear: if commissions drop, it is really hard to bring them back up.

Just ask Joseph Pezzolla, a broker and partner at Iron Gate Properties in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. To gain traction in the industry after opening in late 2001, his firm advertised 3.5 percent commissions. It gained some happy customers and decided to raise its fees.

''There was a time we took the signs down,'' Mr. Pezzolla said. ''Then people came in and asked what happened to the 3.5 percent fees. So we put the signs back up.''

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Williamsburg Reinvented

2006-08-07T12:46:00.000-04:00

March 20, 2005 Sunday
Real Estate

By ANNA BAHNEY

IN the last decade, Williamsburg in Brooklyn has been a first stop for young people new to the city, just out of college. As they have grown up, the neighborhood has too, evolving from dive bars and movie rental joints to chic sushi restaurants and designer furniture emporiums.

Most of these Williamsburg devotees are now young professionals, often working in creative fields. They tend to be in their 20's and 30's and earning $60,000 to $150,000 a year, according to David Maundrell, president of Aptsandlofts.com, a real estate company in Williamsburg.

''It is a small town of late 20- to 30-somethings,'' said Mr. Maundrell, who is 30 and grew up in East Williamsburg. ''They recognize people on the train going to work in the morning. Saturday mornings you go to walk your dog and get your coffee at 8 in the morning and someone else has the same routine.''

In an area with little real estate to buy, these renters have been hungering for some equity of their own in a neighborhood that has become home, and not just a stopping-off point.

They are about to get their wish.

This little hamlet is going to get bigger. Like a whole town bigger. Imagine all the owner-occupied housing stock of a town like Princeton, N.J., moved to this part of Brooklyn. Twice.

More than 130 buildings are currently planned in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, the neighboring area to the north. They are but a curtain raiser for the large-scale waterfront developments that are anticipated with the proposed rezoning along the East River that will transform 75 blocks from industrial to residential use. Last Monday, the plan was approved by the New York City Planning Commission and now makes the next and last stop in the City Council before an expected approval in May.

The buildings under construction now -- some small, and tucked between low-slung neighbors, others rising above the rooftops with more than 200 apartments -- are just the beginning of a transformation that will some day make the neighborhood look very little like Brooklyn, and more like parts of the far West Village, with sleek glass high-rise buildings and waterfront residences.

Elan Padeh, the president and chief executive of the Developers Group, a consulting and marketing firm with 30 projects currently planned in this area, estimates that in the next two years there will be 3,000 to 4,000 new units in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. ''In the next four to five years,'' he said, ''10,000 to 12,000.''

For people who are not only priced out of Manhattan, but shut out of the brownstone neighborhoods of Brooklyn like Park Slope or Brooklyn Heights because of price creep, the idea of a deluge of new construction is seductive: it will sell for $500 to $700 a square foot, half the price of Manhattan, and the tax abatements of 15 to 25 years will lower monthly costs. With a 30-year fixed mortgage on a $399,000 two-bedroom apartment with a tax abatement, buyers will spend about $2,500 a month, about the same as they would spend on rent in the neighborhood.

But it isn't just economics. It is also aesthetics.

''I like to design and build my space,'' said Jennifer Chan, 30, an architect who recently signed a contract on a one-bedroom apartment with high ceilings and a mezzanine in the Union Lofts building on South Second Street, around the corner from where she has lived for four years. ''It seemed like enough of a blank slate.''

She said she had looked in Queens and other areas of Brooklyn for something that she could renovate, but after weighing the money and time decided that ''it seemed a lot more affordable to buy new construction.'' And she wanted to stay in Williamsburg. ''I'm very attached because my friends are there, the base of my social network,'' she said.

Mr. Maundrell said he sees it all the time in his buyers. ''These people don't want to live in brownstone Brooklyn,'' he said. ''They are individuals or young couples. They aren't going to have much in common with the 50-year-old couple in Brooklyn Heights. Park Slope is another world. They look in Dumbo a little. But Dumbo doesn't have the sense of community.''

Other brokers agree. ''Aesthetically, Park Slope is beautiful, but if you don't want to live in a house from 1860 and don't like gargoyles, it isn't for you,'' said Kara Kasper, an agent with the Corcoran Group who specializes in Williamsburg. ''To people coming from the East Village, Williamsburg feels like home and Park Slope feels like the suburbs.''

But with so many developers breaking ground across the 11222 and 11211 ZIP codes and hiring architects with typically contemporary notions, will that community and cultural sensibility be maintained? Or will it run out in a wash of construction?

They are building from Broadway in South Williamsburg, where the smoky aroma from the Peter Luger Steak House wafts, to the far northern reaches of Greenpoint and deep into East Williamsburg, where leafy streets like Ten Eyck and Scholes Streets recall ''A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'' by Betty Smith. With most of the vacant lots already built on, three-story vinyl-clad houses and two-story garages are being replaced by glass towers that mimic those sprouting in Manhattan.

Many developers are rushing to get foundations laid to take advantage of existing zoning. New height limitations will go into effect when the new zoning plan is approved. Others are simply trying to capitalize on the interest in the market.

The neighborhood has come a long way in the past five years. Developers were long dubious that anyone would do anything but rent in Williamsburg. Originally, the conversion of the Smith Gray Building at 138 Broadway in 2001 was conceived as rentals. Mr. Padeh, who was with the Corcoran Group at the time and worked on the project, said that when the owner decided to sell the units, the expected price was $375 a square foot. The building sold for an average of $455 a square foot. (A 1,997-square-foot, three-bedroom penthouse is now available for $1.55 million, or $776 a square foot.)

''Based off of that success, the Gretsch Building was developed,'' Mr. Padeh said. ''No one would have taken a shot if 138 Broadway would have flopped.''

The Gretsch Building, a 130-unit luxury building at 60 Broadway, was first offered for sale at the end of 2003 and sold for an average of $575 a square foot.

Many of the largest developments in Williamsburg have not been done in the neighborhood's prime areas, which Mr. Padeh describes as the area immediately surrounding the L line subway station at North Seventh Street and Bedford Avenue, the streets on the perimeter of McCarren Park and, of course, the waterfront.

Those who do sell apartments in the prime areas will get a premium. One building, an eight-unit building at 171 North Seventh Street, about 20 steps from the subway, recently sold for $735 a square foot.

Not long ago, North and South Williamsburg were areas where people could find deals. Now, they are just another option. The best bargains are in East Williamsburg, where buildings in territory better known as ''second stop'' and ''third stop'' on the L are selling out in a matter of days.

During an open house last week in East Williamsburg at a new condo building called the Nola, young buyers traipsed out into the cold and cooed at the view as the skyline of Manhattan turned pink on its jagged edges.

By the end of his first weekend of showings at the Nola, Mr. Maundrell, whose firm is selling the apartments, had accepted offers for seven of the eight units ranging from $399,000 to $650,000. Mr. Maundrell keeps a list of interested buyers and holds open houses for people to have an advance look at property coming to market. Next week he will have an open house for those on the reserve list for an 11-unit building on Ten Eyck Street with views of Manhattan called Tower 78. His list is already 200 people long.

East Williamsburg became a viable place to sell, he said, when Manhattan went ''through the roof.'' And it helps, he said, that the new buildings have appealing design.

Robert M. Scarano Jr., an architect based in Dumbo whose 60-person firm is leading the way, is working on 100 buildings in East Williamsburg alone. With a following mainly gained through word of mouth and support from developers who have seen the firm's work, Mr. Scarano does not have an exclusive broker for the properties but works with Corcoran, Prudential Douglas Elliman, the Developers Group and Aptsandlofts.com. ''We're like a Switzerland,'' he said.

But the firm is really more like a young United Nations with architects, whose average age is 29, pulled from around the world. Thumbing through a two-inch-high pile of papers on a file shelf he said: ''This? This year's resumes.'' Moving to the shelf below it with a similarly intimidating pile, ''Last year's resumes.''

It is no surprise. Mr. Scarano bestows an incredible amount of responsibility on his young staff, whom he wisely dispatches to design for people like themselves.

When Carmen Larach, a 25-year-old Honduras-born architect at the firm who lives in Greenpoint, finished designing 171 North Seventh Street with double heights and mezzanines, she knew exactly which unit she would love to live in. The top level, east side. ''The developers said, 'Let me make money on this one.' Maybe next time I can have one,'' she said.

In Mr. Scarano's office, one wall is all but covered with renderings. The mode for Scarano projects in Williamsburg and Greenpoint is a layered contemporary exterior with glass curtain walls. The quality of the finishes varies, based on the building, but stainless-steel appliances and granite countertops are practically standard issue. Buyers also want high ceilings, lots of light and outdoor space, he said.

Mr. Scarano is excited about the future of the waterfront and anticipates building in the rezoned area. He credits the likely changes to Amanda Burden, the chairwoman of the City Planning Commission. She ''is doing for Williamsburg what C. Virginia Fields did for Frederick Douglass Boulevard'' in Harlem, he said.

Of course, with so much building, everyone involved is wary of saturation.

Karl Fischer, the architect who designed the conversion of the Gretsch Building, has two of the most ambitious current projects: four buildings on Bayard Street, which runs along one side of McCarren Park, and a waterfront complex, Schaefer Landing, a joint venture with Gene Kaufman, an architect. He expects that the market will be flooded within a year or two after the rezoning takes effect.

''It will actually be very good for the buyer,'' Mr. Fischer said. ''They will be able to shop around and have lots of product to choose from. Developers will have to try different things to compete.''

For all its emulation of that island across the river, this northern knob of Brooklyn will remain the anti-Manhattan in at least one sense: it's a buyer's market.

What's Available in Williamsburg

MOST of the condos now available in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, are selling for $500 to $700 a square foot. In the prime areas like the waterfront, parts of North Seventh Street and around McCarren Park, prices are $800 to $1,000. Here are properties currently available and a small sampling of things to come:

SCHAEFER LANDING, 446 Kent Avenue
The former site of the Schaefer Brewery, on the waterfront, will have two buildings: a 14-story tower with 75 condo units and 140 rentals for those who meet the income limits, and a 24-story tower with 135 condos. Both sit behind a promenade along the river in South Williamsburg. The 14-story tower is 90 percent sold with two- and three-bedroom apartments with two baths available from $865,000 to $1.475 million; sales in the 24-story tower begin at the end of April. Helene Luchnick or Linda Rubin, Prudential Douglas Elliman (212)965-6008; http://www.schaeferlanding.com/ or http://www.elliman.com/.

THE CASA, 92 Conselyea Street
Of the 24 loftlike units in this corner building in East Williamsburg designed by Scarano & Associates Architects, only one, a 1,309-square-foot, ground-floor duplex for $688,000, is available. Aptsandlofts.com (718)384-5304; http://www.thecasalofts.com/.

THE NOLA, 31 Conselyea Street
One of the eight units in this East Williamsburg building is left, a one-bedroom ground-floor duplex for $550,000. Aptsandlofts.com, http://www.thenola.com/.

252-258 RICHARDSON STREET
Five of 12 units in this traditional-looking masonry building in East Williamsburg are available. Four two-bedroom apartments are on the ground floor with patios; a three-bedroom is on the third floor, and has a terrace. Prices range from $675,000 to $699,000. The Developers Group (718)222-1545; http://www.thedevelopersgroup.com/.

WITHERS PLACE, 246 Withers Street
Six two-bedroom, two-bath condos in this 25-unit building in East Williamsburg, designed by Karl Fischer Architect, are available, ranging from a 1,021-square-foot apartment for $590,000 to a 2,324-square-foot ground-floor duplex for $925,000. Helene Luchnick and Patrice Mack (212)965-6031, Douglas Elliman.

THE STAGG, 63-69 Stagg Street/52 Ten Eyck Street
Seven one-bedroom apartments, five of them duplexes, are available in this building in East Williamsburg designed by Scarano & Associates Architects. Most have two bathrooms and outdoor space and range from $595,000 to $715,000. The Developers Group.

BROADWAY RIVERVIEW, 20 Broadway
In South Williamsburg, five out of 14 units in this converted four-story former hotel are available, ranging from $539,000 for a one-bedroom to $1.225 million for a 1,243-square-foot penthouse with a 900-square-foot terrace. Aptsandlofts.com.

THE GRETSCH BUILDING, 60 Broadway
There are six units left in this loft conversion in South Williamsburg, all with two bedrooms and two bathrooms ranging from $795,000 to $1.025 million. The Corcoran Group, (718)388-0537, http://www.corcoran.com/.

Coming This Spring and Summer

LUXE226, 226 Richardson Street
A 6-story, 10-unit building designed by Gene Kaufman with an elevator opening directly into the units. The Developers Group.

TOWER 78, 78 Ten Eyck Street
An 11-unit building designed by Scarano & Associates Architects with two duplex apartments, six mezzanine lofts and three penthouse tri-level lofts, priced from $425,000 to $750,000. Aptsandlofts.com.

THE AURORA, 30 Bayard; THE IKON, 50 Bayard
The 58-unit Ikon is a warehouse building converted to lofts, with four additional glass enclosed floors and the Aurora is a 51-unit, 12-story building next to it. Both are in North Williamsburg opposite McCarren Park. The Developers Group.

55 BERRY STREET
A 35-unit loft conversion in North Williamsburg designed by Karl Fischer with one- and two-bedroom apartments on the corner of Berry and North 11th Street, ranging from $710,000 to $1.39 million. Helene Luchnick, Douglas Elliman.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

DAY TRIP With Snow in the Vineyards, the Action Is in the Tasting Rooms

2006-08-07T12:45:00.000-04:00

February 25, 2005 Friday
Escapes

By ANNA BAHNEY

MARY AND RICHARD SCHEIDET said that they waited until St. Patrick's Day last year. But the snow this year, rather than keeping them away, made them want to head out to the wine country on the North Fork of Long Island a little earlier.

''It was such a pretty drive in the snow,'' Mrs. Scheidet said, leaning against the tasting room counter at Jamesport Vineyards, glancing out a large window that opened onto a dramatic expanse of brown ropelike vines pulled taut against the draped folds of white snow. Behind her in the 150-year-old potato barn that serves as the tasting room were rows of large oaken barrels.

From the other side of the counter, Tom McKinney poured Mr. and Mrs. Scheidet some more small tastes of wines on offer, pointing out that the winery's 2001 Cabernet Franc won the Best Red Wine of 2004 at the New York Wine and Food Classic. Then the three started chatting about how they all once lived in Middle Island, N.Y., where the Scheidets still live.

''It is more informal this time of year,'' Mr. Scheidet said. ''It's more one on one.''

With the snow still glistening on the ground and icicles hanging from clapboard houses along Route 25, the North Fork has a narrower palate of colors in winter than in the lush glow of summer and fall. But the enigmatic yellow and orange North Fork light still shines, and the increasingly notable wineries are still open, just less busy.

Those who like the true two-hour drive from Manhattan (as opposed to the four-hour crawl in the summertime) and a relatively relaxed tasting-room experience (free from the throngs during harvest season) might prefer to keep the notion of visiting the wineries in winter a secret. But the vineyards are certainly happy to have visitors, and winery owners say that more people have been taking advantage of the space winter affords.

Vince Galluccio, owner of Galluccio Family Wineries in Cutchogue, said that the first three months of 2004 had 20 percent more tasting room traffic than the same period in 2003. He anticipates that the number will be higher this year. ''Even with the blizzard,'' he said, ''we are equal to last year, to date.''

This year's snow has been a boon for Mr. Galluccio, whose winery embraces the season with an open invitation for people to bring their snowshoes or cross-country skis, strap them on and take to the vineyards. With two tasting rooms -- one for the vineyard's wine and one for a variety of New York wines -- a fireplace inside each and mulled wine available, it's a place to relax, Mr. Galluccio said, ''just like you could in Aspen, for crying out loud.''

The region is in only its fourth decade; the first 17 acres of commercial vineyard were planted in 1973. Now 3,000 acres of grapes are being grown by 60 vineyards, 30 of which are open to the public.

Most tasting rooms are along Route 25, which after Riverhead, rolls through hamlets like Aquebogue, Mattituck, Cutchogue, Peconic, Southold and out to Greenport. There are some vineyards with tasting rooms on tributary roads and along Route 48, which runs parallel to Route 25 to the north. All of them are well marked by green wine region signs.

FOR the day tripper, the atmosphere of each tasting room differs as much as the wine each offers, and although some people may enjoy hunkering down at a single place, others will want to move from one warm counter to the next, visiting as many as they can in a day.

Peconic Bay Winery in Cutchogue, a small country-feeling tasting room in a converted barn, is laden with wine accessories like bottle toppers, wooden bowls and grape linens. White wines like chardonnay and Riesling (especially the 2003) are particular favorites here.

Head farther east to Bedell Cellars in Cutchogue and Corey Creek in Southold, two wineries that are now owned by Michael Lynne, the co-chief executive of New Line Cinema and an executive producer of the ''Lord of the Rings'' trilogy.

Bedell Cellars has a tasting room that, although housed in a nearly century-old barn, resembles an urban-chic SoHo loft, with white walls, black stools and leather sofas. A mezzanine level provides a glimpse at the winemaking and bottling process through large windows, and stairs lead to the barn's cupola, with long windows that overlook the dormant vineyards below. A signature wine called Cupola, which is made of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot and petit verdot and is the winery's flagship Bordeaux, has an image of the barn top on the label.

Corey Creek, about two miles away, has a more informal atmosphere with a tasting room in a wooden cottage set up on a hill above the vineyard. There is a covered deck, and even in the winter, people have picnics at the tables outside.

In between the two is the region's showpiece, Raphael, a sprawling compound that resembles a Tuscan monastery. It is easy to imagine a beaming bride coming down the elaborate wooden staircase, but this time of year, the large hall is full of laughter coming from boot-clad couples leaning against the tasting bar and enjoying samples of the winery's merlot.

The last stop before turning around and heading home should be Greenport, where along the waterfront an indoor carousel and an outdoor skating rink are flush with bundled-up activity this time of year. Take the time for a couple of laps around the rink to the strains of a Strauss waltz -- it is not going to take as long to get home as you think.

A NORTH FORK SAMPLER
Long Island's Tasting Trail Starts in Riverhead

THE Long Island wine region on the North Fork begins in Riverhead, 75 miles east of New York City by car via the Long Island Expressway. At Exit 71, head south on Route 24 through a roundabout and east on Route 25, which goes all the way to Greenport, N.Y.

The Long Island Wine Council (631-369-5887) has a Web site, http://www.liwines.com/, with maps, directions and information on special events like vertical tastings and talks with winemakers. This is the last weekend for the council's Winter Passport to Long Island Wine Country, offering a variety of discounts and specials for $25 a person or $40 a couple. It can be purchased online or at any of the participating wineries, including all of these:

JAMESPORT VINEYARDS (1216 Main Road, Route 25, Jamesport; 631-722-5256; http://www.jamesport-vineyards.com/) has a rustic tasting room in a 150-year-old barn that is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday; noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays. A tasting of five estate wines is $5.

GALLUCCIO FAMILY WINERIES (24385 Main Road, Route 25, Cutchogue; 631-734-7089; http://www.gallucciowineries.com/) has two tasting rooms, one for estate wines and another for New York wines, each with a fireplace. They are open Sunday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. A tasting of five wines is $5 and includes a souvenir glass; a tasting of five reserve wines is $4. Visitors can snowshoe or cross-country ski on the property.

PECONIC BAY WINERY (31320 Main Road, Route 25, Cutchogue; 631-734-7361; http://www.peconicbaywinery.com/) is housed in a converted barn and open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tastings begin at noon on Sunday. A tasting flight of four wines is free; additional flights and individual wines are $1 to $3.

BEDELL CELLARS (36225 Main Road, Route 25, Cutchogue; 631-734-7537; http://www.bedellcellars.com/) has tastings in a stylishly converted 1908 potato barn and is open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tastings begin at noon on Sunday. A tasting of six wines is $5 and includes a tasting at Corey Creek Vineyards.

COREY CREEK VINEYARDS (45470 Main Road, Route 25, Southold; 631-765-4168; http://www.coreycreek.com/) has a tasting room in a pickled pine cottage overlooking the vineyards and is open from seven days a week, 11 to 5 p.m. A tasting of six wines is $5 and includes a tasting at Bedell Cellars.

RAPHAEL (39390 Main Road, Route 25, Peconic; 631-765-1100; http://www.raphaelwine.com/) has an elaborate tasting room open Friday through Monday from noon to 5 p.m. A tasting of five red wines is $6.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

GOING TO: ACAPULCO Shades of the 50's, but the Night Life Is Very 00's

2006-08-07T12:43:00.000-04:00

February 13, 2005 Sunday
Travel

By ANNA BAHNEY

Why Go Now

Acapulco, for a certain generation, is suave Frank Sinatra songs and Elvis Presley movies, Kennedy honeymoons and Elizabeth Taylor weddings (O.K., only one of the eight weddings). The high-flying Hollywood crowd took Acapulco to the moon with it in the 1950's and 60's then went on to their next playground. Although the names of the clubs, the style of the music and the clientele have changed since La Perla was opened in 1949, Acapulco has always been counted on for night life. Now a new generation of impresarios is taking over the clubs that their parents built, and raucous foam parties on the beach and writhing on dance platforms until 4 a.m. is often followed by more dancing at an after-hours club until morning breaks. The disco anthems will be ringing in your ears all day as you lie on the beach and recover.

Where to Stay

Some of the old hotels around Acapulco are destinations now simply because they were destinations then. Two built in the 1930's, the Hotel Los Flamingos, Avenida Lopez Mateos, (52-744) 482-0690, and the Hotel El Mirador Acapulco, Plazoleta La Quebrada 74, (52-744) 483-1155 or (800) 537-8483, http://www.hotelelmiradoracapulco.com.mx/, are away from what is now the strip, but both have photo galleries that allow old Hollywood to speak through photographs of John Wayne, Johnny Weissmuller and Errol Flynn.

The resort where Elvis Presley, Rita Hayworth, Elizabeth Taylor and others lounged, the Villa Vera, Lomas del Mar 35, (52-744) 484-0333 or (888) 554-2361, http://www.clubregina.com/, is an enclosed enclave set back from Condesa Beach on a hill and part of it is now a private club, but there are rooms available at $107 to $193 a night, at 11.4 pesos to the dollar.

The place that most seems to keep the buoyant and flamboyant 1960's alive is the Hotel Las Brisas Acapulco, Carretera Escenica Clemente Mejia 5255, (52-744) 469-6900 or (866) 427-2779, http://www.brisas.com.mx/, which was built in 1957 about 15 minutes from the center of Acapulco. The 263 casitas of this hotel climb up a steep, hibiscus-covered hill high above Acapulco Bay in a confection of pink, flat-roofed modernism. Each casita has its own (or shared with one other) plunge pool, and at the base of the hill by the ocean (via a short shuttle ride from the open-air lobby) is Club la Concha, its pool and oceanfront set with chairs, bridges, bars and restaurants bathed in festive pink.

Pink Jeeps ferry visitors along winding ways from the lobby to rooms as if they were elevators. In the morning, drivers can be seen driving up the cliff holding a tray with breakfast in one hand and steering with the other; a Continental breakfast appears in the room via a drop box before most people are awake. Rates during this season are $210 for a one-bedroom casita with shared pool, $959 for a casita with private pool and $1,453 for a two-bedroom casita with private pool and each has an additional $17.50 a day in staff tip.

For something a little more in the thick of things, along Avenida Costera Miguel Aleman, try the unassuming pastel rooms that seem to have seen a lot of traffic, but have open views of the sea and access to elaborate pool complexes and the beach, at Fiesta Americana Condesa Acapulco, Avenida Costera Miguel Aleman 97, (52-744) 484-2828 or (800) 343-7821, http://www.fiestamericana.com/, with rooms starting at $87.

Where to Eat

Eating in Acapulco is informal, with good beach food like tacos and seafood found in open-air restaurants along the Costera, the coastal area running from Papagayo Beach to Icacos Beach.

Particularly soothing in the morning (or early afternoon) are the palapa bars, covered with thick thatched roofs that keep the decks cool. At Bambu, attached to its sister restaurant, Tio Alex, at Avenida Costera Miguel Aleman 12, (52-744) 484-3656, the gentle Mexican salsa from the 1950's and 60's mixes with the rhythm of the waves to make a calming backdrop for fresh grilled red snapper, $9.60. The motto is ''siempre hora feliz'' and beers are two for one at $3.50 all day long.

A small enclave of interesting restaurants is clustered around the beacon-like nightclub Palladium along Carretera Escenica. Among them is Baikal, Carretera Escenica 22, (52-744) 446-6867, where the main attraction is the panoramic view of the bay and the fusion food is a good accessory. Dinner for two with drinks will cost a little over $100.

What to Do During the Day

The scrambling for a beach space or deck chair poolside begins at about 8:30 a.m. Most of the large hotels along Condesa Beach have elaborate pools that open directly onto the beach. Condesa, and to the east, Icacos Beach, are the beaches that international and Mexican tourists flock to, even if sun worshipers are occasionally hassled by vendors pushing sarongs, seashell necklaces, henna tattoos, wind chimes or hair-braiding services.

On Sunday afternoons January through April, visitors can see a bullfight at 5:30 at the Plaza de Toros, Caletilla. Tickets are $4.45 for general admission and $11 to $31 for reserved seats. The stadium was built in 1955 and can hold 10,000 people, though these days the ring is not nearly full, and most who show up are tourists. This is not a sanitized exposition -- things almost never end up well for the bull -- but it is a chance to get to another part of town and sit in the late-afternoon sun with a cup of beer or cola while a Mexican marching band plays festive tunes.

What to Do at Night

Night life does not wake up until midnight, although the clubs along Condesa Beach begin to stir around 10 p.m. Brian Rullan, 25, runs his father's hillside nightclub dynasty Palladium and Mandara, while on Condesa Beach at the more informal and rock 'n' roll dance club, Disco Beach, Jonathan Rodriguez, 21, prepares to take over for his father.

Disco Beach, Avenida Costera Miguel Aleman 111, is the alpha male along this strip. Since 1980 it has pulled in young partiers (and throngs of spring breakers) with live bands on a rock 'n' roll stage (and a fleet of scantily clad house dancers) on the street level, while downstairs the D.J. area opens onto the beach. The cover changes depending on the entertainment, theme of the evening and time of year, but is generally about $30 for men and about $24 for women.

Heading east, Baby O, Avenida Costera Miguel Aleman 22, (52-744) 481-1035, http://www.babyo.com.mx/ has been open since 1976, although now it is across the street from a Hooters and next to a Wal-Mart. The club, with a multileveled labyrinthine space with a vaguely jungle theme, is open only Wednesday through Sunday starting at 10:30, $9 for women and $35 for men, and does not have an open bar.

Palladium, Carretera Escenica, Las Brisas, (52-744) 446-5483, http://www.palladium.com.mx/, seems to be the club where everyone eventually ends up now. On a recent night the crowd included a musician from Montreal, a designer from South Africa, a chef from France, D.J.'s and club kids from Brooklyn and young Mexicans working in government, media and fashion. The huge pleasure dome is perched high on a cliff with a wall of windows 160 feet wide and 30 feet tall with views of the entire bay. The dance floor, ringed by banquettes, cantilevers out over the cliff so that young men in button-down shirts and leather shoes and women in form-fitting tank tops and short skirts appear to be dancing in the sky. A man painted silver with an Aztec headdress makes a high-energy appeal for continued partying with a dance performance between 3 and 4 a.m.; a spray of fireworks outside the windows follows his appearance. A sister club, Mandara, is just down the street and has a similar, if smaller, dance space. It also has a relaxed piano bar. If the right people are met while dancing, visitors may score an invitation to the after-hours lounge Privado, which starts at 3 a.m., also housed in the Mandara club. Admission to each club is $22 for women and $31 for men, with open bar for everyone.

Where to Shop

The open-air marketplaces that are called mercados des artisanias are generally little more than flea markets with an endless array of T-shirts, sarongs and ceramic frogs. Most of it is probably made in Asia, but the markets are fun to stumble through.

Intergalerias S.A., Avenida Costera Miguel Aleman 120, (52-744) 484-4992, has some bright and interesting Mexican art (most of which would certainly not fit in an overhead compartment). Oversized pieces of wooden fruit fill the gallery and sculptures of centaurs and mermaids by Sergio Bustamante and vibrant paintings by Gustavo Martinez. Most works start at about $500.

How to Stay Wired

There are plenty of Internet spots, though not necessarily Wi-Fi hot spots. Along the Costera strip, Santa Clara cafe, which offers coffee, pastries and ice cream, has Internet service for 90 cents for 20 minutes. Open 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., it is at Avenida Costera Miguel Aleman 136.

First Time or Your 10th

The tanned men flinging themselves off the rocky cliffs of La Quebrada, near El Mirador Hotel Acapulco at Plazoleta La Quebrada 74,(52-744) 483-1400, have become the iconic image of Acapulco. Teddy Stauffer, a Swiss-born bandleader who became an impresario of Acapulco night life, opened La Perla nightclub with a view of the craggy gorge and made the informal dives by local boys into a spectacle.

Today the divers, members of Clavadistas Profesionales de la Quebrada, or association of professional cliff divers, (who will extract a charge of $2.70 from spectators before allowing them into the viewing area), perform five times a day, with one dive at 12:45 in the afternoon followed by four on the half-hour starting at 7:30 p.m.; for the last two the divers jump with torches in their hands.

The divers, who are surprisingly young, make their way through the crowd gathered on steeply tiered viewing areas. With no shoes, they shimmy up the cliff on the other side to their posts between 80 and 115 feet above the 22-foot-wide channel below.

With arms stretched above their head, each scans the waves below for a water level that will make the water at least 30 feet deep. After letting out a call that echoes through the cavern, the diver soars out and down, traveling about 55 miles an hour and hitting the water in about three seconds. A few seconds after his performance, the diver climbs through the crowd, up the hundreds of steps from the viewing area, toweling off and laughing.

How to Get There

From New York, most airlines stop in Atlanta, Dallas or Houston and then again in Mexico City before reaching Acapulco. Round-trip air fares start at roughly $650.

How to Get Around

Taxis are everywhere, and the most effective way to get up and down the avenue. But arrange the price before getting in -- usually $1 to $5 in town, $30 to get to the airport -- because there are not any meters.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

With Little for Sale, Frantic Buyers Push Up Prices

2006-08-07T12:42:00.000-04:00

January 30, 2005 Sunday
Real Estate

By ANNA BAHNEY

THIS may be no consolation for search-addled apartment hunters addicted to checking the real estate Web sites hourly for new listings, but there are very few apartments for sale in the $20 million range, either.

From the stratospheric and record-breaking echelons of the market to the pedestrian pulse of stampeding open houses, hungry buyers are circling, ready to swoop in on any new listing and pay way above the asking price. If, that is, there were anything to buy.

The conclusion of the presidential election and the understanding that interest rates are bound to go up (even though that's what was anticipated last year and there was not a significant increase) have people so focused on buying now that they are showing up by the dozens for open houses in 15 inches of snow and waiting in line to see apartments over a three-day weekend when one would think the preferable alternative would be a weekend in Miami.

Is it a frenzy?

Do agents get worked up when they run out of showing sheets at open houses when four times as many people as they expect show up? Do buyers become even more aggressive when they repeatedly lose out on bids they placed over the asking price, including some as high as $300,000 above? You bet.

A market report released earlier this month by Stribling Private Brokerage on the residential real estate market in the $4 million and above range said that the high-end market has not seen this kind of activity since 2000. The first quarter of 2004 started off with a blast but evened out in April, and the entire real estate market, from top to bottom, collectively held its breath last fall through the distraction of the presidential election. Then, people started buying real estate as if it were 2000 all over again.

''As contentious as the election was,'' said Kirk Henckels, director and senior vice president of Stribling Private Brokerage and the author of the report, ''I don't think people cared as much about who won as they wanted a decisive winner.''

President Bush's victory, he said, might have had a slight effect on the high end, encouraging more spending because of the favorable tax picture for the rich.

Last year, for the first time, more than $1 billion was spent on co-ops in New York priced over $4 million. That was up 59.5 percent from the $653 million spent in 2003. The momentum is continuing into the new year. In these first few weeks of 2005, there is already $484 million in pending co-op sales -- nearly half, in less than a month, of what was spent all of last year.

The highest segment of the market is also active. In 2004, 24 co-ops in Manhattan sold for more than $10 million, compared with 15 in 2003 and 18 in the previous peak of 2000. Several of the biggest deals took place in the second half of 2004 (with 13 co-ops and 5 town houses over $10 million sold in the first half and 11 co-ops and 11 town houses sold in the second half).

Even now, barely across the threshold of 2005, the numbers of sales above $10 million are set to top 2004. Currently, there are deals on 16 co-ops and 7 town houses pending, including some notable properties such as the $44 million offer for Laurance S. Rockefeller's apartment on Fifth Avenue, the $27 million pending sale for a condo at the One Beacon Court and a more-than-$20-million bid on Central Park West. ''They all go shopping together,'' Mr. Henckels said of this group, which is largely impervious to the machinations of the real estate market and spend when they feel comfortable with the way things are going in the world.

When Samantha Kleier Forbes, a vice president of Gumley Haft Kleier, held an open house for brokers to preview a $10.9 million penthouse at 1120 Park Avenue last week, she took 40 show sheets, figuring it would be more than adequate for the 10 or 12 people she expected.

''Within the first 45 minutes we were out of show sheets,'' she said.

Her sister, Sabrina Kleier Morgenstern, also a vice president with the firm, said she felt the heat from the buyers' perspective when she took a young couple to an open house in the 70's on the Upper East Side, where they jostled among the crowd of 30 other people, mostly young couples staking out corners of the place to have sotto voce conferences with brokers. The couple immediately wanted to bid on the $1.3 million property and liked it so much they raised the price by $300,000 and offered $1.6 million.

They were outbid, with an offer of $1.695 million accepted. Ms. Morgenstern was even more surprised, in the days after the other offer was accepted, that the pending buyers didn't back out. ''I kept calling,'' she said, ''because I thought the people would have thought 'I overpaid drastically' and would have pulled out, but they didn't.''

In the market for apartments priced at less than $1 million, agents are taking any property they can get their hands on to the market, pricing them slightly under what they consider a logical asking price, then standing back and watching as the hordes descend. To their surprise, nothing seems to stop a serious buyer, not wind or rain, or in the case of the last two weeks, not holidays or snow.

Ginger Brokaw, an agent for the Corcoran Group, held her open house last Sunday even with the city muted in a perilous sheath of snow. She didn't expect much.

''Here I am walking down the street with red tulips under my arm and a little scented candle,'' Ms. Brokaw said. ''I walked in the building full of earnest possibility. The doorman looked at me like some kind of pathetic little creature.''

Not only did 25 people show up for the Upper East Side two-bedroom, two bathroom co-op priced at $975,000, she got an immediate offer within an hour of the open house.

''I'm scared to answer my voice mail and hear 'You have 30 messages,''' she said. ''There are so may people calling to see the apartment. At this price point there aren't that many places out there.''

While Ms. Brokaw was trudging through the snow, Gabriel Bedoya, a Corcoran agent, was playing in the snow.

''For the first Sunday in a year and a half, I didn't have an open house,'' Mr. Bedoya said. But it was not because of the weather, it was because he didn't have any apartments left to show. Since the beginning of January, he said, he has accepted offers on nine properties. That is a huge increase over his volume last January, when he also had nine listings but only two accepted offers during the month, he said

The Sunday before last, during what he thought would be a long and quiet holiday weekend, he had the first showing of a one-bedroom duplex at 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue during an open house. Expecting 25 people, he was stunned when he had 125 people come through. The line of people waiting to get in, which stretched down Amsterdam Avenue, was monitored by the building's concierge like a velvet-rope club with six people allowed in whenever six left.

Even before the open house concluded, his cellphone was ringing with people calling from the hallway trying to place bids.

On behalf of the sellers, Mr. Bedoya accepted an all-cash offer above the asking price of $549,000 within 24 hours, which is why when it snowed last weekend he could go sledding in Central Park.

Haley Coward, an agent for Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy, said she couldn't cancel her open house last Sunday because she had 28 people pre-registered to see the $530,000 one-bedroom co-op with 1,000 square feet on West 94th Street near Columbus Avenue.

''I didn't think all of them would come,'' she recalled. ''I certainly didn't think it was going to be that crowded. It was like a party.''

She handed out cream puffs she had made while her boyfriend manned the door downstairs. More than 70 people came, and by Monday she had 13 offers. ''Right now we're looking at getting $60,000 to $70,000 over asking price,'' she said

Caroline Guthrie, president of the high-end brokerage firm Edward Lee Cave, called the market ''frenetically static'' because there is so much activity with nothing to show.

''It is incredibly frustrating,'' Ms. Guthrie said. ''Buyers can't believe it. They must be thinking, 'You're not doing your job!' But there is nothing to show unless I've managed to get into something that isn't on the market.''

''There are very frustrated buyers and a lot of frustrated brokers out there,'' Ms. Guthrie said. Some sellers may feel elated, but many have to find another place. The only ones able to keep their heads, she said, are the owners who ''feel very good about their properties and have no intention of going anywhere.''

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

For Brokers, Cleaning Up Is Part of the Job

2006-08-07T12:41:00.000-04:00

January 23, 2005 Sunday
Real Estate

By Anna Bahney

In the competitive sport of residential real estate in New York City, the arrival of end-of-the-year bonuses on Wall Street is like the long awaited day when pitchers and catchers show up for spring training: HOPE at the beginning of another season.

Rather than PREPARING for the summer real estate season typical in the suburbs and much of the rest of the country, New York follows the money. While there is no real ''slow'' time in real estate in the city any more, inventory tends to BUILD at this time of year, making the period from January to April showtime.

With the bonus money circulating, interest rates holding relatively steady and the supply of apartments only slightly more than it was at this time last year, according to the appraisal firm Miller Samuel, it should be another busy season.

Ethan Woods, an AGENT for Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy, wants the apartment of his client Melissa Radin to be toned and fit for the NEW SEASON. Like a personal trainer, he is coaching, encouraging and instructing Mrs. Radin on CLEANING, updating and de-cluttering her two-bedroom condo in preparation for it to be a real million-dollar baby and bona fide contender.

Mr. Woods is pushing Mrs. Radin to be ready in the next couple of months, although she doesn't think she will be ready until the summer. ''Bonuses have come in," Mr. Woods reminded her. ''People are itching to buy now. February is good, March is O.K. But after that, people begin looking at spending their money on their summer -- the Hamptons or their vacation.''

Walking through Mrs. Radin's apartment in the St. Tropez building at 64th Street and First Avenue, where she lives with her husband, Michael, and their two young sons, Mr. Woods also points out that she has the best chance to make the most money during the first two to three weeks it is on the market, after which, he said, properties become stale. He stops and points at a yellow, brown and green equine painting propped against the wall on top of a bulky bookshelf: ''But nothing is going to happen unless you get rid of that horse.''

He's tough, but Mrs. Radin hired him as an agent to be her -- and her apartment's -- domestic fitness guru. Mr. Woods showed the Radins this apartment three years ago and they know he has a track record for training apartments for higher sales. ''I told him to be brutal,'' Mrs. Radin said, ''because I want to get the most that I can out of this apartment,'' adding that she expects to spend about $6,000 (for things like new doors, a bathroom vanity, window treatments and storage for toys and furniture) to perk up the apartment. She bought it three years ago for $830,000 and now hopes to sell it for $1.5 million.

Mr. Woods is among a growing number of agents in the city taking a stand against open houses featuring dirty dishes in the sink. If he arrives to show an apartment and sees such a thing, he will remind sellers, ''That is $3,000 sitting in your sink.''

He and like-minded agents try to find a diplomatic way to tell sellers that Fluffy and Whiskers have a litter box that makes a wall of stink upon entering the apartment. They delicately explain that the acid green walls in the bathroom might make a better first impression if covered in eggshell white paint. These agents have concluded that ''estate sale'' doesn't have to mean an empty, distressed apartment and will hire contractors, rent furniture and even commission architecture plans at their own expense, sometimes spending thousands of dollars.

Their mission is to show -- often by rolling up their sleeves and pushing around credenzas -- that a property can get a higher price and spend less time on the market if it is clean and uncluttered. It sounds simple, but with several years of a strong seller's market, brokers are faced with people who do not even pick up their dirty socks, because they're convinced that their apartments will sell themselves.

If sellers don't think its worth some effort, they should talk to more buyers.

Lindsay Hunter and her boyfriend, Chris Guilmet, both actors, have been looking at apartments in Manhattan and Brooklyn since October. ''I think I'm particularly bad at looking past things that I find unattractive on a surface level,'' Ms. Hunter said. ''I hate it when there is a flagrant misuse of space. Like if they can't find a place to put their shoes, how will I? If it is cluttered or unclean it really bothers me.''

She remembers looking at apartments with dirty dishes in the sink and black dust on the windowsills. One apartment had an old laminate countertop ''the color of tooth decay: a faux marble ivory with odd ribbons of red that made me think of pain.'' She peeked in a shower once, and ''the owner's hair was there in the drain. I felt awful, like I had looked in someone's underwear drawer -- a little too personal.''

''I'm susceptible to charm,'' Ms. Hunter said. ''If it looks lovely, and I feel like I want to live there, it is a little better. My boyfriend is better at pointing out that if we don't like the wall color we can fix that. I tend not to have much imagination about that stuff.''

Kelly Cole, an agent with the Corcoran Group, is working with Ms. Hunter and Mr. Guilmet. She has cleaned litter boxes, wiped down counters and cleaned up accidents after pets while showing her own apartment listings. ''I'm really surprised that people don't heed the advice of industry professionals,'' she said. ''I don't know if it is denial or if people think that because it is a sellers' market it will sell anyway. But it is a numbers game. Who knows what you will get when you clean up?''

Lisa Lemisch Lazarus, an occupational therapist who put her Riverside Drive apartment on the market last fall, was skeptical about the idea of investing in an apartment she was leaving. Not only did she make back the $5,000 she put into the property, which was listed at $995,000, but she made another $100,000 because it went into a bidding war after 30 days on the market and is in contract for $1.1 million.

Susan Nierenberg, a broker for Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy, Ms. Lazarus's agent, insisted that this was not ''designing to live, but designing to leave,'' and aimed to make the cozy apartment into a spa-like environment. ''It's as if you were going to a fancy-schmancy hotel for three months.''

The 1,400-square-foot two-bedroom, untouched since Ms. Lazarus moved in 18 years earlier and did her own renovations, was repainted with a neutral cream color going over the lavender walls. White sheer curtains were placed on the windows to pull light in and a spray of bright flowers was placed in front of windows looking out to another building to distract the eye from the unappealing view. Ms. Lazarus spent two weeks sorting through her crafts supplies, packing up books and dishes and hauling away 20 years worth of National Geographic and Architectural Digest, with the help of her broker and her twin sister, Ellen Lemisch.

She also spent at least two weeks crying. Ms. Lazarus said it was a scary process to face the erosion of familiarity around her. She wasn't the type of person, she said, to have silk flowers and a glass vase of cranberries in her house. She was alarmed not to have any books around. She was hurt to have to pack away the china and move out the furniture. But among the most painful was painting over the bathroom walls.

''I had painted it celadon, this bright green color,'' Ms. Lazarus said. ''As the painter is painting it white, I'm standing there with tears running down my face and he said, 'Let it go. Just let it go.'''

Through it all, Ms. Lazarus recalled, her agent was a cheerleader. ''I would cry and she would say, 'No, no, no. There are no tears in real estate.' It was her mantra. It did make a difference. She kept me focused on the goal, which was to sell the apartment and get the most out of it.''

When the work was done Ms. Lazarus told her agent that it was not her house anymore. Ms. Nierenberg, who has trained in staging properties for quicker sale, told her, ''Then I've done my job,'' adding, ''Every house speaks, and I control what it says.''

She is also careful about how she deals with sellers, tending to bring in her partner to make more controversial suggestions, particularly regarding hygiene and odors.

''As the broker you are their knight in armor,'' she said. ''The seller needs to have every confidence you love the apartment. You can't be the one to say, your apartment smells like a cat.''

Occasionally that job falls to Dana Williams, who is the director of concierge services for Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy. and, among other things, arranges for the painters and cleaners to come into an apartment. Often agents will bring her in to tell a client that there is a need to clean up and clear out the apartment.

''People are very aware of it,'' Ms. Williams said. ''They are almost embarrassed. Just selling their home can be emotional so you need a few people to be supportive.''

But she can be tough when she needs to: ''I've been pretty forthright if there is a smell, from a cat or smoking. They may not smell it, but it slams me when I walk in.''

Most agents agree that there is no need to get rid of the pets (or children for that matter), while the property is on the market as long as they are out of the house during showings and a cleanliness routine is maintained.

Few agents have gone as far in transforming a space as Jacky Teplitzky, an executive vice president and agent for Douglas Elliman. She calls the two-month journey to transform an apartment on Gramercy Park North, priced at $1.995 million, her ''via Dolorosa'' of staging.

When she visited the two-bedroom apartment in the back of the building that had been occupied by a tenant for 25 years, and had no park views, she knew she had a problem.

"I needed to tell the owner she had to do several things,'' Ms. Teplitzky said. ''At the bare minimum we had to paint the walls and redo the floor. Some of the windows didn't have glass in them. There was a hole in the wall.'' Although the owner was hesitant, she agreed to go along with Ms. Teplitzky.

Ms. Teplitzky arranged for a contractor to repair the walls, windows and some lights. The apartment also needed a ''very deep cleaning,'' she said, and some charming objects to distract from the fact that it not only lacked a park view, it had a difficult layout.

She said she rented some furniture, because nearly everything looks worse when it is empty, and even hired an architect to draw sketches of possible renovations, to inspire prospective buyers.

''If you spend $10,000,'' Ms. Teplitzky said, ''you might increase your price by $50,000.''

Gus Perry, the principal broker and owner of Stein-Perry Real Estate in Washington Heights, said that he would never advise anyone to renovate a kitchen with the goal of getting a higher price. More important, he said, is editing out clutter, and engaging in constant cleaning.

''Clean windows, clean bathrooms,'' he said. ''It can be the oldest appliances in the world. It doesn't matter as much as if it is clean.''

Ms. Hunter, searching for an apartment, agreed. ''Old is different than old and sticky,'' she said. But she said that sometimes brokers go too far.

She saw an apartment where the broker had lit an assortment of scented candles to cover a bad odor, but they only made the smell worse. ''She clearly meant it to be a good thing but the effect was quite the opposite,'' Ms. Hunter said. She and her boyfriend were driven out, she said, ''in a steam of an awful hazelnut, vanilla, ocean and rain candle smell.''

Clean, De-Clutter And Forget Purple

TO get an apartment ready for sale, at the maximum price, most brokers will suggest cleaning, de-cluttering and choosing a neutral color scheme. Here are some specific tips:

An unattractive view can be de-emphasized by placing by the window a brightly colored object, like a bunch of red flowers or an orange vase, which will catch the eye before it goes to the building wall across the way.

Brown-colored stains on ceilings in unventilated bathrooms should be removed with a sponge and an all-purpose cleaning solution. Longer-lasting stains may require paint.

Invest in a professional paint job and cleaning.

Boost the illumination of windows that get little or idiosyncratic light by hanging white sheers over them.

Remove personal artifacts or collections that may be a distraction to buyers. (Brokers recalled how one seller had an elaborate doll collection that kept people from looking at the apartment. A gay couple with triplets, meanwhile, were asked to remove family photographs because they became the focal point of their home rather than the home itself.)

There is no need to evict pets (or children) from an apartment while it is on the market, but all family members and animals should leave during showings.

Rearrange furniture on a slant to give the feeling of more floor space.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Hi, Why Did You Drop My Paper?

2006-08-07T12:40:00.000-04:00

January 10, 2005 Monday
Business

By ANNA BAHNEY

Journalists at The Philadelphia Inquirer began the new year in proper fashion, by working the phones. But some senior editors were not calling sources. They were calling readers.

On Thursday, a handful of top editors, including the executive editor, Amanda Bennett, began making personal phone calls to former subscribers, many of whom dropped the paper this year after The Inquirer ran a series of editorials favoring John F. Kerry for president.

''If the people I call say, 'Yes, I was mad at your editorial,' then the next thing I say is, 'Would you like to come in and talk about it?''' Ms. Bennett said.

The Inquirer's election coverage included a daily editorial page series called ''21 Reasons to Elect Kerry'' that began on Oct. 10 and ran to Election Day, addressing different aspects of Mr. Kerry's proposed policies. That feature was paired each day with an op-ed piece highlighting President Bush's policies and record on the same issue.

''I am sure we lost subscribers in the fall, given the intensity of emotions of this election and given the scrutiny of the media,'' said Chris Satullo, the editorial page editor. ''We did our job rather forcefully in supporting Kerry, and that only raised the stakes.''

Last week, the paper's circulation department came up with a list of a couple of hundred people who had canceled during the election cycle and had not been contacted. The list was divided among editors and editorial board members -- each with 15 or 20 names -- and they began calling.

It is too early in the dialing process to present any results or plans for future discourse, Mr. Satullo said. But he said that he relished the dialogue with readers, adding that he tried to steer them away from using the terms ''bias'' and ''objectivity.''

''Those terms have been drained of any stable meaning,'' he said.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Change Is Continual, But the Edge Remains

2006-08-07T12:38:00.000-04:00

December 12, 2004 Sunday
Real Estate

By ANNA BAHNEY

MONDEEP PURI, a 27-year-old systems engineer, was walking through North Williamsburg, Brooklyn, recently, searching for Domseys, a thrift store, when she met three strangers who were on the hunt for another secondhand store, Beacon's Closet. A few cellphone calls later, they discovered that Domseys had moved to South Williamsburg and Beacon's Closet had moved off Bedford Avenue.

Some would say it signals the end of an era in North Williamsburg: cheap bin diving is now confined to a single thrift store at the corner of North Seventh Street and Bedford Avenue while choosy buy-sell-trade places like Beacon's Closet have been able to grow, moving up from 900 square feet to 5,500 at North 11th Street and Berry Street.

As the newly acquainted group trudged down Bedford Avenue to Domseys' current site, they passed new shoe stores, a muffin shop and a Tibetian clothier. ''It is so hard to get information about Williamsburg because everything is changing all the time,'' Ms. Puri said.

Including, of course, the commercial rents. Along Bedford Avenue, they are approaching $50 a square foot, according to Eric Brody, director of development sales in Brooklyn for the Corcoran Group, compared with $37 four years ago. On North Sixth Street, another commercial corridor perpendicular to Bedford one block south of the subway station, rents have grown from $20 a square foot with owners paying expenses to $32 with tenants footing the bills.

This is not to announce that Williamsburg is ''over'' or ''going to be hotter than SoHo'' or the new ''baby land'' -- all of which may or may not be true, depending on who is talking and what is on his or her iPod. But residents of the 11211 ZIP code, like the woman who entered Bedford station last week wearing a ''Stop Gentrification'' T-shirt and a Native American headdress, know that Williamsburg is being redefined.

Right now, as the city and developers are locked in negotiations about the allotment of affordable housing along the East River and thrift-hungry young people head south to bin dive, North Williamsburg is in that rare position of experiencing development that both increases services and authenticity.

New stores are either small niche chains or one of a kind, often started by Brooklyn entrepreneurs. They are more upscale than their predecessors and yet not a cut-and-paste of a mall or Manhattan. Anyone wanting Starbucks still has to head to Park Slope or hop the L train to Manhattan.

Kate Schmitz, a painter who has lived in Williamsburg since 1987, liked the neighborhood even when there were only four restaurants (Polish, Chinese, Thai and a burger place) and not much else. Now the co-owner of a children's clothing and toy store on North Sixth Street called Flying Squirrel, she counts herself as ''one of the people who thinks this is the next TriBeCa.'' Typical of many of the first-time business people in the area, Ms. Schmitz and her business partner, Judith Velosky-Martell, are artists, live in the neighborhood and saw an unmet need.

In October, Michael Ayoub, the former owner of Cucina and Mike and Tony's in Park Slope, opened Fornino, a brick-oven pizza kitchen at 187 Bedford Avenue, two doors down from the train station. ''There are not a lot of places in New York that see that kind of traffic,'' he said. ''There is a parade by my door every day.''

When he was gut-renovating the 975-square-foot space, previously the L Cafe, Mr. Ayoub said, people from the neighborhood were both curious and protective.

''People were asking who I was, what I was doing,'' he said. ''I told them I am a chef and a business person. I am not part of a big multinational.'' He paused and added: ''It is a unique crew, here. They are young, hip, smart. They have a few dollars, too.''

So where are Urban Outfitters and Pottery Barn? David Rosenberg, executive vice president of Robert K. Futterman & Associates, a retail leasing and investment sales firm, who has worked in Brooklyn for 20 years, said it was only a matter of time before the national chains arrive. But to the delight of people trying to stave off corporate infiltration, the time is not yet.

''There is a lot of awareness and intrigue by a lot of regional and national chains,'' Mr. Rosenberg said. But any time he has taken representatives to Williamsburg, ''when they get there, what they see is not what they expect.'' Many prospective tenants had anticipated seeing more retail development. ''They say, 'Let's keep a monitor on it, and come back in three months, six months, a year and see what happens,''' he said.

A lot may happen in that time, according to the waterfront site plan that has gone through community board review and is expected to be adopted in May. To developers and large retailers, the plan seems likely to bring changes far bigger than have occurred so far, by developing 184 blocks along the waterfront with almost 9,000 housing units and commercial space.

Still, although the underused industrial waterfront may be transformed, nothing short of extreme makeovers will create larger retail spaces along Bedford Avenue, currently the commercial heart of the area. There are some large spaces along North Sixth Street, where buildings were previously used for manufacturing or warehousing. It is here that American Apparel, a ''sweat-shop free'' knitwear company, opened two months ago at No. 104. Although part of a chain of 28 stores, it seems to fit aesthetically and ideologically with the neighborhood.

When it can, Williamsburg picks and chooses which retailers it allows onto its hallowed streets, like a discerning co-op board. When Migmar Tsering, a clothing designer who has a Tibetan gift boutique in the Girdle Factory, an enclosed shopping ''mall'' at Bedford and North Fifth Street, wanted to open a second shop, he had some persuading to do. He and his sister, Pema Kongpo, who is his business partner, began knocking on apparently unused storefronts.

''My sister managed to ring their doorbell at just the right time,'' he said of his landlords, who were using the blacked-over storefront as an art studio. ''Definitely, if we were a big chain, they wouldn't have allowed us to come in.''

Now the store, also called Pema, with knitwear, woolens, hats and beaded clothing, has a space at 225 Bedford Avenue.

A few residents may bemoan the loss of their thrift stores and dive bars, like the Sweetwater on North Sixth, where a tattooed staff would serve drinks to patrons watching biker videos while a local crowd shot pool. Of course, in name, the Sweetwater is still there. But since being bought last April by new owners, including Jim Mamary, the place now has lace curtains and serves schnitzel with fried eggs and anchovies as prepared by Tom Kearney, formerly of Sushi Samba and Jean Georges.

''I had people walking past the place, saying, 'They destroyed it,''' Mr. Mamary said. ''Maybe I should have changed the name. But I liked it. I knew this: we had really good food. We struggled for six or eight weeks, but now we're doing really well.''

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Last-Minute Trip to the Islands? Time for the 'Next Best' Game

2006-08-07T12:37:00.000-04:00

December 3, 2004 Friday
Escapes
By ANNA BAHNEY

IF you haven't booked a room in the Caribbean for the Christmas and New Year's holidays by now, chances are you won't be getting near Parrot Cay in the Turks and Caicos Islands or even a garden room at the Curtain Bluff Resort in Antigua. Both have been completely booked since last February. But if you're willing to try Puerto Rico or the Bahamas, there are still rooms available between Dec. 17 and Jan. 3 -- and you may not end up overlooking the parking lot, though you probably won't be looking out over a beach, either.

Marie Quinn, director of travel services at Personal Concierge International, a travel service in Manhattan, said that people making last-minute plans ''would need to prepare for having a garden-view room, as opposed to an ocean view that everyone loves to have.'' Indeed, procrastinators need to adjust their expectations on several fronts before picking up the phone. Forget small, exclusive and remote. Larger chains like the Wyndham El Conquistador Resort and Golden Door Spa in Fajardo, P.R., or the Westin Casuarina Resort & Spa on Grand Cayman Island, are more likely to have spots still going begging.

Cross a direct flight from New York off your list, too. In fact, you may have to stop in Montreal to get to your island getaway. Many nonstop flights have been booked since February. ''If you're a family of four, and there are only two seats available, how are you going to get there?'' asked Priscilla Alexander, a travel agent and president of Protravel International, an agency in New York that arranges luxury corporate and leisure travel.

Then there's the price. Despite the proliferation of Web sites offering cheap last-minute fares, those booking now for the holidays can't expect many bargains on direct airfares or good rooms. That can mean paying as much as $1,000 a night for a room or well over $1,000 for a flight.

For some people, it's worth it. JoAnn Kay reserved a condo on Grand Cayman back in April for her extended family of 10 children and grandchildren to use over the holidays. But she only recently found out that because of hurricane damage the property isn't going to be available. Now she's debating between squeezing everyone into a villa on Barbados or taking two condos on St. Martin, both options she found through Wimco, a travel and rental group.

''A villa for $35,000 is not in my price range,'' said Ms. Kay, director of volunteer and patient relations at Cooper University Hospital in New Jersey. ''But there are some that will work.''

Procrastinators end up playing what might be called the ''next best'' game, trading dreams of unsullied turquoise water and uncrowded white sand beaches on a certain chic and exclusive island for one that's just a little less fashionable. High on the list for last-minute bookers: the Mayan Riviera and Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, and Jamaica, where the Hotel Four Seasons in Kingston still has rooms. ''A lot of people don't think of Jamaica,'' Ms. Quinn said. ''They really wanted to go to St. Martin, but they will settle for Jamaica if that's what's left.''

A good one-stop resource is http://www.cheap/ caribbean.com, where you can search for specific dates, see the properties on a particular island that have availability and also search for flights and packages. At www .site59.com, which only books travel up to two weeks in advance, last-minute packages that include air and hotel start at $500. Its offerings are heavy on Puerto Rico, Jamaica and the Bahamas, although there are some packages to Antigua, St. Martin, St. Thomas and Aruba.

And this may also be the moment to turn to a well-connected travel agent. Travelers who cold-call resorts may be told, truthfully, that they're all booked, but blocks of rooms may have been set aside for travel-service vendors, and an agent may be able to access them, said Ms. Quinn of Personal Concierge.

As to waiting for that last-minute opening at Jumby Bay, off Antigua, it can happen, but ''you have to act immediately,'' Ms. Alexander said. And be prepared to pay full freight. ''The price doesn't necessarily go up, but it is non-negotiable,'' she added. Indeed, Jumby Bay currently has a courtyard room available for 10 nights starting Dec. 24, for $1,575 a night, and there's an oceanfront suite at Little Dix Bay on Virgin Gorda, for $1,500 a night.

Here, some ways to play the ''next best'' game this holiday season.

YOU WANTED -- Parrot Cay, a resort in the Turks and Caicos Islands, where Bruce Willis, Barbra Streisand, Britney Spears and Paul McCartney have all at one time or another ferreted themselves away on a 1,000-acre private island. Or the Meridian Club, also on a private island, Pine Cay.

NEXT BEST -- Providenciales, a less intimate, nonprivate island in the Turks and Caicos, where there are several larger hotels along Grace Bay Beach. As of yesterday, there were still rooms available at the family-oriented Beaches Turks & Caicos Resort & Spa (800-726-3257, http://www.beaches.com/) from $1,108 to $3,168 a night. Rooms are also available from $149 to $432 a night at the Ocean Club and Ocean Club West (800-457-8787; http://www.oceanclubresorts.com/), sibling properties located less than a mile apart.

THE COMPROMISE -- A private infinity-edge pool outside your villa? Don't count on it.

YOU WANTED -- Model-magnet St. Barts, where the sophistication of France meets the casual ethos of the Caribbean at a refined resort like the Isle de France. But it is booked. So are the smaller Carl Gustaf, the antiques-laden Eden Rock and the private villas of Le Toiny.

NEXT BEST -- Rent your own villa. Almost every hotel property is booked in St. Barts, but not the villas. Some are still available through Wimco (http://www.wimco.com/), although during the holidays a 14-day minimum stay is required. One cliff-side two-bedroom house with a pool that is five minutes from the beach and 20 minutes from the town of Vitet rents for $12,500 from Dec. 15 to Jan. 5.

THE COMPROMISE -- Don't plan on bringing the family. Many villas are one-bedroom cottages that start at $3,000 a week.

YOU WANTED -- Antigua, for its yachting sensibility. But a heavy repeat crowd has already taken all the rooms at Curtain Bluff, an all-inclusive resort on a peninsula on the island's southern shore. The new Carlisle Bay is also booked up.

NEXT BEST -- Three Rex Resorts properties on the island still have space: Halcyon Cove on Dickenson Bay has rooms from $157 (noninclusive) to $531 (all-inclusive) a night; Hawksbill in St. John's is available from $263 to $450 (this property is only all-inclusive). The Blue Heron at Johnsons Point has noninclusive rooms without air-conditioning starting at $85 and all-inclusive rooms for up to $450 a night. All raise their prices Dec. 23 (800-255-5859; http://www.rexcaribbean.com/).

THE COMPROMISE -- While each of these hotels has a pool and a hair salon, none of them have anything that blends the two into something like a spa.

YOU WANTED -- St. Lucia for its wild natural landscape, perhaps the Anse Chastanet Resort, with views from hillside rooms out to the Caribbean Sea, where the diving is divine. But it is booked. So is the Jalousie Hilton Resort & Spa in the same area of Soufriere. Even in the north, by Castries, both the Sandals Grande St. Lucian Spa and Beach Resort and the BodyHoliday at LeSport are booked.

NEXT BEST -- In Anse Cochon, south of Castries, there is availability at Ti Kaye Village (758-456-8101; http://www.tikaye.com/), a resort that has access to diving amid shipwrecks. It has oceanfront and ocean-view cottages for $320 and $215 respectively. Around the town of Castries there is availability at places like the Sandals Regency St. Lucia Golf Resort & Spa (758-452-3081; http://www.sandals.com/), with rooms from $680 to $1,150, and the Royal St. Lucian of Rex Resorts (800-255-5859; http://www.rexcaribbean.com/), with rooms from $165 for a poolside room (noninclusive) to $466 for a room with an all-inclusive plan. Farther north of Castries, in Gros Islet, the St. James Club Morgan Bay Resort (268-460-5000; http://www.wyndhamstlucia.com/) has rooms from $404 to $504.

THE COMPROMISE -- You can still get beachfront rooms at some of these places now, but in the time it has taken you to read this, they are probably gone.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Giving Where You Live (In These Cases, Literally)

2006-08-07T12:36:00.000-04:00

November 15, 2004 Monday
Real Estate

By ANNA BAHNEY

AFTER 33 years as a school psychologist with the New York Board of Education, Ralph Rosenberg retired in 2001, and although he was only 55, he was already thinking about his legacy. He considered selling a studio apartment he owned and donating the profits to a charity. He had bought the apartment, in the Kips Bay section of Manhattan, as an investment property for $64,000 in 1983. But when he had it appraised in 2000, it was worth more than $200,000.

Reeling from the capital-gains tax that he would have to pay, Mr. Rosenberg decided to donate the studio to the UJA-Federation of New York, a nonprofit group that finances health, social service, education and community programs.

''After I donated it, they took over the property and they sold it,'' he said. ''The proceeds went into a charitable trust. They invest that. I was able to make a maximum donation and get tax benefits.''

In the late 1990's, appreciated stocks were the preferred form of noncash donations, but now, with the real estate market appreciating more steadily than the stock market, fund-raisers are showing increased interest in summer homes, ski cottages and apartments.

Individuals donated an estimated $180 billion to charities in 2003, according to Giving USA, the name of an annual report by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University in Indianapolis. Of that, experts say that only a small percentage comes from real estate donations. With real estate accounting for 29 percent of total household assets in the United States, it is one of the last untapped sources for charitable giving, said Dennis Bidwell, the principal of Bidwell Advisors, a real estate gift planning firm in Northampton, Mass.

''Real estate is one of those assets that have represented increasing value,'' said Charles Goldman, group vice president for planned giving and endowments at UJA-Federation, who assisted Mr. Rosenberg's donation. ''The stock market has been so volatile. We're out there talking about gifts of real estate.''

In Mr. Rosenberg's case, the apartment was placed in a trust, which sold it for $216,000 in one week. This allowed him to avoid capital gains and receive a charitable donation tax deduction on the assumed value to the charity.

The money from the sale of the apartment was placed in a charitable remainder unitrust, a diversified fund revalued annually, and Mr. Rosenberg draws a fixed 7 percent rate from it yearly until his death, when the assets will go to the UJA-Federation. He was also able to earmark 25 percent of his gift for the American Cancer Society upon his death, a cause close to him because his parents died of cancer.

''A lot of people in my generation, we were very idealistic, but we had to meet financial demands for family and self,'' Mr. Rosenberg said. ''Now is a good time to give back.''

For institutions, gifts of real estate can be more challenging than cash or stocks. While some organizations may have use for a donated property, the most beneficial action for both donor and institution is usually to sell it. But the property has to clear some criteria: it must have appreciated in value and not been on the market for a long time; it must also , be marketable and environmentally sound. While the property can be accepted with an outstanding mortgage, donors may have a harder time finding an institution that is willing to accept it.

As Dan Chegwidden, director of planned giving at Michigan State University in East Lansing, put it: ''Gifts of real estate are sort of like the forward pass in football. Two out of the three things that can happen are bad: it can be dropped or it can be intercepted. Or it can be caught.''

Mr. Chegwidden said that his office now accepts less than 15 percent of the real estate that comes its way. Fifteen years ago, he said, the number was higher. ''We had property that sat around for years and years until we finally sold it, because we weren't very sophisticated,'' he added.

One property accepted by Michigan State was a house donated last month by George H. Lauff, 77, an aquatic biologist who was a professor at the university and former director of its W. K. Kellogg Biological Station, an off-campus ecological research complex. Dr. Lauff built a rambling house near the complex, which is on a former estate that was a gift from the cereal magnate W. K. Kellogg.

''In a sense, I was reluctant to proceed as I have,'' Dr. Lauff said, referring to donating his home. ''But there is also a reality that it was becoming a burden.''

Twice in the last 20 years, Dr. Lauff donated real estate to the university. The money from the sale of those properties was large enough to qualify as an endowment, which by the early 90's became the George H. Lauff Scholarship fund for students at the biological station, and will continue to grow with his most recent donation.

Universities and research institutions are often better equipped than charities to handle real estate gifts because they already buy and sell buildings. Many charities, especially those with small staffs or without large real estate holdings, do not have the expertise or experience to manage cumbersome real estate donations.

If a group cannot accept a gift of real estate, donors should consider an alternative: community foundations, which are public charities that act as clearinghouses for donor funds that are parceled out to various organizations.

''Many charities shy away from real estate because of the complexity, legal issues or environmental issues,'' said George S. Bittner, vice president of advanced giving at the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation. ''We wanted to be a resource that people could tap into to donate real estate.''

A benefit of community foundations is that they can act as a clearinghouse for gifts of real estate for donors who have multiple charitable intentions. ''If they wanted to donate to four interests,'' Mr. Bittner said, ''it would be hard to divide that between them. We can make the sale and parcel the money to the charities.''

But individual organizations are recognizing the value that real estate donations can bring, even those that seem problematic. For example, Lynn Cummings, the director of planned giving at Alley Cat Allies, a group in Washington devoted to caring for feral cats, transformed a complex real estate donation into a gift that will potentially bring in $100,000 to her group. Last month, Katherine Dojacques, an obstetrician-gynecologist in her 40's and a cat lover, decided to donate her 1904 Victorian house with eight bedrooms in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., when she moved to Portland, Ore. But she had $150,000 left on her mortgage.

''She was first interested in this complicated idea of an estate plan,'' Ms. Cummings said. ''But she was so young. She wasn't going to see a lot of these tax benefits until way in the future.''

Both parties entered into what is called a purchase sale agreement, in which the title of the property is exchanged for paying off the mortgage. The charity will sell the property and the donor will receive a tax deduction for the amount she had paid off.

In Sault Ste. Marie, where the median house value is $87,000 and Dr. Dojacques's house is on the market for $350,000, the donation of such an expensive property is something that does not happen often. But she has no regrets, only more plans.

''That's why I work, to generate money for my charities,'' said Dr. Dojacques, a frequent contributor to animal causes. ''Next time I buy a house, it will automatically be transferred over to them.''

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Staking a Claim In Manhattan

2006-08-07T12:35:00.000-04:00

November 7, 2004 Sunday
Real Estate
By ANNA BAHNEY

ALL last summer, real estate brokers were waiting for the Europeans to show up and snap up some pieds-a-terre with their richly valued euros. The summer before, too, they had been waiting. But oddly enough, the Europeans never showed up.

The suburbanites did.

What is playing out in the market, according to Nikki E. Field, a senior vice president with Sotheby's International Realty, is a big change: ''Regional people coming back into the city, usually to be near their grown children.''

These suburbanites have the money to buy, and co-op boards are intrigued by these mature, well-off buyers, even those that have traditionally rejected anyone wanting to use a space as a pied-a-terre.

There's just one big liability these affluent baby boomers bring to the table in their quest for a ''foot in the earth.'' Not toddlers, and not dogs.

What co-op boards really fear are grown children without real estate.

For many families the use of a Manhattan apartment is a rotating affair -- the grown children may use it while at school or starting out and the parents may use it after that. That's why many agents skip the shifting sands of co-op boards altogether and direct clients toward condos.

However, with 85 percent of Manhattan residential real estate made up of co-ops, it doesn't leave a lot of inventory in condos -- even less in some desirable areas on the Upper East Side. ''On Fifth Avenue,'' said Jacky Teplitzky, executive vice president at Douglas Elliman, ''you can count on one hand how many condos there are.''

Condo buildings like 923 Fifth Avenue, near 73rd Street, and 30 East 85th Street, between Madison and Fifth Avenues, consistently get premium prices, just because of where they are. Most buyers looking in that area for a pied-a-terre are reduced to trying their hand with the co-op boards, but boards ask many intrusive questions about how the property will be used.

''The children are becoming a main situation,'' Ms. Teplitzky said. ''We used to prequalify buyers by financial qualifications and liabilities. Now we also have to prequalify them on the age of their kids.''

Even buyers able to pay a 50 percent down payment and who still have substantial liquid assets are looked at skeptically by boards because of college-age children. ''They are afraid the apartment is going to be used as a hotel,'' Ms. Teplitzky said. ''It becomes like a transient apartment.''

Sometimes, it's a choice between a dream apartment and the children. One of Ms. Teplitzky's sellers received an offer on a co-op apartment from a couple who lived in Long Island and wanted to buy the apartment as a pied-a-terre. Then the question of children came up. The co-op board, she said, was worried that their unmarried children would visit New York and use the apartment. The head of the co-op board came up with a solution: if the buyers would write a firm letter stating that the children would not use the apartment for any reason, they would pass. The couple wanted the apartment so badly, Ms. Teplitzky said, ''they were willing to put it in writing.''

When boards can be sure they can control who does and who doesn't use the apartment, these buyers are very appealing.

''The quality of the applicant for a studio or one bedroom in the $500,000-to-$600,000 range is so much better than what a typical person in that price range could present,'' Ms. Field said. ''Major buildings that never permitted pieds-a-terre because they didn't want the traffic, the hotel feeling, the people coming through, are saying it is O.K. as long as it is for you and you alone.''

Some buyers, faced with the kids-versus-apartment choice, decide that they just don't belong in co-ops.

When Mary and Roger Mulvihill, residents of Bronxville, N.Y., who have raised three children, now 24 to 31 years old, decided they wanted to get a pied-a-terre in Manhattan last fall, they fell in love right away. It was a co-op on the Upper East Side with easy access to their jobs. Mr. Mulvihill is a lawyer with an office in Rockefeller Center, and Mrs. Mulvihill is the executive director of the Grace Institute, a nonprofit that offers work training to poor women. Its office is at Second Avenue and East 64th Street.

''It was just what we would love,'' Mrs. Mulvihill said. ''It was near my work. It had a magnificent terrace -- everything we wanted.''

They placed a bid, which was accepted. Then the co-op chairwoman called her back asking if it was going to be used as a pied-a-terre. When she said that it was, the chairwoman told her that the sale would not pass the board. She recalled the chairwoman told her: '''We don't do this; what people do is that they use it for all their friends and children. One person buys it and everybody uses it.'''

The Mulvihills then downshifted their pied-a-terre plans and decided to experiment with renting an apartment in the city before buying. In May they signed a one-year lease on the Upper East Side. Two of the couple's children and Mrs. Mulvihill's brother have all used it and she has no intention of sacrificing that perk when she does buy.

''I have no problems with boards setting rules,'' Mrs. Mulvihill said. ''I don't want an apartment house with all kinds of craziness going on. But I don't want to be in a situation where I'm scared to death to let my children use it.''

Ms. Field advises her clients to be honest with the co-op board about the way they plan to use an apartment. It will save people time and aggravation, she said, by preventing them from filing fruitless applications.

Brokers say many of these suburban buyers lived in the city as young adults, then left to raise their children in homes with lawns. Now, Ms. Teplitzky said, some are ''finding themselves being a little bored in suburbia.''

Ms. Teplitzky's clients Lois and Rick Schapiro enjoy their life in Dix Hills on Long Island, where they have raised two children, who are 24 and 21, and run a floor-covering business. But they remember fondly their early adulthood on the Upper East Side.

''When we were young and in the city, I used to love -- after work -- how we could fall out of our apartment into any restaurant and go to shows,'' Mrs. Schapiro said. ''We used to go to a restaurant and get the $6.95 special and get cheap seats to the shows.''

When they considered investing in a second home, they naturally thought of sunny destinations like Florida or Arizona, but Manhattan won out because of Mr. Schapiro's commitments to work and because their daughter is there. They are looking for a one- or two-bedroom apartment from the 50's to the 70's on the East Side.

''I have a very residential life,'' Mrs. Schapiro said of Dix Hills. ''For my 'other life' I wouldn't mind something that is in the Midtown area where we could easily get to a show, to shopping by walking.''

A pied-a-terre evokes the whimsy of characters from Henry James or Edith Wharton novels sweeping in and out of New York or European capitals and back to their country estates, but really has no real estate definition. A pied-a-terre is a way of life.

It might be a $250,000 studio with 350 square feet and a pull-down bed or an elaborately furnished one- or two-bedroom apartment that has the amenities of a hotel and costs more than $1 million. Until now, what counted most was the peripatetic lifestyle -- often of jet-setting artists or jet-lagged business people -- that would require a person to keep a pied-a-terre.

The Midtown area, because of the accessibility, shopping and activity, is by far the most popular location for a pied-a-terre in Manhattan. While out-of-towners are often steered toward or drawn by the Central Park South and Columbus Circle area because of its convenience and prestige, suburban pied-a-terre buyers more familiar with New York take a wider view, finding themselves attracted to the Upper East and West Sides.

''These are sophisticated, accomplished, empty-nesters,'' Ms. Field said. ''They aren't dreaming like most people do when they are coming to New York. They know what they want.''

And if they know they want one of the stricter co-ops, and happen to get in, they can still see their kids. After all, that's why they want to be in the city: there's always a restaurant around the corner.

These Co-ops Welcome the Family

UNDER $800,000
118 East 60th Street, #30A. This contemporary one-bedroom is near Midtown shopping and is a block from Bloomingdale's. The $650,000 co-op has a full-sized kitchen with stainless steel appliances and significant storage space. The built-in stereo system and flat-screen television are included. Owners need to leave notice of visitors with the doorman. Michele Gershwin, Citi Habitats (212)774-3800; http://www.citi-habitats.com/

UNDER $1,000,0000
3 East 69th Street. This one-bedroom co-op for $900,000 between Fifth and Madison Avenues has a fully equipped kitchen and a large bedroom. It is available furnished for $925,000. Owners need to establish this is not a purchase for children, but visitors are allowed with advance notice. Nikki Field and Gillian Jolis, Sotheby's International Real Estate (212)606-7669 http://www.sothebysrealty.com/

UNDER $500,000
324 East 50th Street, #1A. This one-bedroom co-op in the back of the first floor of a town house has been redesigned to resemble a European cottage with large barn-door shutters and a loft space above the main living room. There is a nice view of a garden, although no access. Priced at $390,000, it has a large terrazzo-tiled kitchen, and a washer and dryer. Owners are allowed to sublet. Marisol Rocha, Corcoran Real Estate (212)731-2241; http://www.corcoran.com/

UNDER $300,000
457 West 57th Street. This prewar studio co-op near theaters and Columbus Circle for $249,000 has clever space-saving features like a Murphy bed, concealed shelves and a 50-bottle wine storage unit in place of an oven. It can be bought furnished for a higher price. Owners will have to fill out paperwork to identify others staying here. For sale by owner: (917)414-8231

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Tracking Real Estate on the Television Screen

2006-08-07T12:33:00.000-04:00

October 17, 2004 Sunday
Real Estate

By ANNA BAHNEY

FOR any true real estate fanatic, last weekend was a busy time on television. On Saturday morning there was a meeting with a house inspector, then an open house in Van Nuys, Calif. Sunday started with some comparison shopping of $900,000 houses in Minneapolis, Seattle and Atlanta, followed by more open houses in Arkansas and Maryland and a couple of house-hunting expeditions.

House hounds who have been able to gain satisfaction from newspapers, magazines and Web sites now have television as a resource. The shows, which are growing in number, range from talk shows with just the facts and figures, to makeover shows that tell viewers how to add value to their houses, to simple affairs that gently scroll local listings across the screen.

Three months ago, CNNfn introduced ''Open House,'' a live half-hour show with Gerri D. Willis as host that moves swiftly from mortgage rates to redesigning a laundry room to comparing the income needed to buy property in markets across the country. Last month, Fine Living, a sister network of Home and Garden Television, introduced ''What You Get for the Money,'' which shows what you can buy in six markets for the same price. One family's one-bedroom, 750-square-foot condo in Los Angeles is another family's three-bedroom, 2,800-square-foot house north of Miami, and both are $400,000.

Two new staging shows have also begun in the last year. A&E's ''Sell This House,'' which had its premiere last year and will feature new episodes starting on Oct. 24, will secretly tape an open house. Roger Hazard, a professional home stager, uses remarks from the open house and a $500 budget to make the place look better, and, presumably, increase the sale price.

HGTV has a similar show that started in March called ''Designed to Sell'' and already it is one of the top five shows on the network. The highest-rated show is ''House Hunters,'' which premiered in the fall of 1999 and follows buyers through the process of purchasing. ''House Detective,'' another HGTV real estate show, which began in 2001, shadows a home inspector investigating parts of a property that are not the most visible.

Programs being planned will look more deeply at the investment aspects of real estate. In 2005, the Learning Channel will start a reality show on real estate called ''Property Ladder'' that focuses on ''flippers,'' or home buyers who fix up property and sell them quickly. And the Discovery Home Channel is planning several new real estate shows, including one on buying and selling property at auction.

Right now, the programs are scattered across the 24-hour spectrum among hundreds of channels, which is sometimes frustrating for viewers looking for them. But taken together their approach is similar: housing is not merely shelter, but a subject of style, sometimes a competition, and an opportunity for investment.

The challenge, however, is to produce national programming. HGTV, which is in 86.4 million homes and has had 21 consecutive months of ratings gains, has to deal with the vast differences of housing prices across the country. ''You put on an average home in Southern California at $500,000, but for people who live where I happen to live, in Knoxville, that home would be $150,000,'' said Burton Jablin, the president of HGTV.

Peter Tedeschi, the producer of CNNfn's ''Open House,'' said that his show starts from the personal finance side of the equation. ''We can take a look at the same issues from the approach of what are the choices and help people make informed choices,'' he said. ''How much money does it cost? How much time will it take? How much is it worth to you? When is it worth it?''

Ms. Willis, the show's host, said there is a hunger for money-related topics, like mortgages and refinancing. ''One of the things that has come out from our viewers is that this is a part of your life where you have a lot on the line,'' Ms. Willis said. ''You sink the most money into it month after month.''

With no nationwide cable network devoted to real estate, all these shows can be buried within line-ups of networks that have many different priorities.

Local shows can be even harder to find. At midnight last Sunday in New York, there was a discussion with developers and mortgage lenders on the cable television channel CUNY TV about commercial and residential real estate development in Lower Manhattan.

The show, with Michael R. Stoler as host and known as ''The Stoler Report,'' was sandwiched between a theater talk show and a showcase of classical arts.

Mr. Stoler, a real estate columnist for The New York Sun and vice president of the First American Title Insurance Company, which underwrites the program, said he devotes 30 hours to researching a topic like Harlem or Westchester before the show.

''The reason it is on, really, is community service,'' Mr. Stoler said.

Beyond talk shows, another local format that is gaining momentum is a channel devoted to real estate listings. In Omaha, for example, a 24-hour cable network called HomeView, which started two years ago, scrolls through pictures of houses that are for sale with voice-over descriptions.

Robert Quartoroli, an agent for CBSHome Real Estate in Omaha, said that out of all his marketing dollars spent, this, at $98 a month per listing, goes the furthest. ''The frequency,'' Mr. Quartoroli said. ''That's where it is so advantageous. On any given day my house will be shown seven or eight times.''

Richard R. Green, president and chief executive of Cable Television Laboratories, a nonprofit group that does research and development in cable and telecommunication technology, said that high-definition television is a natural medium for real estate.

''The way the light strikes the wall,'' he said, ''the views from the window, those are beyond the capabilities of standard television.''

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

3-Bedrooms Soar as New York Nests

2006-08-07T12:32:00.000-04:00

September 26, 2004 Sunday
Real Estate

By ANNA BAHNEY

IT was as frenzied as a Manolo Blahnik sample sale. Michele Kleier, a broker at Gumley Haft Kleier, put the prewar, three-bedroom apartment on the market two weeks ago, then stood back and watched the hordes that descended for her first and only open house. ''We must have had 100 people in two hours,'' she said. The seven-room co-op at 88th Street and Madison Avenue went into contract above the $3.45 million asking price in a four-way bidding war.

These days the most prized apartment may be the one that offers three bedrooms. Buyers, typically families needing space for children or couples seeking space for offices, are finding that there is very little available.

The extra bedroom doesn't just add a bit to the price. To get a prewar three-bedroom, buyers have to spend an additional $700,000 to $1 million above the cost of a two-bedroom.

Three-bedroom apartments are the fastest growing share of the market, according to a study by the residential brokerage firm Brown Harris Stevens. Of 5,489 sales during the first eight months of this year, 638 were three-bedrooms, increasing the market percentage of three-bedroom sales to 12 percent from 9 percent for the same period last year.

On the East Side, the median price of a three-bedroom apartment rose to $2 million from $1.3 million. (If the price tags on Manolos increased by that much there would be riots by wage-earning fashionistas.) On the West Side the median price grew to $1.75 million from $1.59 million, while the median price downtown grew to $1.55 million from $1.47 million.

Gregory J. Heym, the chief economist at Brown Harris Stevens, who conducted the study, suggested that the surge is driven by families opting to raise children in the city and young people looking to trade up.

Not all three-bedrooms are created equal. ''When you get into larger apartments, there is a lot of difference in size and design,'' Mr. Heym said, with square footage ranging from 900 to many thousands. Prices range from $299,000 in Harlem to $12 million and beyond on the Upper East Side. But no matter where they are, he said, ''the demand is strong and they tend to hold their value.''

Classic seven-room prewar apartments average $2 million to $4 million; a three-bedroom with two maid's rooms, another typical configuration, is at least $4 million to $6 million, according to Deanna Kory, a senior vice president at the Corcoran Group who specializes in large apartments on the Upper East and West Sides. Ms. Kory said that, in general, the larger the room count, the larger the rooms. ''If you look at a six-, seven- and eight-room apartment, the seven and eight are going to have larger-scaled rooms,'' she said. ''And the price goes up exponentially.''

Demand for affordable three-bedroom apartments is at least as intense. Next week, the Developers Group will market a new building in Washington Heights, the Bennett Condominium at 736 West 187th Street, of which 27 of the 56 apartments will be three-bedroom units starting in the mid-$500,000 range.

''We are already getting an enormous amount of phone calls about them,'' said Highlyann Krasnow, the executive vice president of sales for the Developers Group.

Many good values can be found in Washington Heights and neighboring Inwood. ''I think that's where the growth market is, in that area,'' said Hall F. Willkie, president of Brown Harris Stevens. ''It is more affordable for young families whose means might be more limited. There are direct subway lines and buses. Amenities are catching up. If you're priced out of one area, you just keep going until you can afford it.''

Some couples who look for apartments before starting a family, so they won't have to move continually, find the prices rise faster than they can make decisions.

Patricia A. Zapf, an associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and her husband, Robert Parfitt, a business consultant, now rent a three-bedroom on the Upper West Side.

Ms. Zapf said that they started looking at two-bedroom apartments last year and that most of the units were going for $660,000 or more. ''I can't even think about paying that much,'' she said. But in a year, she said, ''they went up to $880,000.'' That made them realize they had to act fast.

They have been actively looking for and bidding on three-bedrooms for the past six months. But they have had to branch out to other neighborhoods, and they're now looking in Harlem.

Currently there is only one three-bedroom apartment on the market in their price range of $450,000 to $500,000 in Harlem, according to Ms. Zapf. But the apartment, with a $475,000 asking price, is in an income-controlled building in which buyers cannot make more than $160,000 a year. (The couple exceeds that limit by $5,000).

For some intrepid buyers, the do-it-yourself three-bedroom is the most effective way to get a spacious apartment. Steve Goldschmidt, an associate broker with Warburg Realty, sold five units in a co-op conversion building in Morningside Heights at 535 West 110th Street in a matter of months. Several of them were going in pairs at $650 to $800 a square foot for raw space to buyers who planned to combine them. For one of the larger combinations that would have 2,300 square feet, the price tag was about $1.5 million, before renovations.

''This is not buying mint condition,'' Mr. Goldschmidt said. ''These are people who are independent business people who don't show the traditional co-op package. Here they can take two whole apartments and make it their own.''

Downtown, Mr. Goldschmidt said, three-bedroom apartments in residential areas like TriBeCa are swallowed whole as soon as they hit the market.

Some buyers prefer TriBeCa because they don't like the prewar style. ''You know the apartment in 'Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House'?'' asked Julie Spigelman, referring to the 1948 movie starring Cary Grant. ''That's what uptown apartments look like to me. They are so boxy.''

Mrs. Spigelman and her husband, Sam, a urologist, who are from Los Angeles, recently bought a three-bedroom apartment in TriBeCa. They had planned to sell their house in Los Angeles, buy a smaller one nearby and get an apartment in downtown New York at some point in the next two years. But they moved faster when they discovered how quickly apartments were going and how much prices were rising.

Their daughters, 17 and 20, are in musical theater and were planning to move to the city. The Spigelmans wanted to have space for their children to stay and something they could use as a second home in retirement. They thought a one- or two-bedroom might work. While Mrs. Spigelman and her older daughter were in New York to see some plays last March, Mr. Spigelman called from California to suggest they check out a one-bedroom he had found online.

''I loved the building, I loved the area,'' Mrs. Spigelman said of the condo building on Nassau Street overlooking City Hall Park. She called her husband from the apartment and he asked her if she could see them living there in 20 years. ''I said not even if we were newlyweds.''

''I'd forgotten how small an apartment in New York can be,'' she said. ''I'm here in my house 3,000 miles away looking at them online. One bedroom, two bedroom seems pretty doable. But when you stand in it and say 'I'm going to cram everything I own in this place, my husband, and have space for children?' ''

The listing agent, Lisa Wong of Douglas Elliman, suggested Mrs. Spigelman look at another apartment in the building, a three-bedroom on a higher floor.

''I walked in and looked out at the Empire State Building, called him from the doorway and said, 'Put the house on the market, we can live here.' ''

In the time it took to get the check sent overnight from California for the apartment, the only other three-bedroom unit in the building went into contract, which made Mrs. Spigelman very nervous. But this summer, they closed on the apartment.

New developments like the Time Warner Center and the Trump buildings are adding three-bedroom apartments that are less family oriented, and are attracting buyers without children who simply want the space.

Michael Shvo, an agent with Douglas Elliman who also works as a consultant to developers, said some buyers in the Time Warner building have converted 2,400-square-foot apartments into one-bedroom units. ''They want the space, but not all those rooms,'' he said.

So why not just build them as one-bedrooms in the first place?

''As a developer,'' he said, ''it doesn't matter how many square feet, if you can put in three bedrooms you're always going to get more money for it than if there is only two. As conscious as people are about price per square foot, they are also conscious of price per bedroom.''

His current developments, including a building at West Broadway and Franklin Street that will have 2,600-square-foot three-bedroom units starting at $4 million, are being designed with modular floor plans. ''If people want to knock a wall down, they can,'' he said. ''If they want to combine it with the apartment next door, they can.''

Three-bedroom apartments in new developments in Brooklyn are also selling quickly, in certain neighborhoods. Two units from the Developers Group in Park Slope at 103 St. Marks Place -- each with three bedrooms, three and a half baths and more than 2,400 square feet -- were priced at $890,000 and $980,000 and sold in two weeks.

But it's a different story in Williamsburg. At another building handled by the firm, the 226 South Second Street Condos, the three-bedroom triplexes priced at $900,000 and $940,000 took longer to sell.

''In Williamsburg our best seller is a two-bedroom, not a three-bedroom,'' Ms. Krasnow said. ''A lot of younger people are going there to get more bang for their buck. Once the size gets big, then the purchase price gets too high.''

With prices rising so quickly, those who want larger apartments feel increasing pressure to move before prices rise further.

''Things that we were looking at that were $700,000 are now $1 million, $1.2 million,'' said Lucy Appert, a teacher at New York University, who with her husband, Edward, has been flirting with buying a three-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side for the last five years. ''We could never tell anyone in North Carolina, where we're from, that we're looking at million-dollar apartments.''

With both of their families in the furniture business in North Carolina, the couple had so much furniture crowding their two-bedroom Upper East Side apartment that they had to rent storage spaces.

''We are looking for some mental space and then public space -- a living room, a dining room, then room for a family in the future,'' said Mr. Appert, a senior manager at Deloitte Touche Tohma.

They calculate compromises (should they look at two bedrooms, move out of the Upper East Side, jettison furniture?) even as they are conscious of the clock ticking on current prices.

''We have that eternal optimism,'' Mr. Appert said, ''and hope that someday we can get a bigger space.''

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Hi, My Name is Sam, and I'll be Your Broker

2006-08-07T12:31:00.000-04:00

September 5, 2004 Sunday
Real Estate

By ANNA BAHNEY

IN this city's central casting office, few stock characters are more set in their roles than the slick and savvy real estate agent and the starry-eyed starving artist waiting on tables.

But increasingly, the two high-risk, high-gain professions are becoming a mutually beneficial hybrid. The real estate agent at the open house may have a familiar voice because he was selling shampoo on television the night before. The woman with the megawatt smile whose listings were found online might have several Web sites devoted to her and her character on a daytime soap opera.

Some might say that the merging of an actor and an agent is a kind of noxious New York nightmare. But it makes sense. Both are people who need to be able to work flexible schedules and to use maximum-minute cellphone plans to their advantage.

And the entry bar to real estate is not terribly high. A 45-hour training course followed by a state licensing test plus the strong residential market have made real estate today's version of waiting on tables or tending bar: it's a way not only to get by, but with a bit of luck to get ahead.

''The grand metaphor of acting and real estate is that the more you get out there, the more you get work,'' said David Oppenheim, 29, whose stage name is David Austin.

Mr. Oppenheim is at the beginning of his real estate career. He used to support his acting by waiting on tables and teaching swimming, but gave them up because he wanted a more professional job. In the month and a half that he's been a leasing agent with New York Apartments Unlimited, whose offices have a ''Glengarry Glen Ross'' movie poster on the door next to photographs of people in the office, he has rented three apartments and garnered a three-way commission split between a manager, his broker and himself on the first two (which paid him $200 and $700) and a 40/60 split on the last one (his 40 percent was $811).

''There is that possibility that you may not close a deal for a couple of weeks,'' he said. ''That can be pretty frightening. But this profession is not as saturated as being an actor.''

Sometimes, the two worlds collide. Recently, he was looking very much the real estate agent, wearing a pinstriped charcoal suit with red tie and gleaming black shoes and leading a client, Liz Bradley, down West 49th Street to show her a $1,500-a-month, one-bedroom between 10th and 11th Avenues.

On the way Mr. Oppenheim ran into an acting colleague, Christopher Denham, in shorts and T-shirt, who is also in the movie ''Headspace,'' being filmed now in New York. Mr. Oppenheim told Mr. Denham about a costume-fitting in Los Angeles for his part as the ''aquatic creature'' in the science fiction thriller and bid him farewell with, ''If you ever need an apartment. . . .''

Lucy Martin Gianino, a sales agent at Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy for eight years who has appeared in several Broadway productions in 35 years as an actress, said she came out of her first year in real estate with little more than a computer headache. ''Real estate is so like show business,'' Ms. Gianino said. ''You have to laugh. It's like, we already have a difficult profession, let's go out and find a more difficult profession.''

More than 350 people take the state real estate exam at 9:30 a.m. every Tuesday at 123 William Street in New York. According to the New York Department of State, 13,609 people took the sales license test between Jan. 1 and June 25, up from 9,680 for the corresponding period in 2002. There are so many newcomers in the field that another test time has been added to accommodate the overflow.

While their erratic schedules might seem like a hindrance, several real estate brokerage firms are finding that hiring actors is a good idea. Jimi Economou, the director of human resources at Citi Habitats, said his company welcomes entertainers. ''Real estate is something that can be taught,'' he said. ''Customer service is something for people who have a genuine ability to communicate and connect with someone. For actors and actresses it's innate.''

Mr. Economou, in fact, places recruiting advertisements in the theater weekly Backstage and estimates that out of a sales force of 800 or so at Citi Habitats, 3 to 5 percent are also involved in the entertainment business.

At Dwelling Quest, Jay M. Heydt, the director of leasing, said three of his top leasing agents are actors, and a few others who split their time between showings and shows are doing so well with rentals that they are moving into sales.

''More and more, you're going to see actors getting away from bartending,'' Mr. Heydt, 26, said. In real estate, he said, ''you can make quadruple the income of tending bar all night. Are they going to serve somebody's steak or sign a lease and eat their own steak at the end of the day?''

He'd rather have steak. With his deep, raspy voice that sounds like the actor Colin Quinn, Mr. Heydt has been doing commercial voice-over work since graduating from the University of Rhode Island in 2001. Though he was making enough to live on, he said, he wanted something on the side for financial insurance, and turned to real estate.

After becoming a top leasing producer at the East Village branch of Citi Habitats in 2002 and 2003, he was recruited by Dwelling Quest to head its leasing division, while still booming into living rooms with previews for the Discovery Channel's ''American Casino'' series and promos for HBO.

The obvious draw of real estate for actors is the schedule, which is even more flexible than that of a temporary job or restaurant shift. The challenge, however, is managing it.

At 2 p.m. on a Tuesday, Brian Keith Lewis, 34, an associate broker with Halstead Property, entered a cavernous loft space on West 15th Street, waiting to be called in for the first of his two auditions for the day. He had already completed walk-throughs on the Upper West Side and Upper East Side, attended two closings in Midtown and stopped at a Banana Republic for a new shirt (''Blue shows up better on camera,'' he said). He would have two apartment showings before heading home to update his Web site, field e-mail messages and return telephone calls.

''You have to have a destination,'' Mr. Lewis said of the focus needed in both acting and selling. ''Uta Hagen taught me that. She'll roll in her grave if she hears me applying it to real estate, but it is the same thing: get to the deal.''

Mr. Lewis, who sold the most listings for Halstead during the second quarter of 2004, carries a brown leather folder that is worn on the binding where he grips it. Inside is the relevant information for his eight properties in contract, two coming to market, four exclusives and extra head shots of himself.

''You don't want to look like a wannabe,'' Mr. Lewis said. ''You show that you're doing both and you're successful and that's who you are.''

Among his clients are Marc and Sabrina Paradis, who are hiring him for the third time this fall because he successfully sold a tricky basement apartment they had owned. They did not know that he was an actor until their second deal when Mrs. Paradis went to see ''A Beautiful Mind'' and saw a close-up of a familiar face. (He played one of the Princeton professors at a ''pen ceremony.'')

''Oh my god! That's my Realtor!'' Mrs. Paradis recalled yelling during the movie at a Union Square theater.

''I was completely impressed because I had no idea,'' said Mrs. Paradis, who works in the financial department at Pfizer. ''He made it invisible to us, as though this was his primary job.''

After moving to New York to be an actor in 1991, Mr. Lewis had a successful run at commercial work, (''I was the Head and Shoulders guy in the 90's,'' he said) and didn't get into real estate until 1999 (unless a part in a reading opposite Joan Rivers in a play called ''Killing Real Estate Women'' counts). Mr. Lewis said it was turning 30 that made him reconsider his options as an actor.

''I'm not 'La Boheme'; I'm not 'Rent.' '' Mr. Lewis said. ''I saw that show and I was like, 'Pay your damn rent, you're a bunch of suburban kids acting like bohemians.' ''

Unlike many actors, Mr. Lewis no longer has to pay rent. Last year, he bought a two-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side.

The money is there to be made, if actors are willing and able. Daren Hornig, president and chief executive of Dwelling Quest, said that all of the actors at his real estate firm, ''are making six digits or a lot more.''

This explains why many get into the profession to get by and never get out. Stefani Pace, 25, a leasing agent with Dwelling Quest who is also a model, said she hardly has time to book gigs now. ''I hate to go away,'' she said, ''because you lose the knowledge of the inventory.''

Priorities tipped the other way for Jerry Richardson, 30, who was working as a leasing agent when he went on a vacation to Montana and decided when he returned he would focus on acting because that was why he had come to New York and he did not like fitting it around his work schedule. But he was unable to find enough acting jobs to live on, he said, and so ''that lasted a short time.'' He's now a leasing agent at Dwelling Quest.

For Victoria Rong, 26, an associate broker for Citi Habitats and a film actress, keeping a foot in movies by continuing to audition opens doors in real estate. Her film social circle keeps her in touch with people looking for high-end real estate.

''As an actress, maybe they cannot provide me with a movie job,'' Ms. Rong said. But when they learn she does residential sales, ''they say, 'But I am looking for a co-op.' ''

Ms. Rong muses that if she continues to excel at selling real estate, she could stop auditioning and finance her own film. She said on some multimillion dollar properties, she makes $120,000. ''Something like this you could never dream of in other jobs.''

''It was empowering when I started real estate,'' said David Neiman, a leasing agent at Dwelling Quest. While writing and acting in his own plays, he had been fired from eight restaurant jobs in a year and a half because of scheduling conflicts. When he started leasing, he said, he wasn't making any money, but ''I was just so excited to find a job I could function in.''

Now he's almost afraid to mention real estate to some of his theater colleagues for fear of future competition.

Kathy Schrier, managing director of the Actors' Work Program, a division of the Actors' Fund of America, helps people in the industry navigate career transitions and find meaningful sideline work.

''By nature people in the arts have a lot of talents that work for real estate,'' Ms. Schrier said. ''They know New York. They've lived here and worked here. The uncertainty in real estate is common to the entertainment industry. If you did a Myers-Briggs and looked at risk taking -- risk taking is big,'' she said, referring to the personality test.

But she cautioned it is not for everyone. ''Real estate isn't right for someone who's going to be on the road for six months because you'd lose all your clients.'' Ms. Schrier said.

For all actor-agents the time comes when they have to be in two places at once and are faced with a tough decision. For Mrs. Gianino it was in early 2002. She was the agent enlisted by former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Judith Nathan to find them an Upper East Side apartment while simultaneously rehearsing ''The Play About the Baby'' by Edward Albee. In Philadelphia.

After a rehearsal Mr. Albee made a surprise appearance to speak to the cast -- but Mrs. Gianino had an appointment with Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Nathan.

''Rudy and Judy and the Secret Service were going to be waiting for me,'' Mrs. Gianino recalled. ''I had to say to Mr. Albee, 'Excuse me, but I have to go.' ''

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

ON THE MARKET

2006-08-07T12:29:00.000-04:00

July 25, 2004 Sunday
Real Estate
By ANNA BAHNEY

Studio in Former Pulitzer House
$965,000

MANHATTAN: 11 East 73rd Street, #1C, Upper East Side

An 850-square-foot street-level studio in the house where Joseph Pulitzer lived a century ago. It has 18-foot ceilings in the main room and a dressing loft above a kitchen. Paulette Demers, Corcoran Group Real Estate (212) 848-0472; http://www.corcoran.com/

MAINTENANCE: $1,307

TIME ON THE MARKET: Two weeks

PROS: This co-op is a distinctive, voluminous space, built when more was more, with elaborate moldings on the walls surrounding two symmetrical mirrors, one over a marble mantelpiece above a fireplace.

CONS: Two sets of French windows face the street. A buyer looking to use this as more than a pied-a-terre may find the kitchen too cramped, with appliances too small for regular use.

Two-Bedroom in SoHo
$399,000

MANHATTAN: 149 Sullivan Street, #6D

A two-bedroom, one-bath apartment. Chia Koonce, Knickerbocker Village New York Real Estate (212) 716-1728; http://www.kvny.com/

MAINTENANCE: $520

TIME ON THE MARKET: Two months

PROS: Near bars, clubs, restaurants and shops, this co-op apartment, between Houston and Prince Streets, has just been reduced from $425,000. The maintenance is low, especially if split by a couple or two roommates.

CONS: It is on the sixth floor of a walk-up building. The fixtures and doors need general repairs, the kitchen has seen better days and the bathroom has a bath with a shower head and a toilet, but no mirror or sink.

Private 2.5 Acres in Old Westbury
$2,250,000

LONG ISLAND: 83 Old Westbury Road

An 1838 house, with a 1930's addition, on 2.57 acres that has seven bedrooms, six full baths, one powder room, a four-car garage and a swimming pool with pavilion. Edith Katz, Laffey Associates Fine Homes and Estates (516) 883-7780; http://www.laffey.net/

TAXES: $34,270

TIME ON THE MARKET: Four and a half months

PROS: A restored country house, just reduced from $2,500,000, it is near expressways but tucked into lush private grounds that feel like a secluded farm.

CONS: The upstairs maid's wing needs restoration, or interior walls could be removed for a media room.

Queens Victorian on Water
$3,200,000

QUEENS: 28 Shore Road, Douglas Manor

A three-story Victorian facing Little Neck Bay with seven bedrooms, three full baths and a powder room and a detached garage. Nina Kowalsky, Bryce Rea Associates Inc. (718) 225-9000; http://www.brycerea.com/

TAXES: $6,450, plus mandatory annual dues of $500 for the Douglas Manor Association

TIME ON THE MARKET: One month

PROS: A restored Victorian with water views that has been painstakingly restored with original windows, fixtures, hardware and moldings, as well as several stained-glass windows. It is in School District 26 and 25 minutes to Penn Station on the nearby Long Island Rail Road. There are beaches, docks and a private club in this historic community.

CONS: The third story needs a little attention: one bedroom has not been restored, and central air has been installed on the first two stories but not the third.

A Cape by Norwalk Harbor
$430,000

CONNECTICUT: 21 Baxter Drive, South Norwalk

A two-bedroom, two-bath Cape with harbor views. John Moeling, Weichert Realtors (203) 322-8800; http://www.weichert.com/

TAXES: $3,000

TIME ON THE MARKET: Six weeks

PROS: This neat Cape is across the street from houses on Norwalk Harbor and less than a block away from a community park where people in the neighborhood launch kayaks and near an aquarium, a recently refurbished train station and trendy bars and restaurants.

CONS: With prices on the rise, the area, Harbor Shores, is less of a bargain than it was very recently. And it may test the community to manage the gentrification process.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

DRIVING; Between A Rock and A High Place

2006-08-07T12:23:00.000-04:00

July 9, 2004 Friday

By ANNA BAHNEY

JELLICO, Tenn. --- A TOP a former strip mine in eastern Tennessee against a backdrop of dense forest, a blue snubbed-nosed vehicle that looks something like an oversize lunar rover charges toward a 20-foot-high wall of rock. Its fat tires a blur and its 270-horsepower engine roaring, it begins to climb, defying gravity at a 60-degree angle. But just as it is almost cresting the grade to reach the top of the ledge, its front wheels lift off and careen outward. The buggy tumbles backward, lands on its side with a metallic crunch on the rocks below and then bounces back upright, onto its wheels.

A rapt crowd of several hundred people sitting in camp chairs at every nearby vantage point lets loose full-voiced gasps, hopeful screams and triumphant yells as the driver moves back into place to try again.

Like other automotive events, this one, in Jellico, 60 miles north of Knoxville in the Cumberland Mountains just shy of the Kentucky border, has the smells of gasoline and smoking rubber. It has drawn taciturn men wearing trucker caps and cowboy boots. But there is no beer -- the people carrying coolers are also pushing strollers, and the White Oak Church of God is selling funnel cakes from a tent. Down the way, the Fonde Church of God is offering Frito-chili- pie and barbecued pork sandwiches. These families just happen to enjoy an automotive spectacle with their picnic.

The scene is a rock crawling event, part of a three-day competition last month that drew 10,000 spectators. In rock crawling, which just might be the fastest-growing motor sport in the country, modified 4-by-4's, usually Jeeps, are fitted with huge tires and massive suspension systems to navigate steep inclines, craggy rocks and muddy drops on off-road courses. Different divisions -- stock, semipro and pro -- have courses of varying difficulty and vehicles of varied sophistication, from street-legal lifted Jeeps to custom-built $100,000 crawling machines. But the object is always the same: to navigate obstacles of rocky or uneven terrain while staying between sets of orange or yellow cones, even if it means going straight up or straight down a cliff face.

When Walker Evans, the man behind the wheel of the moon buggy at Jellico, took up competitive rock crawling after retiring from long-distance desert racing in 2000, he went from driving 120 miles an hour over relatively flat terrain for 10 hours at a time to laboring at 2 m.p.h. through 10-minute courses. Now 65, he travels his new circuit and simultaneously runs Walker Evans Racing, which builds shock absorbers and wheels.

After desert racing, rock crawling is ''a walk in the park,'' said Mr. Evans, a steely-eyed, trim man with a mischievous grin -- ''nothing like those Baja cars that outrun helicopters following them.'' Still, it has its moments. ''You'll get hung up on these rocks,'' he said, ''you're about to tip over and your heart will get to beating a little faster.''

When Mr. Evans's rock crawler settled back into place after his tumble, he straightened his helmet, raised his hand to show he was all right and started out, accompanied by cheers, to make another try.

One of the spectators, his wife, Phyllis, a usually soft-spoken woman with a bob of white hair, moved through the trees at the top of the wall, trying to keep him in view, and screamed, ''Get a rope on him!'' to his teammate and spotter, Ted LeBaron, 33. ''Come on!''

But the help she wanted Mr. LeBaron to give would have cost points, and when Mr. Evans finally got the front wheels over the cusp of the ledge, it was without anything from Mr. LeBaron but his beckoning arms. The noisy response of the approving crowd drowned out the sound of other drivers nearby on the course.

Rock crawling's informal claim, fostered by Ranch Pratt, chief of United Rock Crawling and Off-Road Challenge, which organized the Jellico event, is that it has the competitive spirit of Nascar, the adrenaline of bull-riding and the mayhem of a demolition derby.

But a first-time spectator, Tom Lawler, had an altogether different comparison as he stood, stunned by the stimuli and with a video camera at the ready, atop a bluff where vehicles were thrumming on four routes up and down the sides: ''It's like the golf of motor sports.''

Mr. Lawler, 38, a visual artist from Boone, N.C., explained: ''It has little courses, and people gather around them like holes. And everyone is really quiet, until the car is finished and they applaud.''

You can bet that the grounds announcer at the United States Open at Shinnecock Hills never used the phrase, ''He just tore that up!'' but at the events organized by Mr. Pratt's group, usually referred to as UROC, even the scoring is similar to golf's: lowest wins.

Teams, each comprising a driver and a one-person crew, are given points -- or ''dinged'' -- for things like touching a cone, using a rope or stopping longer than five seconds. At this tournament, $25,000 in prize money was given out to professional teams.

The first competitive rock crawl, a one-time event held in 1998 in New Mexico by Sports in the Rough of Ketchum, Okla., has grown into ProRock, a four-event series in the West. UROC, which will hold 15 events this year, ending with the Super Crawl World Championship in October, merged in January with two other sponsoring groups -- one of which was owned by Mr. Pratt, who owns a suspension company in Salt Lake City, and had held a series since 1999. .

Drivers like Shannon Campbell, who was sixth in his class after finishing first at the Jellico event, have a lot riding on rock crawling.

''It is our whole life,'' said Mr. Campbell, 34, of Gilbert, Ariz., a builder of custom rock crawlers including his own and Mr. Evans's. ''The whole family usually goes to events. Our business is built around it.''

The enthusiasm survived an accident two years ago in New Mexico when a rock fell on Mr. Campbell's father, crushing his leg. He was in Jellico, moving nimbly with a prosthetic leg and cheering his son.

Of course, not everyone is embracing rock crawling with such gusto, particularly in the West. Environmental groups like the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, which advocates preservation of 9 million acres of the state's 23 million acres of Bureau of Land Management terrain, have become concerned with tire tracks marring the desert.

''I don't think there is a problem with a motor sport when it is in a confined space,'' said Liz Thomas, a field lawyer for the organization. ''But when they are driving over sensitive and fragile places, you've got a new route all of the sudden and others are sure to follow.''

At the abandoned strip mine, now property of a landowner who has bought out several abandoned mines, UROC events generate few complaints.

''We've had more free dinners and friendly conversations here than we've seen in our entire lives,'' said Dustin Webster, a professional driver from California who said people in Jellico actually pulled him over on the street to thank him for coming.

Mr. Webster and his wife, Becca, also a driver, are on the road traveling to rock crawling events from February to November, logging 70,000 miles a year and spending only about eight days a month during that time at their home in San Diego.

With rock crawling still new and many spectators coming more to see wheels spinning out and Jeeps flipping than to watch favorite drivers, appreciation is precious. For the most part, teams work hard and wait hopefully for wider recognition.

FOR two years, whenever C. J. Hines, 28, a pharmacist technician, and Rob Steffey, 34, a Pittsburgh police officer, pulled into a gas station towing their 3,000-pound, high riding, balloon-tired machine with a Jeep Liberty hood, they got one question: ''What is it?''

But coming back from an event in Hazelton, Penn., last month, Mr. Hines was approached by a stranger at a rest stop who asked if he was with the rock crawler outside. Mr. Hines said he was ecstatic to find someone outside an official event who might be a fan. Then came a new question: ''Are you the driver or the crazy guy that holds on to the rope?''

''I'm the crazy one with the rope,'' Mr. Hines admitted.

But at the Jellico weekend, while he and his teammate were spending their own money and their vacation days, he was also the only pharmacist technician autographing 8-by-10-inch glossies.

Walker Evans, who has seen motor sports come and go, thought this one was dependent on the cheering picnickers. ''As long the families keep coming, it will keep going,'' he said. ''To make a sport really great like Nascar, you have to sell loads of tickets.''

''Luckily,'' Mrs. Evans added, ''not a lot of people get hurt.'' She stopped short, interrupted by the sound of creaking metal as a buggy lumbered over a rock and landed in the dirt with a thud. The crowd went wild.

THE FLIP SIDE
Drivers, Rip Your Oil Pans!

TWO national groups organize professional rock crawling events: Sports in the Rough, with its ProRock series, and UROC, the Pro National series. There are also regional groups, like the Northeast USA Off-Road and Rock Crawling Championship, which have semiprofessional and amateur events. Here are some events scheduled during the rest of the summer and this fall.

JULY 10-11 -- Paragon Adventure Park, Hazelton, Pa., (570) 384-0550; and Three Peaks Park, Cedar City, Utah, (800) 556-2801.
JULY 24-25 -- Badlands Off Road Park, Attica, Ind., (765) 762-2981.
AUG. 12-14 -- Brown Springs, Farmington, N.M., (801) 932-0322.
AUG. 20-22 -- White Oak Course, Jellico, Tenn., (423) 784-3275.
AUG. 26-28 -- Three Peaks Park, Cedar City, Utah.
AUG. 28-29 -- Paragon Adventure Park, Hazelton, Pa.
SEPT. 9-11 -- St. George, Utah, (801) 932-0322.
SEPT. 24-26 -- White Oak Course, Jellico Tenn.
SEPT. 25-26 -- Cougar Buttes, Lucerne Valley, Calif. (800) 556-2801.
OCT. 30-31 -- Paragon Adventure Park, Hazelton, Pa.
NOV. 13-14 -- Cougar Buttes, Lucerne Valley, Calif.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Say It With Flowers, Or Go Milk Their Cow

2006-08-07T12:22:00.000-04:00

June 6, 2004 Sunday
Women’s Health, special section

By ANNA BAHNEY

THE ease of ordering flowers has caused fresh-cut bouquets to become the default get-well gift. But as these four women, who businesses involve thinking about these things, point out, there is nothing more depressing for a sick person than watching flowers die. Here are their suggestions for tasteful, creative and thoughtful alternatives for a friend with an ailment, whether it is a broken ankle or a broken marriage.

MARYJANE BUTTERS, an organic farmer and author who lives in Moscow, Idaho, sells her food products in health food stores and on her Web site.

I usually go to the person's home. I'll bring something along, some food maybe, but that's not as important as showing up. Do you need your cow milked? A foot rub? Can I draw you a bath? Clean up? Any little thing. For people in a rural area, the methodology is to outdo each other with kindness. It is the kindness Olympics.
http://www.maryjanesfarm.com/

AMANDA POSES moved her Fill-R-Up gift basket company out of her Manhattan home to Lexington Avenue when she began getting requests for get-well packages in addition to her party baskets.

For people in the hospital, I've been giving spa items: flip-flops, lotions, hand creams. It is so dry in the hospital. It is nice to have flip-flops rather than walking around barefoot. And the lotions smell good -- I usually put in lavender. I try to throw in a candle, but usually patients aren't allowed to light it.
http://www.fill-r-up.com/

BARBARA KAVOVIT, chief executive of Barbara K Enterprises in Manhattan, creator of a 30-piece tool kit featuring items that are weighted and contoured for women's hands.

I send the Barbara K Tool Kit. I send it to people who are going through a divorce. Or maybe someone in the family has passed away. A child is off to school. A situation brings you down. If you can't get up in the morning, that's an illness. It affects your job, your children. I give a set of tools. Things that give you confidence. That puts you back into your soul, your spirit, because you have enhanced your surroundings.
www.barbarak.com

SUSIE COELHO, host of HGTV's ''Outer Spaces'' and author of ''Everyday Styling,'' lives in La Canada, Calif. and knows from a good get-well: she was on bed rest for four months during her first pregnancy.

As soon as something goes wrong with your health, you are introverted. One of the best gifts that you can give is to set a date when the person you're giving to will be better, and spend time planning a party. That really puts the future there. Every time you come by, you can do a little bit, and get that person looking forward to something. Another thing is to hire a hairstylist, a manicurist or a reflexologist to come to their home.
www.susiecoelho.com

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

High School Heroes: Mom and Dad

2006-08-07T12:20:00.000-04:00

May 16, 2004 Sunday
Sunday Style

By ANNA BAHNEY

AMY GOLDSTEIN greeted the members of her book club with a sunny welcome at the door of her home in Greenwich, Conn., on a recent Sunday morning. Nibbling on bagels and cucumber salad, the 10 women discussed ''The Namesake'' by Jhumpa Lahiri with collegial camaraderie and bursts of laughter befitting a phalanx of sorority sisters.

But half of these women are still in high school. The other half are their mothers. For the past six years, the teenagers and their moms have gathered monthly to discuss books, raising children and growing up.

While none of the girls are hankering for a ''Mother-Daughter Book Club'' T-shirt to wear to school, Amy, 15, said the group is something she treasures. She admires the openness, intelligence and humor of her mother, Ellen Keats. Let's say it: Amy thinks her mom is cool.

''I value her opinions the most,'' Amy said. ''A lot of the opinions my mom has, I find I have myself.''

Amy isn't the only teenager in the group who is a mom fan. Jessica Ortwein's request for her Sweet 16 birthday was a day at a spa with her mother. Elizabeth Brody, 16, enjoys going to concerts of artists like Paul McCartney and Simon & Garfunkel with her mom, and she is the one resurrecting Joni Mitchell for heavy rotation in the car.

Molly Novatt, 15, and her sister, Sarah, 17, join their mother, Priscilla Natkins, for appointment television on Monday nights to watch the teenage drama ''Everwood.'' The two daughters and their mother share some of the same clothing, like a black Theory skirt.

Lianna Lipton, 15, spoke for all the teenagers. ''I think there's a lot more being friends with your mom,'' she said.

Are these the children of Stepford, or are they the most compelling reason yet for striking ''teen angst'' from the lexicon? Where is the rebellion?

It is not always a rosy path through adolescence for these mothers and daughters, but there is an upbeat teen spirit wafting through their lives that smells nothing like Generation X disaffection.

And unlike the chasm that separated baby boom parents from their parents, these teenagers' tastes in clothes and music, and many of their political and social beliefs, dovetail with those of their parents. They are part of a generation of youth from age 9 into their early 20's who look up to Mom and Dad as role models.

''In the history of polling, we've never seen tweens and teens get along with their parents this well,'' said William Strauss, an author with Neil Howe of ''Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation'' (Vintage, 2000), about those born since 1982.

''Boomers are an obnoxious lot,'' Mr. Strauss added, ''and there are a lot of things they don't do well, but you could say they have done a pretty good job with their kids.''

Mr. Strauss, 57, was not entirely surprised when his daughter Victoria announced that after graduating from James Madison University last year, she wanted to go into the family business. Mr. Strauss writes books and helps run the Capitol Steps comedy group. ''I have my own weird little industry here,'' he said.

Now Victoria, 23, has moved back home to suburban Washington and is working with Mr. Strauss on various projects.

Studies have shown that teenagers' relationships with their parents have steadily improved since the early 1970's. In 1983, about 75 percent of teenagers said they had ''no serious problems'' with their parents, up from about 50 percent in 1974, according to the Mood of American Youth survey, conducted by the National Association of Secondary School Principals and the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, an education group. By 1996, the survey found 94 percent of teenagers were ''very happy'' or ''fairly happy'' with their mothers, and 81 percent were happy with their fathers.

In 1997 the mood study became the State of Our Nation's Youth survey, conducted annually. The latest data suggests that children's admiration of parents, though measured differently, is still very high. When students ages 13 to 19 were asked last year to name their role model, the greatest share -- 44 percent -- chose a family member (overwhelmingly their mother or father), up from 42 percent in 2002. The percentage of teenagers who most admired a friend or celebrity declined.

Teenagers ''are looking for structure and safety -- you can't trust government, religion, corporations -- they want someone to get along with,'' said Jane Buckingham, president of Youth Intelligence, a market research and consulting company. ''Whereas before, it was 'rebel against your parents' because everyone knew the rules and regulations, now it is 'hold on to your parents' because no one knows what the rules and regulations are.''

Dr. Frank Furstenberg, a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and the chairman of a research group examining transitions to adulthood, noted that today's teenager is less emotionally independent than in the past.

''Adolescence is younger in some sense, because early adulthood has been extended,'' he said. ''Being a 15-year-old today is quite different than it was 50 years ago, when 15 was on the cusp of being a young adult.'' If 20 is the new 15, then 15 is the new 12.

Of course, there are teenagers who don't get along with their parents. And the parent who tries too hard to be pals with a teenager is just as ludicrous a figure as ever -- witness the mother played by Amy Poehler in ''Mean Girls,'' who flounces around in a pink Juicy Couture-style track suit while playing host at a happy hour for her daughter's friends.

Beyond the stock characters in teenage movies, pop culture has plenty of celebrity role models who have made it cool to admire one's parents. The Grammy Award-winning singer Beyonce Knowles, who is 22, has turned to her mother, Tina Knowles, to design nouveau-Motown clothes for her group, Destiny's Child. Last week the two announced a deal with a New York company to collaborate on a clothing line.

Alexis Tabak, 15, can relate to mother-as-fashion-muse. On a Saturday shopping excursion in Manhattan, Alexis looked to her mother, Susan Tabak, 48, for approval before selecting a pair of pink Hardtail pants at G. C. Williams on Madison Avenue. Susan Tabak is a personal shopper who takes clients to Paris. ''Because of her business she's really into shopping and fashion, and that makes her a lot of fun,'' Alexis said.

Thomas Mara, 18, and his father, Jeff, 49, also are comfortable hitting the stores together at the Roosevelt Field mall near their home in Rockville Centre, N.Y., picking up clothes recently for Thomas's senior-class trip to Florida. On weekends the two can be found working together under the hood of a 2001 red Mustang.

They don't share the same politics: Thomas would vote for the re-election of President Bush, while Mr. Mara leans Democratic, and they have opposing views on the Iraq war. But they do not fight their own war around the dinner table, like an earlier generation. Thomas said they have respectful discussions about current events.

The canyon that opened between the generations in the 1950's and 60's over rock 'n' roll, Vietnam and the sexual revolution, and continued in some ways through the 80's, has reinforced the notion that teenagers are rebels by nature.

But Dr. Furstenberg, the sociologist, said there was nothing preprogrammed about teenage rebellion. ''The thinking that adolescents rebel as they seek more autonomy and push off from their families is a peculiarly well-developed idea in American society,'' he said. But this phenomenon is at least partly a product of American culture, not inbred. ''How we think about that can change,'' he said.

Today, much of what passes for hip taste is recycled from the past 30 years. Teenagers who fall for the garage rock of the Strokes are led back to their parents' collections of Blondie and Lou Reed records, and the hip-huggers they buy at the Gap could be unearthed from their parents' closets.

Standing outside Carnegie Hall before a Jewel concert last month, Sara Jacobson, 13, and her mother, Linda, 38, wore matching black leather jackets and crisp eyeliner. The concert was Sara's mother's idea, as was the AC/DC show they caught two years ago with Sara's father, but Sara likes the music too.

Asked recently to write an essay about her hero for a school assignment, Sara wrote of her mother. ''How we have a lot of good times together,'' she said, ''how she isn't perfect, but nobody is. That she is a really good mom and I wouldn't change it.'' It was the longest essay in the class.

''I had so much to say,'' said Sara.

At the AC/DC concert, ''everyone kept telling me, 'You have the coolest parents.' '' she said.

The notion that a teenager could consider a mother or father cool raises the eyebrow of many parents, and not a few experts in adolescent development.

''No 14-year-old thinks their parents are cool,'' asserted Dr. Michael Thompson, a clinical child psychologist in Arlington, Mass., and an author of ''Raising Cain'' (Ballantine, 1999). ''Cool is an attribute that is awarded by the peer group.'' He added, ''It is developmentally odd when a kid of 12 or 13 says it.''

Dr. Thompson said he was all for parents spending more time with their children, but he cautioned that those who strive to be cool in teenagers' eyes are not fulfilling their duty. ''You are the parent; you are the floor under them, the framework around them,'' he said. ''You are the bank, the police. But not best friend.''

Parents who are open-minded and not rigid usually get the best marks from experts. Even experts who are teenagers, like Natalie Fuller, who wrote ''Promise You Won't Freak Out: A Teenager Tells Her Mother the Truth About Boys, Booze, Body Piercing, and Other Touchy Topics (and Mom Responds)'' with her mother, Doris A. Fuller, two years ago when Natalie was 16.

Before the book, Natalie and her mother ''weren't as close,'' Natalie said, adding, ''I didn't feel comfortable talking to her about much.''

She chafed under rules and finally pulled off a stunt involving an interstate drive, a white Mazda, a boy her parents did not know and alcohol. This was followed by Ms. Fuller's imposing what Natalie called ''lockdown.''

That was when Natalie suggested they write a book together, which was published this month by Berkley Publishing Group. ''We're really good friends now,'' Natalie said. ''We had fun going to the readings and answering questions about what we went through.''

Now there's a book for the Mother-Daughter Book Club.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Comfy Chairs, Flamethrowers for Rent

2006-08-07T12:19:00.000-04:00

April 18, 2004 Sunday
Sunday Style

By ANNA BAHNEY

JOSE SANTIAGO had planned to take his 6-year-old son, Michael, to see the latest ''Scooby Doo'' movie on a recent Friday night, but Michael insisted on cooking and cleaning instead. So Mr. Santiago, 28, a construction worker, helped Michael with those tasks, traversing a kitchen floor tiled in black and white. He only occasionally glanced at the alien-annihilating flamethrowers next door.

The screen next door, that is.

At Game Time Nation, a video-game lounge in the East Village of Manhattan, Mr. Santiago and his son were engrossed in ''The Sims'' -- attending to virtual life tasks -- while all around were the roars and whooshes of car chases and interstellar shootouts. Mr. Santiago looked up from the little kitchen on his screen to the 17 other 32-inch flat-screen televisions in a horseshoe around him and Michael, and confessed to a sense of enjoyment.

''It's a lot cheaper than a movie,'' he said. ''We can always see 'Scooby Doo' tomorrow.'' But the next afternoon they were back at the lounge, accompanied by a thrilled cousin of Michael's.

Game Time Nation, which opened on East 12th Street in June, is one of some 450 video game lounges that have popped up across the country in recent years, offering pay-by-the-hour access to a library of games that normally retail for $20 to $50, on systems like the Microsoft Xbox and the Sony PlayStation 2, or on PC's. The lounges, a cross between the high-octane video-game arcades of the 80's and the relaxed Internet cafes of the 90's, mix the thrills of blasting enemies before an audience of friends with the comfort of a couch, a can of Red Bull at hand.

The current generation of graphically seductive game systems, beginning with the PlayStation in 1995 and including the Xbox in 2000, has brought gaming out of deep geekdom. Video games are sauntering further into the mainstream with Xbox and PlayStation lounges. They have sprung up in resorts like Telluride, Colo., and as adjuncts to dance clubs like Play in New York and Avalon in Hollywood, which last week installed a PlayStation 2 in its V.I.P. penthouse. Steven Adelman, an owner of Avalon, said the game area -- with Spanish Moroccan decor and table service -- fits the vibe of the club. ''If it gets away from what is cool,'' he said, ''we wouldn't go there.''

Offering a happy-hour substitute for 20- and even 30-somethings, video lounges might forever uncouple the terms ''hard core'' and ''gamer.'' They make video games accessible to adults who don't know the difference between ''Halo'' and ''Mojo,'' and are afraid to ask.

With sales of video games and consoles now surpassing Hollywood box-office receipts, the lounges ''are as important to the gaming industry as theaters are to the movie industry,'' said Mark Nielsen, the executive director of iGames, a company that provides games to an association of lounges nationwide. New ones are opening at 30 a month, he said.

In addition to young adults, the lounges draw teenagers seeking hangout space and a chance to battle squadrons of their friends at a time. Alexis Wallace, 16, and three friends from nearby Washington Irving High School sank into a sofa at Game Time Nation and sang along to the music video ''Stacy's Mom'' projected on the wall.

''I have the money today, so I got to pick the game,'' Alexis said. She paid $5 for an hour on PlayStation 2 and started with ''Resident Evil: Outbreak,'' but was befuddled by the controls. She swapped it for ''Kingdom Hearts,'' a Disney game.

Alexis' friends flanked her, suggesting strategy. ''It is an after-school hangout,'' one of them, Shawn Holloway, also 16, said. The teenagers live in different neighborhoods, so finding a place to meet that is not under the parental gaze is a primary quest. Before Game Time Nation opened, ''we would go to restaurants,'' Shawn said, ''but they don't let you sit there too long.''

Wendell Wilson, 14, had one word for the lounge: ''Sanctuary.''

Naturally, the lounges are popular for birthday parties for groups of fourth-graders, and sometimes for smaller celebrations. Gillian Safdeye, 15, sat on a sofa at Game Time Nation, her gold strappy sandals decorated with bows dangling above the floor, playing ''Mortal Kombat'' with her brother Daniel for two hours as a gift for his 11th birthday.

Daniel's giddy face was awash in perma-grin. As she struck blows, Gillian said, ''I like video games -- I grew up with three brothers.'' Although the Safdeyes have a PlayStation 2 at home, the Game Time Nation screen is bigger and the selection of games broader. There is also the chance to compete against other players networked together.

Wilson Kriegel, the 28-year-old owner of the lounge, has never had his own console, but he likens his business to a Starbucks (and wouldn't mind expanding to other cities). ''You get it the way you want it, however you want it, when you want it,'' he said.

Yet standing in Game Time Nation, it is impossible not to wonder how long the market can last. That is partly because the space is haunted: it is the former headquarters of the urban delivery service Kozmo.com, which was a casualty of the dot-com bust. The video-lounge concept is an update of the faded wave of video arcades, which offered an earlier generation of coin-operated games that were played standing up. In 1984, there were some 24,000 video arcades, according to Valerie Cognevich, editor of PlayMeter magazine, a trade publication, but the number vacillated for a decade and has been declining since.

Eddie Adlum, who has published the arcade trade magazine RePlay since 1976, said he is not sold on the idea of game lounges. ''It sounds plausible at its root, but I haven't yet seen financial success,'' he said. ''I'm just sitting back watching to see if it proves itself.''

Keith Feinstein, a video game historian and the curator of ''Videotopia,'' a traveling exhibition of more than 100 ''classic'' arcade games, observed: ''The 80's was the last time there was a real arcade culture. It was rebellious. Your parents didn't understand it -- they didn't play video games. Today parents do play video games.''

They are also more wary of the content. To allay concerns, lounges usually require a parental consent form, kept on file, before children can rent a game rated at M (for age 17 and over) or sometimes T (13 and over). Game Time Nation removes all M-rated games from the shelves during children's parties. Another lounge, the Game, in Smithtown, N.Y., on Long Island, lets parents set limits based on violent or sexual content. But both businesses have an exclusion clause for ''Halo,'' an M-rated shooting game that pits humans against a race of aliens, because it is so popular. ''Parents can say, I'll let my child play 'Halo,' but nothing else with an M,'' said Phil Cerami, owner of the Game.

Dr. Marchita Masters, a psychologist who works with juvenile offenders in San Diego County, opened a video game lounge called GameLords in Ocean Beach, Calif., with a business partner last August. Though she acknowledges that making a profit is one motive, she says she hopes to see young people in the lounge before she sees them at work. Neither she nor her partner, Rose Marie Munno, are video game players, but they see GameLords as a safe place for youngsters to hang out.

''Our place gets you out of your living room,'' Dr. Masters said. ''It turns video gaming from a solo activity into a social occasion. You're in a roomful of 30 or 40 people hooting and hollering. I predict it will become a spectator sport.''

Many lounges find that it can be a challenge to meet different generations' expectations of cool. ''I have to appeal to a 10-year-old kid, a 16-year-old wearing a skull-and-crossbone T-shirt, and a 38-year-old soccer mom looking to host a birthday party,'' Mr. Cerami said. ''It's a juggling act.'' His place on Long Island was all fluorescent colors when it opened in 2002, but at the behest of the older teenagers, the couches are now skull-T-shirt black, though the walls remain playroom green.

Players in their 20's and up who are commitment-phobic about owning a console are a coveted market for lounges. Philip Cheung, 40, and three co-workers from an art-installation company in TriBeCa drop by Game Time Nation to play ''Halo'' as if it were their local bar -- one where they can shoot each other.

''It has a kind of ease about it,'' Mr. Cheung said. ''At an arcade, you are constantly pumping the machine -- that's now more like a casino atmosphere. This is more laid-back.''

On a Friday night, Roccia Stella, 21, a D.J., walked through Game Time Nation with two friends as they began a night out. They didn't play, but Mr. Stella said, ''Honestly, I would come here with my friends, just to kill some time and play some games.''

He surveyed the black-and-white-tiled room, dominated by blue flickering light, and announced, ''All they need to do is fix it up.'' Shaking his head, he added, ''I wish I would have thought of this idea years ago -- I would have been a millionaire.''

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

BOITE: Salsa Under the Bridge

2006-08-07T12:17:00.000-04:00

April 4, 2004 Sunday
Sunday Styles

By ANNA BAHNEY

ON the blocks under the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn, which do not have a snappy moniker like ''Dumbo'' for those under the Manhattan Bridge, the night crawlers are seeking out Bembe.

A Brazilian-influenced dance club, Bembe is designed with worn honey-hued hardwood and richly colored fabrics that evoke places where winds smell of coconut, thousands of miles from the steel, bricks and concrete outside. Since the club opened a little over a year ago, it has built a following -- people from every part of New York who come by the cabful to dance the salsa and do the samba.

Micaela Nevaez, a model in her 20's with wavy black hair down to her hips, broke away from the salsa long enough to say why she comes to Bembe. The D.J.'s play the best music, she said. Gesturing to a dozen friends at a banquette in front of the D.J., she added, ''It makes you feel like you're at your own house.''

The heavy rosewood entrance door, made of a wine barrel salvaged from a kosher winery in New Jersey, is one of the many examples of found materials used to turn this 100-year-old former warehouse for shoes into a place to wear out the bottoms of them. This evening, two couples moved in a fluid, undulating salsa on the knotted wooden floorboards from barns upstate. Friends placed mojitos and caipirinhas on tables cut from railroad ties.

Downstairs, Corey Tatarczuk, 28, a petite artist who lives in Park Slope, showed off a brisk and articulated samba before a circle of four girlfriends. An outer ring of tall men looked on. Her friends picked the dance up haltingly with a few giggles, eventually growing stronger with the beat.

This was Ms. Tatarczuk's first visit to Bembe, and she said she was pleased to find a place to samba, adding: ''It really changes my opinion of Williamsburg. I felt like it was getting old.''

By 1:30 a.m., the D.J.'s took on a reggae riff and Kelvyn Perez gyrated his hips, sandwiched by two women. He finished off his beer and took a white-handled knife offered by the bartender. Mr. Perez wrapped his arms around the knife, explaining, ''I have to cut the cake; I'm not going to hurt anyone.''

He bounced through the crowd, stopping over a large birthday cake -- his -- with white frosting and blue letters that said, ''Life Is Too Short. Enjoy It!'' An hour later, all that was left was ''Life.''

Outside, as a vendor sold empanadas, a woman was trying to get back to Manhattan, asking the bouncer for a car service number. Dialing, she intoned out loud her Manhattan area code: 2-1-2. The bouncer corrected her: ''You're in 718now.''

Bembe
81 South Sixth Street (Berry Street), Williamsburg, Brooklyn; (718) 387-5389.

GETTING IN -- Just walk in.
D.J. PICKS -- ''Cumbia Sobre el Rio'' by Celso Pina, ''Prototype'' by OutKast, ''De Camino a La Vereda'' by Buena Vista Social Club.
DRESS CODE -- Sexy tank tops and flowing blouses for the women; embroidered shirts and T-shirts for the men.
SIGHTINGS -- No one famous.
SIGNATURE DRINK -- Capeta (fresh coconut meat, coconut rum, the Brazilian herb guarana, sweetened condensed milk and coconut milk), $5.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Zapping Old Flames Into Digital Ash

2006-08-07T12:16:00.000-04:00

April 4, 2004 Sunday
Sunday Styles

By ANNA BAHNEY

JILL HAMMELMAN, a hair colorist who lives in Manhattan, doesn't like to burn bridges with men she has dated. But she makes exceptions for those who have acted like creeps, as she did with a recent boyfriend she met online.

''When you're seeing someone,'' said Ms. Hammelman, 29, ''they get top billing. When they lose their status, they have to go.''

So when things unraveled in November, after Ms. Hammelman and Mr. Wrong had dated for three months, she cast a cold eye over the dozens of e-mail messages he had sent and the digital photographs of him on vacation that occupied a prominent folder on her computer desktop. She deleted everything in about three minutes. Having had a ''ceremonial moving-on,'' she said, she felt empowered.

In predigital times, the end of a relationship might have been marked by the burning of letters. The ex would have been scissored out of photographs, and LP's too painful to hear dropped off in the nearest Goodwill bin. Or maybe everything would have been parked in a shoe-box way station under the bed.

But modern life means that mementos of affairs of the heart reside on computers. And they can be expunged with brutal efficiency.

While the Internet has sped up modern dating and made encyclopedic records about love interests more readily available, the magic of digital erasure allows the other end of a relationship, the bust-up, to be just as seamless: the lovelorn can simply delete away the pain.

It is debatable whether more sentiment is attached to physical mementos than to Internet text messages, blogs, postings at Friendster-like sites, electronic greeting cards, cellphone photographs and MP3 files of a couple's signature song. But the ease of consigning electronic remembrances to the virtual trash seems to be changing the age-old sorrow of the breakup and the rituals of moving on.

''In the old days it was burn the letters,'' said Dr. Kathryn Faughey, a psychologist in Manhattan, who counsels the lovelorn to destroy all trappings of failed relationships. ''Today, clear the hard drive.''

The natural reaction to a breakup -- game over, start again -- is played to a surreal end by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in ''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.'' The lovers opt to erase the memories of their relationship scientifically, as if their brains were hard drives. Kirsten Dunst, playing a nurse, quotes Nietzsche while Mr. Carrey's mind is being emptied: ''Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.'' A Manhattan legal assistant had a real-life catharsis of similar dimension after her boyfriend of three years coldly broke up with her in an instant message. She had saved many of his four-a-day e-mail messages, digital photographs from his camera phone and dozens of music files. But in minutes, she eliminated all trace of him. ''It was fairly clinical,'' said the woman, who asked not to be named. ''Technology makes it very depersonalized. It is just, 'Select all -- delete.' ''

Jesse Lovelace, 23, who is studying math and computer science at North Carolina State, said the end of an affair leads to a sorting process. ''Pictures and stuff, sometimes I'll keep them around,'' he said. ''It is a lot easier to delete a digital photo than to trash something in a frame.'' A recent breakup led to a rewriting of his online biography. ''I had all these references to her and pictures of her on my Web site. I did some editing.''

Dr. Faughey suggested that digital keepsakes, which she calls ''objects of magnetic emotion'' that evoke memories, have a way of coming up again. If a new lover finds evidence of an old flame on a computer, it can be just as troublesome as finding physical evidence in a closet. ''Some people come around with a lot of emotional stuff, and that becomes a lot of clutter in a new relationship,'' she said.

Gina Lynn, 32, a columnist on relationships and technology in Los Angeles for TechTV .com, recently wrote about digitally erasing her ex, an English professor whom she had dated for five months and who, she said, had confessed to cheating. She rounded up his e-mail messages, which she called long and prosaic; a screenplay and poetry he had written; and a digital folder containing pictures of them on a trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. All gone with a few clicks.

In her column, Ms. Lynn suggested tactics for digital deletion:

* ''Block every I.M. handle.''

* ''Check 'My Pictures,' 'My Documents' and your attachments folder for images.''

* ''Don't forget to check your P.D.A., your text-messaging device and your cellphone.''

''I didn't do it with a lit candle in a big ritual,'' Ms. Lynn said in an interview, adding, after a pause, ''but I would recommend that.''

But deleting isn't forgetting. And psychologists are divided over the value of expunging records of a failed affair, whether digital or tangible. This mirrors the ambivalence of some ex-lovers themselves. Dr. Michael Radkowsky, a psychologist in Washington, said that disposing of romantic detritus might slow the process of moving on.

''The important thing is the spirit in which you get rid of those things,'' Dr. Radkowsky said. ''I could see how it wouldn't be useful -- it might even be sad or heartbreaking -- to hold on to that stuff. But if you get rid of it in a fury, that mood is more of a problem than what you choose to do with those artifacts.''

Computers make actions taken in a pique irreversible, as anyone knows who has fired off an outraged e-mail message at the office, only to regret it instantly. Peter Rojas, a writer and editor for Engadget.com, a technology review site, cautioned that technology abets rashness. ''Now it is too easy: you can delete a folder of pictures of you and your significant other and do it really quick,'' he said. ''You might come to regret it later. But if you had photographs and letters, even if you throw them out you can still go get them out of the trash again an hour later.''

Computer experts note that it takes more than hitting ''delete'' to consign an ex to the nether world -- deleted files usually languish on the hard drive until they are overwritten or removed with special scrubbing software. And because of the interconnectedness of computers, it can be difficult to erase all the other virtual footprints of a relationship.

''For people who live some part of their life online, because they have a blog or use online networking sites, there is all this online detritus -- that's the truly novel thing,'' said Dr. Bruce Barry, a professor at Vanderbilt who teaches a seminar on technology, culture and society. People are ''communicating more often, more freely and more informally, using things that are archivable.''

Last month, Jesse Hudson, 23, a student at the University of California, Berkeley, saw a revealing posting that his girlfriend, Jane Pinckard, 31, a writer and musician, had written about an ex-boyfriend on a Web site. Because so much information on the Web seems to exist in an eternal present, Mr. Hudson felt a sudden queasiness. Even after realizing that the posting was two years old, he remained uneasy. ''I had a physical reaction to it,'' he said. ''Sadness, jealousy, a little bit of anger.''

Mr. Hudson explained his feelings to Ms. Pinckard. As it turned out, she had been there herself. Digital information lacks the time and place clues of old letters and pictures, Ms. Pinckard said. ''Even if you see a date stamp on it,'' she said, ''it is still there on the screen, indistinguishable from anything current.''

While Ms. Pinckard is a saver -- ''I still have boxes and boxes of letters from predigital'' -- she agreed that hard copies are a different kind of marker of a relationship than digital remnants. ''The fact that they are physical artifacts feels different,'' she said. ''It is archival, and archaeological.''

Mr. Hudson apparently feels the same way. He described a ''cute, adorable moment towards the beginning of the relationship'' when Ms. Pinckard sent him an e-mail picture of her computer's desktop with a photo of him as its background wallpaper. A note with it said, ''This is what dorks do when they are in love.''

He chuckled fondly, then confessed, ''I deleted it.'' After a pause he added, ''I regret that now.''

Dr. Michael Anderson, an associate professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Oregon who has done research with colleagues on the mind's ability to repress unwanted memories, said that saved mementos, paradoxically, may help people forget.

''Most people would agree forgetting is a bad thing,'' Dr. Anderson said. ''It is neglecting responsibilities and losing your history.''

''But forgetting is precisely what you want to do with things that are hurtful and distracting,'' he said. ''To be able to remember something is more distracting than to try to forget.'' To deal with a painful memory, he said, it's best to confront the reminders regularly and desensitize oneself to it. ''It is that mental act of pushing them away -- that's the thing that makes you forget.''

Dr. Anderson said ''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,'' impressed him because of the philosophical questions about memory it raises and its technological sophistication. ''I thought the science behind the movie was pretty on target,'' he said, explaining that homing in on specific areas of the brain is similar to his work in tracking brain activity using magnetic resonance imaging -- though memory-zapping remains one step beyond.

But even if a bad relationship could be deleted from the brain like a computer file, it may prove impossible to completely move on. Triggers to recollection lurk everywhere.

Now that ''Eternal Sunshine'' has been in theaters a few weeks, Anthony Bregman, a producer of the movie, said he has been receiving the usual congratulations from friends and acquaintances. But many include a personal and confessional note, he said: ''A large number of people are saying they just got an e-mail from an ex.''

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

New Way for Teenagers To See if They Bounce

2006-08-07T12:15:00.000-04:00

March 28, 2004 Sunday
Sunday Style

By ANNA BAHNEY

SIX members of two restless clans called the Street Ninjas and Gravity Pac circled each other at Grand Central Terminal last Sunday. Each group sniffed out the other, taking in numbers, collective stature and most important, sneakers (mostly a collection of Adidas and New Balance). Satisfied, the Ninjas, from New Hyde Park on Long Island, and the Pac, from Putnam and Westchester Counties, started clasping hands, knocking elbows and throwing down French slang.

''I didn't do any parkour last night, because I knew I'd be doing it all day today,'' said Ben Gartman, 15, a Pac member from Cortlandt Manor, N.Y., as he rocked back and forth between the balls and heels of his feet. Andy Kelly, 17, also from Cortlandt Manor, started toward the subway. ''We have three other traceurs with us, but they couldn't wait,'' he said. ''They're downtown already.''

Parkour developed 16 years ago in the suburbs of Paris when sneaker-clad teenagers began navigating public spaces as skateboarders might, but without the skateboards. (The name comes from ''parcours,'' French for circuit or course.) From Paris it made its way to England, and then as far as Finland and Singapore. Using moves from gymnastics and martial arts and a name, traceur, that evokes tracer bullets and radioactive isotopes, parkourists tear through urban landscapes using obstacles like walls, ledges and stairs as springboards and catapults -- rarely with any safety equipment. It might look effortless, but it takes months just to master the proper way of rolling out of a jump.

The sport first crept into American homes in the past couple of years in commercials for Nike and Toyota's racy Scion. The ads featured French traceurs bounding balletically through urban landscapes and referred to the sport as freerunning, from the term adopted in England when the sport took hold there.

But the spread of parkour into the woods of Georgia and the deserts of Arizona occurred almost entirely through the boundlessness of Internet message boards, where traceurs (pronounced TRAY-sers in American English) post videos and photographs of themselves and rate local parkour sites.

If there were an official governing body for parkour it would be Urban Freeflow, a British group with a heavily trafficked Web site that includes a popular message board for American practitioners. It is through Urbanfreeflow .com that the Pac and the Ninjas became acquainted and are hoping to start an American movement. They were in New York last weekend to scout locations of the first parkour summit in the United States, to be held next Saturday. So far, they expect 40 people from as far away as Washington State.

Leaping up the stairs from the No. 4 line at the Wall Street station, where the others were waiting, Ben got things going on the street by running up a pedestrian ramp and vaulting a metal rail. There were hoots from the others as they headed toward Battery Park.

''There's so much to do just around here,'' Jerry Liau, 15, a Ninja, eyeing the statue of a charging bull in front of the Museum of American Financial History. ''I just don't want to get yelled at.''

Veering north on the waterfront after abandoning Battery Park (too many people), the teenagers alighted at Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park, with its ledged brick pavilion, stairs bearing a placard reading ''No skateboards or roller blades on stairs'' and 40-foot-high lookout with a view of the Statue of Liberty.

Leaping onto the steps' metal handrails, Ben scampered upward, grasped the ledge of the walkway above him with a hop and shinnied up the wall.

Parkour is a potent temptation for suburban teenagers: it's cheap and a little risky, and it requires an occasional brush with authority. Just as a passer-by stopped to ask what the boys were doing, a park ranger interrupted.

''Whatever you call it,'' she said, ''you can't practice it here.''

With neither retort nor apology, the clans picked up their jackets and moved on, undeterred, hurdling waist-high cement blockades on their way to the next destination.

Having their way with the lampposts, benches and fences of Lower Manhattan (and being asked repeatedly to move on), the nine traceurs wondered aloud what the true masters of the sport would make of this terrain.

''I want to get hold of Seb,'' Ben said, to ask, '' 'Where did you go in Central Park?' '' He was referring to Sebastien Foucan who, with David Belle, is one of the heroes of parkour.

When Mr. Belle and Mr. Foucan, childhood friends in Lisses, France, developed the sport, they were bored, athletically charged youths with an avid interest in martial arts.

As Mr. Foucan, 30, recalled, ''At the beginning it was just child's play.''

Since then they have parted ways, but each developed his craft and both still appear in advertisements. Mr. Belle was in a promotional ad for BBC One in 2002, ''Rush Hour,'' in which he commuted home by leaping, rolling and flipping from building to building through London. The promo is something of a parkour classic.

Mr. Foucan chased down a car in a recent Scion commercial and, along with several other top traceurs, was featured in a documentary called ''Jump London,'' in which they all displayed their skills on some major London monuments.

These days, Mr. Foucan, who is now engaged to be married and is living in the Parisian suburb of Evry with a 1-year-old daughter, has taken a more philosophical view of his sport-cum-art, which he refers to as a ''discipline.'' He said he is working to carve out a future for parkour that includes the construction of training parks but no tournaments.

''Competition and my discipline is not a good combination,'' he said.

Meanwhile, a few of his disciples in England are working busily on world expansion. The founders of Urban Freeflow are 13 traceurs in their 20's who have created what is probably the most extensive parkour Web site around. In addition to offering continual updates about parkour events around the globe, it provides detailed safety guidelines for beginning parkourists.

Paul Corkery, 29, who goes by the parkour name EZ and is a member of the group, explained that after ''Jump London'' was shown last fall in England, interest in the sport exploded, attracting flocks of overzealous, undertrained traceurs. As a result, he said, ''you had teenage kids getting hurt -- kids jumping off of multiple-story car parks and breaking legs and stuff.''

Another result of the documentary was a rise in Urban Freeflow's membership, from 250 to about 2,500, and the Web site now receives about 12,000 hits a day. Mr. Corkery said he expects American interest to catch up soon. ''The American scene is a sleeping Joe at the moment,'' he said, adding that it is only a matter of time before an American leader emerges.

''It is the most primal X-sport you can do,'' Mr. Corkery said. ''You don't have to spend money for gear -- except for a pair of trainers. You need an open mind, and away you go.''

Not that parents will be welcoming this new trend with whistles and shouts. Dan Glasser, 17, a Ninja, said his mother was a little concerned about the danger at first. But he said he explained to her, ''There's nothing really to do where we live, and when people get bored in the suburbs, that's when they start drinking, doing drugs, smoking pot.''

''She was into it then,'' he said.

Andy's mother, Peggy Kelly, a second-grade teacher, is embracing parkour like a den mother, and has even offered to house traceurs who are traveling to New York for next weekend's event. ''The number changes from day to day,'' she said, laughing.

''I don't worry about the danger,'' Mrs. Kelly said, ''because these kids, while they push the limits, they know their limitations. They know the difference between something that is graceful and interesting, and something that is foolish.''

Although the traceurs who made their way up the waterfront last week, running up walls and back-flipping from ledges, have been practicing for only a year at most, many had some sort of prior movement training.

Ben, who was a gymnast and now studies ballet and yoga, said: ''Any kind of movement is good for this. Wrestling. Even soccer is good.''

For practice spaces, said Jason Grisafi, 17, of the Ninjas, ''we go to the elementary schools and the playgrounds -- they're good.''

''Except for the janitors,'' he said, ''which they call Jakes.''

''You see them coming down the halls, and you can't yell 'janitor,' '' Dan explained. ''So we yell 'Jake!' And when we hear their keys, we yell 'Jake with a cake!' ''

For Andy, however, ''doing parkour is not a good place to try to meet girls.''

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

PULSE: WHAT I'M WEARING NOW The Furniture Designer

2006-08-07T12:14:00.000-04:00

March 28, 2004 Sunday
Sunday Style

By ANNA BAHNEY

Trained as an architect, Peter Schultz is attuned to detail. And in business with his father creating outdoor furniture at Richard Schultz Design Inc., he also knows the bottom line.

Much of his wardrobe, therefore, is the product of careful perusing of sample sales, outlet stores and seasonal discount tables. He's even got his own verb for it: virtuing.

''Because it's a virtue not to spend a lot of money on clothes,'' he said.

Here, Mr. Schultz wears a salmon-colored cotton Helmut Lang suit bought at a sample sale for $150, a blue-and-white-striped J. Crew shirt purchased on sale and an Isaac Mizrahi tie featuring a pastel illustration by Maira Kalman, also from a sample sale.

His wife, Mercedes Caso, bought the shoes at a Gucci outlet in New Jersey, and the Gold Toe brand socks come from an outlet in Bally, Pa., Mr. Schultz's hometown, where they were once made.

''I'm still using up my supply, but when these things go, I'll have to go out and buy Gold Toe full price,'' he lamented.

His wife, he says, is only partly on board with his more experimental purchases. ''She thinks it's ridiculous that I should wear something like this,'' he said, gesturing to his suit. ''If I'm alone working at a trade show or visiting clients, I can dress like this. But if I'm with her, I feel like I should let her be a little more prominent. She is beautiful. I'm just someone wearing a suit.''

A Place Where Spring Arrives On the Wings of a Sandhill Crane

2006-08-07T12:12:00.000-04:00

March 26, 2004 Friday
Escapes

By ANNA BAHNEY

WOOD RIVER, Neb. -- BENEATH the fading presence of a high half moon, the pink light of a recent Saturday morning began to wash over a grassy field in central Nebraska as a dozen figures, dressed in Gore-Tex and Thinsulate, walked determinedly across the landscape. A strong wind from the south whipped their coats as they moved silently toward a low cooing sound emanating from the wetlands beyond.

Nestled on the banks of the Platte River, southwest of Grand Island, a town of 43,000 people, stood a 20-foot-long wooden shelter with a burlap flap cut with holes. With ruddy noses and watering eyes smarting from the morning cold, these people poked their faces through to see what they had come from Missouri, Illinois and as far away as New York to witness: the annual ascent of the sandhill cranes, the largest gathering of these birds in the world.

The statuesque gray, red-capped birds were waking: hopping, bobbing and stretching on the sandbars and in the shallow river. As the sun rose, their collective coo grew louder and louder as more of them joined the chorus. Then in an instant, a thousand birds took to the air in a mass so powerful it looked as if the earth were falling away from them. A roar of wings, water and warbles was left in their wake.

The arrival of a half-million sandhill cranes along this 80-mile stretch of river in March is -- like the burst of the cherry blossoms in Washington and the blooming of the desert wildflowers in southern Arizona -- a sure sign that spring is finally coming.

Kay Mathon and Dawn Cox, a mother and daughter from Herrick, Ill., had seen some sandhill cranes while visiting Arizona in the winter. But they had driven here specifically to see them in the greater numbers possible only in this part of the country. Ms. Mathon stared out toward the stragglers still on the river after liftoff. ''They are so big,'' she said quietly. ''I like to hear them, too. I didn't think they'd make that much noise.''

For Patti McConnell, from nearby Grand Island, this was the first time she had seen the birds' morning ritual in her 30 springs here. ''Isn't that crazy?'' she said. ''What an important stop this is for the migration of the birds. And we don't appreciate it!''

Organizations like the Audubon Society and the Nature Conservancy, which manages this blind, began developing places to watch the cranes about three decades ago. But until recently, unless you had a birder friend who knew the intricacies of this annual event, it was hard to take part.

In the past year, though, two new million-dollar improvement projects have resulted in the building of education and exhibition facilities at the National Audubon Society's Lillian Annette Rowe Bird Sanctuary in Gibbon and the Crane Meadows Nature Center in Wood River. These places, which have nature trails and morning and evening blind trips, cater to those who have come to the migration for years and to people curious about these big gray birds.

Paul Tebbel, a crane biologist and the manager and director of the Rowe Sanctuary, said that after championing the cranes and their habitat his next priority is promoting Nebraska's ownership of it. He encourages people here to take personal pride in the cranes, ''just like the pride they have in the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team.''

''This is a world-class natural event,'' he said, ''and it only happens in south central Nebraska.''

Mr. Tebbel added that people can see thousands of cranes in Asia and Europe, ''but here, we count our cranes in the hundreds of thousands.''

The cranes have been in this area for at least nine million years. A successful species, the cranes, or Grus canadensis, now travel 3,000 to 7,000 miles from their winter quarters in Arizona, New Mexico and central Mexico to their nesting grounds in Canada, Alaska and even into Siberia.

The hourglass, the central flyway, nips in at Nebraska and broadens to the south and north. This portion, called the waist, is ideal for the birds because of the low river, where they roost, and fields and wet meadows, where they spend their days eating waste corn, earthworms and snails. Here, they will gain up to 40 percent of their body weight, giving them strength for the rest of the journey, and they are likely to find mates.

There are three other flyways (Rocky Mountain and Atlantic ones, and a West Coast corridor) and there are other sandhill cranes that are nonmigratory (in Florida, Mississippi and Cuba). But 80 percent of the world's population of sandhills passes through the Platte River valley each spring. Not to mention 10 to 14 million geese, ducks and shore birds that use the same route. Even in skies this big, that's a lot of birds.

TOM FLOREZ, who runs Christy's Cafe in Wood River, came out of its kitchen with a cup of coffee to join the forum in the dining room -- held across tables and over the backs of booths -- in which the out-of-towners had caused the conversation to drift, naturally enough, to cranes.

Mr. Florez chuckled and shook his head. ''I've seen people from England, China, all over the world, come to see them and I think: 'They're birds,' '' he said. ''The only thing that fascinates me about them are the people.''

While the ones with out-of-state license plates stick out, more people with cranes on their plates -- meaning Nebraskans -- are turning into what Mr. Florez calls ''crane people'' -- including his ex-wife's mother, Sue Hankins, who drives down to the river at least once a week to view the cranes.

''It is a thrill for me to see them -- circling, circling,'' said Ms. Hankins, a retired library cataloger who makes notecards featuring a calligraphic crane. She is also a docent at the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney, where ''The Migration Stops Here: MONA's Cranes'' is on display through May 2, and all manner of crane pins, posters and mugs are available in the gift shop. ''When this time comes, everybody brings out their crane stuff,'' she said. ''This year there's gobs of it.''

The cranes' return has made their image a leitmotif for the cultural landscape here. The Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer in Grand Island holds an annual sale and exhibition of Platte River-inspired artwork. This year the Hastings Museum of Natural and Cultural History showed the documentary ''Winged Migration.'' Rick Kuethe, a composer who grew up in Omaha, makes appearances around the area, playing selections from his album ''Dance of the Crane.''

It is this time of year when the Michael Forsberg Gallery in Lincoln gets busy. Mr. Forsberg, a nature photographer, has made a specialty of capturing the evocative social habits of sandhill cranes. ''We all carry a flag for something,'' Mr. Forsberg said. ''I carry a flag for the cranes and their habitats, and the plains in general.''

Mr. Forsberg said that like many people, he is drawn to them because they are so easy to relate to. ''Scientists cringe when you anthropomorphize creatures,'' he said. ''But it is true. Cranes are long-lived birds in the wild, they are monogamous, they have a couple of kids a year. The young go through a voice change like kids do. They dance for their mates. They have knock-down, drag-out fights when they are trying to defend their turf or fighting over a mate.''

Currently Mr. Forsberg is working on a book that tracks the cranes' migration. ''The sight is amazing, but it is the sound that lingers,'' he said. ''I've heard it from the Arctic tundra to the desert wilderness. The sound is always the sound of spring.''

ABOUT THE BIRDS
After the Thrill of Liftoff, Art Exhibits and Bird Dioramas

AFTER a morning blind trip that begins at 5:30 a.m., there is plenty to do before catching the birds' return to the river in the evening. Museums and nature centers can deepen your understanding of what you are seeing. Here are some stops to make.

LILLIAN ANNETTE ROWE BIRD SANCTUARY AND THE IAIN NICOLSON AUDUBON CENTER
44450 Elm Island Road, Gibbon, Neb., (308) 468-5282; http://www.rowesanctuary.org/.
Capacity for 75 people in four blinds on morning or evening trips, $20. The National Geographic Magazine has an online live video feed from Rowe at www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/.

CRANE MEADOWS NATURE CENTER
9325 South Alda Road, Wood River, Neb., (308) 382-1820; http://www.cranemeadows.org/.
Capacity for 46 people in three blinds on morning and evening trips, $20.

STUHR MUSEUM OF THE PRAIRIE PIONEER
3133 West Highway 34, Grand Island, Neb., (308) 385-5316; http://www.stuhrmuseum.org/.
''Wings Over the Platte,'' an art exhibition and sale, on display through this Sunday.

MUSEUM OF NEBRASKA ART
2401 Central Avenue, Kearney, Neb., (308) 865-8559; monet.unk.edu/mona/.
''The Migration Stops Here: MONA's Cranes'' is on display through May 2.

HASTINGS MUSEUM OF NATURAL AND CULTURAL HISTORY
1330 North Burlington Avenue, Hastings, Neb., (402) 461-2399; www.hastingsmuseum.org.
Bird dioramas on display.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Where the Motto Is, We Work in Harmony To Ply a Lost Trade

2006-08-07T12:11:00.000-04:00

February 24, 2004 Tuesday
Business
By ANNA BAHNEY

IF Timothy Fink has a pet peeve about running a pipe organ company, it is spending tens of thousands of dollars to train employees only to have them leave. That, and being greeted by church secretaries with, ''the piano man is here.''

Mr. Fink, 39, who started Timothy Fink & Company in Port Chester, N.Y., in 1997 after working in the organ building field for 19 years, views labor turnover as an anticipated cost. ''I think everyone finds out when you start to run a business,'' he said, ''it's hard to find people with a work ethic.''

With a staff of six, Mr. Fink set up his company in the expensive and, he feels, underserved New York market. The company makes organs with electro-pneumatic action -- a process in which an electric signal from the keyboard is used to move a leather pouch or bellow to make a sound. It also restores and rebuilds organs mostly in the Northeast (including the organ at Harvard Divinity School). Its largest project to date is a new $350,000 organ for Grace Lutheran Church in Naples, Fla.

Doug Keilitz and Stephan Drexler make house (of worship) calls for sick organs. They also assist Mr. Fink with what they call research and development of organ design -- a task that can only absorb so much technological improvement because organs are expected to handle a historical body of musical literature.

Mr. Keilitz, 46, has been an organist and repair technician for about 30 years. He works in Port Chester four days a week, splitting his time between another part-time job as a choir director and organist. On a recent day he was assembling a bellow out of wood and rubber cloth. ''It is part of a whole big larger assembly,'' he explained. ''It looks like a silly little thing, but it is actually a very important part.''

Mr. Drexler, 38, has only been with the company since January, but has worked with organs for 20 years. ''If there isn't something that presents itself for you to learn, you can find something to learn,'' he said. ''This instrument is never done evolving.''

Bruce Lockhart, the office manager, commutes from Teaneck, N.J., for a 6:30 a.m. to noon shift four days a week (he starts early to ease his drive). Retired from Chase bank, the 60-year-old Mr. Lockhart has played the organ since he was 11.

''At least I understand the lingo when people call from a church and say there's a funny noise in the organ,'' he said.

ERIC MAYER, 28, a pipe maker who also plays bass and guitar, was listening to rock music in the windowed shop that fronts Pearl Street. He had been doing heating and air-conditioning installation when he started looking for a career change five years ago. After he saw a notice that said, ''Organ builders wanted,'' Mr. Mayer applied out of curiosity. While he has yet to learn the tuning of pipes, he wants to continue. ''I had a couple friends come and check out the shop, to see what I do,'' he said. ''No one can really believe it. It's a lost trade.''

Ramon Alvarez, 31, and Gustavo Mendez, 25, work in the high-ceilinged wood shop measuring, drilling and fitting the toe-boards, a panel used to hold the pipes in place. Mr. Alvarez, who said his father was a carpenter in Peru, was a cabinetmaker when he came to the United States until he began working on organs three years ago.

''I was born into the wood,'' he said. But organs, he said, are more complicated. ''I'm still learning. So many pieces, so many details. A little mistake on the end is going to be a big problem and you're going to have to take the whole thing apart and fix it.''

Mr. Mendez, who was an electrician, is boring holes into the toe-board. Following measurements on a sheet of paper, he explained that the holes ''all have different diameters depending on the pipe and how high you want it to sit. It is like following blueprints.''

Mr. Fink's largest cost is payroll for his employees, which last year was about $277,000 out of $483,000 in fixed expenses (that included materials, rent and machinery leases). The employees have workers' compensation and are offered health insurance (the company pays two-thirds; the employee is expected to pay a third), which ''is a huge price to pay,'' he said. ''It is one of the most amazing costs. It goes up constantly.''

This investment makes labor the greatest asset for Mr. Fink -- in addition to his tone-attuned ears that he covers quickly when a siren goes by or a power saw starts up.

''I have to give them timely raises, to keep them interested,'' he said of his employees. ''Because they are valuable. I'm competing with other builders that are out in the Midwest and other places where you can buy a house for $70,000, and pay someone $12 an hour. The highest-paid guy here is almost $25 an hour, and that is still not enough to buy a house.''

But for woodworkers and electric work, Mr. Fink said his competition is not as much with other organ builders as it is with ''people running a business in an expensive area'' and ''competing for employees and trying to keep them.''

While he has large cash volume because of the cost of organs, the flow is not always easy. It took a year to sell the company's idea to the church in Naples, six months to design the organ and a year to build it. The organ is to be delivered in July, followed by a month of installation and six weeks of regulating the tone.

''Building an organ is like building a building,'' Mr. Fink said. ''The whole institution has to decide that this is what they want. It is not a whimsical purchase.''

So how do you ever sell an organ?

''You preach to the choir,'' Mr. Fink said without flinching. ''Literally. And you talk to the organist.''

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

The Neediest Cases; Lost in Translation: Diagnosis for a Worried Single Mother

2006-08-07T12:09:00.000-04:00

January 31, 2004 Saturday
Metro

By ANNA BAHNEY

The Q train rattles to the end of the line above Brighton Beach Avenue outside Juliana Flores's apartment, but inside the orange painted rooms it is hardly heard because her four children are laughing and having what they call a fiesta.

Wendy, 6, and Evelyn, 8, wear long lavender party dresses and giggle as they make paper name tags for everyone. Their brothers, Francisco, 11, and Eric, 5 huddle and play a game. The four are having so much fun that their smiles are what are most apparent, not their sizes. Then Francisco stands next to Eric and it is clear the younger boy is taller, and Wendy is as tall as her older sister, even though Evelyn's platform-heeled shoes peek out from under her dress.

Francisco and Evelyn were born with a genetic disease that affects four in every one million people, spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita, or SEDC. From birth their spines and the ends of their bones did not grow properly, resulting in dwarfism, curvature of the spine and lifelong orthopedic problems.

Ms. Flores, 29, came to the United States from Mexico in 1991 and speaks little English, so she has trouble understanding doctors' diagnoses. Only since connecting with New Alternatives for Children, a member of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, has she begun to feel she has the support to care for her children's special needs. The federation is one of seven charities supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, which is ending its annual fund-raising campaign today. Donations that are sent by midnight tonight will count toward the total contributions for the 2003-4 campaign. Later ones will go toward the next campaign.

Speaking through Ms. Flores's social worker at New Alternatives, Vanessa Acevedo, who translated, she said she realized Francisco might have a health problem when he was 9 months old. "He wouldn't sit up like a normal child," she said. "He would sit up and fall forward." She took him to the Hospital for Joint Diseases in Manhattan, where doctors placed three different casts on Francisco's torso before he was 5 to keep it from curving forward.

Francisco was found to have SEDC, but because of the language barrier, Ms. Flores did not understand that it was genetic. She said she began to suspect the cause after Evelyn was born, explaining that the girl's legs were turned inward so that the knees faced each other. After that, Wendy and Eric were born without any health problems. "I don't understand how the first two were born with this condition and the second two were born normal," she said.

Ms. Flores said the doctors have told her that the children will grow a little, but slowly. The main concern is their necks. "They have to be careful not to be hit in the head or move their heads in a certain way because it could cause vertebrae damage," she said, and such damage would, in turn, hurt the spinal cord and result in paralysis.

Ms. Flores has flexible work selling Mary Kay beauty products so that she can take the children to school and to their many medical appointments; her trophies for high sales are on shelves just inside the door. Since her take-home pay depends on her sales, some months are better than others; she now averages about $100 a month, she said.

Ms. Flores separated from her husband a year and a half ago and receives no financial support from him. Her monthly resources include $575 each in Supplemental Security Income for Evelyn and Francisco, $218 in public assistance for Wendy and Eric and $149 in food stamps. Her $850 rent is subsidized by welfare, and her portion is $567 a month.

Last summer, the hospital referred Ms. Flores to New Alternatives for Children, which helps families with children who have medical problems and disabilities. Since then, Ms. Acevedo, the social worker, has helped her understand both the medical issues and the social ones.

The first issue Ms. Acevedo addressed was Evelyn's education. "When the family had come to work with us at N.A.C., she had been left in first grade for the third time," Ms. Acevedo said. "The school had not put remedial services in place for her." The agency helped place Evelyn in a first-grade class in which half the pupils are general education and half are special education, with two teachers, at Public School 225 in Brooklyn.

Ms. Flores is already seeing an improvement. And so is Evelyn. "I can do my work," the 8-year-old said. "I do ABC order. We can read books. I like my school."

Another issue was the family's cramped apartment, with two beds for the four children. Intent on ensuring that the children had adequate places to sleep, Ms. Acevedo secured $1,175.74 from the Neediest Cases Fund for two sets of bunk beds and mattresses and linens.

Reflecting on how the agency has helped her, Ms. Flores began to cry. "Before, I didn't have anyone to help me," she said. "Here, whenever anyone does a favor, you have to pay them. Now, when I have a problem, I can call Vanessa."

Wendy touched her mother's face, whispering, "Are you laughing or crying?"

Ms. Flores wiped her cheek, hugged her daughter, and said, "Laughing."

HOW TO HELP

Checks payable to The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund should be sent to 4 Chase Metrotech Center, 7th Floor East, Lockbox 5193, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11245, or any of these organizations:

BROOKLYN BUREAU OF COMMUNITY SERVICE
285 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11217.

CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF NEW YORK
1011 First Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022.

CATHOLIC CHARITIES, DIOCESE OF BROOKLYN AND QUEENS
191 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201.

CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY
105 East 22d Street, New York, N.Y. 10010.

COMMUNITY SERVICE SOCIETY OF NEW YORK
105 East 22d Street, New York, N.Y. 10010.

FEDERATION OF PROTESTANT WELFARE AGENCIES
281 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10010.

UJA-FEDERATION OF NEW YORK
Church Street Station P.O. Box 4100 New York, N.Y. 10261-4100

Donations may be made with a credit card by phone at (212) 556-5851 (ext. 7) or online, courtesy of CharityWave.com, an Internet donations service, at http://www.nytimesneediest.charitywave.com/. For instructions on how to donate stock to the fund, call (212) 556-1137 or fax (212) 556-4450.

No agents or solicitors are authorized to seek contributions for The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund.

The Times pays the fund's expenses, so all contributions go directly to the charities, which use them to provide services and cash assistance to the poor.

Contributions to the fund are deductible on federal, state and city income taxes to the extent permitted by law.

To delay may mean to forget.

Previously recorded: $7,780,657.39
Recorded Thursday: 6,044.00
Total: $7,786,701.39

Last year to date: $8,272,822.54

The Neediest Cases; Budding Designer Rises From Broken Home

2006-08-07T12:06:00.000-04:00

January 30, 2004 Friday
Metro
By ANNA BAHNEY

Brenda Mendez said it was the consensus among teachers at Fashion Industries High School that her daughter, Norma Delila Mendez, was the most beautiful girl at her senior prom last spring. And it was more than looks, it was talent: she had designed the backless bone-colored dress with a rust chantilly lace overlay that she wore to the dance, complete with tiara.

But high school was certainly not a fairy tale for Delila, 18, who prefers to go by her middle name and wears a necklace that says so. After her parents separated, she and her mother moved into the two-bedroom apartment where her grandparents and cousin live. Ms. Mendez said her appearances in family and criminal court resulted in orders of protection to spare her and Delila from her father's physical abuse. Delila also no longer got along with her 14-year-old brother, who had chosen to stay with their father.

Delila's prom dress now hangs in one of the many closets at the apartment she and Ms. Mendez, 39, moved into in November in the Bronx, not far from Yankee Stadium.

And Ms. Mendez, who has worked as an office manager at a chiropractor's office in Manhattan for five years, says she feels the same way about the apartment that Delila does about her dress: "It's all mine."

In May of 2001, after 13 years of marriage, Ms. Mendez said, her husband went too far when he slapped her face on the stairwell of their apartment building in Upper Manhattan. Ms. Mendez said that after an argument with him, she slammed the door on her way out to go shopping with her son. "I was still going down the stairs and my son said, 'Mom, be careful, he's right behind you.' When I turned around he was right there, smacking me and undoing my hair."

Efforts to reach her husband were unsuccessful. But she said it was not the first such incident. She recalled other occasions, other fights, and instances when she would be locked out of the apartment for an hour or two.

Ms. Mendez, who has filed for divorce, said, "There's no doubt that he loved me, but it was not the kind of love where you respect and you trust." At that moment on the stairwell, she decided to leave. But Delila was still in the apartment and she was not going to leave without her.

Ms. Mendez said she banged on the door telling her husband she had to fix her hair. "I walked into the kitchen and I started dialing 911. And told Delila to get out."

Ms. Mendez's husband interrupted the call, she said, so she took Delila and her son directly to the police stationhouse. The police told her not to go home, so that night Ms. Mendez and her children stayed with her parents in Washington Heights, where she and Delila continued to live for almost two and a half years. The husband was arrested for violating an order of protection in 2002. A week after the incident, her son returned to his father, who now has custody.

Even though Ms. Mendez was going through her own difficulties, she was concerned about her daughter. "She hated him and that scared me," Ms. Mendez said.

Delila explained: "I felt angry, hurt, alone and like nobody out there could help. I didn't want to be around other people. I pushed people away a lot." "

Ms. Mendez added, "I wanted her to be in a place where there were other people in her situation where she could learn that she could forgive."

Through Safe Horizon, an organization that helps victims of domestic violence, Ms. Mendez was referred to the Children's Aid Society, one of the seven charities supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. In 2001, Reina Ramos, the family's case manager there, helped Ms. Mendez with her application for Section 8 housing, which, among other things, provides rent subsidies to domestic violence victims.

Last fall, Ms. Mendez received Section 8 status and, with Delila, moved into her new apartment, where she pays $563 of their $1,058-a-month rent. The subsidy pays the rest. To help Ms. Mendez stay current on her rent, Ms. Ramos drew upon Neediest Cases money to cover the $1,058.77 for the broker's fee.

Ms. Ramos is also a leader of Teens Against Relationship Abuse, an eight-week program held in the summer, and she suggested in 2001 that Delila attend.

Delila was skeptical at first, but quickly changed her mind. "T.A.R.A. was amazing," she said. "I met a lot of people there. They had gone through a lot of other things."

She has attended each summer since and is interested in helping with workshops in middle schools.

That is, if she has time. Next month she will begin her freshman year at the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she will study fashion design. After attending the T.A.R.A. program, Delila is savvy to the difficulties of adult relationships. "I know the cycle, how it starts, how it ends, how it could end. I don't want to get into a relationship like that. I have seen what people go through."

HOW TO HELP

Checks payable to The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund should be sent to 4 Chase Metrotech Center, 7th Floor East, Lockbox 5193, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11245, or any of these organizations:

BROOKLYN BUREAU OF COMMUNITY SERVICE
285 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11217.

CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF NEW YORK
1011 First Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022.

CATHOLIC CHARITIES, DIOCESE OF BROOKLYN AND QUEENS
191 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201.

CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY
105 East 22d Street, New York, N.Y. 10010.

COMMUNITY SERVICE SOCIETY OF NEW YORK
105 East 22d Street, New York, N.Y. 10010.

FEDERATION OF PROTESTANT WELFARE AGENCIES
281 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10010.

UJA-FEDERATION OF NEW YORK
Church Street Station P.O. Box 4100 New York, N.Y. 10261-4100

Donations may be made with a credit card by phone at (212) 556-5851 (ext. 7) or online, courtesy of CharityWave.com, an Internet donations service, at http://www.nytimesneediest.charitywave.com/. For instructions on how to donate stock to the fund, call (212) 556-1137 or fax (212) 556-4450.

No agents or solicitors are authorized to seek contributions for The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund.

The Times pays the fund's expenses, so all contributions go directly to the charities, which use them to provide services and cash assistance to the poor.

Contributions to the fund are deductible on federal, state and city income taxes to the extent permitted by law.

To delay may mean to forget.

Previously recorded: $7,586,205.03
Recorded Wednesday: 194,452.36
Total: $7,780,657.39

Last year to date: $8,254,842.04

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

The Neediest Cases; Health Problems Cascade On a Mother and Daughter

2006-08-07T12:04:00.000-04:00

January 27, 2004 Tuesday
Metro

By ANNA BAHNEY

Gladys Parra wants to know if her daughter, Helen Oyervide, can see.

Helen, 4, has other, more apparent disabilities. She is unable to speak or walk. She takes nourishment from a bottle, and she still wears diapers. But as Helen delicately touches her eyelid with her small hand, Ms. Parra wonders what her little girl's brown eyes take in.

Even if Helen does not have sight -- and doctors disagree about whether she does -- she knows her mother and responds to Ms. Parra's soothing call of "senorita" as she cycles through motions like kicking, clapping and grabbing her fingers with her arms outstretched.

Doctors do not know the cause of Helen's disabilities, but they have ruled out Rett syndrome, a neurological and muscular disorder. They have said that it is most likely cerebral palsy.

Helen's birth is one of many medical complications that Ms. Parra has faced since she left her job as an accountant in Ecuador in 1995 to join a brother in Port Chester, N.Y., in Westchester County. In addition to the many doctors Ms. Parra has seen in search of a diagnosis for her daughter's condition, Ms. Parra was told in September that she herself has cervical cancer, for which she will have surgery next week. Fortunately, the tuberculosis she was found to have in December proved to be inactive, although she still takes medication to treat it.

While looking for an apartment, and some help, last fall, Ms. Parra, 46, went to the Port Chester office of the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, one of seven charities supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. There she met Eliveth Prado-Lichtbraun, a social worker who she said has been invaluable in addressing the tangle of shelter, food and health needs.

"I came with a lot of dreams in my mind," Ms. Parra said through Mrs. Prado-Lichtbraun, who translated from Spanish. "I'm a professional person, and I thought I would be somebody here. But my whole life changed since the baby."

Ms. Parra, who has a bachelor's degree in business administration, found a job as a cook in a restaurant soon after she arrived in New York, but she said she had to quit to care for Helen. With her cancer and recurring bronchial problems, she is unable to work. The mother and child live with Ms. Parra's brother in one room, with a bathroom and kitchen down the hall, and they pay $600 a month in rent. While her brother has a job in a factory, the monthly $561 that Helen is granted in Supplemental Security Income is the only money Ms. Parra has to support herself and her daughter.

When Helen was born, in September 1999, her condition was not immediately apparent, and she was discharged as healthy. But the December after her birth, Ms. Parra recalled: "I put her in her crib; she would go completely red and scream like she was falling from a great height. She was screaming like she was in a lot of pain."

Ms. Parra took Helen to a hospital, where she began to have seizures. Helen is now enrolled in an early childhood intervention program for the disabled that she attends daily at St. Agnes Hospital in White Plains. It is covered by Medicaid, the federal-state health program for the poor.

Just as Ms. Parra began to develop a routine of caring for Helen, she herself was found to have cancer. She said she felt "desperate and sad because I have Helen and I have no one to take care of her." Ms. Parra's doctors believe the cancer can be treated with the procedure she will undergo next week to remove the cancer cells.

But the costs weigh on her. Except for temporary Medicaid during her pregnancy and emergency Medicaid for the surgery that will cover her for three months, Ms. Parra has no insurance and relies largely on free clinics and low-cost treatments.

Catholic Charities assisted Ms. Parra with her continuing needs, Mrs. Prado-Lichtbraun said. "Financially we helped her with medical bills, medication and co-payments," she said. "We help her with rent, with transportation to appointments." Of the $2,600 Catholic Charities has used to assist Ms. Parra, Mrs. Prado-Lichtbraun used Neediest Cases money for $300 toward medical bills, including $90 for medication, $60 for a visit to an oncologist and $150 for Ms. Parra's initial biopsy.

Also included in Catholic Charities' aid was a jogging-stroller large enough for Helen, as well as diapers and baby wipes. In addition, Mrs. Prado-Lichtbraun explained, "The food pantry is always there for her."

Next month, Ms. Parra, her brother and Helen will move into a new apartment in Port Chester, where there will be enough room. Again Catholic Charities will help, providing $1,000 for a security deposit.

When Ms. Parra tries to put together words for her appreciation of Catholic Charities, and particularly of Mrs. Prado-Lichtbraun, both Spanish and English fail her.

"It is difficult for me to explain because I feel that Eliveth has been like a member of my family," she begins in halting Spanish, her voice low and quiet. "I don't feel like she is just a social worker. Eliveth is the only person I have found who has helped me. After God is Eliveth, and I don't know how to repay all that she has provided for me."

HOW TO HELP

Checks payable to The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund should be sent to 4 Chase Metrotech Center, 7th Floor East, Lockbox 5193, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11245, or any of these organizations:

BROOKLYN BUREAU OF COMMUNITY SERVICE
285 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11217.

CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF NEW YORK
1011 First Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022.

CATHOLIC CHARITIES, DIOCESE OF BROOKLYN AND QUEENS
191 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201.

CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY
105 East 22d Street, New York, N.Y. 10010.

COMMUNITY SERVICE SOCIETY OF NEW YORK
105 East 22d Street, New York, N.Y. 10010.

FEDERATION OF PROTESTANT WELFARE AGENCIES
281 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10010.

UJA-FEDERATION OF NEW YORK
Church Street Station P.O. Box 4100 New York, N.Y. 10261-4100

Donations may be made with a credit card by phone at (212) 556-5851 (ext. 7) or online, courtesy of CharityWave.com, an Internet donations service, at http://www.nytimesneediest.charitywave.com/. For instructions on how to donate stock to the fund, call (212) 556-1137 or fax (212) 556-4450.

No agents or solicitors are authorized to seek contributions for The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund.

The Times pays the fund's expenses, so all contributions go directly to the charities, which use them to provide services and cash assistance to the poor.

Contributions to the fund are deductible on federal, state and city income taxes to the extent permitted by law.

To delay may mean to forget.

Previously recorded: $7,502,876.03
Recorded Friday: 13,918.00

Total: $7,516,794.03
Last year to date: $7,750,935.43

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

The Neediest Cases; After a Fire, Kindness Only Goes So Far

2006-08-07T03:20:00.000-04:00

January 22, 2004 Thursday
Metro

By ANNA BAHNEY

Last June, Nichelle Thompson's landlord told her that he wanted his family to move into the Bronx apartment that she shared with her father, Richard Thompson, 63, and her two children, Katrina and Daniel Lopez, ages 14 and 6.

Unable to afford much more than her $500 rent, she began packing boxes, but did not know where the family would move. She could not have imagined that the photo albums and encyclopedias she had boxed in the kitchen would be the only belongings they would have by the end of the month. Or that by July they would be living in a shelter.

On June 30, Ms. Thompson said, she had a strange feeling. After setting up her children and father with a pizza for dinner, she returned to work for some over-time at Metropolitan Hospital, where she has been a patient escort for 17 years. Feeling uneasy, she kept calling home. "Like eight times," she said.

Katrina asked what the calls were about and Ms. Thompson told her that she wanted to be sure they were all right. Katrina assured her they were: Daniel and her grandfather were watching television and she would be going to sleep. Ms. Thompson told her that she would be leaving for home in about 20 minutes. "Before I could leave, she calls me back," Ms. Thompson recalled, "hysterical and crying saying the house was on fire."

Ms. Thompson arrived home on Rosedale Avenue to find that her children and father (and the pet rabbit Mr. Thompson had carried out) had escaped the blaze. A full investigation of the fire has not been completed, but Ms. Thompson said a firefighter on the scene told her it had been an electrical fire that started in a socket behind Katrina's bed when Mr. Thompson and Katrina, in separate rooms, used light switches at the same time.

Their apartment was destroyed and Ms. Thompson said they lost everything except what she had already packed for a move that was sitting in the kitchen.

Ms. Thompson and her husband -- the children's father -- separated four years ago after 14 years of marriage. Before the fire, she had already been stretching to make the $1,000 she earns each month cover the family's expenses and rent. Without money to absorb the loss of personal property and move into a new place, Ms. Thompson and her family stayed in a Red Cross-provided hotel room for five days. Then they moved to a shelter in the Bronx, where they have been ever since.

The winter is proving particularly difficult. "You can't sleep in a shelter bed that's not yours," Ms. Thompson said. "You have no privacy."

Daniel attends Public School 50 in Manhattan, which, like Katrina's school in the Bronx, Intermediate School 98, is among the 10 community schools operated through a partnership between the New York City Board of Education and the Children's Aid Society, one of seven charities supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. These schools provide many family services -- including after-school programs, health screenings, legal advice and counseling -- on site.

When Katrina's guidance counselor at I.S. 98 learned of her family's situation she referred them to Paula Kim, a social worker there. Ms. Kim immediately drew on the Neediest Cases Fund, offering $200 for food and $300 for clothing for the children.

Ms. Thompson applied for public housing and is on a list with the New York Housing Authority, but hopes her family will soon "have a place for ourselves that we can call home again and start fresh."

Just before Christmas, Ms. Thompson took her children to a service at Times Square Church. She had $4 to last her several days. She bought two $1 hamburgers and a small order of French fries for the three to eat at McDonald's, and they went to church.

"I sat there and I prayed," Ms. Thompson said, explaining that she did not know how she was going to get through the week without money.

After the service they spoke with a woman behind them who, upon learning they were living in a shelter, placed $40 in Ms. Thompson's hand.

"There was an angel behind me," she said.

But she does not want to exist only on the kindness of others.

Ms. Thompson said she spoke to a woman at the shelter who has been there four years. She said the woman told her, "If you leave you're going to have to pay rent."

"I could see where she was going: she doesn't want to pay rent," Ms. Thompson said. "I work. I want to pay rent."

HOW TO HELP

Checks payable to The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund should be sent to 4 Chase Metrotech Center, 7th Floor East, Lockbox 5193, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11245, or any of these organizations:

BROOKLYN BUREAU OF COMMUNITY SERVICE
285 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11217.

CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF NEW YORK
1011 First Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022.

CATHOLIC CHARITIES, DIOCESE OF BROOKLYN AND QUEENS
191 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201.

CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY
105 East 22d Street, New York, N.Y. 10010.

COMMUNITY SERVICE SOCIETY OF NEW YORK
105 East 22d Street, New York, N.Y. 10010.

FEDERATION OF PROTESTANT WELFARE AGENCIES
281 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10010.

UJA-FEDERATION OF NEW YORK
Church Street Station P.O. Box 4100 New York, N.Y. 10261-4100

Donations may be made with a credit card by phone at (212) 556-5851 (ext. 7) or online, courtesy of CharityWave.com, an Internet donations service, at http://www.nytimesneediest.charitywave.com/. For instructions on how to donate stock to the fund, call (212) 556-1137 or fax (212) 556-4450.

No agents or solicitors are authorized to seek contributions for The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund.

The Times pays the fund's expenses, so all contributions go directly to the charities, which use them to provide services and cash assistance to the poor.

Contributions to the fund are deductible on federal, state and city income taxes to the extent permitted by law.

To delay may mean to forget.

Previously recorded: $7,320,021.47
Recorded Tuesday: 19,247.56

Total: $7,339,269.03
Last year to date: $7,622,990.39

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

The Neediest Cases; Mother and Daughter Flee To New Home, and Safety

2006-08-07T03:16:00.000-04:00

January 14, 2004 Wednesday
Metro

By ANNA BAHNEY

It was close to midnight, April 1, 1999, and Rebecca Glucksman, 54, had two shopping bags packed with personal belongings. One was for her, the other for her daughter, Chaya Heitler, now 14.

Those bags had been packed, Ms. Glucksman said, in anticipation of the day she would walk out on her husband, Shmuel Heitler. She said that he had abused her, and that she was afraid.

That night, she said, there was more violence, a struggle in which she said she lost six teeth before she and Chaya ran down the street to a neighbor.

But it would be another eight months before Ms. Glucksman would really leave, and a full year before she would contact the police. To start a new life, she had to muster her courage. And she needed the help of The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund and the charities it supports.

Reached by telephone recently, Mr. Heitler denied the episode and said he had not been abusive. The police issued two domestic incident reports against him, he was arrested and a court order of protection was granted to keep him from Ms. Glucksman and their daughter, according to court records. Ms. Glucksman did not press charges.

At the home Ms. Glucksman now shares with her daughter in Borough Park, Brooklyn, she and Chaya sat at an electric piano. Chaya was playing a halting but recognizable version of "The Entertainer."

Ms. Glucksman lifted her limp right arm with her left hand. Her right side, particularly her arm, has been rendered weak as a result of a brain hemorrhage caused by a cavernous malformation that she said was aggravated during that 1999 struggle with her husband.

During the 11 years they lived with him, Ms. Glucksman said, she and her daughter bore at least three serious beatings by Mr. Heitler, along with verbal and psychological abuse.

The severity of her physical injuries was not immediately apparent to Ms. Glucksman. She said the situation with her husband had so depleted her reserves that she quit her job as a cafeteria manager at a Yeshiva Shaare Torah school in Brooklyn.

By the fall of 1999, Ms. Glucksman had numbness in her body. She said that when she woke up on Oct. 29, "all the right side was numb from my arm to my side to my leg."

The next week she had brain surgery to stop bleeding on her brain.

On New Year's Eve 1999, Ms. Glucksman took her daughter -- and those shopping bags with clothes -- and left her husband. She said that until that point, she could not see how hard her life had become.

"I was in a fog," she said. "And then after I had surgery, I was in a real daze. When someone is drowning, they have to want to live, and they want to be saved."

But first they had to find housing and support to pull their lives together. They found assistance from the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, an affiliate of UJA-Federation of New York, one of the seven charities supported by the Neediest Cases.

Over the past three years, the organization has provided $2,398 toward Ms. Glucksman's rent and utilities, supplemented by $515 from the Neediest Cases Fund. The Met Council also helped her to receive a grant for $5,000 toward reduced legal fees. And it assisted with her application for Section 8 housing, which is not only for the homeless, but also for victims of domestic violence, and she was granted housing in May 2002.

Robin Stone Einbinder, a lawyer with Karasik & Einbinder in Manhattan, represented Ms. Glucksman in Family Court for Kings County in February 2002. Ms. Glucksman was granted custody and Mr. Heitler was given rights to visit under supervision. As part of that ruling, an order of protection was granted to keep Mr. Heitler from them. Mr. Heitler made an appeal, but it was denied last October.

Ms. Glucksman has begun part-time administrative work for a cleaning business. And she has become philosophical about her ordeal. "That was not dying and was not living," she said. "It was like being in quicksand, sinking."

The one thing that has not ended is the marriage. Under Orthodox Jewish law, a husband must give his wife a bill of divorce known as a "get," which is under the jurisdiction of a Beit Din or religious court. Mr. Heitler has not done that, Ms. Glucksman said.

While she wants this last bond to her husband to be severed, she said she finds relief in her new life. "I feel so much stronger," she said. "I'm happy."

HOW TO HELP

Checks payable to The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund should be sent to 4 Chase Metrotech Center, 7th Floor East, Lockbox 5193, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11245, or any of these organizations:

BROOKLYN BUREAU OF COMMUNITY SERVICE
285 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11217.

CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF NEW YORK
1011 First Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022.

CATHOLIC CHARITIES, DIOCESE OF BROOKLYN AND QUEENS
191 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201.

CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY
105 East 22d Street, New York, N.Y. 10010.

COMMUNITY SERVICE SOCIETY OF NEW YORK
105 East 22d Street, New York, N.Y. 10010.

FEDERATION OF PROTESTANT WELFARE AGENCIES
281 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10010.

UJA-FEDERATION OF NEW YORK
Church Street Station P.O. Box 4100 New York, N.Y. 10261-4100

Donations may be made with a credit card by phone at (212) 556-5851 (ext. 7) or online, courtesy of CharityWave.com, an Internet donations service, at http://www.nytimesneediest.charitywave.com/. For instructions on how to donate stock to the fund, call (212) 556-1137 or fax (212) 556-4450.

No agents or solicitors are authorized to seek contributions for The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund.

The Times pays the fund's expenses, so all contributions go directly to the charities, which use them to provide services and cash assistance to the poor.

Contributions to the fund are deductible on federal, state and city income taxes to the extent permitted by law.

To delay may mean to forget.

Previously recorded: $6,746,863.64
Recorded Monday: 23,275.00
Total: $6,770,138.64

Last year to date: $7,229,247.55

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

The Neediest Cases; Loss of a Job Leads Bronx Couple to a Brush With Disaster

2006-08-07T03:15:00.000-04:00

January 12, 2004 Monday
Metro

By ANNA BAHNEY

Joseph Sulle, 61, doesn't like to lie. But he has told some white lies trying to shield his family from the problems that led him and his wife to be evicted from their home last year and spend three nights sleeping in their car.

When he was fired as a supervisor of security guards shortly before Thanksgiving 2002, he waited until after the holiday to tell his wife, Helen, and their two daughters that it was not a vacation that was keeping him at home.

When he and his wife were evicted from their apartment last November, he told his younger daughter, who was away at college, that they were staying in a motel because of renovation work.

And when Mr. and Mrs. Sulle pulled into a gas station near Co-Op City in the Bronx after having been reduced to living in their car, he asked an employee there if they could sleep in the station's lot because they were lost.

For Mr. Sulle, these were circumstances hard to imagine. "We're not criminals, we're taxpayers," he said.

The Sulles had lived in the same Bronx apartment for eight years and had been paying for college for their daughters.

Their problems began in April 2002, when Mrs. Sulle, 60, who works as a housing and benefits specialist for Sanctuary for Families, a service for domestic violence victims, reinjured her back. She had undergone three operations on the back since a fall at another job a decade earlier.

The new injury kept her in pain, but she continued to go to work until August, when the condition worsened. Mr. Sulle said he lost his job because he sometimes got to work 10 or 20 minutes late because of the time spent caring for his wife in the mornings.

"But as a supervisor you've got to be there before everybody," he said. "I just couldn't walk out of here and leave her un-taken care of."

Mr. Sulle, who has a degree in industrial engineering, has applied for many jobs and had several interviews, but he suspects that his age has worked against him.

Mrs. Sulle returned to work in December 2002. Mr. Sulle received weekly unemployment checks of $308 for two months, but after that the family relied on the $927 paycheck Mrs. Sulle received every two weeks.

Mrs. Sulle received her pay throughout her illness, but, without Mr. Sulle's income, the family had trouble making ends meet. They missed their $975 April rent payment.

"The landlord was great because he gave us ample time to come up with the money we owed him," Mr. Sulle said. "I told him our situation; he went along with us hoping I would go back to work."

In May, when it came time to come up with a portion of the $8,000 they pay each year toward their younger daughter's tuition at a private college in New York State, the Sulles had to choose between rent and education. They sent a check to the college, and fell further behind on rent.

They made a rent payment in June, but they received another blow in August, when they found out that they would not be reimbursed for $3,000 in repairs made to their car after an accident in which it was hit by an uninsured driver.

By September, eviction proceedings had begun, and Mr. Sulle asked the Human Resource Administration for help in paying the rent. The agency told Mr. Sulle that if he could come up with half the money he owed, it would lend him the rest.

Mr. Sulle then asked for help from the Community Service Society, one of the seven charities supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. Anna Auleley, a case worker at the organization, helped him obtain $1,050 in Neediest Cases funding. She also put him in touch with other organizations, including the Citizens Assistance Bureau and the Coalition for the Homeless, which supplied the remaining money.

Mr. Sulle said that on Nov. 10, the deadline that had been set for the amount owed to be paid, a judge told him that the check from Human Resource Administration had not arrived and that he would be evicted.

On the morning of Nov. 12, Mr. Sulle left to get a newspaper for his job search. When he returned, the city marshall and the landlord were changing the locks on his apartment.

Mr. Sulle went straight to Ms. Auleley's office.

"He came to my door," she said. "I knew something was wrong because when he walked in, he was another person."

She calmed him and had him to call his wife. Then she obtained additional Neediest Cases money, bringing the total to about $2,000, to help them get back into their apartment.

The Sulles went to a motel in the Bronx. When that money ran out, the couple spent three nights sleeping in their car.

By Nov. 21, the Human Resource Administration check had come through and they were allowed to return to their apartment.

All their problems have not disappeared, but for now, they are back in their apartment. Mr. Sulle has had a followup interview with a security company, and is hopeful he will soon be offered a job.

And for now, at least, Mr. Sulle has no need for more of those little white lies.

HOW TO HELP

Checks payable to The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund should be sent to 4 Chase Metrotech Center, 7th Floor East, Lockbox 5193, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11245, or any of these organizations:

BROOKLYN BUREAU OF COMMUNITY SERVICE
285 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11217.

CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF NEW YORK
1011 First Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022.

CATHOLIC CHARITIES, DIOCESE OF BROOKLYN AND QUEENS
191 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201.

CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY
105 East 22d Street, New York, N.Y. 10010.

COMMUNITY SERVICE SOCIETY OF NEW YORK
105 East 22d Street, New York, N.Y. 10010.

FEDERATION OF PROTESTANT WELFARE AGENCIES
281 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10010.

UJA-FEDERATION OF NEW YORK
Church Street Station P.O. Box 4100 New York, N.Y. 10261-4100

Donations may be made with a credit card by phone at (212) 556-5851 (ext. 7) or online, courtesy of CharityWave.com, an Internet donations service, at http://www.nytimesneediest.charitywave.com/. For instructions on how to donate stock to the fund, call (212) 556-1137 or fax (212) 556-4450.

No agents or solicitors are authorized to seek contributions for The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund.

The Times pays the fund's expenses, so all contributions go directly to the charities, which use them to provide services and cash assistance to the poor.

Contributions to the fund are deductible on federal, state and city income taxes to the extent permitted by law.

To delay may mean to forget.

Previously recorded: $6,688,556.64
Recorded Thursday: 13,321.00

Total: $6,701,877.64
Last year to date: $7,157,040.35

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company