Small Talk: Sun, Rent, Celebrities

 

By J. David Goodman

The New York Times (City Room Blog)

April 8, 2010

 

With the weather providing a sudden burst of summer on Wednesday, there seemed to be a slight but noticeable dip in the output of local bloggers. A thoroughly impressionistic review of one city-centric Google Reader account saw fewer instances of extended musings about subjects other than the sun or — a corollary — the skin-scorching metal domes in the newly renovated Brooklyn Bridge Park.

 

Could it be true that good weather corresponds with more small blog talk? Does Twitter and Foursquare activity increase, then, as legions rush to publish on Twitter photos of their sunny locations?

 

If such a low-word count trend exists — there should be an academic study of this! — it might be expected to continue on Thursday. But fortunately there is at least one thing likely to inspire talk small and large, and that’s fresh numbers on Manhattan real estate.

 

Rental activity appears to be back up in the borough, as Curbed discovered in two new market reports. In the report issued by brokerage Citi Habitats, Manhattan’s vacancy rate stands at 1.45%, which is down substantially from the same period last year, when 2.36% of units were unoccupied.

 

While the average rent is still down from the same quarter in 2009, it’s up from the end of the year and now stands at $3,812/month, according to Prudential Douglas Elliman, another brokerage firm.

 

Which seems a bit steep, until you consider that some of those renters are in four-bedroom apartments that rent for an average of $12,197 a month, a figure 22 percent lower than the same quarter last year. In fact, according to Elliman’s numbers, the only apartments to see rents increase over the last year were studios. There, the average price leapt almost nine percent to $2,417, from $2,221. No doubt because each is SPACIOUS and SUN-DRENCHED.

 

With so much sun, solar energy can’t be far behind. On Room Eight, Larry Littlefield describes his experience installing solar panels on his roof. Though it involved some logistical and bureaucratic frustrations — “multiple city agencies took forever to process multiple permits and inspections” — he proclaims the end result worth it. “What’s it like having solar panels? Highly motivating. Suddenly, even the teens in the house are shutting off the lights when they leave a room,” he wrote.

 

Besides rents and sun, another thing people seem to enjoy talking about, especially on a throw-your-cares-to-the-hot-wind nice day, are celebrities. So DNAInfo went to the streets to answer a question that could only be asked this week: Who do you care more about, Jesse James or Tiger Woods?

 

This video, another unscientific survey, might actually reveal something interesting about the two celebrity stories of the moment. It appears that across racial and ethnic lines, men care more about Tiger Woods and women care more about Sandra Bullock. (Nobody really seems to care about her husband, Mr. James. Of course, we don’t know what interviews ended up on the cutting-room floor.)

 

Elsewhere, Baristanet celebrates our mini heat wave, CNN follows a woman bike messenger on her daily rounds, and a cat stands on its hind legs about as well as a Lower East Side hipster at 4 a.m. Awww.

 

Around the Web from link to link; today’s chatter in the New York City blogosphere. Have a tip or a Web site worth checking out? E-mail us at NewYorkOnline@nytimes.com or send a message on Twitter to @jdavidgoodman.