The Buzz

SOMEONE’S TAKING NOTICE: Of our bi-weekly real estate column, Open House, that is. The column, which, for the benefit of readers, documents the new luxury condominiums and conversions sprouting up in Chelsea and the surrounding neighborhoods, is catching the attention of the real estate industry, it appears. We recently received a press release for a new property going up on West 22nd Street—the first unsolicited listing since we began the column. And yesterday, we were contacted by Julie Larson of Barak Realty, an Upper West Side realtor featured in a recent episode of “Open House New York,” a weekly TV series on NBC Channel 4 that follows moneyed New Yorkers and their brokers on the hunt for prized properties “in the ruthless New York residential real estate market.” The episode followed a French male model checking out, among other lodgings, a $1.5 million, 1,400-sq.-ft. “model apartment” at Loft 25 (420 W. 25th St.), which was featured in our column a few weeks ago and is still under construction. Larson confided: “As an aside, a boy, probably 10 years old and on a bike, asked what we were doing, and we told him, ‘Filming a show about real estate.’ He looked around and asked, ‘Here in the projects?’” Perhaps that boy was one of many kids and adults from the Elliot-Chelsea and Fulton Houses who wonder what this real estate boom bodes for them.

THEN THEY TAKE BERLIN: Save the Garment Center, the group of “garmentos” behind the July 18 “Pin Day” campaign that garnered coverage in the city’s dailies, including the hugely influential Women’s Wear Daily, has new plans, amid rumors from the needleworkers’ union UNITE-HERE that the negotiations on Garment District zoning are going nowhere. “They [building owners] don’t want to give up anything,’ said Samanta Cortes, co-founder of Save the Garment Center. Cortes reported that at least 30 attendees were confirmed for the group’s seminar at the summer “Directions” trade show at Penn Plaza Pavilion, and that the next “Pin Day,” in September, will go after the biggest target of all: the annual Fashion Week held at Bryant Park. In front of the starved models and long limos, she promises, will be SGC volunteers with quilted pins. We actually hope SGC members, most of whom supply the big designers, will mix it up a little: Perhaps Cortes and Paul Cavazza will appear in some lamé thong or other, or will attach those pins to Miuccia Prada’s wig by any means necessary.

IF YOU LOOK UP “CHUTZPAH” IN THE DICTIONARY: You might find the stars of last week’s Police Blotter, restaurateur Arrigo Cipriani and his 41-year-old son Giuseppe. Fresh from pleading guilty to tax evasion and paying the feds $10 million in back taxes, the family turned around and filed a $20 million lawsuit against the owners of the Toy Building, who recently moved to evict the pair after their conviction. To hear what the Ciprianis told the New York Post, the pair, who have catered weddings and bar mitzvahs at the Toy Building for years, are just the last of the aggrieved tenants in the face of a rapacious new building owner: “They said the building’s new owner has been trying to kick them out, as it did other tenants, for years now,” reads the Post article. If Rosa Maria de la Torre at Chelsea Housing Group is looking for the most unlikely poster children possible, this pair might be it.

CORRECTION: Our apologies to Jenny Sobelman, who will be coordinating Assemblymember Richard Gottfried’s district office now that Eliyanna Kaiser has moved on to East Side turf. We mistakenly identified her as Jill in last week’s Buzz column. Sobelman will continue being Mr. Gottfried’s liaison to C.B. 5. She helped to write a guidebook for senior citizens while she was an intern in State Sen. Liz Krueger’s office, prior to joining Gottfried’s staff.