Apartment Choice

view slideshow (4 images) PREV         NEXT A couple who owns a small plot of farmland on Park Avenue near the Lincoln Tunnel alleges that the Township of Weehawken has blocked their efforts for 15 years to clean up their property and develop it into luxury apartments. Konstantinos and Helen Natsis, who have fought numerous court battles against Weehawken over their property at 353 Park Ave., have also leveled allegations of political retaliation in recent media interviews . The troubles began around 2004, when the Superior Court of New Jersey ordered the township to perform a slope stabilization project on the Natsises’ property. That project was done to bring the slope in line with the town’s steep slope ordinance . The ordinance limits development on the Palisades Cliffs to protect its structural integrity and the integrity of properties above it. The town’s work included repairing pipes and installing fencing to avoid rock slides . The town also worked on a leaking clay...

Jim Pantaleo’s phone winked out sometime after 6:00 a.m. on Aug. 1, 2012. The last message he sent before it died was to his wife, Allison. “Love you forever,” it said. And then, nothing. Jim had spent the day before writing and drinking, slowly. From his perch at the corner of an L-shaped bar at a pub in Toronto’s east end, he tapped away at his laptop. He sipped beer and he did shots of “liquid cocaine,” a mix of Jagermeister and Goldschlager schnapps. Jim had arrived at the pub, Rails and Ales, at about 3 p.m. “He seemed very normal,” says Len Grammenopoulos, the bar’s owner. He ate some food. He joked around. Sometime after midnight, he sent his mother an email with seven letters inside. At about 2:30 a.m., he paid his tab — maybe $60, $70. He high-fived Len and he walked out. “I remember him saying ‘I’m gone,’” Len says. “And that was it.” Jim was gone. When Jim and Allison Pantaleo first met — as coworkers at a pub called Gabby ’s on the Danforth — it was something close to ...

The struggles of the impoverished are well documented. But how about the unique pain and struggle associated with being wealthy in New York City? In her research for “ Uneasy Street : The Anxieties of Affluence” ( Princeton University Press , out Sept. 5), Rachel Sherman interviewed 50 New York-area parents of young children, whose household incomes ranged from $250,000 to $10 million and with assets totaling up to $50 million. These locals live pampered lives — with multiple high-end properties, teams of household employees and frequent, lavish vacations — but still, they do impressive mental gymnastics to avoid identifying themselves as truly rich. For instance: Helen, a stay-at-home mom with an annual family income of $2 million, describes herself as “in the middle, in the sense that there are so many people with so much money. They have private planes. They have drivers. They have all these things.” This kind of creative (and self-serving) logic is prevalent among Sherman’s su...

Work continues on resolving traffic and sight issues on Burns Boulevard within sections of the Village In Burns Harbor. Burns Harbor Street Department Superintendent Pat Melton said stop signs have been painted to make them more noticeable and the Town Council asked him Wednesday to keep painting white crossing lines to mark the corners. But the Village Property Association is hoping to do more to mitigate problems after the Council last month asked that it trim the overhanging trees in view of the stop signs. POA President Jeff Freeze wrote a letter to the Council saying that a quote was solicited for tree trimming but the POA determined it was not able to cover the whole neighborhood. He asked the Council to allow more time to resolve the issue. Stop signs, speed limit signs and one-way street signs have been ordered and the POA will work with Melton and the Police Department to install those, Freeze said. Melton said he could also find some paint for the fire hydrants as well. ...

Ready to start working on a new development project? Great! But not everything is about coding. In fact, the most difficult part comes when several people have to work together towards the same goal, and without a way to visualize all the to-do's, things can often fall apart before they begin. That's where Scrum comes into play. Scrum is a Project Management set of good practices that can be applied in any software project . In fact, it can be applied in any project that has a defined output. Scrum is based on iterations, or Sprints as they're called in the Scrum world. Each Sprint contains all the phases of a long-term project such as: Analysis Design Implementation QA At the end of each Sprint, the product increment that could be achieved during the Sprint's time will be reviewed and validated and the cycle will begin again to build a final product in an iterative way that prevents team members from getting overwhelmed. Those functional increments of the final prod...

New York City’s SoHo (shorthand for South of Houston Street) is synonymous with shopping thanks to its mix of major chains — Uniqlo, H&M, Victoria’s Secret —and high-end brands such as Marc Jacobs and Prada. But as one of Manhattan’s best-known neighborhoods, there’s also world-class food, drink and art as long as you know where to look. So check some of the best things to do: Where to eat and drink For breakfast, the single best place in SoHo is Balthazar, a French-style bistro where New York’s captains of industry have long come to make deals over freshly made croissants . Park on one of the red leather couches with coffee and the newspaper while keeping one eye on the room — you never know which A-lister might slide into the booth next to you. The line between SoHo and Little Italy is blurry, so take advantage of the neighborhood’s walkability with a visit to Lombardi’s, widely considered the first pizzeria in the United States. This sit-down establishment has been serving up w...