Apartment Choice

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - 923 Folsom is redefining city living . The recently completed apartment building offers renters the finishes a discerning buyer would require, along with amenities previously reserved for much larger buildings — all in a community of only 115 rental residences ."The result is a boutique rental community offering the quality, comfort and sense of home often found only in condominiums, with thoughtful shared spaces that substantially extend the walls of your well-designed residence," said Billie LaBelle, Vice President of Operations for Alliance Residential Company , which professionally manages the community. " 923 Folsom leaves the need to buy a house at the door." Every emphasis is given to cultivating an elevated resident experience . It starts with the double-height, feature bookcase that sets the tone for the community as you enter and flows throughout the many impressive spaces that add to each resident's livable, usable square f...

Drawing the lines in battle over space By Jeff Simms Scenic Hudson is hoping to nearly double the parking at the base of Mount Beacon to ease congestion at one of the Highlands’ most popular hiking spots . Meanwhile, the Beacon City Council and a developer clashed over who should provide spaces for a new 24- unit apartment building on Main Street. Mount Beacon Representatives from Scenic Hudson appeared before the Planning Board earlier this month to discuss plans to expand the lot at the park from 40 spaces to 77. The project, if approved, would be completed this winter, said Meg Rasmussen, a park planner for the nonprofit conservation group . It would involve moving the Howland Avenue lot entrance farther away from Route 9D and turning it into an exit. Cars routinely line Howland on holidays and weekends when the park’s lot is full. An overflow area north of the lot will be off-limits (it was recently determined to be wetlands), while the existing lot will be widened and orien...

“Nocturne,” a podcast that’s “peering into the dusty corners of the night,” as its tagline tells us, is hosted and produced by the independent Bay Area producer Vanessa Lowe . Lowe co-created the show with her husband, Kent Sparling , who works in film sound and who composes much of the show’s evocative music. Episodes begin with the chirping of crickets, the hooting of an owl, and a bit of music by Sparling that makes you want to wander out into a shadowy wood and explore. The show has a nocturnal mood, atmospheric and occasionally mysterious, that feels just right between the hours of eleven and deepest dark. Lowe has described the show as “essay radio”; most episodes tell stories. She plays with form from episode to episode. A few are impressionistic, like “ A Catalogue of Nights ,” featuring recordings of night sounds from across the world. Some are rather funny, like “(This Is Not) A Love Song ,” about people’s love for and loathing of mockingbirds. We hear intensive longer storie...

At the heart of the novel is a less sensational yet still unconventional story: that of two girls learning to make their way in the world, told with all the complication and unruliness of life, and also with an unspoken argument about what it means to tell a story like this. As children we experience the raw brute force of our feelings, but in the formative adolescent years , Messud told me, we learn how to be a person — ‘‘what it is to be a daughter, what it is to be a friend, what home means, what love means.’’ We learn these things by observing other people, but also from the stories that we hear: the books we read, the films we watch, the myths our culture teaches us. Yet the narratives for girls tend to be ‘‘dire,’’ she said, with violence at the forefront. With ‘‘The Burning Girl,’’ she hoped to write what she calls ‘‘a children’s book for grown-ups,’’ a book that acknowledges the inarticulable, even irrational power of emotion — an ‘‘animal thing’’ beyond understanding. It trea...