An Outsider's Inside View – New York Times Real Estate Review

As a nearly lifelong Left-Coaster, the East and its Emerald City have long fascinated me. I've been to New York City many times and even briefly considered relocating there until Real Life slapped that notion down. So I live quite vicariously in an Allen-esque version of Manhattan, and when my day allows, I voraciously consume any media message regarding NYC, and its people, places and things. For quite a long time, my learnings and yearnings were sated by the highly informative and eminently readable Christopher Gray version of the "Streetscapes" column. When it was discontinued (the reasons for which remain infuriatingly opaque), my motivations to cancel my NYT digital subscription were only mollified upon seeing the "Streetscapes" archive duly available on the new NYT Real Estate app. To me, it's appearance represented a fine opening salvo, an element which complements several of my other favorite features of the finely constructed digital magazine, easily accessible on my iPad and iPhone. I enjoy the "Ask Real Estate" column for its well-researched answers to the quotidian annoyances of Manhattan multi-family domesticity, especially the care and feeding of the coop boards, akin on a Manhattan scale to our own Home Owner Association boards here in California, though NYC leaves us in the dust in the elitist-a-hole olympics. Tracking prices and fine views of all the beautifully expensive ways to drop a buck in Manhattan and its environs exemplifies what has always been a hallmark of New York life. It's said if you have to ask you can't afford it; I know I can't, but at least I still have this easy to use and highly informative app, with a taste of Christopher Gray to sweeten New York's tendency toward the astringent.
Review by Dyinghardhere on New York Times Real Estate.