Greenpoint residents who think they've got it bad because of their monstrous sewage treatment plant that stinks up the neighborhood have nothing on Hunts Point in the South Bronx. There, the crap smell is so bad that residents are suing, saying the neighborhood smells like (a). a huge fart, (b). rotten eggs and (c). the toilets at Penn Station. One resident says: "I get nauseous, I get headaches, my nose burns." Another says the house smells like someone "is passing gas" or "going to the bathroom." Another described it as smelling "like shit." Hunts Point has not one, but two, sewage-related facilities, providing a kind of stereo olfactory treat. The Hunts Point Water Pollution Control Plant is a city-owned facility that gets sewage from more than 600,000 Bronx residents. The New York Organic Fertilizer Company also has a plant where it takes sludge from 14 of the city’s sewage plants and converts it to fertilizer pellets. The news conference was held at Barretto Point Park, which is between the two plants and happens to be where the Floating Pool is docked for the summer. The Greenpoint plant is getting a huge upgrade and the crap smell there should be gone by about 2013ish.
· Hunts Point Residents Sue Over a Smell [NYT]
· Neighbors: Living Near Sewage Stinks [Metro]

Click the image above to view the full photogallery.

No no, just kidding. The subways are totally safe, of course! Except for on the big screen. 2nd Ave. Sagas points us to a crazy collection of photos on enthusiast website Subchat of a modified subway car used in the filming of the remake of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. In the 1974 original, Walter Matthau went up against some terrorists who had hijacked a 6-train. In the sequel, it'll be Denzel Washington (vs. John Travolta!). According to 2nd Ave. Sagas, this is an older R62 car gussied up to look like a brand new R142, which replaced the old Red Birds. Spoiler alert: things are going to get a little violent! Yeesh, first the bus, now the subway ... can Hollywood cut us some freakin' slack, or what?
· EXCLUSIVE!!!! PHOTOS Of The Modified R62 Being Used In Pelham 123 Remake! [SubChat via 2nd Ave. Sagas]

Click the image above to view the full photogallery.

Congratulations, Staten Island! You, sir (ma'am? No, definitely sir), are the only borough of New York whose number of foreclosures actually fell this quarter, according to PropertyShark's foreclosures report. Hooray! In total, foreclosures increased citywide by 4.7% to a total of 961, which isn't so bad when you look at the rest of the country, but is still 49% higher than Q2 2007. Once again, Queens—specifically District 12, which includes Jamaica, Hollis and St. Albans—was the naughtiest, racking up 558 foreclosures, up from 508 in the previous quarter. Brooklyn had 167 (up from 140) and Manhattan had 38 (up from 23). Click through the gallery for more charts-and-graphs fun.
· Foreclosure Reports [Property Shark]
· Curbed Roundtable: July State O' the Market Report [Curbed]
· First Quarter Foreclosures Report: Bad Day for Queens [Curbed]

Been a while since we rounded up some new development tidbits in an update-o-rama, no? Well, even though it's 43,000 degrees outside and a holiday weekend is rapidly approaching, the news is coming fast and furious. Away we go:

1) 385 West 12th Street: The latest flag planted in the West Village (right) is not a July 4th symbol of pride, but rather an indication that FLAnk's crazy copper fortress has topped out at seven stories. Fun fact: Did you know that the site was the location of Diane von Furstenberg’s design studio and pied-à-terre, and her handprints remain embedded in the sidewalk? The more you know!

2) Star Tower: Long Island City's big boy around Queens Plaza has lavish hotel-quality amenities to drool over and now, per StreetEasy, pricetags to match. Though, at a $744/sqft average, it ain't so bad. But seeing a price over $1 million for an 11th floor apartment (the building will be 25 floors) makes us a little dizzy.

1) The leading concrete testing company in the New York area, Testwell Laboratories, is under investigation for failing to perform some tests and falsifying others on some major construction projects, including the Freedom Tower and the new Yankee Stadium. The Yankees and the Port Authority both say the concrete used for their projects is sound and poses no safety threat, but yikes! Investigators took 200 boxes of documents and computers from a pair of Testwell offices, as well as from a trailer at Yankee Stadium. ['Company Hired to Test Concrete Faces Scrutiny']

2) The condo conversion of the Apthorp is a go, and when the 163 apartments in the Astor-built complex at Broadway and West 79th Street (right) hit the market, they will average about $3,000/sqft, more than the initial offering at 15 Central Park West. The average apartment price will be about $6.5 million, and current Apthorp tenants are not getting any insider deals, though they do have an early crack at any apartment in the building they want. Sales open to the general public in the fall. It's Manhattan's second-most-expensive condo conversion, behind Manhattan House. [Big Deal/Condos at Pedigree Prices]

3) Rumors of Hoboken's demise have been greatly exaggerated: "Average sales prices are still increasing for downtown condominiums in Hoboken, although most asking prices are open to negotiation these days, as several developers acknowledged in interviews. Developers say that their new buildings are still selling out, if somewhat slower than in the past." Take that, supposed down market! ['Hoboken Weathers the Market']

4) If you want to know how the rest of the country lives, look to Staten Island, where income and homeownership figures are similar to those icky other places. And in Staten Island, foreclosures are a "grimly familiar tale." ['Fighting Foreclosure on Staten Island']

[Photo courtesy of Payton Chung/flickr]

Now that the onslaught of Red Hook news has abated somewhat, we turn our attention to the South Bronx, not for more about pornographic art, but for a little something about a massive redevelopment strategy the city announced yesterday. Of course, depending on one's perspective this could be something that instills deep fear as opposed to encouraging cheer. The "South Bronx Initiative" includes projects and plans for Melrose Commons/Third Avenue, the Bronx Civic Center and the lower Grand Concourse. Plans include a "major rezoning to encourage more high-density development," mapping a new public park along the Harlem River and developing city-owned for housing and retail. Initial spending is $100M-$200M, not counting $174M in spending related to work around Yankee Stadium and the Bronx Terminal Market. The goal is 7,700 housing units, 3.5 million square feet of commercial and retail space, 500,000 square feet of hotel and conference space and 20 acres of parkland. One official calls it "refurbishing the entire South Bronx," which makes us think they'll go down to Ikea with a convoy of trucks for Ektorp sofas.
· Mayor Bloomberg lays out multi-agency economic plan for South Bronx [NYDN]
· S. Bronx is Back! [NYP]

Hate the suburban big-box invasion of New York? Blame architecture firm GreenbergFarrow. Well, don't really, because they're all probably very nice people, but the Times has an interesting story on the retail revolution going on around the boroughs, and GreenbergFarrow is the thread that runs through them all. Home Depot's firm of choice has a hand in the massive East River Plaza in Harlem along the FDR, the massive Gateway Center at Bronx Terminal Market (above), the massive Red Hook Ikea and many more. The paper points out that while urban office tower developers have been going the starchitect route to make a statement, the priorities of big-box retailers have made GreenbergFarrow (who have also done One Ten 3rd and the Zinc Building, btw) masters of the mundane.

And about that 15-years-in-the-making East River Plaza, some very interesting developments. The mall—OMG, Target!—is now expected to open in October 2009. The façade was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Kevin Roche, and to add to that suburban mall feel, it will be wrapped in a steel mesh American flag. Home Depot is trying to sublet its 110,000-square-foot space (as previously reported), and candidates include Costco and BJ's. Holy crap, warehouse club stores in Manhattan? Now we've seen everything.
· Squeezing Big-Box Retailing Into Small City Spaces [NYT]