Joining the likes of Outside.in in the neighborhood news aggregation game is EveryBlock, which launched yesterday. The site doesn't do nearly as thorough a job as Outside.in of summarizing local blog coverage, but it does mashup a lot more data. Search for a neighborhood or zipcode to find recent building permits, crime data, and the like, viewable by newsfeed or map. One small glitch concerns the neighborhood names—the map above puts Little Italy north of the West Village, rebrands Hudson Square as Hudson Yards, and dumps Union Square in the Financial District. On the bright side, EveryBlock does aggregate Craigslist Missed Connections posts.
· EveryBlock NYC [EveryBlock]
· Map of News in Tribeca [EveryBlock]

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Jeremiah's Vanishing New York, incendiary chronicler of the departed and the departing, signed up for MTV's Second Life-esque Virtual Lower East Side with the intention of skewering it on his blog. But then there was an unexpected twist: he liked what he saw. Here's why:

Maybe it's because the streets are almost empty, quiet like they were years ago. Maybe it's because there are no luxury towers and no one's on a cell phone. Or maybe it's because the "V" could stand for Vanishing. Whatever it is, the VLES has a strange appeal.

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MIDTOWN—That dastardly New York Public Library is up to something again! The Spacefinder sends in the above picture and adds, "Is the NYPL going CHRISTO, or Ghostface Killahs for Halloween?" Those faces do look a little spooky, as does that guy repelling down the face of the building. [CurbedWire Inbox]

LOWER EAST SIDE—In response to the $50,000 cabanas on top of 154 Attorney Street, someone who knows things writes: "Thought you might be interested to know that zoning requires open space on the roof level of new apartment buildings as per the section of the resolution I'm including below It's interseting that it specifically states that '[n]o fees shall be charged to the occupants or their guests.' I haven't seen plans of the any of the roofs in question and can't comment on whether or not the building's required open space--less the private "cabanas"--conforms to the zoning resolution. However, I'd bet it's non-conforming and that these money-grubbing developers are in violation the law!" That resolution is recreated after the jump, for those who care. [CurbedWire Inbox]

THE INTERNET—Responding to the Mosaic Man's sale of eastvillage.com and the history of LowerEastSide.com, Bobby W. writes: "I was the buyer of eastvillage.com and not 'a real estate company'. Jim Power got confused with the information. What actually occurred was, the lawyer's office that we met at is also a accounting office AND a real estate office. He somehow correlated this all with the buyer being the office that we were in. I don't know how he put that all together but I just wanted the story to be correct. In any event, if you like to talk to me directly to check the facts, I'd be more than willing to talk to and or meet you. By the way, I noticed that in your neighborhood domain article you made no mention of www.meatpackingdistrict.com. I own that as well and after five hard months of work just took it live on September 25th. Lots more work to be done there and I have not even started on eastvillage.com yet. So much work, so little time. [CurbedWire Inbox]

The Villager's Scoopy's Notebook column reported that, "in a dot-com deal that could be the East Village equivalent of Google buying YouTube," artist Jim Power (the Mosaic Man) finally sold off his long-treasured EastVillage.com domain to a real estate company, for a seemingly cheap $10,000. That got us thinking: What's up with other neighborhood domain names? Surfing around, we found that Chelsea.com is a production company, Greenpoint.com is North Fork Bank, and Soho.com ain't much. But head over to LowerEastSide.com, and all you get is a question mark. Mysterious! Intrigued, we looked up the owner and dropped him a line. Surely the Internet namesake of Manhattan's most tragically hip neighborhood shouldn't go to waste! He got back to us, and all was revealed.

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This has potential to provide endless amounts of joy if it catches on: a website called Rotten Neighbor that bills itself as "the first real estate search engine of its kind that helps you find bad neighbors before you move so you don't regret the purchase of your new house, home, condo or apartment." Type in the zip and find the complaints and rants. Or, add some.

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OK, to be fair, it was only 10 minutes passed the scheduled start time for ResidentialNYC's press launch event. Backlash over the fact that some major brokerages dropped out of REBNY's great equalizer? Or is there just an open bar in the back?
· Residential NYC [residentialnyc.com]

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Don't look now, but Century 21 (enter 100 Jay Street in the search) has a bunch of J Condo units for rent, and since real estate publicist to the stars Kelly Kreth is involved, there's a fairly detailed video walk-through of Dumbo's shiny new tower making the rounds on YouTube. Yes, the gym and deck look nice and all that, but the big revelation is how creepy a childrens' playroom looks when it's completely empty. Yikes, would you let your kids mingle in that deathtrap?
· Video: J Condos [YouTube]
· J Condo Got F'd [Curbed]
· J Condo [jcondo.com]

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The major brokerages have been doing website amenities searches since the dawn of time, but it's nice to see that our friends at StreetEasy have extended the terms beyond the usual pets/outdoor space/doorman/parking. You've got your dishwasher. You've got your gym. You've got your fireplace. You've got your pool. Fourteen in total, collect 'em all! But dudes: what, no outdoor shower? Guess they're still working out the kinks.
· Listings Search [StreetEasy]

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DIGITAL FRONTIER—Are the above staging photographs (N.B. bra on doorknob) advertising a $1700 Prospect Heights rental absolutely revolting, as one Curbed reader has suggested, or strangely alluring? We're flipping a coin on this one. [CurbedWire Inbox/Craigslist]

SOHO—Fresh from the condo hunt, a tipster writes, "I just took a look at 151 Wooster. It’s an attractive building with a proposed 10 condo lofts (all 3000 square feet) and 2 large penthouses. Actually, the broker said they have a contract out to some lucky single hedge fund guy who is going to combine them for over 7000 square feet of indoor space and 5000 outside. Pretty sick… Anyway, the showrooms looks great and the units have nice layouts but I haven’t noticed any comments on this one and it’s right around the corner from 160 Wooster that received some coverage from you guys." Your thoughts are welcome, natch. [CurbedWire Inbox]

WYOMING—The Committee To Save The Moondance Diner emails with this "Great News!": "The stop work order on NYC's historic Moondance Diner was rescinded. Its move to the small town of LeBarge, Wyoming, will finally become a reality on Friday, August 10th." [CurbedWire Inbox]

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1) Mott Haven, described as a "hard-luck neighborhood in the South Bronx", is getting its first ever privately financed condominium building at 305 East 140th Street. The building, named Bronx Bricks, has 11 units priced from $395,000 to $795,000 and two units have already sold. Of course there is the fear of new condos bringing gentrification to the hood, as Miquela Craytor of Sustainable South Bronx worries, "Is it helping out the folks who have weathered the storm here? Or is it just benefiting the new residents?" [Posting/C.J. Hughes]

2) Our weekly hunter finds an apartment the old fashioned way, by seeing a sign hanging in a realtor's office, and scores a one bedroom rental on 4th Avenue near Park Slope for $1,400. She notes, "maybe it is my generation. But not everyone posts on Craigslist — what a concept!" Indeed. [Joyce Cohen/The Hunt]

3) There is more to choosing the theme music of a new development and its website than just scanning the Top 40 list or throwing up on some standard jazz. There may be some kind of crazy science behind the process. Real estate web site designer John Atwood explains, "It has to reflect the aspirations and the intentions of this whole group of people who are involved — building architects, interior architects, contractors, developers, selling agents, designers." But does it really make a difference to the buyers? Not so much, says recent buyer Sean Davis. "It comes down to the same things: square footage, views, light, finishes, a value for your money." [Selling a Concept With a Song/Stephanie Rosenbloom]

4) After 18 months of research, a coop board decided an 80 year old American elm tree that has caused structural damage to their Brooklyn Heights building should be chopped down. Um, not so fast. It seems residents love the tree more than the building's foundation. Resident Fortune Elkins notes, "Anything that they do that affects the character of this block directly affects my investment. If they kill this tree, I’m suing." [Brooklyn Heights Report/Cassi Feldman]

5) Barbara Hohol returned from a 10 year exile to the People’s Garden on West 111th Street and the garden's steering committee is none too happy. Committee Chairman Bob Roistacher says, "If she wants to do something, she just goes ahead and does it." A meeting has been called for this week to try and remedy the situation. Garden nice, kids. [Morningside Heights Report/Alex Mindlin]

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If you're hip to prediction markets, then you're well aware that they've successfully predicted everything from the winner of the 2004 presidential contest to the exact moment at which Alex Rodriguez entered that stripclub in Toronto. Now, we can have the same fun with housing prices in the five boroughs! Get on over to Homethinking's brand new housing market prediction tool and weigh in; we'll check if we move the needle on the current Manhattan prediction for the average sale price at year's end, currently pegged at $944,080.
· Homethinking Prediction Markets: New York [Homethinking]

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DIGITAL FRONTIER—The tipster who sent us the image at right notes, "I just thought you'd find it funny that after looking on Scarano's webpage under 'projects', I noticed he doesn't know how to spell affordable housing. Pretty ironic!" We don't mean to pile on here, but we also quite enjoyed the "Convertion" page. [CurbedWire Inbox]

ARCHITECTURE—Jean Nouvel, he of the Vision Machine, spills it in a designboom interview. To wit,

what is the best moment of the day?
I am a night bird so I prefer the evening and the night.

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS—Ever wondered why there were all those fruit-themed streets in Brooklyn Heights? Us neither. But somebody definitely has, which is why we're kind of thankful for these two easy-to-digest paragraphs about the history of Cranberry, Pineapple, and Orange Streets. [EdEx/Curbed Flickr Pool]

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