Downtown Riverfront Park Breaks Ground:

Gov. David Paterson joined Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Mayor Michael Bloomberg on a hot and humid Tuesday morning to break ground on the first phase of a new East River Waterfront Esplanade and Piers Project in Lower Manhattan. Bloomberg said the future park would serve as a place where residents can "hopefully enjoy cool breezes on days like this one."

• Is the Worst Behind Us? from NREI: "Retail was the best performing sector over the past quarter, benefitting from relatively strong income growth and a smaller capital decline than other sectors."
• Survey: Recession seen ending in third quarter from MSNBC: "The Blue Chip Economic Indicators survey of private economists released on Monday showed about 90 percent of the respondents surveyed believe the economic downturn will be declared to have ended this quarter."

This weekend's Times had an exciting writeup of the Upper West Side's Apthorp building. The article confirms what we've been seeing as of late: Units are moving quickly! Your chance to own a piece of this building might be slipping away.

Nine apartments had gone into contract in the last month, for a total of 11. Ms. Lenz said that another “eight or nine” could get signed in the next 10 days. Then there are a number of insiders — tenants who live in the building — who have expressed an interest in buying.

There's still time to be one of the lucky owners of homes in this great luxury prewar. Click here for more on the Apthorp.