40 Riverside Boulevard will soon be home to a new 650,000 square-foot mega-glassy condominium. Nearly a dozen apartment buildings have been built at Riverside South and the site at 40 Riverside Boulevard will be one of the final projects in the area, offering Upper West Side residents the chance to live in the in the neighborhood with unobstructed views of the Hudson River. The new tower will rise 33 stories into the Manhattan skyline, ranging in apartment size from one-bedroom condos to duplexes and even single-floor apartmentsreported Crain’s New York. Developer Goldstein Hill & West Architects are no strangers to the Upper West Side; partner Stephen Hill has taken part in developing Riverside South for years now. Through him, the architectural firm also had a hand in developingThe Rushmorecondos, as well as and luxury rental building, the Ashley.

In June of this year, the New York State Legislature legalized gay marriage, ending a decades-long fight over marriage equality and making New York the sixth state to have gender-neutral marriage (we’ll avoid dealing with the California situation for now). In terms of real estate, this is actually an interesting and promising development, especially when considering the long history that this small, yet powerful, demographic has had in terms of development, gentrification, and neighborhood revitalization. Further, the fact that same-sex marriage is now legal in America’s largest city means that many couples will move to New York, in most cases Manhattan, bringing with them significant disposable income and a need for luxury housing on this already heavily-populated island.

We talk a lot about New Construction in Manhattan on this blog, mostly because it’s our name, but also because we find it interesting to research certain areas that are growing or have interesting developments under construction or in the works. Yet for all of that, none of New Construction Manhattan’s posts have ever actually compared neighborhood growth, whether it be a comparing specific areas or comparing one neighborhood against Manhattan as a whole. With new and updated mapping and data collection techniques, the 2010 Census was able to accurately depict a number of important statistics, including housing unit growth and vacancy as well as overall population growth. Unfortunately, the Census didn’t exactly get a warm and welcome response. City officials, including the Mayor, a number of City Councilmembers, and some borough presidents derided what was seen as a vast undercount. Luckily, the areas in which they saw these errors are not in Manhattan, so the following numbers should be pretty accurate, and in any case, they seem to confirm what we’ve been predicting all along.

Pre-war condominiums in Manhattan are filled with luxury and elegance. However, there is one thing that many of these buildings don’t have: a gym. With so many new construction condominiums featuring state-of-the-art fitness centers on-site, the stately pre-war co-ops and condominiums have seemingly been stuck in the past. With a on-site gym high on buyers wish lists, some pre-war co-ops have begun to take notice.Even with many fitness centers located in Manhattan, buyers are looking for gyms in their own buildings as a matter of convenience. Some residents like to get up early to work out and don’t want to have to walk blocks away or even take the subway at 5 am. Others don’t want to brave through the winter weather in their work out clothes to get to the gym. Having a gym within their own building also means that residents have a more private workout space and the easy trip, often just down the elevator, provides an incentive to hit the gym.

Recently, New Construction Manhattan . We asked whether or not prices would go down as new construction would be more readily approved, and our cop out prediction was that we had no particular answer. And while that may hold true for the next neighborhood we want to analyze, there are some general trends that are of particular interest. Closely related to Chelsea, Clinton (and you can make as many puns about those names as you’d like) is a rapidly-developing neighborhood stretching from Eighth Avenue to the Hudson River from 42nd Street to 59th Street, a subsection of Midtown West. Whereas the former is now largely mixed-use, with a particular emphasis on balancing residential and commercial growth, that has made the transition from manufacturing, the latter is currently in an identity crisis. For the most part zoned for manufacturing and low-density residential, the recent high-rise condo boom, which has produced the Hudson Hill Condominiums, Orion, The 505, and The Atelier among others, as well as the proposed redevelopment of the Hudson Yards to the south have made, at least in the minds of the folks at the Department of City Planning, re-zoning a necessity in this about-to-explode neighborhood.

One thing is certain about Manhattan luxury condominiums -- they are luxurious condominiums located in Manhattan. That particular tautology aside, though, the world of Manhattan luxury real estate can often seem like an especially well-amenitized bit of science fiction -- a sort of parallel universe in which new luxury condos compete for potential buyers by jockeying to see which new condo boasts the most impressive golf simulators, best-landscaped rooftop terraces and highest ceilings. We love it, of course, but it does make even us here at New Construction Manhattan -- whose job, as you've probably noticed -- is to observe and cover this particular scene wonder just how much luxury even this wealthiest of boroughs can afford. Well, wonder no more. The astronomical figures are in, and a winner has been named. In a recent blog post, Property Shark announced that residents of 15 Central Park West has the highest gross income in Manhattan. Grossing approximately $1,883,936,235 since January 2005, 15 Central Park West beat out The Plaza, the iconically extravagant Fifth Avenue hotel that offers a handful of luxury condo-style residences, by nearly $608 million. And not only does 15 Central Park West have the highest gross income in Manhattan, but in all of America. The average sale price for condos in 15 Central Park West is a little over $8 million. The highest sale in the building was a whopping $45 million for a 39th floor duplex. So, what makes 15 Central Park West so irresistible to the super-rich, you ask?

A small, diagonal pocket park lies at the intersection of Seventh and Greenwich Avenues in the West Village. Its name: Mulry Square. Not many people know of it apart from the locals who walk their dogs, run, or pass by it on their way to work every day. Yet this small triangle of green is now a lighting rod of controversy thanks to New York City’s beloved Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Underneath this stretch runs one of the city’s busiest subway lines, carrying the 1, 2, and 3 between 14th Street and Christopher Street stations. For safety reasons, the MTA needs to build a ventilation shaft and emergency exit, and Mulry Square is the only empty lot where this is possible. Unfortunately, the park sits at the dead center of Manhattan’s largest historic district.

It is rare when a developer has the opportunity to build a new construction condominium in Manhattan from the ground up, which but a new project is in the works from Anbau Enterprises. New is only relative when it comes to this project, however -- the firm is looking to build off of a design formerly intended as a hotel. What they're looking to build, though, is the interesting part -- the new construction condominium that Anbau Enterprises is planning to build on a former parking lot on West 23rd Street between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue looks likely to be an instant landmark among Flatiron District condominiums, and could be one of the most ambitious new construction condominiums in Manhattan, period. Then again, given that Anbau paid $18.5 million for the lot, ambition shouldn't be a problem. And on Central Park South -- a mini-neighborhood that, , has emerged as one of the most promising new spots in Manhattan real estate -- Anbau's planned 93,000-square-foot condominium could fit right in. More proof, if you needed it, that there's more to the lower Flatiron than Madison Square Park's beloved Shake Shack and some new luxury hotels.

Anyone who has ever lived in Manhattan and entertained guests who do not live in Manhattan has been there. You’re on Wall Street, showing your family where the Dutch once built their defenses that gave the street its name. Tourists crowd in, snapping photos of one another and begging you to do the same. You haven’t had caffeine yet today and your head is thumping like a drum. You need to grab some fresh air and recoup because you’ve promised to take your family to a nice place on the Upper East Side for dinner, but you’re out of luck because you’ve got no access to the water unless you walk to the Battery, which is clogged with the same types of tourists who’ve driven you to near-madness in the first place. Now, we bring you news of freedom: the East River Waterfront opened its first leg on Monday -- that's a rendering above -- and it's exactly what those suffering Financial District fatigue needed. The East River Waterfront as presently constituted is fairly modest: a two-block greenspace running between Maiden Lane and Wall Street, featuring 4,000-foot dog run, benches with a view of the Brooklyn Bridge and Downtown Brooklyn, and steps leading down to the banks of the East River. As impressive as the East River Waterfront is now, though, it's only the first step in opening the neglected East River waterfront -- and that's good news indeed for those living in or hoping to buy Financial District condominiums.