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The national home price index continues to fall, with a 17.4 percent year-to-year drop in September and an 18.2 percent drop predicted for October. [WSJ]
A record 47 million tourists visited NYC this year, spending $30 billion. [City Room]
In its first round of Streetsie Awards, Streets Blog hands out the honors for “The Year’s Best Livable Streets Project” and “The Year’s Top Bicycle Project.” [Streets Blog via City Room]
56 Leonard in limbo as developer Izak Senbahar waits on construction financing. [Curbed]
Fort Greene inching up on Park Slope as Brooklyn’s most popular nabe for renters. [Curbed]
Real estate lawyers swamped with clients seeking to break out of signed contracts. [NY Mag via TRD]
Top Democratic fundraisers Carl Spielvogel and Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel sell their 720 Park Avenue apartment for $36.63 million—almost twice what they paid in 2006. [TRD]
Manhattan’s commercial vacancy rate hits a two-year high. [Crain’s]
East Village renters strike back at their do-nothing property managers. [EVG via BoweryBoogie]
P & G Bar to stay open until February as it waits for its new location to open six blocks away at Columbus Avenue and 78th Street. [VNY]
Caroline Kennedy's interviews are like Ted Kennedy's Roger Mudd moment, says Dan Janison.
Amid the conflict in Israel, Josh Isay and Bill Knapp pivot their presidential race and launch a "rally around the flag" campaign.
Talk shows are the new editorial boards, apparently.
Westchester Magazine predicts Michael Bloomberg will win next year's mayor's race.
Bill Ritter notes the exceptionally young age of the president's spokesman.
Alex Pareene wants Bloomberg and Mark Penn, among others, to be unemployed next year.
More on Caroline Kennedy: "Her iPod is filled with Al Green, Grateful Dead, and Bob Marley."
A YouTube commenter makes the case for Carolyn Maloney.
Palestinians in Bay Ridge.
The Working Families Party tries to pressure to Pedro Espada and Ruben Diaz Sr.
Barack Obama's inauguration committee has gotten $128,250 from people of Westchester.
Bernie Kerik has pleaded not guilty.
A Bronx reporter wonders where Bloomberg got "the reckoning" lingo from.
Latinos for Norman Siegel have a party on January 5.
Sam Hoyt is big on high-speed rail.
It might be wise to apply quickly for STAR rebates, before David Paterson cuts them.
Here's video of "In the Papers" with Pat Kiernan, a master of the genre.
Here’s Michael Bloomberg not being overly optimistic about all the federal money that may be coming to New York from Washington D.C.
Charlie King on What Kennedy Is Going Through
The reaction to Caroline Kennedy’s recent rollout, at least among unaffiliated political observers I've spoken to, has not been so positive.
The idea that her public performance has damaged her chances, maybe seriously, seems to have become the consensus take.
But Charlie King, at least, has a more charitable view.
“You have to give somebody context,” said King, who ran for lieutenant governor in 2002 with Andrew Cuomo and became executive director of Al Sharpton's National Action Network. (He says he’s still particularly close to Cuomo, as well as to Jerry Nadler and Randi Weingarten, whose names are also in the mix of hypothetical Senate appointees.)
“It takes a certain amount of time to get the rhythm of politics, regardless of how accomplish