Few places in New York are less likely to inspire grand dreams than Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, the twin housing projects that sprawl across 80 acres of the Lower East Side. Built by MetLife in the 1940s, the project encompasses block after block of boxy brick apartment buildings and stolid public spaces, entirely barren of inviting corners or eye-catching detail. The critic Lewis Mumford dubbed it “the architecture of the Police State”; a slightly kinder motto might have been “What do you expect for $68.50 a month?”
Yet when MetLife spruced up the complex and put it on the market in 2006, real-estate moguls jetted in for the sale. A joint venture put together by Tishman Speyer and BlackRock carried the day through its willingness to, as The New York Times noted, “pay up—way up—to unlock future profits in the sprawling Manhattan properties.” At $5.4billion, their winning bid made the sale the most expensive real-estate deal of all time. (more)
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