New York Art World Makes a Billion-Dollar Bet

The Art World Makes a Billion-Dollar Bet

Consumer confidence is at a two-year low, oil prices at an all-time high, a million or more sub-prime mortgagees are facing eviction from their homes...But in the art world, the party's just getting started -- and this could be the year the market breaks the $1 billion mark.

The fall art season is in full swing, with the major sales of contemporary art at the principal New York auction houses, Sotheby's and Christie's, scheduled for November 2007. Contemporary art has been leading the market for five years now...

At the 2006 New York sales, contemporary art raked in over $871 million altogether - an abstraction by painter Mark Rothko brought $72.84 million, and Andy Warhol's "Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I)" (1963), sold for $71.72 million...

Full report here @ NJ

New York $2.5 Billion Plan to Revitalize Coney Island

New York $2.5 Billion Plan to Revitalize Coney Island

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday unveiled a 2.5-billion-dollar plan to revitalize Coney Island and turn it into the largest urban amusement park in the United States.

The plan calls for rezoning the northern end of Coney Island for hotels, residential and retail space, and transforming the streetscape on the west.

Full report from here