Good Cause: Donate To Streetsblog This Week For A Chance To Win A Shiny New Schwinn

 

Bike Month is winding down, so hopefully you hit up some of the awesome events listed on BikeNYC.org and witnessed a few wild rides at the City Reliquary's Bike Fetish Day (check out these great photos). To wrap things up, we'll leave you with one more way to participate without even stepping away from your screen.

All month long nonprofit cycling and sustainable transportation website Streetsblog has been raising money to support the invaluable daily content that they've been delivering since 2006. In addition to a steady stream of news and information on their NYC, LA, SF, DC and national blogs, Streetsblog also runs Streetfilms, a site "dedicated to documenting livable streets worldwide." As of Wednesday they were just $3,500 shy of their $30,000 goal, and you have until Friday at midnight to help bridge the gap. 

In addition to supporting a great cause, your donation will get you a chance to win a set of Yehuda Moon comics, and if you chip in $50 or more to Streetsblog NYC or Streetfilms, you'll be entered to win a Schwinn city bike from Ride Brooklyn.

While you're preparing to pledge your support, check out one of Streetfilms' many biketastic videos:

-- John Ruscher

Infographic: NYCEDC Compares New York Real Estate And Art Sales

 

When it comes to art and residential real estate, it's not surprising that New York is home to many eye-popping sales in both markets. Though this chart from NYCEDC's February 2012 Economic Snapshot shows just how evenly those numbers match up side-by-side.

For instance, if you emptied your piggy bank last year and discovered that you had saved up around $40 million, you could have acquired Gustav Klimt's "Litzlberg am Attersee," which sold at Sotheby's for $40.44 million, or Andy Warhol's first self portrait, which went for $38.4 million at Christie's. If you were more in the mood for a new pad rather than a masterpiece, you could have set yourself up in the Harkness Mansion or 834 Fifth Avenue with a few mil to spare!

For a more a closer look at these findings, check out this NYCEDC's podcast featuring 3rd Ward writing teacher Grace Bello and Steven Giachetti of NYCEDC's Research and Analysis team. "If you look at it on a per square foot basis, obviously art is far more expensive than even the most prestigious apartments in New York City," Giaccetti says.

Here are a few other fascinating statistics from that snapshot:

• New York accounted for about one third of all global sales at Christie's and Sotheby's in 2011.

• NYC is also home to more than half of all art sales in the United States.

• Local auction houses Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips De Pury racked up a whopping $1.1 billion in sales of contemporary and impressionist art in just two weeks last November.

-- John Ruscher

Price-Weary Art Collectors Behold: The Affordable Art Fair

"New York Grand Central Station Waiting Room," by Norman Lerner

Even if art fairs don't intimidate you, the prices fetched by the work shown there might. And while it's fine to simply look and appreciate a piece, if you've ever actually purchased an original painting or drawing of your very own then you know it's occasionally nice to buy one too. While we don't anticipate making any purchases at The Armory Show, we just might open up our wallets at the Affordable Art Fair, which runs in New York from April 18-22.

Don't be put off by the fact that the chick from "What Not To Wear" is singing the Fair's praises on their website. It might be billed as a place for art newbies who are afraid of "serious art," but it's also a legitimate place for people who know a thing or two to get their art collecting feet wet. And besides, how could a less snobby art fair be a bad thing?

The exhibitor list for this year is yet to be announced (we'll keep you posted), but judging from last year's line up, you won't be disappointed. Sure, there are definitely some more commercial offerings than you're likely to see at The Armory Show, and we wouldn't recommend only going to the Affordable Art Fair this season, but we do feel it provides a valuable and much-needed balance to all the heavy handed art dealings that are about to descend on our fair city.

Feel just totally in the dark on New York's art happenings? 3rd Ward's got an Introduction to New York's Art World class, a crash course in the NY scene for the unititiated.

-- Perrin Drumm