In 2008, the New York Times announced that New York City had officially joined the recession that plagued the nation. They also reported that: “The real estate market, especially in Manhattan, has softened substantially in the last several weeks…”

Sure. If so, it must have been the world’s shortest recession, perhaps coming and going at night when most of us were asleep. A recent assessment by the online publication Curbed jives more with reality. “What Recession? Here Are NYC’s 10 Most Expensive Listings,” with listings of apartments for sale from $50 million to $100 million. Articles in 2004 from NPR and The New York Daily News on dog walking report that some dog walkers are making between $50,000 and $100,000 per year.

But perhaps, you say, these are the isolated facts taken from the top of the market, and the haves always have at the top anywhere you go. Point well taken. So, perhaps like the statistician, you ask to see a larger sample size, something more statistically significant.

Take a property in the Village like One Fifth Avenue, a prestigious prewar Art Deco landmark co-op, built in 1927 by Harvey Wiley Corbett. It has 184 units. Yet, currently, there are only 3 apartments available for sale in the entire building: one at $11 million, one at $4.6 million, and one at $2.35 million. A modest one-bedroom apartment in the building, when available, sells for one and a half million dollars. On the rental side, Manhattan has a vacancy rate of about 1.6 percent, with a median rent of $3200, up 3.5% in the last year.

Today’s photo, caught during the magic hour, gives perhaps the answer to the durability and stability of the Manhattan real estate market – Angelic Protection 🙂