Abandoned books on 5th Street lead to some local intrigue, Long Island City

Hallelujah! Long Island City is back on track for the weekends. (pun intended) While the 7-train weekend suspension is now over, there will still be work happening on the tracks so don’t necessarily expect full service, but at least it’s something.

In real estate news »

Here’s a real estate video displaying a 5SL 2BR condo unit for sale, reduced to $799K. It’s interesting in the sense of following the video trend in real estate marketing… and if you never got over to 5SL to check out the lofts.

• All Sales Listings 5SL [Streeteasy]
• 5th Street Lofts [website]

Well well well. The 5th Street Lofts getting pricechopped. Is this a sign of things to come?

But wait, Purves and Badge have flippers in their waters, so what’s up with that? Good luck figuring it out at the Open Houses, and bring your skates – LIC is ICE city this weekend.

5th Street Lofts (5SL) 509 48th Ave, Hunters Point 23 still available Halstead Open House: Sat & Sun, 11-2PM

Complete list of Open Houses this weekend. »

The weather’s not looking so good for this weekend, but we know there’s a bunch of die-hard condo buyers out there. Same round-up as last week and the week before. Don’t know what’s going on at the Foundry LIC – last week they had 12 available and this week they have 14. If anyone takes any good pics, send them our way.

The Foundry LIC 2-40 51st Ave, Hunters Point 14 still available Prudential Douglas Elliman Open House Sun, By appointment only

Complete list of this weekend’s open houses »

Not much has really changed since last weekend’s open houses – same developments still on the market. Some of them seem to have sold a few. That’s about it. Overall, we’re looking at the same story, except the weekend weather is supposed to be sunny and in the high 40′s. Have fun.

Powerhouse 50-09 2nd St, Hunters Point 19 still available Prudential Douglas Elliman Open House: By appointment only

Complete list of this weekend’s open houses »

There’s going to be lots of real estate activity in LIC this weekend. I can do a better job of predicting that than the weather people have been doing lately. And I’m not even using fancy technological modes of divination either—just the listing websites.

Drivers, just don’t take my parking spot please. And if you’re coming from Long Island, or some other land of driveways, take a few moments to teach yourself how to parallel park. I’ve been witnessing some seriously bad parking jobs, from drivers outright smashing into other cars, to people literally parking so badly they take up multiple precious spots. Sure, you’ll have a garage when you move into your luxury condo, but in the meantime you know… show some respect to the LIC curbside.

Here’s a round up of this weekend’s Open Houses »

The weekends are usually a chill time in LIC. The area is still pretty commercial, especially if you count the buildings in progress as sites of commercial activity, which I do. So from 7am to about 4pm on weekdays the neighborhood is packed to the gills with people, and then at night and on the weekends it thins out and quiets down.

Not anymore.

This weekend the hood was PACKED with people filing into the sales offices for the Foundry LIC, Powerhouse, 5SL… everything! Usually on nights and weekends, one can park with ease – FORGET about trying to park in LIC during business hours. All spots are usually taken by 6am. It’s worse than the Upper West Side. On nights and weekends, the commercial people aren’t around so much, so it’s much easier. But this Sunday, I thought twice about taking my car out for a spin after eyeing several Long Island-y types driving around stalker style.

At least all the new developments come with parking spots. That should help a bit. But in the meantime, we’re losing our weekend parking. It’ll be a nice day when those little blocks off of Vernon get resident parking. Who knows if that will happen, but those of us who don’t live in the high-rises with parking need to be protected. Right?

Don’t worry. I’m not holding my breath.