A slick monster rises from the East.

The real estate boom greatly fueled neighborhood tensions across the city. Tischman bought Stuyvesant Town for upwards of $5 billion, hoping to turn the last major rent-stablized utopia in Manhattan into a market-rate rental monster for following-the-dream 20 somethings. Trump is working (and will be for some time) on a luxe condo/hotel dual action monstrosity below Houston Street. Brooklynites are still clawing out the eyes of the Atlantic Yards developers (sorry, NJ Nets).

The East Village has not been immune to the development either. While most upgrades have been gutting old walk-ups and replacing them with similar sized luxury rentals, The Cooper Square Hotel went all-in (with the exception of its rather cumbersome website) on a 22 story hotel in the heart of Cooper Square. The design is slick and will compliment Cooper Union's new academic building, but it has been the treatment of its neighbors at 27 Cooper that has been the at the center of the controversy. Check out this NYTimes article for the dirty details.