Rendering of the facade by Oved Group One New York City cultural establishment is planning for a transformation and an addition. Developers Oved Group and Nexus Building Development Group are giving Little Italy’s Italian American Museum a residential addition.

20 Exchange Place's stylized facade with architectural grotesques. Even though it boasts one of the most distinctive skylines in the world, Manhattan didn't get that way over night. One of its most cherished pre-war architectural styles, Art Deco, is well-represented with distinguished examples such as the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building. These Financial District luxury rentals offer pre-war flair with plenty of modern conveniences.

Manhattan’s Financial District has a rich history as the nation’s center of commerce. While this undeniable status remains true, this Lower Manhattan neighborhood is slowly regaining a reputation for luxury residential apartments. This five luxury buildings in particular feature some of Manhattan’s most stunning residences, and are among the neighborhood’s priciest.

Full of creative celebrities and lined with Manhattan’s last remaining cobblestone streets — not to mention a world-renowned film festival — Tribeca’s luxury rentals offer plenty of style in one of the city’s coolest neighborhoods.

Here’s another sign that the Financial District is moving away from being a strictly business territory and becoming an in-demand residential community: a new 30-story mixed-use building is going to rise up soon at the corner of Nassau and Ann streets in the Lower Manhattan neighborhood. The new building, which is being developed by Ann/Nassau Realty and designed by SLCE Architects, will be ready for occupancy by the first quarter of 2014.

City Comptroller John Liu released a report last Wednesday stating that rising rents are increasingly putting pressure on middle-class families. The new report showed that half of all city households typically spend more than 30% of their income on rent alone, compared to 26% nationally. Rent becomes officially unaffordable when it goes over 30%, according to federal benchmarks. Middle-income apartment renters, defined as people earning between $35,000 and $75,000 annually, face the most pressure in Manhattan, where 45% pay rent that falls into the officially unaffordable bracket. This high rent is unfortunately not unique to Manhattan apartments however. Rents have also been creeping up in Staten Island and Queens, where 44% of the middle-class residents are shouldering unaffordable housing costs.

For many years, cries of “fresh fish!”, shouted by fish-mongers plying their wares, were far more prevalent than residents within Manhattan’s South Street Seaport. But since 2005, with the re-location of the Fulton Fish Market to Hunts Point, that paradigm has become obsolete, as many Manhattanites find themselves choosing to rent luxury apartments within this historic district. To be sure, there has been a changing atmosphere in the area dating back to the late 1970s, but since 2005 the rate of transformation has rapidly increased, perhaps representing the beginning of a new trend within Manhattan real estate.

New York City, ever known for taking the real estate and rental advice from the rest of America and throwing it out the window, is now going through a more unexpected demographic change. When we think of who actually rents luxury rentals, the first group that comes to mind is usually investment bankers, mainly those in their 20s and 30s who fill the tangled streets of Lower Manhattan early in the morning and seemingly beat rush hour both to and from work. That was true until recently, and while financiers still comprise the largest portion of renters, they no longer form the majority that they used to be. Instead, an eclectic tech-savvy generation has usurped traditional business, and in turn, the rental market.

If you follow Manhattan real estate, you are familiar with The High Line. And if you don't follow Manhattan real estate, and are in town for a convention or to see the sights or check out Anything Goes on Broadway or whatever... well, welcome to the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog, and we'll presume you're also familiar with The High Line. After just a few short years on the West Side, the winding, lushly landscaped park that runs on the former freight train tracks above 10th Avenue has become both one of Manhattan's must-visit venues and one of the greatest success stories in Manhattan real estate. While Chelsea rental listings were, truth be told, doing pretty all right before the High Line went from random-old-elevated-train-tracks to hugely popular public park, the arrival of the park gave a huge boost to apartment listings near the High Line, and helped occasion the development of such blockbuster, high-end Chelsea rental listings such as The Ohm and The Tate. And with the opening of the High Line's second stage -- which will run from 20th Street all the way up to 30th Street -- today, the High Line looks likely to work its real estate magic again, this time for North Chelsea and the emerging and highly promising Hudson Yards neighborhood bearing the goofy-ish nickname The Linc.