ARCHIVES

The joys and complications � peeping design students! � that come with buying an architectural masterpiece.

A ground-floor neurologist’s office transformed.

The pluses (no awkward elevator talk) and tips (try sculptural window grates) from first-floor veterans.

The price perks, specialty lighting, and occasional noisy drunks that come with living on the first floor.

The New York real-estate market is now the premier destination for wealthy foreigners with rubles, yuan, and dollars to hide.

If you can’t stomach being outbid on yet another crummy railroad apartment, it might be time to consider heading farther afield.

How to get past a co-op board, score a rent-stabilized apartment, and more.

A garage, a key to Gramercy Park, and an Upper East Side limestone mansion can all be yours.

Yes, we’d all like to live in the Dakota. Or 740 Park, the Beresford, or 15 CPW. In addition to those old standbys of lust-worthiness, the city is brimming with slightly less bold-faced but equally desirable buildings�that are just as impossible to penetrate. Here, a peek inside the Red Hook rental with a 40-person wait list, the Fifth Avenue co-op straight out of an Edith Wharton novel, and the $525-a-month Chelsea studio.

Developers looking to push their properties on an ever-discerning clientele have taken to curating the cupboards of their model apartments. Below, cashew butter, designer jams, and other treats that can seal the deal.