Some News fro New York City's Superior Ink Building

Even though it's sunny in southern California and colder than an Icelandic morgue in New York City, we're gonna wing our way east this morning anyway in order to cover some recent celebrity real estate news at the newly built Superior Ink building on West 12th Street and the West Side Highway in the far western reaches of the West Village. The 17-story tower is located on the site of the former Superior Ink factory, which is how, obviously, the complex got its name. In addition to the tower, the Superior also includes 7 newly built townhouses on Bethune Street designed by fancy-pants architect Robert A.M. Stern with facades meant fit into the architectural vernacular of the West Village, a noble aesthetic enterprise that was, as far as we're concerned, not entirely successful.

A peep and a poke around the property records on Street Easy reveals that, just before Christmas, two-time Oscar winning actress Hilary Swank–who tuh-anked as Amelia Earhart in 2009–closed on a 2-bedroom and 2 pooper pied a terre located near the top of the tower of the Robert A.M. Stern designed condo complex. Listing information show the unit was first listed in December 2007 at $3,700,000, a price that jumped to $4,375,000 a year later. Another year later–that brings us to December of 2009, chickens–Miss Swank signed on the dotted line, paying $3,575,000 for her new condo crib.

It only took Your Mama about 42 seconds clicking and clacking on our keyboard to figure out that Miss Swank's new downtown digs measure 1,441 square feet and include an open plan living/dining/kitchen area surrounded by windows that provide views of the mighty Hudson River and, for better or worse, the New Jersey waterfront. The master suite has a decent sized walk-in closet–plus two additional closets–as well as a windowless bathroom with separate tub and shower and a private compartment for the terlit.

One of the lovelier luxuries of Miss Swank's new crib at the Superior Ink is that the washer and dryer is located right in the unit. This convenience will save Miss Swank's charlady a lot of time not having to run up and down to a dank and dingy basement laundromat, not to mention saving some psychic discomfort for Miss Swank knowing that her charlady won't be down in the basement with all the other rich residents' flap-jawing charladeez who tell each other all their employers deepest and darkest secrets. Don't think your terlit gurl or man-Friday go around yakking about your bizness? Pleeze. Your Mama is here to tell you that you are a damn fool if you don't know that each and every friend and family member of your charlady and man-Friday have heard all about your skid marks and the naughty contents of that little brown box tucked into the very back of your night stand drawer.

Anyhoo, property records show that on the left coast Miss Swank beds down in the posh Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles where records show she scooped up a 6,722 square foot house with 5 bedrooms and 7 poopers in March of 2007 for an undisclosed amount of moolah.

In other Superior Ink news, fashion's favorite overly tattooed and sometimes cerulean haired bad boy Marc Jacobs also recently closed on a five floor townhouse in the newly erected complex where it is expected–or maybe it is assumed–he will live in wedded homosexual bliss with his Brazilian boy-beau/fiancée Lorenzo Martone. Records show that Miss Jacobs paid $10,495,000 his new townhouse, which was first listed in November of 2007 for $12,950,000. A few flicks of the well worn beads of our bejeweled abacus shows that Mister Jacobs–or at least his real estate people–drove a hard damn bargain and managed to get the developers to shave 20% off the original asking price. Of course, as has been widely reported, Mister Jacobs picked up the townhouse without any finishing work and will likely have to spend a million or two or three customizing the 4,346 square foot space that includes a private garage. A private garage. Right in the West damn Village. Imagine that? Your Mama doesn't know any automobile owner in Manhattan who wouldn't shave their cat for a private parking spot that would spare them the hassle and indignity of dealing with all those fine gentlemen who work in the parking garages who bang up your car and, even worse, eat lunch in your car, listen to the radio, and go through your damn glove box. It's true butter beans. Your Mama knows. Over our many years in Manhattan, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter arrived at our immoderately expensive parking garage to find the bumper of our big BMW scratched all to hell, a gnarly piece of shriveled lettuce on the floor board, and every bit of parking meter change in the console between the front seats gone. Gone!

But, as usual, we digress...According to recent reports, Mister and soon too be Missus Jacobs, who have been holed up at the Mercer Hotel for a long, long time, have decamped–or soon will–to the Chelsea Mercantile building on 7th Avenue where they've leased the 2 bedroom plus home office and 3 pooper condo of hockey hunk Scott Gomez, a former New York Ranger. The plan, apparently, is for the love birds to camp out in Mister Gomez's 2,062 square foot penthouse above the Whole Foods grocery emporium until top gun dee-ziner Thad Hayes completes the overhaul of their new townhouse at the Superior Ink.

Other high profile buyers at the Superior Ink are reported to include Showtime CEO Matthew Blank, South Africa's Mark Shuttleworth who, incidentally, paid the Russian's $20,000,000 to go up in space with them, and wickedly wealthy Leslie "Les" Alexander–the owner the Houston Rockets–who closed on his 6,321 square foot penthouse in September of 2009 for $25,000,000 and within days flipped back on the market with an oh-my-god-are-you-crazy asking price of $39,500,000. The children should keep in mind that Mister Alexander's penthouse is being offered at that backbreaking price as raw space. That's right, raw space. Amenities at the Superior Ink are many and run to such fancy bits like a private screening room, an entertainment lounge, state of the art fitness center with, natch, a Pilates/yoga room, a children's playroom and 24-hour doorman, concierge and valet parking services.