••• Curbed gets to the bottom of the 177 Franklin question: “When an e-mail popped into our inbox mentioning the sale of 177 Franklin Street, we got excited. The mansion only just hit the market at a whopping $18 million, after all. Well, the building didn’t just go through an amazingly quick sale, but there is a new wrinkle to the story. We thought the property had last sold in 2008 for $11.55 million, but it turns out it recently sold again, at a loss, for $9 million. (The deal closed in June but didn’t hit public record until after the building was relisted.) It’s the new owners, 177 Franklin Street Developments LLC, who are attempting to flip the property at double the price. To which we can only say good luck” (

••• “As 1 World Trade Center starts to claim a place on the Lower Manhattan skyline, the area’s retail scene is beginning to revive, with landlords raising rents in anticipation of thousands of new office workers, tourists and residents, commercial real estate experts said. Average asking rents in the financial district corridor along Broadway from Battery Park to Chambers Street rose 36 percent to $184 a square foot since spring 2010, with much of that gain taking place since last fall, according to a report issued by the Real Estate Board of New York.” (New York Times)

••• Some French tourists are visiting Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s rental on Franklin. (New York Times) Related: Strauss-Kahn and his wife needed 10 minutes to figure out the lock on their door. (New York Post)

••• The New York Times files a status report on the southbound platform of the Cortlandt Street subway station, which is still scheduled to open by Sept. 11.

••• “The old JPMorgan building at 23 Wall Street (a.k.a. “the Corner) is looking for a tenant—more specifically—a department store tenant. Cushman & Wakefield, the marketers of the historical 178,000 square foot space on the corner of Wall Street and Broad, are pushing for a distinct type of department store though. ‘We don’t want an off-price retailer, but it isn’t appropriate for Bergdorf Goodman either,’ sniffs the exec in charge of the deal.” (Racked)

by Hiroko Masuike (courtesy the New York Times)

••• Today, Duane Reade “will open a roughly 22,000-square-foot pharmacy in the Trump Building at 40 Wall Street. Joe Magnacca, president of Duane Reade and Everyday Living Solutions at the Walgreen Company, which owns Duane Reade, said it is the largest Duane Reade ever built. The drugstore occupies 40 Wall Street’s cavernous old bank space, with vaulted ceilings rising two stories above the marble floor. It includes opulent amenities like a hair salon for shampoos, blow dries and blowouts; a nail bar for manicures and massages; a pharmacy with a doctor on hand for consultation during the week; and a grocery market featuring sushi and smoothie bars. There is also a stock ticker.” The type of toothpaste you prefer, however, will be nowhere to be found. (New York Times)

••• “A newly erected crane at [World Trade Center] Tower 3 was undergoing testing when its operating engineer discovered a crack, sources tell The Post.”

••• The Broadsheet Daily recaps the tour-bus congestion issue with the oh-no-they-didn’t headline “Is Downtown Being Told to Sit at the Back of the Bus?”

••• An interesting thread about why Matsugen closed. (Chowhound, via Eater)

••• “Lower Manhattan residents and workers are being asked to turn their feelings about Sept. 11 into art this month, as part of a public project bound for the Gardens of Remembrance in Battery Park.” (Tribeca Trib)