All posts tagged: apartments

Holocaust survivors in France came home to stolen apartments, looted furniture and bureaucratic hurdles

Holocaust survivors in France came home to stolen apartments, looted furniture and bureaucratic hurdles

(The Conversation) — In 1945, an angry mob confronted Aba Mizreh and four of his sons outside their former home in Paris. The Jewish family had hidden in Lyon during World War II, only to learn that their apartment had been looted and rented in their absence. Despite an eviction notice, the new tenants refused to leave, leading to a street fight. Following the violent confrontation, Mizreh wrote to the French government. “Don’t I have the right, after having suffered so much, to get my property back?” he asked. “Haven’t I really paid enough for this war?” Mizreh, then 68, was just one of the 160,000 Holocaust survivors from Paris who struggled to rebuild their lives after the devastation of the Nazi occupation. Of his 11 children, five sons had fought for France and six of his children had been deported; at least two were murdered at Auschwitz. Now he simply wanted to return to the two-bedroom apartment that served as his home and furrier workshop in order to support his wife and orphaned grandchildren. …

Jardinette Apartments, Neutra’s first Los Angeles building, reopens

Jardinette Apartments, Neutra’s first Los Angeles building, reopens

One of the most painstaking architectural renewals in recent Los Angeles memory has finally pulled a world-class jewel of modern architecture from obscurity. Designed by pioneering Modernist architect Richard Neutra in 1928, with limited collaboration from another Modernist icon, Rudolph Schindler, the Jardinette Apartments had been hiding in plain sight on an unassuming Hollywood street for nearly a century. The complex was a technical and spatial breakthrough, and quickly gained international renown as one of the earliest International Style structures in the United States, not to mention Neutra’s first L.A. commission. But the building’s original owner, Joseph H. Miller, went bankrupt during construction and skipped town to avoid his creditors, and the Jardinette slipped from view. “After that early burst, it just disappeared,” said Barbara Lamprecht, historical consultant for the Jardinette’s rehabilitation, which is just now wrapping up. For decades the building stood quietly along West Marathon Street: an austere, four-story complex that most people passed without a second glance. Wedged between Western Avenue and Manhattan Place, amid stucco apartment blocks and scrappy bungalows, the …

Kim Jong Un Gifts New Apartments To Families Of Soldiers Killed In Ukraine War

Kim Jong Un Gifts New Apartments To Families Of Soldiers Killed In Ukraine War

Last summer North Korea began for the first time airing footage which provided public confirmation that it was receiving many of its soldiers home in coffins after they served alongside Russian forces in the context of the Ukraine war. It’s believed that the some ten to fourteen thousand DPRK troops dispatched to assist Moscow had primarily fought in Russia’s Kursk province, where they helped repel the previous six-month Ukrainian occupation of the southern border oblast (in 2024-2025). On Monday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un unveiled that families of soldiers killed in the battle abroad would receive free new housing. He presided over a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the completion of a new block of apartments for that purpose, state media reported Monday. KCNA/Yonhap “The new street has been built thanks to the ardent desire of our motherland that wishes that… its excellent sons, who defended the most sacred things by sacrificing their most valuable things, will live forever,” Kim said in a speech, as cited by the Korean Central News Agency. This comes after Kim last week …

Apartments to take over empty office buildings with new L.A. ordinance

Apartments to take over empty office buildings with new L.A. ordinance

Los Angeles officials just made it easier to convert empty commercial buildings to housing, opening the door to the creation of thousands of apartments across a city clamoring for housing. Developer Garrett Lee already is rolling. After years of struggling to find white-collar tenants for a gleaming office high-rise on the edge of downtown, he has just begun converting its office space into close to 700 apartments. With the new Citywide Adaptive Reuse Ordinance going into effect this month, many more housing conversions are coming to Los Angeles, Lee said. “This is monumental for the city,” he concluded. The ordinance opens the possibility of conversion for many more buildings than the 1999 guidelines, which paved the way for converting older downtown buildings and jump-started a residential renaissance that turned downtown into a viable neighborhood after decades as a commercial district where few wanted to live. The first ordinance applied to buildings erected before 1975 and was focused primarily on downtown. Under the new guidelines, commercial buildings that are merely 15 years old throughout Los Angeles …

Frida Kahlo-branded luxury apartments go up for sale in Miami

Frida Kahlo-branded luxury apartments go up for sale in Miami

Condos in a Frida Kahlo-branded luxury condominium development in Miami went on sale this week, even though the project has yet to break ground. Promotional materials describe the planned residences as “inspired by Frida Kahlo’s expressive spirit.” Renderings of the so-called Frida Kahlo Wynwood Residences show a massive image of the artist emblazoned across one side of a 14-story tower designed by Carlos Ott, the architect behind Paris’s Opéra Bastille. A second, eight-story tower is also slated for the site. Inside, however, things are more restrained: interiors are depicted in neutral, muted tones. Related Articles Co-developers PMG Real Estate Associates and Lndmrk Development said the project is set to be completed in 2028. The development will comprise 244 fully furnished units, ranging from studios to three-bedroom apartments. They will cost between roughly $500,000 and $1.6 million. Pricey, but still a long way off Kahlo’s heights: 1940 El sueño (La cama), which sold at Sotheby’s New York last year for a record $54.7 million, (plus fees). The amenities also reflect contemporary luxury rather than bohemian mythmaking. …

Why does San Diego lead California in approval of apartments

Why does San Diego lead California in approval of apartments

As Los Angeles grapples with a housing shortage, it could learn from San Diego, which has proved better at convincing construction companies to build more. The city is more welcoming to developers, industry insiders say, with fewer regulations and fees, better planning and less rent control. “It is easier to build in San Diego over Los Angeles because of its legal structure, political culture and defined processes,” said Kevin Shannon, co-head of capital markets at real estate brokerage Newmark, which is overseeing the sale of a sprawling development site in San Diego that is zoned to have thousands of apartments. The result: As of last quarter, the number of new apartments under construction in San Diego County rose 10% from three years earlier, CoStar data show. New apartment construction in Los Angeles County tumbled 33% over the same period, hitting an 11-year low in the three months through December. San Diego is expanding its apartment pool at nearly twice the rate of L.A. and other major city clusters in the state. San Diego is more …