We’re keeping this recurring piece to do a bit more for those genuinely interested in New York real estate, not just food porn, and give my LinkedIn designation a little luster.  Taking a note from the easy to absorb nuggets of information in MarketSnacks‘ newsletter (blanketed with this unshakable food theme), here are your RealEstateSnacks so I can make this newsletter tax deductible.

1. Since many of you work on Wall Street, why not know the pretty remarkable history behind the name? In this long form essay from Curbed, the reader begins in the early 1600’s with Manhattan’s first European settlement, New Amsterdam, and follows Wall Street through multiple wars, economic booms and tumbles, devastating fires, terrorist attacks, and countless changes in infrastructure. They say you have to know where you came from to know where you’re going…

2. Not-so-breaking news: the city still has no clue how they’re going to handle the true weightiness of the impending L-train shutdown. The L-train is the 10th busiest Metro in North America, as during rush hour it transports as many people as all the East River vehicular bridge and tunnel crossings combined. Roughly 275,000 riders currently take the L on a daily basis. Over a third of these riders will be forced to take the J/M/Z instead, which can only add three extra cars per hour due to the capacity of the train configurations. Spark notes; the math isn’t looking good…welcome to utter chaos that is the New York MTA.

3. For a new debate on the blocks – would an enormous storm surge barrier save New York’s coast or destroy it? 6 years after Sandy rocked New York, truthfully nothing has been done in preparation for the eventual next big storm. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has proposed different storm surge barriers however the residual effects of such could be disastrous for the environment. Click here for the full discussion.

4. And for less of a surprise than the hullabaloo around the L-train, the city’s stock of affordable apartments has rapidly continued to diminish. In short, between 2005 and 2017, 425,492 apartments renting for $900 a month or less have vanished. Meanwhile, apartments with rents more than $2,700 increased by 238,000 units. Between 2005 and 2016, the city added an estimated 576,000 residents yet only 76,211 new apartments. This makes that whole L-train fiasco seem a bit more tame of an issue…

5. Absolutely not real estate related but it’s interesting and this is my newsletter so here we are. Researchers at UChicago have found out why motherhood sends octopuses into a death spiral. Oh and did I mention the females kill and eat their partner post mating. Again, this doesn’t belong here but whose newsletter is it anyway?