Luxury go-go rentals, cool new refi calculator and more

A daily tour around the web through the eyes of a NYC vertical dweller.

• Manhattan is an island, and your building is now a cruise ship: The New York Post reports on “Bash Pads.  Rental buildings [that] lure the young by bringing the fun....These buildings are also places for going out, making friends, seeing and being seen — without dealing with cover charges, long lines or velvet ropes.”    (NYP)
• How were we not aware of this?  Vanilla Ice has a new reality television show in which he buys, renovates and flips apartments.  As Curbed puts it, “the next time you fail to net $300k on that resale of yours, remember, Vanilla Ice thinks you're stupid.”  (Curbed, NYT)
• Bills.com has a nifty new calculator to take the guesswork out of your refi decisions. "The goal of the tool was to help consumers make a quick yes or no decision without taking them through long forms and rate tables."  (NYT)
• Another day, another proposal to take control of Stuy Town.  Can the tenants get behind this plan?  “For a co-op plan to be financially successful, more than 50 percent of existing tenants must agree to buy their units," Guterman said. "To offer that enticement, the monthly cost of owning their unit -- including maintenance fees and mortgage payments -- must be no higher than the current monthly rent," he said. What’s not to like?  (Bloomberg)
• Manly furniture on display in SoHo.  “Butch craft” is how Murray Moss, the canny marketer and former fashion entrepreneur, describes the work of Mr. van Bleiswijk and others, which he has collected in an enticing show that opened Wednesday night at Moss, his SoHo store. It has a “rough-hewn, virile and heavy-lifting aesthetic,” Mr. Moss said.”  (NYT)