General Motors pleads for $18 billion, saying it may crumble in weeks if federal assistance isn’t provided. [NY Times]

Whatever excitement originally greeted El-Ad’s plan to turn the Plaza into the most sought-after condo in the city has been drowned out in a sea of lawsuits and tenant complaints. [Vanity Fair]

Madonna and A-Rod looking “discreetly” for a place together on the UES. [NY Post via Curbed]

Is the architecture sprouting up around the High Line birthing imitators already? [Curbed]

The M.T.A. has been trying to crack down on bus-riders who refuse to pay, but with mixed results. [City Room]

Seeking rents as low as $10 per square foot, Manhattan businesses jump to the outer boroughs. [TRD]

LES landlord grabs tenants by splitting 3,300 square feet of retail space into two seperate leases. [Crain’s via TRD]

Forest City Ratner helped rescue the controversial advocacy group ACORN this summer with a $1.5 million loan. [AYR]

A look into Bushwick’s foreclosure “crisis.” [BushwickBK]

Wooden(!) phone booths sighted in the oldest pharmacy in Borough Park. [Lost City via City Room]

It seems the Bloomberg administration has chosen landscape designer Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates to build a new West Side park, though there’s no official word yet from the city.

Last night at a forum on the West Side rail yards, both Vishaan Chakrabarti, an executive at the Related Companies who is leading the firm’s development of the yards, and Assemblyman Dick Gottfried referred to Van Valkenburgh as the winner of a design competition for a mid-block park and boulevard. The park is planned to run between 10th and 11th avenues, from 33rd Street to 42nd Street (though only the first segment, from 33rd Street to 36th Street, is funded).  read more »

7:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. Learn how landlords can survive in today’s tenant’s market at “Tenant Retention in Trying Times,” hosted by the New Jersey chapter of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties. Eisenhower Corporate Campus, 209 West Mount Pleasant Avenue, Livingston, N.J. $75 for members and employees of member firms; $105 for non-members. Register online.

9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate hosts a day-long course on the ins and outs of anti-discrimination law as it applies to the real estate industry. Midtown Center, 11 West 42nd Street, 4th floor. For more information, contact Sal Gulino at 212-992-3305 or sg7@nyu.edu.

An anonymous restaurateur dishing to Vanity Fair on developer El-Ad's efforts to drum up interest in the Plaza Hotel's swank Oak Room and Oak Bar [via Eater]:

“They said, Well, if you don’t take it, Danny Meyer [owner of Manhattan’s Union Square Café and Gramercy Tavern] is going to take it. And then I’d call Danny Meyer and he’d be like, I don’t want that place. I told them I might look at it, but there’s no way I’ll take it.… And then they’d say, O.K., [renowned chef] Jean-Georges [Vongerichten] is going to take it. So I’d call Jean-Georges. It’s like they’re too stupid to realize that it’s a small community of restaurateurs. And I can just pick up the phone and ask them!”

From Crain's: "The percentage of borrowers in New York City seriously delinquent on their mortgages will nearly double by the end of next year, according to an estimate released today by TransUnion. By the end of 2009, 6.2% of mortgage holders in the city will be at least 60 days behind in their payments, TransUnion reported, by far the highest rate since the company began collecting data in 1992."

Revealed! Details on Daniel Libeskind's designs for the One Madison Avenue condo. [NY Mag]

The Buildings Department issued 65 fewer demolition permits in November than in the same month last year. [TRD]

More trouble for the Street: Goldman Sachs expected to report a $2 billion net quarterly loss. [WSJ]

Number of consumers with delinquent mortgages is expected to almost double by the end of 2009, hitting its highest level in at least 16 years. [WSJ]

The Northeast Power Coordinating Council takes a 15-year lease on the entire 12,000-square-foot 10th floor of Skyline Developers' 1040 Avenue of the Americas. [GlobeSt]

City restaurants that closed in November... and the ones slated to close in December. [Eater]

Our world was rocked assiduously by the Monday morning news that Manhattan rents have begun to not only drop but tumble in some cases. Above is a rundown on the dips by apartment type from The Real Estate Group New York. The '07 average monthly rents don't include Harlem, but still... 'tis a better time to be a tenant and a worse one to be a landlord.

From GlobeSt: "The Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Monday awarded a $192.8-million contract for reconstruction on the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge connecting the Bronx to Queens and Long Island. The contractor--Conti of New York, LLC--is scheduled to start work on the four-year, three-stage project by year’s end, according to a release from MTA Bridges and Tunnels."

From the Wall Street Journal: "Those hoping for a quick rebound are likely to be disappointed. Economists and other pros generally say home prices won't bottom out before the second half of 2009, and some don't see a bottom until 2011 or 2012. Even when they stop falling, prices may scrape along the bottom of the rut for years. And longer term? Over the next 10 to 20 years, housing economists expect prices will rise again -- but, on average, probably not nearly as much as they've averaged over the past decade. That isn't to say that some places won't experience booms (and busts). But, the experts say, you should generally expect house prices to rise just a bit more than inflation and roughly in line with household income."

Schumer report says there are as many as 60,000 low-income apartments in NYC in danger of falling into ruin because of “predatory” real estate investors. [NY Times]

Long-time Statue of Liberty concessionaires fend off challenges from bigger companies to have their contract extended for another 10 years. [NY Times]

Facing a massive rent increase, the Theater District’s famous Ray’s Real Pizza decamps to Jersey. [NY Times]

The Landmarks Preservation Commission struggles to balance the needs of anxious developers and well-mobilized preservationists. [NY Times]

New report reveals the scope of the elevator malfunction behind Jacob Neuman’s death. [NY Times]

Alain Robert—the first man to scale the New York Times building last summer—gets a $250 fine and three days community service. [NY Times]

NYC fixing up the worst housing complexes and charging the landlords. [NYDN]

As the economy tanks and more workers are laid off, New Yorkers are turning to “co-workspaces” to save money as they change career paths. [NYDN]

DOT balks on signing off on a new firehouse for the Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Department. [NYDN]

The city’s budget problems stall a plan to replace the 110th Precinct building near Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. [NYDN]

As the Yankees get set to enjoy their second baseball stadium, the local Bronx community will have to go without the four regulation ballparks swept away by the construction. [NYDN]

Realty Check: Eighty-story Park Hyatt Hotel to rise from Extell’s West 57th Street hole. [NY Post]

Vintage M.T.A. buses from the 60s and 70s return to NYC streets for the holidays. [NY Post]

In today’s restrictive lending culture, self-employed professionals can’t secure mortgages like they used to. [WSJ]

As giant mortgage lenders are slain by the credit crisis, smaller lenders step up to the plate. [WSJ]