BrickUnderground

Summer Girls 1 by Leif Huron, a New York-based photographer, is one of a few hundred original artworks currently available for purchase ($1,250, or $50/month) on Uprise Art.

Shortly after graduating from Columbia University in 2006, Tze Chun noticed a strange phenomenon among her friends: Even the ones pulling in six-figure salaries had nothing on their walls but ripped movie posters, if anything.

An art history major who longed to make the sometimes daunting art world more accessible for the younger generation, Chun understandably found this irksome. So she decided to do something about it, founding Uprise Art—the focus of this week’s Real.Est List Spotlight Series—an online gallery where buyers can shop for contemporary, original artwork, then set up an account that allows them to purchase pieces over time through monthly installments.

Charles & Hudson/Flickr

Expensive parking, overheated bedrooms, and kitchens that don’t make sense for the act of cooking. Five New Yorkers share their apartment-life wants:

• Cheaper parking:  I wish there was some kind of discount in the parking fees for building residents. I pay over $400 dollars for parking my car in a garage. After six months it still feels like highway robbery. - Victor, Financial District

• A kitchen for sane people I wish I could totally re-do my (rental) kitchen and make the layout make sense! There is no place to put a garbage can unless I put it in the hall way or in the dining area. The drawers for cutlery have been positioned above eye level and they only pull out halfway! The only counter space I can work on is as big as a cutting board next to the sink. There’s no place to add a butcher block or any extra storage since the kitchen is in a narrow alcove that opens onto the narrow hall way where we need to walk. There had to have been a better way of designing this.  -Sally, Harlem

On the Lower East side, $2,495/mo gets you two bedrooms, a sparkling white bathroom and a washer and dryer in this rental at 172 Rivington Street and Clinton Street. Or it would have, if someone hadn't already snapped it up.

What can $2,500 a month get you in Manhattan? Three diverse apartments within $25 of that magic number made it into this week's Hot Dozen--the 12 rental apartments Streeteasy.com visitors clicked on most often over the past seven days.

Here's the scoop.

You may pride yourself on your Wikipedia-like knowledge of the best/worst rooftop bars and smartest/dumbest places to hail a taxi at rush hour, but you're not really a New Yorker until you pass through the Five Stages of Real Estate Grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance)...and the following NYC real estate truths no longer shock you:

1. You may be an adult with no curfew, but your doorman will always judge you for coming home late/drunk/both.
2. The super expects a holiday tip even though you haven't seen him since last Christmas and Task Rabbited your clogged sink last week.
3. The neighbors you can see walking around naked in their apartment are rarely the ones you want to see naked. Ditto the ones you can hear having sex.

This $3,250 two-bedroom in Crown Heights has got condo-like amenities. Just check out that kitchen.

This brand-new construction in Crown Heights features 14 units, including this $3,250 two-bedroom (note: that's the net effective rent, taking into account that one month is being offered free).

Pros: The newly built apartments have condo-like amenities, and all units have central A/C, a washer-dryer, stainless steel appliances (including a dishwasher), designer kitchen, bathroom, and lighting fixtures. Plus, as stated above, they're offering one month free rent.

Cons: Though it's far from tenement-style, the building is a walk-up.