Green is all the rage these days and on this videocast from IntoTheBox.tv, we take a look at what green means in New York City real estate. After former Vice President Al Gore won the Nobel Peace prize, we wanted to dig a little deeper into the green garden here in New York.

Certainly, Battery Park City is doing its part. There’s the Solaire—a green rental building built four years ago in Battery Park. The building urges its residents to ‘live green’ and there is a myriad ways that this building is utilizing environmentally-friendly materials and resources.

Additionally, the Visionaire is currently under construction in Battery Park City—an environmentally friendly 35-story condominium development slated to be completed in Fall, 2008.There are some roadblocks on the green train with all the pre-war buildings in New York City; the bones of these buildings simply aren’t environmentally-friendly.

Lee H. Skolnick, partner and founder of Lee H. Skolnick Partnership, said that he envisions seeing green on all of the rooftops of the city’s pre-war buildings—gardens, plants and trees—and that, ultimately, the entire grid of the city can be a green one.Skolnick’s company develops buildings that are ‘LEED-certified,’ meaning they are up to par on standards for environmentally sustainable construction, which are developed by the U.S. Green Building Council. Currently, New York City has 10 large green residential buildings. Seattle, however, has our fair city beat—with 23 green-certified buildings.

IntoTheBox.tv is all about peering inside the surreal housing market here in New York City. We take a look at the news, trends and politics of the NYC real estate market. The stories here are even better than fiction. There is a new videocast each day (Monday-Friday) where we provide you with an intimate view of the way New Yorkers cope with the absurdities of living in the best city in the world!