• Aerial Design and Build

  122 E. 57th St., nr. Lexington Ave., Ste. 4R; 212-888-1880; aerialdesignandbuild.com

  Everyone has heard the horror stories: Contractor comes in, sets a price, tears out your old kitchen, and then … poof. A hundred phone messages later, you discover him posting Facebook updates from Aruba. That’s when it’s time to call Aerial Design and Build. The owners, Rupila Sethi and Julie Kelley, have architecture and accounting backgrounds, and specialize in these sorts of disaster-recovery situations. They’ve done swank apartments in Trump Tower and stores for Paul Smith, and put a premium on two things: a militant approach to project schedules and minimizing homeowner stress while they meet that deadline. Lately, they’ve also been taking on projects that haven’t been officially abandoned but were otherwise screwed up.

From the 2011 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine