Zeckendorf

Florida developer Gerardo Capo has paid $3.5 million for a 12th-floor condo at 15 Central Park West, city records show, moving about as far from Miami's bottomless housing market as one can get--metaphorically speaking.

The chairman of the Capo Group lives in one of his own luxury condos in Miami Beach, just 48 miles east of one the biggest and most controversial projects in his portfolio, the $850 million Bimini Bay Resort and Casino in the Bahamas. On second thought, maybe he was trying to put a little distance between himself and the Capo Group's adversaries living on the 9.5 million-square-mile island.  read more »

At least a dozen people at 15 Central Park West have thrown out an extra $800,000 or so for a pied a terre for the help to complement their own palatial condos. Penthouse owner Sanford Weil even paid $950,000 for a second unit that we can only assume is a closet since it is not denoted by the S-prefix--supposedly the S stands for "suite," but we can't help but notice that it's also the first letter of the word staff.  read more »

After Morgan Stanley took a beating from the collapse of the subprime mortgage market, one would think the firm's global co-chief of real estate investment might have second thoughts about making any real estate investments of his own. But not only did K.S. Kalsi (a.k.a. Sonny) and his wife pay $14.6 million for a fifth-floor condo at 15 Central Park West, according to city records, he took out two different mortgages--one for $1 million and the other for $8 million--on the apartment.  read more »

When Joseph Betesh opened an Army-Navy store in the South Bronx in 1975 he probably never imagined he would become a full-fledged hip-hop clothing mogul with 19 branches of his Dr. Jay's store spread across the five boroughs. Now the Sephardic Jewish retailer who made a fortune selling "urban apparel" to 18- to 30- year-olds is moving about as far away from his retail roots as possible.

Mr. Betesh has paid $5.6 million for a 28th-floor condo at 15 Central Park West, city records show.  read more »

Compared to some of the other blue-chip investment banks in the city, Deutsche Bank was not well represented at 15 Central Park West. The lone Deutsche banker with a condo in the tower has been flying solo in a sea of Goldman and Lehman residents since he closed on a $9.9 million unit in February.

It seems he's finally gotten a buddy. Deutsche's Head of Trading for Emerging Market Debt, Kay Haigh, paid $5.3 million for a 24th-floor unit, city records show.  read more »

The first and only woman to gain entry into the 15-member boys club that is the Lehman Brothers’ executive board has now penetrated one of the city’s most exclusive buildings. Erin M. Callan, the recently appointed Lehman CFO, paid $6.5 million for a 31st-floor condo at 15 Central Park West, city records show.  read more »

It's a good year to be a top-notch, shiny-shoe, uptown real estate broker. Less than a year after Sandy Weill finally closed on his $42.4 million penthouse at 15 Central Park West, his agent on the deal has gotten a condo of his own in the multi-billion dollar building.  read more »

American retailers, as a whole, have seen much brighter days. But apparently some in the industry are faring better than others.

The president of New England department store chain Kids Town, Joseph Sutton, has purchased a $2.6 million pad on the 14th floor at 15 Central Park West, city records show, backed by a $1.8 million mortgage.

Laura Blankfein, the wife of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, paid $701,000 for Suite 807 ("suite" being the euphemism for a staff apartment) at 15 Central Park West, city records show.

The Observer's Max Abelson reported that the Blankfeins closed on a 16th-floor duplex condo in the building back in January when the extent of the subprime mortgage crisis' impact on Wall Street was finally becoming clear. The couple signed the contract for the yet-to-be built apartment two days before Mr. Blankfein was promoted to CEO at Goldman in May 2006, at the height of the Manhattan real estate market.

Since then, the national market has tanked and New York's is stagnant. But while other Wall Street banking firms are writing down their balance sheets as quickly as they once did year-end bonus checks, Goldman Sachs, with Mr. Blankfein at the helm, has remained largely unscathed.  read more »

Mikhail Segal, the director of Dynegy, the third-largest independent power production company in the U.S., has paid $12.95 million for a 38th-floor unit at 15 Central Park West, city records show. Last week we reported that Mr.  read more »

A pair of condos at 15 Central Park West have sold, city records show. A buyer listed as Jay Investments LLC paid $20.5 million for Unit 11A. A few minutes later, a $15.6 million condo sale popped up in city records.

The second deed lists a pair of LLC's, G-Ike Management and L-Stone Management, as the buyers of Unit 15C. Both of the companies are registered to the same North Carolina address as a senior vice president at Capital Research and Management, Greg Ireland, and wife Lori. The firm is the largest Yahoo shareholder according to Portfolio magazine, so perhaps Mr. Ireland bought the swanky new apartment in anticipation of Microsoft's possible purchase (or takeover) of Yahoo.

The same lawyer filed both deeds, but he was out of the office when we tried to verify the buyers' identities.

Back in January, we reported that the owner of the upscale travel agency Smart Flyer had bought a $4.86 million condo at 15 Central Park West. Less than two months later, Spanx CEO Sara Blakely and former rapper and Marquis Jet founder Jessie Itzler (a.k.a. 1991 one-hit-wonder Jesse Jaymes), have paid Mr. Holtz $8.5 million for the 14th-floor condo, city records show. After turning a nearly $4 million profit, Mr. Holtz must only be thinking "Spank!"

Mr.  read more »

Mikhail Segal, the director of Dynegy, the third largest independent power production company in the U.S., has bought a $1 million "suite" at 15 Central Park West, according to city records.

Mr. Segal worked at the Department of Energy in the former Soviet Union and went on to found LS Power Group in 1990. In 2006, LS Power Group's assets were acquired by Dynegy for $2 billion.

Unit 8B in Fifteen Central Park West has sold for $10.8 million, according to city deeds. The deed lists the buyer as only Victory East LLC, but the same LLC sold a $14.4 million penthouse in another star-studeed Manhattan building, One Beacon Court, to Broadway power couple Ron and Susan Frankel last October.