Time Warner Center | The New York Observer

Goodbye, Views! Bank of America Sells Off Its Pricey Time Warner Apartment

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:14:57 -0400

On Friday, just after Bank of America announced a billion-dollar loss in the third quarter, a deed in city records showed that the massive firm had sold off its corporate apartment in the Time Warner Center for $7.2 million. On the bright side, it cost $6.35 million to buy three years ago.

Especially on a dark afternoon like this one, you stare up at the twin-towered, 53-story, 2,800,000-square-foot, sharp-edged, nefariously shiny Time Warner Center and...

'08's Biggest Apartment Offerings: Where Are They Now?

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:19:38 -0400

Late last month, the $51 million duplex penthouse at Trump Park Avenue quietly came off the market, a year after the Elliman broker Victoria Shtainer listed the 6,200-square-foot sprawl, and seven years since Mr. Trump bought the building. "We haven't sold it," Ms. Shtainer said this week. "The timing was not good, so I didn't get any offers."

That's the story with New York's most outstandingly lush real estate. Of the 10 properties that...

Gerhard Andlinger's Time Warner Penthouse, Once $65 M., Sells for $37.5 M. in Biggest Apartment Deal Since July '08

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:54:23 -0400

It's been a humbling year for monstrously expensive, monumentally plush New York real estate: Not only is the most expensive townhouse ever sold in Manhattan asking a few million dollars less than it was bought for, but the price of Julian Schnabel's five-floor Palazzo Chupi penthouse has gone from $59 million to $38 million to $27.9 million.

Yet this month, according to city records filed late last week, a five-bedroom, 8,300-square-foot penthouse at the Time...

Yours Now for Only $49 M.! Time Warner Penthouse Takes $16 M. Fall

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:50:22 -0400

In the world of high-heeled New York real estate, price cuts are so common these days that it seems relatively useless to point them out, let alone be surprised anymore. Just last week, after all, the tag for a six-story, seven-bedroom townhouse went down to $21 million, after cuts from $35 million to $32.5 million to $29.3 million to $27 million.

But the Time Warner Center suffered a genuinely violent price chop earlier today. According to Brown Harris...

The Quiet Listings

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:33:58 -0500

In the middle of these cartoonishly dismal times, what’s a cosmetics executive to do if she wants to ask nearly $100 million for her penthouse? She’ll put it on the market without actually putting it on the market, just like a venture capitalist, a widowed philanthropist, a pharmaceuticals mogul and a Victoria’s Secret billionaire have recently done.

According to two sources, Sandie Tillotson, the senior vice president and co-founder of Nu...

Handicapping ’09! Where Will the Very Next Mammoth Manhattan Sale Come From?

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:42:12 -0500

Until this week, when news broke that hedge fund manager John A. Griffin paid $32.25 million for a co-op at 1030 Fifth Avenue, New York’s 10 most expensive residential listings looked more or less doomed. The thinking went that none of the three townhouses and seven apartments, each asking (officially or quietly) over $45 million, could possibly sell during this frozen downturn.

Now that Mr. Griffin’s deal...

Cracking The $5 M. Zip Code

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:15:26 -0500

The Manhattan zip code with the greatest number of home sales of at least $5 million this year has been 10023 on the Upper West Side. (Research site PropertyShark mined the data based on closed deals through Oct. 17.) No surprise, since the area includes 15 Central Park West and the Time Warner Center.

But even without the $5 million-and-up transactions from these ultra-luxury condos – 102 this year! –...

The Newly Minted Most Expensive Apartment in New York City

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:33:22 -0500

When an $80 million penthouse at 15 Central Park West came off the market late last month, it left a depressingly big hole in New York's super-luxury apartment market. (As it happens, an 18th-floor duplex in the building is being quietly offered for $75 million, while Courtney Sale Ross' sprawl at 740 Park is asking "over $60 million," but neither are official listings, so they don't quite count.)

Not that anyone actually keeps track of...

What a Difference 15 CPW Makes!

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:57:27 -0500

Last week, we gave you (via PropertyShark's crackerjack research) the Manhattan zip codes with the most $5 million-and-up housing deals in 2008. That list, however, deliberately did not include The Plaza, 15 Central Park West and Time Warner Center.

The above does, and there's a big difference between the two lists: Gone is the dominance of the Upper East Side.

Upper East Side zips claimed four of the top five spots on last week's list....

Lineup for October 15th, 2008

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 08:06:16 -0400

Felix Gillette and John Koblin attended a conference of media folks at Time Warner Center and saw, "dark days. Banks, churches, newspapers, the presidency—all in decline."

Don't forget publishing, since, according to Leon Neyfakh, "At hand is the twilight of an era most did not expect to miss, but will."

Plus: Oliver Stone... Mad Men... Saturday Night...

Bob Costas Unloads Time Warner Condo For $8.5 M.

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:14:03 -0400

The Time Warner Center often rightfully gets credit for sparking Columbus Circle’s renaissance and laying the groundwork for at least eight new condo developments in a five-block radius since it opened in 2003. So you can’t help but wonder if developer Related Companies ever gets peeved when the buildings it paved the way for come in and steal its thunder—that means you, 15 Central Park West!

The...

Bundchen, Brady Re-List Manhattan Apartments

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:09:30 -0400

Supermodel Gisele Bundchen and her boyfriend, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, have re-listed their respective Manhattan apartments, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Ms. Bundchen is now asking $5.9 million for her West Village penthouse with Hudson River views--a little bit more than half the original asking price in September 2007. Marie Schmon of Corcoran has the listing.

Mr. Brady wants roughly 10 percent more for his Time Warner Center condo than he asked...

Time Warner Center Claims Regional Building of The Year Award, Moves Onto Nationals

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:09:31 -0400

The Time Warner Center, that stylish mall at Columbus Circle, has been dubbed the "2008 Office Building of the Year" by the Mid-Atlantic Conference of Building Owners and Managers Association.

The 2.8 million-square-foot Center won in the exclusive 1 million-square-feet-and-over category, after an earlier qualifying win in a statewide competition.

The Center, completed by Stephen Ross' Related Companies in 2004, has 80 floors of residential and retail (think Whole Foods and Sephora), super...

Thank You, 'Miss Cleo'! Psychic King Sells Time Warner Condo For $15.8 M., Buys Another for $24.4 M.

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:08:04 -0500

Back in 2002, when Steven Feder’s “Miss Cleo” empire was crumbling under federal lawsuits, the man known as the Psychic Hotline King probably foresaw that things would shine brightly for him again in a few years.

Late last month, eons after his Psychic Readers Network was brought down (and he agreed to forgive $500 million in customer bills), Mr. Feder, plus his partner, Lou Thomas Trosclair, sold off for a massive profit...

Livin' La Vida Time Warner Center Again

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 10:20:13 -0400

The Time Warner Center condo that pop throb Ricky Martin sold last year for $9.75 million is back on the sales market, according to today's Wall Street Journal.

The condo's current owner, an art collector, is listing it for $18.9 million. Mr. Martin bought the condo from the developer in 2004 for about $6.8 million. (Those were the days, huh? A 65th-floor, seven-room Time Warner Center condo for well under $10 million.)

Elizabeth Lee Sample...

The Good, the Bad and the Gentrified

Sun, 18 Mar 2007 20:00:00 -0400

For the record, I don’t care for shopping malls. Or Starbucks. In terms of my personal aesthetic preferences, I am with the contributors to The Suburbanization of New York, a new compilation of essays subtitled, “Is the World’s Greatest City Becoming Just Another Town?” But muddle-headed thinking is never so irritating as when it’s deployed on behalf of a cause to which one is sympathetic. The book consists of 14 pieces by...

Is $22.5 Million A Bargain for 64th-Floor Apartment at Time Warner Center?

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 09:08:27 -0500

When Manhattan Transfers broke the story about Verna Harrah's sale at the Time Warner Center, the listing broker said her apartment "sold for close" to the $25 milion price tag. But according to newly filed city records, the buyer (listed on the deed as the Armstrong Family Trust) got quite a discount. The closing price was $22.5 million--which bought a nice living room on Central Park, a family room overlooking the Hudson, a foyer of...

The Afternoon Wrap: Friday

Fri, 05 Jan 2007 12:02:24 -0500

The Time Warner Center's "expensive sheen" is still glittery, pushing the asking price of neighborhood apartments into posh new levels. S. Jhoanna Robledo has a precise list of Columbus Circle sheen. [New York] "Big Old East Village Book Party" sounds like fun, especially to people who live in expensive, but punky downtown apartments. [L Magazine] DUMBO has hit that coveted way-over-supersaturation point. First the 'hood popped up in Vanity Fair and Vogue; now it's in Ford...

Sold! Or Maybe Not. Separating Mandarin Oriental Fact from Fiction

Wed, 27 Dec 2006 08:17:58 -0500

Did you hear? The Mandarian Oriental in the Time Warner Center is being sold to Istithmar. Or so they say. The Mandarian Oriental rumor has been the juiciest real estate one floating around New York for the last several weeks, but trying to parse reality from fiction has been tricky. The execs at Istithmar are keeping typically quiet. "We do not comment on market rumors," wrote David Jackson, the CEO at Istithmar, in...

Chef Lomonaco's Grill to Live

Sun, 10 Sep 2006 20:00:00 -0400

The view from the new steakhouse Porter House New York, tucked up on the fourth floor of the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, looks like something whipped up by a movie-set designer charged with creating a picturesque Manhattan. Central Park stretches lusciously to the north, midtown skyscrapers glitter to the south, and seen from a helpful distance, even the honking traffic circle appears appealing.

“I seem to have a passion for unique locations,”...

The 'Fashionable' East 50s Condo, and Le Cirque Ravioli

Thu, 27 Jul 2006 11:00:02 -0400

'The Essence of European Sophistication' One day in late 2007, the 34-story Veneto will be the most voguish luxury condo in the East 50s. It happens to be east of Third Avenue, and it happens to now be a mammoth construction site, but that hasn't stopped Midtown-ers from dropping $125 million on the condo in only three months, filling up 50% of its residences. To celebrate, developer Related served lunch at Le Cirque--not far from...

Denzel Buys at 15 C.P.W.

Fri, 05 May 2006 04:40:00 -0400

So Denzel Washington has apparently given up on the idea of living in a church-turned-condominium, and has grabbed an apartment at 15 Central Park West, according to the Wall Street Journal. (And it's nice that The Journal is free this week so we can actually link to their stuff). Mr. Washington's 3,000-square-foot pad includes three bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a terrace (facing the park). And how is 15 C.P.W. stacking up...

Big Euro Machers Will Crash Plaza: Ritzy Pied-à-Terres

Sun, 23 Oct 2005 20:00:00 -0400

The entrance to the Plaza Hotel is now completely stockaded with chain-link fencing and plywood, the suited doormen replaced with grubby porters ushering construction and demolition workers—and dumpsters—in and out of its fabled and much-filmed front door. Even the somewhat ridiculous (if obligatory) row of flags has been plucked from above the hotel’s famous arcade.

But on a recent sunny day, tourists continued to ogle at the building’s ornate Beaux-Arts façade. And...

Big Euro Machers Will Crash Plaza: Ritzy Pied-à-Terres

Sun, 23 Oct 2005 20:00:00 -0400

Jay-Z Rents and Big Deals

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 04:34:01 -0400

Jay-Z is heading over to the celebrity-filled Time Warner Center, according to the New York Post. The rapper and music and clothing entrepreneur will be renting a four-room apartment for $40,000 a month. Embattled media mogul Conrad Black recently sold his co-op at 635 Park Avenue to developer Marty Berman for $10.5 million, according to New York magazine. And Hugh Jackman has been looking around some pricey properties lately, most recently in Harvey Weinstein’s...

A TGIF Sort of Sushi Joint: Butai Livens Up Union Square

Sun, 19 Jun 2005 20:00:00 -0400

Butai, a new Japanese restaurant that has opened near Union Square, has a style all its own.

"Thank God it's Friday," said our hostess cheerfully as she showed us to a candlelit table in the upstairs dining room. Indeed. The place was packed, and judging from the sound of laughter and clinking glasses, the people here-most of them young and stylish-were having a rollicking good time. With the exception of a couple in the corner,...

Deaniac Wall Street Guy Gets $9.89 M. Time Warner Center Spread; Glam Mag Editrix Foils Woody in $7.5 M. Floor-Thru

Sun, 05 Jun 2005 20:00:00 -0400

Wall Street financier and big-time Democratic donor Roy Furman recently purchased a luxury apartment at the Time Warner Center for $9.89 million, according to city records.

The Time Warner Center features a state-of-the-art gym, 24-hour doorman and concierge service, valet parking and, of course, a giant Whole Foods downstairs. In addition to remarkable city views, the ritzy new building is only steps away from Central Park. Mr. Furman is no stranger to bringing politics into...

Time Warner Center's Café Gray: Inspired Cuisine From Gray Kunz

Sun, 17 Apr 2005 20:00:00 -0400

Gray Kunz is indisputably a great chef, but I wonder if this restaurant is the best showcase for his talents. Apart from the food, much of which is superb, dining here can be a strange and incoherent experience. It was interesting on one of my visits to see the place through the eyes of friends visiting from abroad. They were already at the bar when I arrived at Café Gray, looking bemused. "Why are...

Diamond Daze: Time Warner Center Gets Gems

Sun, 14 Nov 2004 19:00:00 -0500

Even as a tiny child, Hillary L. Beckman was mesmerized by diamonds. Barbie dolls never even came close. "I really loved the idea that these stones were millions of years old and that they came from the mantle of the earth," said Ms. Beckman, now 30 and chief operating officer of Lockes Diamantaires, which opened last week in the Time Warner Center.

Her friends and family clamored for her guidance: "'Hillary, could you...

Keep Your Dirty Paws Off: Why Don’t All Chefs Wear Gloves?

Sun, 24 Oct 2004 20:00:00 -0400

Don’t touch my food. Please.

I was reading the New York Times food section recently and came across a photograph of a chef at one of the new restaurants in the Time Warner Center (I’ll kindly withhold the name) who was preparing a dish of yellow snapper filets. Leaning over the serving plate with the intense gaze of a watch dealer, he seemed to be molding them into some kind of interlocking sculpture. This...

Crime Blotter

Sun, 21 Mar 2004 19:00:00 -0500

Paintball Pinhead Tries

Target Practice at Mayor's Mansion Paintball has become an increasingly popular sport. Nevertheless, as one Upper East Side resident discovered on Feb. 28, it is probably unwise to conduct your target practice near what the police euphemistically describe as "sensitive locations"-such as Gracie Mansion-particularly in this jittery era. At around 4:55 p.m., the police received a call reporting a man with a gun in the vicinity of the Mayor's official residence at...

A Suburban Revolution?

Sun, 21 Mar 2004 19:00:00 -0500

Stepping off of an escalator recently, I found myself in a refulgent summer garden-snapdragons, carnations, dahlias, daffodils and enough varieties of roses to furnish a sizable senior prom. It's a lovely touch, especially for a supermarket. Then again, this is not your conventional urban supermarket.

Now that Whole Foods Market, the country's largest organic food store, has thrown roots on the lower level of the spanking new Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle-all 59,000 square...

The Store That Ate New York

Sun, 21 Mar 2004 19:00:00 -0500

The Feb. 4 fête to trumpet the opening of the $1.7 billion Time Warner Center was an absurd if distinctly New York baptism.

Cindy Crawford, Wolf Blitzer, Kevin Bacon, Calvin Klein and Salman Rushdie were among the 5,000 well-coiffed guests nibbling canapés furnished by the building's resident über-chefs-Thomas Keller, Gray Kunz, Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Charlie Trotter-as Jewel, Marc Anthony and Cirque du Soleil cooed and contorted themselves onstage inside a biosphere-styled glass atrium. But downstairs,...

Home Stretch

Sun, 29 Feb 2004 19:00:00 -0500

The estate of Kay Jeffords, the maverick owner of the star-chaser Lonesome Glory, just went to contract on Jeffords' regal residence at 4 East 66th Street for close to the $15 million asking price, real-estate sources close to the property said. Cornelia Zagat Eland, with Stribling and Associates, who had the exclusive listing on the 16-room co-op, did not return calls for comment.

The Jeffords estate and the apartment both have a storied history. Ms....

Brazillionaires Hurl Less Lucre at N.Y. Palaces

Sun, 23 Nov 2003 19:00:00 -0500

In the marble-floored lobbies of Manhattan's brassiest, newest condominium developments, where the rustling of shopping bags and the clicking of impossibly high heels once kept time with the cadences of a dozen foreign languages all bouncing off the mirrored walls in a merry cacophony, Neoly Lika Williams' pace has slackened. The Brazilian-born real-estate broker for the Corcoran Group had just returned to Manhattan after a 13-hour flight from São Paolo, and the trip, like...