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Upper East Side

By Elise Knutsen 2/06 4:27pm

Manhattan Transfers

8 Photos

Door within a door within a door.

Tech Investor Snaps Up Avedon Townhouse from Sarkozy

Oliver Sarkozy (née Pierre Olivier), half-brother of French President Nicolas Sarkozy,  has just sold the Upper East Side townhouse he purchased back in 2005. Like his brother's current standings in the polls, it seemed the final sale price left much to be desired.

Mr. Sarkozy originally put 407 East 75th Street on the market for $11.95 million in May 2012, but ultimately fetched just $8.4 million for the six-bedroom, 5.5-bath place, city records show. Read More

By Matt Chaban 1/20 6:20pm

Greensward

Think of the children! (Save Ruppert Park)

Time Out! Speaker Quinn Wants a Closer Look at Related’s Ruppert Playground Plan

Upper Upper East Side residents have been locked in a development death match with The Related Companies for a few months now, ever since the company decided to exercise its right to build a residential tower on the site of a playground it has maintained for the past 25 years. Actually, 28 years.

Recently, Related decided to close Ruppert Playground, but the community is fighting back because there are no immediate plans to redevelop the site. Rather than let Related take its ball and go home, though, Council Speaker Christine Quinn has stepped up to the plate and potentially throwing up some hurdles that could bring greater oversight, and possibly concessions, to the site. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 1/20 3:27pm

Manhattan Transfers

5 Photos

frick-house3

The Frick’s Sick $6 M. Penthouse

In terms of real estate, the Frick Collection occupies one of New York's most enviable residences. The museum, housed in Henry Clay Frick's former mansion at 1 East 70th Street, represents a largely bygone era when New York's industry titans lived like kings in lordly city estates. Unbeknownst to most, however, the Frick Collection was, until very recently, in possession of another abode: a Park Avenue penthouse.

While the apartment cannot be compared to the Frick's primary homestead, it is a substantial home nonetheless. The two-bedroom, two-bath penthouse sits atop 1112 Park Avenue, a pre-war co-op at the corner of 90th Street—making it just two blocks from The Guggenheim, it so happens. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 1/20 12:41pm

Manhattan Transfers

hedda_sterne_and_saul_steinberg

Hedda Sterne Steinberg Estate Sells Her and Saul’s Old UES Townhouse

Hedda Sterne is one of those artists who has faded into the backdrop of our collective cultural consciousness. A worthy artist in her own right, Stern is perhaps best known for marrying fellow Romanian luminary Saul Steinberg, whose half-century of New Yorker illustrations solidified the publication's legacy.

While Stern and Steinberg separated, they never divorced, and the townhouse they shared together on the Upper East Side has just been sold by Sterne's estate, city records show. Sterne died last summer at the age of 100, one of the last surviving artists from the Abstract Expressionist era. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 1/04 2:08pm

Manhattan Transfers

Victoria and Jon Patricof

Filmic Finance Scion Buys on Park

While his father, Alan Patricof, may be one of the world's most renowned investors, Jon Patricof chose a different professional path from the patrician patriarch. As the COO of Tribeca Films, the younger Mr. Patricof spends his days crunching cinematic figures and yucking it up with Robert De Niro.

Still, he has managed not to stray too terribly far from his ilk. Mr. Patricof and his wife, Victoria, have just purchased a seven-figure apartment at 755 Park Avenue, just four block from his mother and father's longtime New York digs. Perhaps they could not find a Tribeca loft to their liking. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 1/03 2:20pm

Manhattan Transfers

Paul Tagliabue

Former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue Punts on Park Ave. Penthouse

Former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue, one of the sport's most beloved besuited figures, is doubtless gearing up for playoff season as we speak: stocking cabinets with game-day snacks, filling the fridge with the requisite suds and handpicking the perfect avocados for his signature homemade guac.

By the looks of it, none of these pregame preparations will be taking place at his Manhattan apartment. According to city records, the gridiron honcho has sold his Park Avenue penthouse. Read More

1 By Elise Knutsen 11/29/11 2:05pm

Manhattan Transfers

Lisa Birnbach

Preppy Handbook Author Sells Upper Crust UES Spread

If you happen to be one of the fortunate who has so much money you might as well spend it on the house, you can expand it. Let every child have his own room! And what about a guest room for the guests you can now invite?

So writes Lisa Birnbach in True Prep, the 2010 sequel to her 1984 classic The Preppy Handbook (required reading for the past two generations of East Siders and Greenwichians).  It seems that city living doesn't facilitate the expansion doctrine Ms. Birnbach promotes in her book. The author and her film producer husband, Steven Haft, have sold their Yorkville coop. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 11/21/11 2:15pm

Manhattan Transfers

Marvin Hamlisch

Composer Marvin Hamlisch Scores Park Avenue Sale

Composer Marvin Hamlisch is one of the talented few—only 10 in the world!—who have won an E.G.O.T.: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards. Add a Pulitzer to his trophy case, and Mr. Hamlisch is one of the most decorated artists around. It seems that aside from scoring music and major awards, the composer has another talent: real estate. Mr. Hamlisch has just sold his snazzy apartment at 970 Park Avenue, and he's definitely ending his stint in the building on a high note. Read More

By Brian Thomas Gallagher 11/19/11 4:56pm

Occupy Wall Street

Movin' on up, to the East Side (image via Julianne Pepitone @julpepitone)

He’s Got the Beat: Occupy Brings the Fight (Well, the Drum Circle) to Bloomberg’s Doorstep

The folks at Yes Lab—which describes itself as "a series of brainstorms and trainings to help activist groups carry out media-getting creative actions, focused on their own campaign goals"—are organizing a drum circle in front of Mayor Bloomberg's building on East 79th Street, starting tomorrow at 2 pm. The group is billing it as a 24-hour event, but we're putting the over/under at more like 24 minutes. Read More

2 By Elise Knutsen 11/08/11 11:38am

Stratospheric Sales

8 Photos

The only place to live.

Glory, Glory 740 Park! Courtney Sale Ross Finally Lists Her $60 Million Behemoth

For those in the know—and with Scrooge McDuck quantities of money piled high in their private vaults—Courtney Sale Ross' apartment at 740 Park has been sitting quietly on the market for the past several years. Abandoning the whispering tactic, the listing for Ms. Sale Ross' home has hit the open with a resounding boom. It is still seeking the same $60 million it has been since 2008, changing times be damned.

The listing went public yesterday, and the thirty room duplex has our mouths watering. Kathy Sloane of Brown Harris Stevens, the broker representing Ms. Sale Ross, takes full advantage of the building's pedigree in her listing. Read More

3 By Matt Chaban 10/31/11 8:06pm

on the waterfront

13 Photos

The northern section.

Revolutionizing the East River Waterfront

Things sure are moving fast on the East Side waterfront. Then again, who can blame the U.N. and its neighbors for being over-eager, as they have waited well over a decade for a land deal to build a new tower and riverfront esplanade. Two weeks ago, Fumihiko Maki got back to work on his designs for a new U.N. tower, and now a coalition of civic groups have announced the winners of an competition to create a new waterfront park stretching from 39th to 60th streets.

Given that the waterfront has languished for so long, the designers proposed some terribly lively schemes.

Held by Transportation Alternatives and d3, an art and design organization, Closing the Gap sought proposals “that fundamentally transform how people move through Manhattan,” as the competition brief put it. While that might be an ambitious way of thinking about the greenway, it is true this will close the 22-mile loop surrounding Manhattan island. Coincidentally,  dozens of firms from 22 different countries responded to the competition. Read More