Merrill Lynch President Ahmass Fakahany Sells One of His Little Italy Co-ops for $3 M.

The co-president and chief operating officer of the globe’s most boring firm happens to live in Little Italy’s hippest building.

But Ahmass Fakahany, a top-ranking executive at Merrill Lynch, and wife Alsun Keogh have sold off one of their apartments at the Police Building, the baroque law enforcement HQ turned co-op at 240 Centre Street.

Their buyers, Mariangela Ventura and Paolo Nicola Rossini, spent $2.93 million. The Merrill couple has at least one other unit in the building—city records show three separate purchase deeds—and a source said Mr. Fakahany is staying in the building.

But in June 2006 they bought a place far away from the domed, senatorial Police Building, spending $4.925 million for a penthouse in the Park Imperial, a more banker-appropriate condo on West 56th Street. Four months and three days later, city records show, they sold it for a quick $1.325 million profit.

The century-old Police Building (the N.Y.P.D. actually left in 1973) has attracted artier owners than most midtown condos: There’s the novelist Toni Morrison, for example; the poet J.D. McClatchy; plus the models Cindy Crawford and Linda Evangelista. And Police co-op fan Calvin Klein is even on a couple of Centre Street financial filings for Mr. Fakahany, though it’s not clear if they’ve actually traded any properties.

The lure of bold-name neighbors aside, you’d think a bank COO would be more comfortable on West 56th than on Centre Street. After all, Mr. Fakahany is a serious man: He’s in charge of Merrill’s human resources, finance and global support functions (which means half of the firm’s day-to-day management), plus he was reportedly a candidate for the firm’s top slot after this year’s Stan O’Neal resignation.

But he’s not the Police Building’s only chief operating officer: Bear Stearns’s ex-exec Alvin H. Einbender reportedly spent over $10 million on his apartment and its Charles Gwathmey renovation.