Gramercy Park

With friends like Ron Burkle and Donald Trump and a lilting Italian accent, ID Model Management founder Paolo Zampolli (whose clients apparently include Tara Reid) has long been a Page Six fixture. But the high-rolling, aspiring real estate mogul drew the attention of the international media in 2005 when he started recruiting fashion models to moonlight as brokers.

When it came time to put his own two-bedroom, 2,300 square-foot Gramercy Park penthouse on the market about a year ago, however, Mr. Zampolli decided to handle the sale personally, listing the co-op with Elliman, with himself as broker.  read more »

Before Winona Ryder had a falling out with an up-and-coming ingénue named Gwyneth Paltrow in the 1990's, the duo were often spotted gallivanting around Manhattan with cigarettes dangling from their lips, and Ms. Paltrow reportedly lived on her more famous friend's couch in Gramercy Park.

Things have changed a lot for Ms. Ryder since then--the infamous shoplifting incident, getting overshadowed by Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted, a relationship with Matt Damon, and a handful of cinematic bombs, to name a few--but until now she had held on to her second-floor co-op at One Lexington Avenue on the northern end of Gramercy.  read more »

Joel Siegel's co-op at 82 Irving Place has been sold to an In Style editor Ariela Avram for $1.95 million, city records show. The tirelessly cheerful Good Morning America film critic died last summer at the age of 63 after a prolonged battle with colon cancer. His wife and the executor of his estate, Ena Swansea, signed the property deed.

Siegel had been fundraising for cancer research for decades before he was diagnosed following his first wife's death from brain cancer. He and Gene Wilder co-founded the first Gilda's Club cancer support group.

CVS Pharmacy is leasing a basement retail condominium in the Philippe Starck-designed condo on 23rd Street between First and Second avenues. Omnispective Management, the leaser, bought the condo for $22.2 million. Eastern Consolidatd represented both the buyer and the seller in the off-market transaction, and told The Observer of the deal.  read more »

Only four of the Bowery Hotel’s 17 floors have opened for business, but the fireplace in its w  read more »

The 101-year-old mansion at 47 East 68th Street has been sold for a bargain $19 million to Carlos Al  read more »

West Side Bar Stands Athwart Bank-Branch Boom "Like many torch-bearers of old family-owned businesses, Steve Chahalis hopes his son, too, will one day work behind the same counter as he has--as a bartender, though, not a bank teller. But in order to keep his clan's longstanding P&G Cafe Bar from devolving into yet another ubiquitous Manhattan bank branch, Mr. Chahalis might have to start paying like one." Go to Counter Espionage by Chris Shott. Simon & Schuster Stays at 1230 Avenue of the Americas "Bucking a recent trend for media and publishing, Simon & Schuster isn't moving.For now.The publishing titan has renewed its lease of 292,000 square feet at its headquarters at 1230 Avenue of the Americas." Trammell Crow Office 'Like A Morgue' "'It's like a morgue here,' said one Trammell Crow broker describing Trammell's former office on Madison Avenue. 'It just sucks.' As The Observer reported in December, a large portion of Trammell's 24 New York-based brokers won't be making their way to CB Richard Ellis's headquarters at 200 Park Avenue in the coming weeks." Go to Commercial Breaks by John Koblin. Money Guy Gets Centenarian Beauty for a Song "The 101-year-old mansion at 47 East 68th Street has been sold for a bargain $19 million to Carlos Alejandro Perez Davila. The managing director of the finance firm Quadrant Capital Advisors is also a director at the beer brewery SABMiller (as in the classy, golden Miller Genuine Draft)." Crazy Like a Fuchs "Fifty Gramercy Park North was built in conjunction with the redevelopment of that next-door dowager, the Gramercy Park Hotel, by a development team that included hotelier Ian Schrager and real-estate developers Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs. Mr. Fuchs, who himself invested in an eighth-floor sponsor unit at 50 Gramercy Park North for $9,062,400, has now put the apartment back on the market with a $5.5 million mark-up." Go to Manhattan Transfers by Max Abelson. Co-op and Condo Buildings Win City's Valuation Game "When is a luxury condo not a luxury condo? When the city assesses it for property taxes. Then it becomes a rental. Under the city's notoriously convoluted property-tax code, condos and co-ops are assessed for property-tax purposes as if they were rental buildings. This rule, based on the concept of guessing how much income apartment buildings could generate in rent rolls, leads to vastly undervalued condos and co-ops." Go to The Lab by Tom Acitelli. Congestion Pricing Prophet: 'Biking Is The New Golf!' "Paul Steely White, 36, is on his way to a community board meeting in Park Slope to ask for its support for Intro 199, a City Council bill that would require the city to track traffic patterns around New York, and set goals for reducing congestion. It is, he explained, a necessary step toward any sort of congestion pricing system--the system, devised in London, whereby drivers would pay for the privilege of driving into the central business districts of New York City." Go to story by Matthew Schuerman. Letters to the Editor: Donald Trump Responds "One would hope that even public figures would be accorded fair and accurate treatment by The Observer. This is clearly not the case. Your Dec. 18, 2006, article entitled 'The Trump Family,' by Tom Acitelli and John Koblin, paints a seriously inaccurate--indeed, false--picture of me and my business dealings."--Donald Trump, Manhattan Burning Bridges "I'm not so sure that Robert Moses would appreciate the honor Columbia University is bestowing on him; he certainly would not have wanted Robert Caro to be any part of a program examining his career."--Jim Schachter, Manhattan Go to Letters to the Editor.

I was leaving New York for good.  read more »

April 4, 2006 3 p.m.; 3:02 p.m. 5 pounds, 14 ounces; 5 pounds, 1 ounce Mount Sinai Hospital  read more »

Tomorrow is the 4th Annual Parks Advocacy Day.

In the evening, NARAL Pro-Choice New York host a fashion benefit: Strut Your Choice.

The Gramercy Park Republican Group hold a discussion on a possible Republican-Libertarian alliance.

The Nassau County Republican Committee host their 3rd Annual Patriot Reception in Woodbury.

And the Drum Major Institute host a discussion on the disappearing middle class.

—Nicole Brydson

Alex Ureña has worked his way through the best restaurants, beginning as a dishwasher at the River  read more »

Alex Ureña has worked his way through the best restaurants, beginning as a dishwasher at the  read more »

A correspondent to foodie blog Eater is reporting that Zak Pelaccio is opening up a new restaurant at the top of a building at the southwest corner of 27th Street and Fifth Avenue. Most of the 22,000 square feet is said to be a lounge, with a corner mapped out as a restaurant and dim sum carts trolling around for customers throughout.

Eater categorizes it as Flatiron--which is a whole other issue. (We seem to remember the Times trying to dub this area, which is neither Gramercy Park nor, probably, Flatiron, nor Murray hill, "Nomad," a roughed-up "North of Madison Square." We don't care to look it up.)  read more »

At any rate, another place to spend an expense account in this newly fashionable southeastern edge of what we always had previously thought of as the Wigs-Hats-Bags district ("Al Por Mayor!"), but which probably now can't be called that.

- Tom McGeveran

In Sunday's New York Times, Willie Neumann is reporting that Saturday Night Live comic Jimmy Fallon is marketing two apartments at 34 Gramercy Park. (Personal information alert: It caught my eye especially because one of us lived briefly in the building in the 1990's and because it's my favorite building on the park.) Here's the listing.

He bought the first of the two apartments in the terra-cotta-brick building--it's the one on the southeast corner facing the park--in 2002 for $850,000. When his neighbor died, he bought the next-door apartment,a three-bedroom, for $1.5 million. But he never carried out plans to combine the two and now the two are selling together for $3.75 million, Neumann reports in Sunday's Big Deal column.

That latter one, the three-bedroom, is well known to us, and stretches across the back of the building, facing Third Avenue. It's enormous.

The smaller one is in the front but doesn't have much space.

Also: Margaret ("I'm melting!") Hamilton once lived in the building.

Also in Big Deal:  read more »

THE actress Angela Lansbury has signed a contract to buy a two-bedroom apartment with a balcony at the Windsor Park, a former hotel being converted into condos with interiors designed by the architect Charles Gwathmey. Ms. Lansbury agreed to pay close to $2 million for the apartment, which is at 58th Street and Avenue of the Americas.

- Tom McGeveran

Feeling bereft in the wake of the Freddy film collapse? Take heart... Running in High Heels, a documentary on women in politics that focuses on the 2004 State Senate race on the West Side, will premiere next Wednesday, Nov. 2nd, at Symphony Space. Stephen M. Evans III, president of the TR/Gramercy Park Republican Group, wrote to alert The Politicker about the film. This is what he had to say about it:

"About half of the film is spent following Emily Csendes as she attempted to unseat State Senator Tom Duane... It shows many humorous exchanges on the street as Emily, a Republican, campaigns in a heavily Democratic district. The film also contains assertions by her Campaign Manager that State Senator Duane only introduced his Equal Rights Amendment because his opponent was a woman."  read more »

And who, you may ask, was that plucky campaign manager? Why, it was... Mr. Evans.

April 28, 2005 6:53 p.m. 8 pounds, 7 ounces New York–Cornell HospitalAbsolute angel!  read more »

April 28, 2005 6:53 p.m. 8 pounds, 7 ounces New York–Cornell Hospital    read more »

Former Apprentice contestant David Gould is on a one-man crusade to stop construction at Ian Schrager's much-touted 50 Gramercy Park North at Gramercy Park Hotel.

Plans are currently underway to build 23 luxurious condos, with a wealth of amenities.

In 2001, Mr. Gould—a trained physician who now works in health care private equity—moved next door into 4 Lexington Avenue, originally the Russell Sage Foundation. He gut-renovated two units, which were later combined. In addition, Mr. Gould had one of only a few terraces in the building, and greatly enjoyed his view.

"I look directly at the hyphen of the Gramercy Park Hotel, above which is a whole lot of air and sunlight," said Mr. Gould. "And you can even see the top of the buildings across the park." But then came the jackhammers, and the unpleasant news that his precious view might vanish. "It wasn't until recently that we realized that middle section was going to be built way, way up." So, Mr. Gould began researching, and found a 1929 agreement buried in the footnote of a Landmarks report.

"In 1929, when the annex to our building was being built, around the same time an addition to the Gramercy Park Hotel was being built," said Mr. Gould, "there was an agreement made between the two buildings, basically protecting that air space between the middle connecting section."

However, that agreement, which appears to have been only valid until 1953, was no smoking gun. Regardless, Mr. Gould began delivering documents to his co-op board, who had no idea that any agreement once existed between the two buildings.

Representatives from 50 Gramercy Park North have not yet responded to these claims. So, does the same guy who wanted to follow in Mr. Trump's footsteps, have second thoughts about development?

"I'm not anti-progress or anything like that, it's just that the building of this middle section will take away from existing air space, sunlight, and air flow, and certainly violates the spirit of the old agreement, if not the letter or the old agreement," said Mr. Gould.

Meanwhile, the luxurious residence continues skyward.  read more »

-Michael Calderone

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