Upper East Side

On June 25, as tennis lovers raptly followed the progress of Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, Serena Williams and her sister Venus on the grass courts in England, a separate Wimbledon drama was happening stateside.

That day, JP Morgan Investment Management closed on the purchase of The Wimbledon from P&H Associates. The building, a 28-story, 230-unit apartment complex at 200 East 82nd Street on the Upper East Side, sold for $150 million.

“The credit crunch has taken its toll on the multifamily market in Manhattan over the last year, with very few transactions completed, but the sale of The Wimbledon ─ at such a strong pricing level ─ verifies there is still a market for prominent buildings with strong fundamentals,” said Jubeen Vaghefi, a managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle, in a statement.  read more »

After months of uncertainty, one of the Upper East Side’s most popular street vendors, Tony Dragonas, settled a suit with the Health Department over violations that had threatened his license and livelihood, allowing him to continue operating his famed food cart on 62nd Street and Madison Avenue.

Once a deal was reached, Mr. Dragonas, his 19-year-old son, Dana, and a dozen of his regular customers who had trekked to the Financial District to testify on his behalf hurried uptown to the same spot he has occupied for 23 years to celebrate, just in time to serve the hungry hordes lined up every day during the lunchtime rush.

Over a year ago, one of Mr. Dragonas’ neighbors filed a complaint about excessive smoke from the cart, and the Health Department began making inspections about three times a month, he said. Between Nov. 29, 2006, and Oct. 31, 2007, Mr. Dragonas was cited for 19 health code violations, many of which stemmed from minor infractions like failing to wear a hat, vending too close to the crosswalk, or putting a cooler on the ground.  read more »

The Daily News and The Times over the weekend ran stories about Mayor Bloomberg's responsibility regarding the Friday crane collapse on the Upper East Side that killed two people.  read more »

“We're like refugees," said Chris Ryan, 28, one of an estimated few hundred residents forced to evacuate seven Upper East Side buildings this morning following the collapse of a crane that killed at least two people.

Mr. Ryan, temporarily wallet-less, lives at 1748 First Avenue, between 90th and 91st streets. But this afternoon he was inside Richard R. Greene High School, on 88th Street, where officials had set up a First Aid center.

The Observer fanned out this morning and afternoon to interview people directly impacted by the collapse. The overwhelming emotion? Anger.  read more »

Governor Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg spoke at a hastily organized press conference scheduled for 11:15 a.m. at the site of this morning's crane collapse on the Upper East Side.

This morning, a crane at the site of the Azure condop development at First Avenue and 91st Street tumbled onto the building across the street, damaging it from the 20th floor to the Duane Reade on the ground floor, and killing at least one person (if not two, depending on reports).  read more »

Incredible. Another crane has collapsed in Manhattan, according to media reports, killing at least one person and wreaking yet more havoc on the East Side.

"The crane, which was apparently being used for a construction project at 354 East 91st Street, on the northwest corner of the intersection, collapsed onto the north facade of the white-brick building at the southwest corner of 91st Street and First Avenue. The damage extends from the building’s top floor, about 20 stories up, to the second floor, just above a Duane Reade drug store."

The second crane collapse this year comes just days after the city announced it would no longer require Buildings Department inspectors to be on site during crane jumps, instead relying on a system of surprise inspections.

On March 15, a 22-story crane collapsed on East 51st Street, killing seven people and leading to the resignation of Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster.

Update 9:57 a.m.

This building, a condop development called the Azure, has received 17 complaints this year, seven of which pertained to the crane, according to the Department of Buildings Web site.  read more »

Mayor Bloomberg has reportedly been a little moody as he nears the twilight of his term and focuses on shoring up his political legacy, according to the The New York Times. Now it appears that the self-made billionaire mayor is focusing on putting his house--or houses--in order in more ways than one.

The mayor has transferred ownership of two of his Upper East Side homes to the Michael R. Bloomberg Revocable Trust, of which he is the principal trustee, city records show. The trust now has the deed on the 2,200-square-foot, fifth-floor condo at 610 Park Avenue that he bought just a few weeks before his inauguration in 2002 and the 7,012-square-foot townhouse at 17 East 79th Street (valued at $13.5 million, according to PropertyShark) that he has owned for 22 years.  read more »

It’s that time of year when thousands of recent college graduates descend upon Manhattan for their obligatory, pre-suburban stint in the city.

Manhattan’s rental market is traditionally the tightest from May to August and early September—apartment-hunting season for newly christened young professionals.

After their hopes of living below 23rd Street in quasi-bohemian squalor are dashed by a broker, the Manhattan newbie has just a few neighborhoods to choose from.

The first place they look is Manhattan’s unofficial frat district Murray Hill—er, "Murray Hell," that "mini-Manhattan theme park" full of "coddled post-collegians, armed with marketing jobs and U. Penn diplomas," which The Observer's Lizzy Ratner examined in a 2005 profile.

A decade ago, when the Real Estate Group COO Daniel Baum first noticed the trend, the neighborhood’s main draw was affordability.

Yet, even steadily rising rents have not diminished prepsters' love for the East Side nabe.  read more »

The Upper East Side co-op where the late antique book dealer Madeleine B. Stern lived and worked for over 50 years has been sold for $2.6 million, city records show.

Stern is credited with discovering what The New York Times called, “Louisa May Alcott’s long-lost Gothic tales of murder, sexual subjugation, opium dens and other things simply too dreadful to mention.”  read more »

In my Manhattan Tranfers item today on gold watch guru Benny Shabtai’s townhouse at 870 Park Avenue, I tried to figure out why someone who couldn’t sell his house in 2006 for $19.9 million would try selling it now for $33 million.

The Brown Harris managing director John Burger, who isn’t involved with the listing, gave me this explanation for why Upper East Side buyers might actually like the $13.1 million difference: “A $5,000 dress in a window on Madison Avenue is much more interesting to a woman than a $1,000 dress,” he said. “It’s true.”  read more »

The daughter of Jerry Speyer, Tishman Speyer's chief and the 605th richest man in the world (alongside Sheldon Solow), according to Forbes' 2008 list, has bought a $12 million co-op at 888 Park Avenue, city records show.

Holly S. Lipton, the vice president of GSC Partners Capital Group, won’t be straying far from her old digs on East 87th Street when she moves into the fourth-floor unit on 78th and Park.  read more »

Time was, Upper East Siders had to push their designer strollers quite a few blocks to reach a single shop that sold cashmere mittens for infants or pima cotton polos for toddlers.

Not anymore. Children’s clothing boutiques have taken the neighborhood by storm, joining a few relative old-timers that opened in the 1980’s and 90’s. The stretch of Madison Avenue between 80th and 92nd streets boasts some 20 stores for tots, and the community Web site uppereast.com lists close to 50 in the immediate vicinity.  read more »

Video blogger RyanIsHungry interviews Glenn McAnanama, whose group Upper Green Side is trying to get Upper East Siders involved in neighborhood green initiatives.

For the last 28 years, Jeremiah Oshea has been the super at 18 East 68th Street, the 36-foot-wide, 18,500-square-foot, 103-year-old mansion that just hit the market asking $64 million.

He lives alone in a one-bedroom apartment in the basement; the limestone mansion, now divided into apartments, has 17-foot ceilings and original wood paneling.

When asked about the listing, Mr. Oshea, from Ireland’s County Kerry, said, “I think it is on the market, I’m not told whether it is or whether it isn’t, but I have a feeling it is.” I mentioned that the asking price is $64 million: “Oh my God,” he said.  read more »

Most children dream of moving to New York City, L.A., or another big city when they grow up. Some manage a post-college stint in the Big Apple before they pack it in and move back to the home they know. A few even stick around long enough to earn the right to call themselves New Yorkers.

But what if you grew up in New York, say, in the insulated, quaint little bubble that is the Upper East Side? Twenty-somethings born and bred on the Upper East Side used to flee to the city’s grittier environs for their ephemeral, post-collegiate rebellion, but now such neighborhoods are few and far between on the island; and a subconscious, often suppressed, aversion to crossing the bridge is deeply imbedded in the psyche of most Upper East Siders from birth.  read more »

The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in a non-doorman building on the Upper West Side was $2,478 in January, according to a report (PDF) from brokerage The Real Estate Group New York. The average for a one-bedroom in a non-doorman building on the Upper East Side was $2,439. In doorman buildings, one-bedrooms averaged $3,549 on the Upper West Side and $3,534 on the Upper East Side.

"Fuck yeah, you should write about us. We're from New York, we're totally off-beat, you know, and we want to deconstruct the election process from the point of view of the independent voter."

Speaking was Will Rabbe, a 25-year-old filmmaker working for the Independent Film Channel. He said he lives on the Upper East Side.

"Yeah, I live there. What are you going to make a judgment call?"  read more »

I didn't want to write this about the CW show Gossip Girl, but I feel I have to before it's too late.

As it stands now, Gossip Girl; is spreading throughout the United States a disjunctive, distorted, ultimately dangerous, view of what buys what in New York City right now, and the show's doing so mostly through its depiction of real estate. Like Friends in the 1990's and Sex and the City earlier this decade, Gossip Girl is giving the impression to Suzy in Nebraska and Mandy in Alabama (and Clay from Texas) that real estate in New York is as affordable as anywhere and that poor in New York means living in a $2 million Williamsburg loft.  read more »

First, it was the "water leak in the kitchen" voice message. Now, it's a "Closed for Renovations" sign.

Given all the buzz in the papers (here, here, here ...) and on TV (here, here, here ...) about the mice and cockroaches, does Serendipity 3 honcho Steven Bruce really think he can fool anyone with this deceptive signage?

Won't people just look beyond the simple white sheet of paper and notice those glaring yellow "CLOSED BY ORDER OF THE COMMISSIONER OF HEALTH AND MENTAL HYGIENE" stickers in the background?

Random passer-by at 2:32 p.m. on Friday: "Awwww! Closed for renovations? That sucks!"

Guess there's something to this oft-used restaurateuring strategy after all.

Eater is reporting that Serendipity 3 -- the backdrop for that horrendous 2001 John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale flick -- has been shuttered by the Health Department after its "second consecutive failed inspection in a month."

"Both inspections revealed rodent and fly infestation and conditions conducive to pest infestation, including stagnant water in the basement.  read more »

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It’s official—the era of the Cerf family on East 62nd Street has come to an end. The Capote, Faulkner and Sinatra dinner parties from the family’s first generation, the impromptu meetings for the National Lampoon projects from the second, are all memories of the past.  read more »

We just got word from Besen & Associates’s Adelaide Polsinelli that she’s brokered a deal to sell 316 East 83rd Street. The five-story prewar walk-up between First and Second Avenues has 20 units and was sold for $4.5 million. The seller was the Punnett Family, and the buyer an LLC.

The units rent for an average of $1,400 per month. Looks like the Upper East Side really does have a good number of apartment deals.

The New York Times Magazine this weekend came up with a top 5 of the most expensive micro-neighborhoods in the city. Not surprisingly, they were all on Manhattan's East Side (three were on the Upper East Side).

The Real Deal turned a similar trick earlier this year, but broke it down to the city's most-expensive blocks and covered ones in each borough. Anyone up for a little Todt Hill?

Stonehenge Partners continues to add to its already impressive Manhattan portfolio. The real estate company recently closed on a seven-story, 90,000-square-foot apartment building at 330 East 63rd Street for $39 million, according to city records. (UPDATE: The Real Deal in late June reported the purchase closed.)

The acquisition of the 93-unit building between First and Second avenues brings the total number of city units owned by Stonehenge to over 2,000.

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The illegal poker scene in New York just got a little more dangerous.

Last night, an underground poker club at 328 East 61st Street was robbed at gunpoint by two men, according to City Councilwoman Jessica Lappin’s office. The men stole approximately $50,000 from the establishment and the patrons.

According to sources, the establishment, located on the third floor of the building, had been operating for about six months. Prior tothat, another poker room had existed at the same location for approximately a year and a half. It had been robbed as well.
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Being the ex-wife of Romancing the Stone’s romantic lead has its perks. Diandra Douglas (who used to be married to Michael Douglas, of course) and her new husband, guitar-maker (really) Michael Klein, have paid $15.25 million for an 1899 townhouse at 114 East 65th Street.  read more »