Tuesday: Bizarre Emails! Bribery! Death! Another Day In NY Real Estate

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 08:48:16 -0400

Stubbins shines on.

It takes The Times ten reporters to write a story on Dr. Nicholas Bartha, the man suspected of annihilating his Upper East Side townhouse in a suicide attempt. But the article's most fascinating anecdote--Bartha's last-minute note to Prudential Douglas Elliman VP Mark Baum--was broken yesterday on The Real Estate. Interestingly, Dr. Bartha also CC-ed Fox News' Sean Hannity, Governors Pataki and Schwarzenegger, and (of course) his ex-wife. (The New York Times)

Hugh Stubbins Jr., architect of New York's famously sharp and free-flowing Citigroup Center, is dead at 94. His last building, Yokohama's Landmark Tower (above), is Japan's tallest.(New York Times)

Asking a developer to build you a $500,000 "dream home" is a great idea. Unless, of course, you're a state assemblyperson, and you want the house "for little to nothing" in exchange for steering "a city-owned vacant lot" in Brooklyn to your developer. (To make matters worse, the lot was meant for affordable housing.) But Assemblywoman Diane Gordon's attorney swears "she never profited one cent from this," which will probably prove true. (AP, via NY Daily News)

In two weeks, Holiday Inn Express says it will open a 115-room hotel in Park Slope. The problem (besides the obvious issue of Brooklyn Holiday Inn Expresses), is that the new hotel is in Gowanus. The company insists: "it really is" in Park Slope - "it's on the border." Maybe these folks should solve their neighborhood issues before they open that second Brooklyn hotel. (NY1)

Get excited for public-record co-op sales. Get very excited. Then get concerned, because "the Department of Finance wants to make all real-estate transactions transparent." (New York Magazine)

- Max Abelson

Observer » Tuesday: Bizarre Emails! Bribery! Death! Another Day In NY Real Estate

Tuesday: Bizarre Emails! Bribery! Death! Another Day In NY Real Estate