The now-dead Libyan dictator was never able to call the Upper East Side townhouse home after being rebuffed by broker Jason Haber in 2009, but the extravagant space is now back on the market as a $30,000 per month rental.

But don't let the apartment's near run-in with a repressive regime dissuade you. It's no wonder Qaddafi took a a liking to this place!

Located in the Beaux-Arts Barclay Mansion, the interiors exude opulence, with parquet floors, gold accents, ornate moldings, fireplaces, a Juliet balcony and gigantic, built-in mirrors—in short, it looks fit for a king, monarch or brutal overlord likely to be violently deposed.

Mr. Haber, who started socially-conscious real estate firm Rubicon Property after Qaddafi's entourage pressed him to rent the sprawling 3-bedroom, 6-bathroom space in September 2009, refused to work with Qaddafi unless, he said, the dictator agreed to send convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset Al-Megrahi back to prison.

"It was first time I was approached by a totalitarian regime," said Mr. Haber, adding that Qaddafi's assistants played up the fact that the leader needed a place to stay while he spoke about peace to the U.N.

Apparently, the dictator also took a liking to Joan Rivers' apartment, decorated in a decadent style that the comedian has described as "how Marie Antoinette would have live if she had had money." The Libyan leader allegedly called her broker and offered to rent the place for $200,000 a week.

The last time this sprawling triplex hit the rental market at $28,000, there was strong interest from the famous and infamous, Mr. Haber told the Observer. The current resident, a prominent art dealer who was paying a little under the ask, is leaving in May. Now the market's much more robust, and Mr. Huber is looking for residents who can pay the $30,000 a month rent (as long as it's by honest means).

Would the apartment's appeal to a dictator turn some off?

"It just shows that it's a worldly apartment that's very desirable," said Mr. Haber. "But who knows who'll come to look at it this time."

kvelsey@observer.com

Save our shelves.

Following the circulation of a petition and supportive missives from the likes of Salman Rushdie and Paris Review editor Lorin Stein, Publishers Weekly is reporting that St. Mark's Bookshop will not receive a cut to its rent after all. Bookshop co-owner Bob Contant told PW that sales have been up since August, and he hopes that the book store will manage to scrape by for the remaining seven years of its lease, and that the store will be looking for a new location.

Today, a judge handed a victory to market-rate tenants at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village by ruling against prior property owner MetLife. The ruling—part of the same ongoing lawsuit that last year forced the re-regulation of thousands of market-rate apartments at the property—denied a bid by MetLife to block the retroactive application of the newly-interpreted rent laws. In English: MetLife didn't think market-rate tenants, whose apartments were re-regulated, should have been able to collect overcharges. Tenants contend they should be able to get back, in the form of a check, the difference between the rents they paid and the stabilized rents they should have been paying.

Justice Richard B. Lowe III said he found MetLife's arguments "unpersuasive."

"The Decision should be accorded full retroactive effect," he wrote.

Should the tenants proceed with their suit against the owners, this could go on for a while. The lawsuit was initially filed in spring 2007 by a set of market-rate tenants, was denied by Mr. Lowe at the time, made its way up to the state's top court, and now has been sent back to Mr. Lowe.

A spokesman for MetLife said the firm is "studying the opinion in order to determine our next steps."

Councilman Dan Garodnick, the leading voice for tenants on this fight and a Peter Cooper resident, called the legal decision a "huge win for tenants."

All of this creates a fair amount of uncertainty, both for the current owners and for other landlords with similar apartments (which received a tax benefit known as J-51).

Those landlords, of course, would rather have more certainty, and many have called for new legislation to change the law in one way or another. Just how to do that is tricky politics, however, as tenant advocates and landlords (both of whom have their own backers in Albany) have differing ideas on how to write legislation.

ebrown@observer.com 

stuy town