Consider this. While co-op owners at the 52nd Street and East River apartment house have listed rambling units for more than $20 million, the most expensive sale ever at the River House, according to  the database of a broker who has done business in the building, is $12.25 million, and that was nine years ago, in a bull market. A rival broker put the most expensive sale ever at a mere $10 million for a four-bedroom unit in 2008. In the era of $26 million sales at the newer 15 CPW and $14 million transactions at Superior Ink, that is, dare we say, kind of pathetic.

Moreover, as recently as 2008, before Lehman crashed, the 26-story edifice had three units on the market, an embarrassing glut for such a self-consciously elite institution. Today, according to Streeteasy.com, there are five active listings, from a four-bedroom, third-floor apartment asking $24.5 million to a three-bedroom on the 12th floor asking $4.9 million.

How has this terrible state of affairs come to pass at River House—the River House—the one that Henry Kissinger has called home for decades, the apartment house so uppity it rejected the likes of Gloria Vanderbilt and Diane Keaton, the apartment house sooo exclusive that it prohibits brokers from naming the building’s address or even its name in listings?

There are many ways to answer that question. Most of them tend to involve the excrescences of Robert Moses; the citywide decline in crime, which has rendered Manhattan one big playground for the rich; and the rise of the condominium.

RIVER HOUSE, designed by William Lawrence Bottomley, rose between 52nd and 53rd streets and the East River in 1931, on a site where cigar and furniture factories once stood, and at a time, not so unlike our own, when the rich found the contrast between urban grit and the high life aesthetically charming, according to The Times’ architectural writer Christopher Gray.

Charming from a decent remove, that is. According to Mr. Gray: “With a yacht landing, a mid-block driveway, a walled garden, apartments of nine to 17 rooms and private tennis and swimming club in the basement, River House offered accommodations that few New Yorkers had any hope of enjoying. Sleek chauffeured limousines entered a landscaped courtyard on 52d Street and exited down a ramp to 53d Street.”

Today, what charm existed in peering at the laboring classes while sipping a sherry in the confines of one’s 17-room flat is no longer. River House now finds itself surrounded by suitably posh neighbors. Nor, for that matter, can the resident, à la Marshall Field III, waltz outside onto one’s yacht, and after a 35-minute ride alight at one’s Port Washington home. For that, River House residents have Robert Moses to thank.

Just nine years after the building’s erection, the span of the F.D.R. that ferries cars from 14th to 92nd streets opened for business. And so the yachting dock went the way of the Manhattanite’s unfettered access to the waterfront.

What remains in lieu of yachting access is something a tad more austere. On a recent Sunday afternoon, where the easternmost tip of 52nd Street ends in a cul-de-sac bluff overlooking a River House patio below, an elegant lady in a red baseball cap lounged below browsing through the weekend paper, protected from the roar of the cars on the neighboring F.D.R. by nothing more than an ivy-covered wall. 

Strike one: Robert Moses. Strike two: the passage of time.

“Over the passage of time, some buildings lose their fashionable cachet, others gain it and others maintain it throughout, like those on Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue,” said a broker who’s done deals in River House.

Indeed, much has happened since its heyday, which extended well into the ’80s and ’90s. For one, the city has gotten much, much safer—a trend that has transformed countless traveler-beware precincts in Manhattan into paradisiacal playgrounds for those with too much discretionary income.
“New York had these enclaves, just because the city wasn’t that safe,” said Laurence Jones, an architect who’s worked in his share of wealthy buildings. “It was totally secure, isolated, protected. Now, you can’t imagine a neighborhood less interesting.”

In the immediate vicinity of River House, there are, to wit, no chic restaurants, no hot cocktail bars. There are no art galleries or beautiful young things strutting about in the latest frocks. Rather, there are at least three florists (rich people just love their fresh flower arrangements); the stuffy restaurant Le Perigord; a furniture store; a D’Agostino; Tal Bagels; an oddly placed McDonald’s; a Parnell’s Pub and Restaurant; a diner; and a GNC.

“It’s not a question of not being able to get the architecture and quality,” said another well-positioned broker. “It’s purely location.”

AND, THEN, LET US NOT forget the rise of the condominium, a form of housing that predominates in other, more livable cities, but that has somehow only recently gained steam in New York.

“I’ve seen a tremendous increase in demand for condos for the super rich, versus the co-ops,” said Tamir Shemesh. whose Prudential Douglas Elliman group is now marketing the über-lux condos at One Madison Park. “A lot of buyers want hassle free.”

William Zeckendorf, a pioneer of condo development in New York, including that of 15 Central Park West, traces the birth of the condo here to the St. Tropez on East 64th Street, which was built in 1964. But, he added, condos didn’t really begin to take root in New York until the 1980s. Mr. Zeckendorf has since built some 30 condo buildings, including Worldwide Plaza, the Vanderbilt, the Columbia and, of course, the Zeckendorf Towers on Union Square.

“Starting in 1990, condos began to outpace co-ops in pricing,” he said, “and starting in 2000, the difference exploded.”

Not only are condos units growing, but co-op boards have become, particularly during the recent boom, even more restrictive. And few if any are more difficult than that of River House. Which leaves a wealthy apartment-buyer with the following question: Deal with an ornery co-op board all for the sake of an inconveniently located, albeit stunning co-op, or buy a centrally located condo and save yourself the hassle.

Doesn’t seem like much of a dilemma, now does it?

drubinstein@observer.com

Now that the deal is considered one of worst mergers in history, and following the murder of his son, Mr. Levin sounds very much like the man who runs the Moonview Sanctuary, a holistic treatment facility in Santa Monica, California. Yesterday, clad in a loose-fitting sweater and sporting a gray beard, Mr. Levin went on MSNBC's Squawk Box to talk about the ten-year anniversary of the deal.

"If you'll give me a few minutes, because I have been obviously reflecting on it. The first thing I would say is that the concept that was underneath it was probably some kind of transcendent concept," Mr. Levin said in a soft, measured tone.

"I presided over the worst deal of the century, apparently," he said. "I guess it's time for those who are involved in companies to stand up and say, 'You know what I'm solely responsible for it.' I was the C.E.O. I was in charge. I'm really very sorry about the pain and suffering and loss that was caused. I take responsibility. It wasn't the board. It wasn't my colleagues at Time Warner."

It's not simply a surfeit of contrition. An Observer profile from 2001 detailed exactly how Mr. Levin had eclipsed AOL head Steve Case, and emerged as the man behind the big merger, which ultimately destroyed billions of dollars in shareholder value.

"Even though the stock was up at the time, there was a lot of tension, and I didn’t deal with the psychology with enough compassion," Mr. Levin said yesterday. "It’s a little hard to exercise compassion, connection, and love when the market is very unforgiving as it was at that time.”

The sit-down is timed to coincide with CNBC's look back at the deal, aggressively titled “Marriage from Hell: The Breakup of AOL Time Warner.”

allegedly at the hands of their abusive parents. In both cases, the system

designed to protect them failed, and once again questions are raised about the

way in which we look after the most innocent among us.

Sylena

Herrnkind, 3 years old, was beaten to death in the Staten Island home she

shared with her parents and four siblings. Her plight was not unknown to

authorities. Investigators from the city's Administration for Children's

Services first visited the Herrnkind home three months before Sylena was born.

Later, Sylena and her siblings were placed in foster care when investigators

found that the oldest child had been abused. Sylena was eventually returned to

her parents, who, police allege, were soon

administering cruel punishments. The child died only 11 days after city

investigators decided-after once again visiting the household-that Sylena's

bruises were the result of an accident, not of beatings. The investigators got

it wrong, and Sylena died.

In the

other tragedy, a 4-year-old girl, Signifagance Oliver, was drowned as her

mother allegedly attempted an exorcism ritual. The child had been removed from

her parents' care in 1999 and was sent to Virginia to live with an aunt. City

officials could not explain how the child wound up back in her mother's home.

Under

Nicholas Scoppetta's leadership, the city's child-welfare bureaucracy has been

making strides in overhauling a deeply flawed system. But the appalling deaths

of these two little girls speak volumes about the continuing

failure and stunning incompetence of those whose job it is to protect the

city's most vulnerable residents.

As

Mayor-elect Michael Bloomberg prepares to bring new ideas to City Hall, he must

resolve to devote more time, talent and resources to the city's child-welfare

agency. Innocent lives depend on it.

Fortune Fawns Over Levin

If you happened to glance at

the latest cover of Fortune magazine,

you might have done a double-take: gazing out at readers under the headline

"The New Future" was none other than Gerald Levin, the chief executive of AOL

Time Warner-the company which just happens

to own Fortune . In a startling

departure from journalistic integrity, the editors of Fortune went ahead and put their own boss on the cover, hailing

him-along with former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State

Madeleine Albright, Walt Disney Company chairman Michael Eisner and Sun

Microsystems chief scientist Bill Joy-as one of the "smartest people we know,"

whose thoughts on the future should command unblinking respect and

admiration.

One hardly knows where to start untangling the

conflicts of interest in Fortune's

seedy maneuver. AOL Time Warner is a publicly traded company, and Fortune's well-being is directly tied to

AOL Time Warner's prestige. By splashing Mr. Levin's face on the cover, Fortune used its trusted brand name in

financial journalism to plump up the stature of its own C.E.O. The magazine's

editors decided that they could get away with turning the cover of the magazine

into a promotional tool for its own corporate interests. But by doing so, they

insulted the intelligence of their readers and cast serious doubt on the

trustworthiness of the rest of the magazine. One would expect Fortune to report on such conflicts of interest-not

embody them.

There is also some old-fashioned sucking-up going

on. The editor in chief of the Time Warner magazine stable, Norman Pearlstine,

is apparently not averse to using one of the magazines to kiss up to his boss,

Mr. Levin. One must ask why Mr. Levin failed to see that by taking part in this

charade, he was actually eroding confidence in Fortune, and hardly improving the magazine's reputation or value.

Without objectivity, journalism quickly loses its right to a reader's financial

and intellectual investment.

Inside the magazine, Fortune introduces its article on Mr. Levin, Mr. Clinton et al. by

saying, "This is the start of a big conversation, about the shape of the new

future." If Fortune' s "new future"

includes more of this sort of ethical slipperiness, its readers may soon be

longing for a return to the past.

Trauma and New York's

Children

In wake of the horrific

events of Sept. 11,  perhaps nothing is

of more concern to New Yorkers than the long-term effect on the city's

children. Fortunately, some organizations have wasted no time rushing to help.

The New York University School of Medicine's Child

Study Center

has brought aid and comfort to hundreds of children around the city who were

directly or indirectly impacted by the terrorist attack. In addition to

providing hands-on treatment, the center is offering its resources to the tens

of thousands of parents and teachers who are grappling with how to address the

trauma of the young ones in their care.

The

center's mission is to apply the best of modern science and medicine to the

problem of mental illness in children. It has grown and flourished under the

visionary leadership of executive director Harold Koplewicz, M.D., and

chairwoman Brooke Neidich. The center's many areas of activity include finding

the best and safest medications for children; working with public and private

schools to eliminate barriers to learning; training pediatricians and nurses in

understanding the environments in which kids live; examining how children's

breathing patterns are influenced by anxious parents; developing violence-prevention

programs for pre-schoolers; and looking at brain differences in children with

mental disorders. After the World Trade

Center attack, the center published

a manual to help children cope and distributed it to 15,000 pediatricians and educators, and it is currently

working with the federal government and private foundations to develop a full

mental-health recovery plan for children who have experienced trauma. Since

Sept. 11, more than 300,000 parents and teachers have visited the center's Web

site, www.AboutOurKids.org, for scientifically sound advice on how to help

their children.            

Those who wish to help the center with its

remarkable work may call 212-263-6622.

Time Warner aired the debate exclusively on CNN and various Time Warner journalists ( Time managing editor Walter Isaacson, CNN guy Jeff Greenfield) hogged all the camera time during the post-debate show. In fact, non-Time Warner journalists were not allowed in the hall, which seats more than 1,450.

A press release that went out before the big night advised reporters: "Members of the working press will not have access to the auditorium where the debate is taking place." Nonetheless, Time reporter Eric Pooley was inside, wearing his press badge around his neck.

Matt Cooper, deputy Washington bureau chief at Time and the magazine's organizer for the debate, said there simply was not enough room. "If you want to go up to Harlem and say to a church group that you can't sit here because we need the seats for press, go ahead," said Mr. Cooper.

Mr. Isaacson, who said he saw journalists from other news organizations in the crowd, but not necessarily reporting, said, "It was not a conscious policy of 'Let's exclude the working press.' … I snuck my wife in without a ticket, which I guess gives you an indication of what the situation was like that night."

James Dao of The New York Times did manage to get in and file a colorful story on the raucous scene. Adam Nagourney, the political reporter who wrote the main Times story, said his colleague worked his way in without a press pass. "Frankly, if Jim hadn't gotten in, I would have been annoyed, to put it mildly," Mr. Nagourney said. (Mr. Dao did not return a call for comment.)

Pressed on the point of not inviting non-Time Warner reporters into the Apollo, Mr. Cooper relented: "Fine. Next time, maybe there should be a pool."

Most reporters on duty worked out of the United House of Prayer for All People across the street, where there were phone lines, TV monitors, soda and sandwiches. Gerald Levin, chief executive of Time Warner, watched the debate from an Apollo seat, then crossed West 125th Street for a visit to the trenches afterward. The room–it was the church cafeteria–was a frenzy of post-debate spin and furious typing. Whoopi Goldberg, Spike Lee, Al Sharpton, David Dinkins, Harvard professor Cornel West, Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson and local politicians were giving quotes to any journalist willing to listen.

Mr. Levin, dressed in his post-America Online-merger-announcement uniform of slacks, tweed jacket and no tie, looked pleased. Sure, hosting the debate had cost his companies a small fortune–to equip the media center, he had to dig up the street outside to install enough phone lines; he also had to buy a satellite dish to get the debate broadcast, because the United House of Prayer isn't wired for cable–but this little exercise in synergy seemed to be going smashingly. Even the questions to the candidates culled from e-mails were from users of Internet services Time Warner either owns or will be merged with soon enough.

Mr. Levin settled in to watch Ms. Goldberg telling why she supports Mr. Gore at a podium set up in front of a backdrop of CNN and Time magazine logos. When Ms. Goldberg finished, one of the publicists pulled her aside and asked, "Would you like to meet Mr. Levin?"

The actress made her way over to the media executive, and the two made some small talk before Ms. Goldberg got to business–a discussion of the Apollo itself. "Has anyone made the quintessential documentary?"

"We've done a short documentary," Mr. Levin said.

"I'd like to be the narrator," Ms. Goldberg said. "I'm very good at it."

Mr. Levin nodded encouragingly, but didn't make any commitments before Mr. West, a professor at the Harvard Divinity School known for his Marxist views, walked up to Mr. Levin and gave him a big bear hug. Mr. West asked if he had heard any of his speech in favor of Mr. Bradley a few minutes earlier.

Mr. Levin hadn't arrived yet, but said, "If I knew you were going to speak, I would have been here."

Then it was Mr. Sharpton, who had been pushing for a Democratic debate in Harlem for weeks and had, one might surmise, gotten the privilege of asking the first question of the debate. Mr. Sharpton thrust out his hand, which Mr. Levin shook, and said, "Thank you, Reverend."

The Nasdaq television screen that graces the nine-story cylinder attached to the 4 Times Square Condé Nast building may be a hit with tourists, but those who work inside it don't like it.

Affectionately referred to as "the can," the Nasdaq sign, a television screen that curves around the cylinder, is five feet away from the building wall. The window cutouts are tunnels that don't provide much light and don't make for good views.

There's also the fear that sitting every day a few feet away from a giant TV screen may not be good for your health.

One Gourmet staff member who moved to another office said, "We were lucky to get out because if we are ever going to reproduce, we'd like to not have aliens."

Gary Nalven, president of Saco Smartvision Corporation, the U.S. subsidiary of the Canadian company that built the sign, said Condé Nast workers have nothing to fear from the more than 18 million light-emitting diodes that make up the screen.

"I know of no health warnings connected to this low-current device," Mr. Nalven said. "This is the most benign type of equipment."

Mr. Nalven did admit, though, that he knows of no other sign of that size that people sit that close to for so long. (They're usually found in stadiums and malls.) The magazines that get to sit in the can include Self , Bride's , GQ , House & Garden and Vanity Fair .

Adrienne Rhodes, a tough-talking public relations representative for the Daily News since 1993, is trying to get off the flack track. On Feb. 8, she sent a memo to her "colleagues and friends" at the tabloid, announcing that she would become a consultant for the paper. Her reason: She wants to "explore other career opportunities, including a possible run for a Congressional seat."

Daily News press releases have lately come from Emma Clurman, the paper's senior vice president of corporate communications.

Ms. Rhodes told Off the Record that she is working with the Republican Party in Manhattan on her potential campaign.

"I have been in discussions with the leadership of the Republican Party that were very encouraging … We're going to take small steps towards launching a campaign."

Ms. Rhodes was not known for her political finesse as the News ' authorized contact with the outside world.

"She doesn't fit the definition of a glad-handing, be-nice-to-people kind of politician," said one News staff member.

Describing some of her qualifications, Ms. Rhodes said she had been honored by Gov. George Pataki and was appointed to the Bush Administration's U.S. Commission on Minority Business Development.

In her swan song as the News in-house flack, Ms. Rhodes also claimed, "On the media relations front, we have been consistently successful in generating more coverage of Daily News content on TV broadcasts than any other local newspaper on a weekly basis." She added, "We have also been effective in communicating controlled messages during numerous crises … most recently, Scratch-n-Match."

In that incident, the Daily News mistakenly printed the wrong numbers in its lottery-style sweepstakes game. Readers who thought they had won as much as $100,000 ended up disappointed and angry. The fiasco led to the controlled-message headline on the front page of The New York Times : " Daily News Error: $100,000 Dreams Turn to Nightmare."

Anthony Ricco, who is defending murder suspect Corey Arthur, told The Observer that he has questioned several of Levin's former students and a colleague, and has concluded that Levin himself would oppose calls to execute his killer. In a letter to the office of Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, text excerpts of which were obtained by The Observer, the defense wrote: "[W]e decided to investigate Jonathan Levin's beliefs about the death penalty and whether, if he could speak to us and the students he so ably served, he would join the chorus for execution. We now have evidence, from students that he taught and a co-worker, that Jonathan Levin would stand firm for life, and argue strenuously against death. Former students confirm that Jonathan Levin, in his class at Taft High School [in the Bronx], voiced strong and sincere opposition to capital punishment. He assigned his students to compose a paper on the subject and, before he graded them, assured the students that his own views would not interfere with the marking process."

Mr. Morgenthau, an opponent of capital punishment himself, has until early November to announce whether he'll seek death for Mr. Arthur, a 19-year-old former student of Levin's. The suspect is accused of killing Levin last May. Investigators have said that Levin was shot once in the head in his Upper West Side apartment after being bound with duct tape and threatened with a steak knife to get him to reveal his bank card number. In the days after Levin's death, both Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Gov. George Pataki called on Mr. Morgenthau to seek Mr. Arthur's execution, and Mr. Pataki even hinted he would supersede Manhattan's top prosecutor if he declined, as he has thus far, to seek the ultimate punishment.

Mr. Morgenthau's office wouldn't confirm receiving the letter or comment on the Levin case. But Mr. Ricco, contacted by The Observer, confirmed that he had sent the letter and verified its details.

The letter, dated Sept. 24, offers a look at the highly unusual strategy the defense seems to be using to spare Mr. Arthur, who maintains his innocence. Mr. Ricco told The Observer that he and his team had spoken with nine former students of Levin-though he wouldn't identify them by name-and that they had said Levin had spoken out against the death penalty in his class.

"I thought about it and said, what is the most positive thing that we can put forth to prevent [Mr. Arthur's execution]?" Mr. Ricco said. "We could come up with nothing more positive than his legacy and what he taught his students."

No Interview With Rabbi

Mr. Ricco said that he had thought about seeking out the Levin family's views of capital punishment-but had later rejected the idea: "We at one point had talked about contacting his father's rabbi, [but] we thought that would be viewed negatively," Mr. Ricco said.

A dapper man who favors a bow tie, a clean-shaven head and throwback Malcolm X glasses, Mr. Ricco is well known among New York's defense attorneys. He represented a co-defendant of Lemrick Nelson Jr. in the Federal prosecution of the Yankel Rosenbaum murder case, and also represented Ibraham Elgabrowny, a defendant in 1995's trial of 10 men charged with plotting to blow up New York landmarks.

For his part, Mr. Morgenthau, who knows Mr. Levin personally and sits with him on the board of the Holocaust museum, has said he would like to hear from the Levins while mulling whether to pursue the death penalty.

Whatever the outcome, Mr. Ricco's strategy marks a strange twist in a tale that horrified a city that has been celebrating its historic drop in crime. The murder not only was a reminder that crime has hardly been wiped out, but also served as something of a parable of the times, and was even seen as a cautionary tale about life in urban America. Levin had eschewed his position as scion to one of the city's leading power brokers for a more modest role as friend and mentor to poor kids in the Bronx. The 31-year-old teacher reportedly took students out to dinners and outings, brought a radio to class to listen to rap and even rapped himself. In the end, though, he fell victim to violence, allegedly at the hands of one of his former students. Mr. Arthur has been described as a restless aspiring rapper who was expelled from Taft High School and did time for drug possession in an upstate boot camp for young first offenders.

Now, in a final irony, Levin's reputation has been enlisted in an effort to spare his accused killer. "I don't see it as a defense tactic," Mr. Ricco said. "We live in an era where people are constantly talking about victims' rights. Nothing is more appropriate than to put forward the victim's opinion on the subject."

A Morality Play

"Capital prosecutions are morality plays of a sort," added Kevin Doyle, head of the state's Capital Defender Office, which is aiding Mr. Ricco on the case. "So I think many prosecutors would find something odd about commemorating the life of a murder victim with a capital prosecution when the victim's life gave witness to the values of compassion and understanding."

Mr. Morgenthau may agree. The 78-year-old District Attorney has spoken out publicly against the death penalty. In his unwavering refusal to bring capital prosecutions in Manhattan, he has stood fast against the gale force of political pressure that buffets his downtown fortress each time a splashy murder shakes up the city.

But now Mr. Morgenthau has had to grapple with two high-profile decisions that have come in rapid succession. In addition to Mr. Arthur's case, Mr. Morgenthau announced on Oct. 7 that he'll bring life without parole against Scott Schneiderman, who allegedly killed a cop during a robbery of his estranged father's Chelsea duplex.

Given those lurid murders, the buzz in defense circles is that Mr. Morgenthau may not be able to hold out much longer. The New Yorker reported in July that people within Mr. Morgenthau's office see the Levin murder, with its strong suggestions of premeditation, as a "natural death penalty case."

Still, if Mr. Morgenthau doesn't seek Mr. Arthur's execution, few expect Mr. Pataki to make good on his quasi threat to supersede him. Although Mr. Pataki did yank Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson, a death penalty opponent, from a case last year, it doesn't seem likely that Mr. Pataki would pick a public fight with Mr. Morgenthau, who is widely esteemed by Manhattan's legions of private-sector lawyers.

"Morgenthau is an extremely powerful figure on the New York landscape and I can't imagine he'd take the indignity of that lightly," said one defense attorney.

Still, Mr. Ricco isn't taking any chances.

"I practice under the philosophy that [a capital prosecution] is possible," he said. "Right now, the thrust of our strategy is to prevent [Mr. Arthur] from being prosecuted in a capital case."