By Kim Velsey 7/02/12 2:30pm

Manhattan Transfers

9 Photos

Ali Wambold Downsizes

Former Lazard Chief Ali Wambold Downgrades From a Townhouse To a Two-Bedroom

The Manhattan real estate market may seem like a stellar investments, especially given the spate of high-profile, high-profit sales in recent months, but apparently not everyone wants all their money tied up in townhouses.

Ali Wambold, a managing principal at the anonymous-sounding investment group Corporate Partners and former CEO of alternative investments at Lazard, is downsizing considerably from a six-bedroom manse to a two-bedroom co-op at 1 Sutton Place South.

Not that Mr. Wambold and wife Monica Gerard-Sharp haven’t done well with the returns on their townhouse at 26 East 80th Street. The couple put the sprawling home, which they purchased for $2.65 million in 1994, on the market for $18.5 million back in September 2010. Even though the house has yet to sell, it appears that the couple has been able to rent the place (which was most recently listed for $20,000 a month—$24,000 if you wanted it furnished). Read More

By Kim Velsey 5/14/12 12:50pm

Manhattan Transfers

A modest spread for a woman of wealth

Widow of Bruce Wasserstein Ships Off East Village Co-op For $1.6 M.

If there’s one thing that shipping magnate Angela Chao knows, it’s how to move goods. Ms. Chao just sold her Greenwich Village co-op for the $1.6 million ask, according to city records.

Ms. Chao, an executive at her father’s Foremost Group and the fourth wife and widow of  the late billionaire and Lazard chief Bruce Wasserstein, must have grown tired of her two-bedroom co-op apartment at 35 East 9th Street, which sold to Nancy Bello and Michael Boghosian. They sure liked the place, though, as it enter contract after a little more than a month on the market. Read More

12/20/11 1:30pm

power broker

David E. Green

The Repositionist of 2 Park Avenue

Even in Manhattan, a building can go stale.

In Midtown South, for example, a commercial property can amass a litany of blue-chip legal practices and financial services firms in one decade, and then, 10 years later, watch as its tenant portfolio withers in prestige.

Take 2 Park Avenue. The building once served as the base of operations for Newsday and Times Mirror Inc. back in the 1980s and 1990s and more recently for The Hartford, the Connecticut-based insurance company. Read More

By Mike Taylor 10/27/10 12:59pm

Wall Street

Morning Roundup: More Monetization, More Problems

  • Experts, including some Federal Reserve officials, doubt that another round of money-printing asset purchases will do much to help our flaccid economy. The central bank is revving up the monetary inflation machine anyway, so expect a few hundred billion dollars in monetary stimulus to start coming your way next week. [WSJ] 
  • Lazard, the Read More