-- As Curbed reported earlier today, Leonard Stern has landed the ultimate Soho penthouse at 495 West Broadway for a whopping $14.25 million, down from $16.5 million. The billionaire, who among other things built the nearby Tibeca Grand and Soho Grand hotels and put the Stern in NYU's business school, has snagged the four-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bathroom duplex with a wraparound patio. If that weren't enough, this could just be another crash pad, as the septegarian is waiting out renovations on his Fifth Avenue mansion. The seller was recruiting maven Joseph Goldsmith.

 -- Dickson Chu made his name in tech, working for the likes of Yahoo and PayPal, but now he is in charge of development and products for Citi. He and wife Kristin have landed at Extell's notorious Aerial West at 245 West 99th Street, paying $2.7 million for a unit near the bottom of the 31-story tower. For a San Franciscan, the pad must even seem big, with four bedrooms, three baths and 2,349-square-feet.

mchaban [at] observer.com / @mc_nyo

In the 21st century, you can walk up Madison Avenue, turn right onto 61st Street and enter a recessed cove well removed from the commoners’ foot traffic. Pass through the doors and into the 40-foot-tall limestone lobby of 667 Madison Avenue, arguably the most exclusive office building in New York City, and you will find, on the wall behind the bow-tied concierge, one of those Gobelins tapestries.

The message could not be clearer: Here live the Sun Kings.

That image of ordained exclusivity is the principal reason why 667 Madison, a fairly unexceptional-looking building at the northernmost tip of Manhattan’s central business district, can charge rents in excess of $100 a square foot, even as the commercial real state market finds itself buffeted by worldly economic concerns that have caused less divine landlords to chop away at rents like so many necks on a guillotine.

That image is what enables Ron Simoncini, a spokesman for landlord Leonard Stern, who made his billions largely in pet supplies and Jersey real estate, to email the following claim: “We have not done a deal at 667 Madison Avenue for less than $100 psf in 7 years.” Indeed, in the past 90 days, Mr. Stern has signed deals with three tenants at three-digit numbers. One of those deals brings into the heavenly fold Talos Partners, a private investment firm chaired by Robert Brazell, the founder of Overstock.com. Also on the board: onetime Wisconsin Senator Robert Kasten.

Bill Rapavy, the firm’s COO, did not respond to requests for comment. But Mr. Rapavy, who was formerly the COO and CFO of ElitePerformance, a group of hedge funds, will have plenty of distinguished company in his office building (and plenty of potential investors and clients).

There’s Berenson & Company, headed by one Jeffrey L. Berenson, who led Merrill Lynch’s junk bond and merchant banking department until 1990—when the junk bond market went to seed.

There’s the Loews Corporation’s Jonathan Tisch, who, given where he spends both his days and nights, must have quite a hard time understanding how the merely rich live. Should he desire to put in a few hours of work, Mr. Tisch  can leave his $48 million, 14-room co-op at 2 East 67th Street and stroll a mere six blocks down Madison Avenue past pricey boutiques to his offices at 667 Madison.

Maybe he’ll cross paths in the lobby with billionaire Michael Price, who reportedly holds forth on the 25th floor. Or perhaps he’ll share an elevator with Mr. Stern himself, and they can share notes about recent endowments to New York University.

IT'S A BIT OF a chicken-and-the-egg scenario, isn’t it, trying to determine what creates this sort of cachet, the kind that attracts high-fliers, who in turn endow it with yet further cachet, and so on and so forth?

It’s a nice enough building, but its architectural merits certainly don’t overwhelm. In 1987, Paul Goldberger, then writing for The New York Times, described the newly erected David Paul Helpern–designed building as, “reasonable, intelligent, and civilized.”

“This is not one of the great buildings for all time, but it is certainly the right building for this time,” Mr. Goldberger wrote. “At 25 stories this pale-gray granite tower is not overwhelming in size, and it does not have a knock-your-eye-out image to it. This is not a building that will make a lot of people stop and say ‘wow.’”

Howard Ecker, of the eponymous boutique brokerage Howard Ecker + Company, said the building’s allure was based in good old-fashioned customer service.

“The Tisches from Loews Corporation were clients of mine,” Mr. Ecker said. “I used to see John Malino, their worldwide head of real estate. I could walk into the lobby, not having been there for a year, and the man at the desk would say, ‘Mr. Ecker, how nice to see you! I’ll call Mr. Malino and let him know you’re on the way.’”

“The Tisches own buildings in New York and yet they pay rent to Hartz Mountain,” Mr. Ecker said, referring to Mr. Stern’s real estate company. “There’s a reason, and the reason is, it’s a wonderful location and they take better care of their tenants.”

That’s almost certainly true. But there’s more to it than that. Mr. Stern, who would not comment for this article, also treats the building like his personal country club, or fiefdom, if you will. He meets with and approves pretty much all would-be tenants before allowing them to sign leases. If they meet with his disapproval—if, say, they dress inappropriately, or they are paparazzi-bait—he nixes their applications.

“It became the number-one country club building, because it’s mostly their friends and he’s got an incredibly great reputation,” said Robert Emden, a principal of brokerage PBS Real Estate, who has personally placed a number of tenants in 667 Madison. “This is a boutique building for the chairman, the private family office, the hedge funds.”

His colleague Stephen Gordon elaborated.

“It has a smaller boutique floor plate, and it does not cater to the large institutions, where you have a lot of mid-level people working in the building,” Mr. Gordon said. “The Plaza district is a market of Mercedes-Benzes, and this is the Rolls Royce amongst them.”

For those of you with the appropriate connections, take note: One seat is left in that Rolls Royce: a tidy, 6,600-square-foot space on the 17th floor. We’d suggest you ring Mr. Stern. Though he probably won’t take your call.

drubinstein@observer.com

While the decrease is positive, this data still means that about 7% of New York City’s homeless are without shelter on an average night. New York does a better job of sheltering its homeless than many other places – the City contracts with more than 150 non-profit providers of shelter and other services for homeless people, and since the early 1980’s New York State’s courts have maintained that all New Yorkers have the legal right to shelter. Yet, homelessness remains a horror for adults and a disaster for children and families.

For a number of years I have been on the Board of Directors of Homes for the Homeless, an amazing organization founded in 1986 by Hartz Group Chairman Leonard N. Stern. Homes for the Homeless is a public-private partnership between city government, private business, and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.  Since 1987, my good friend and Columbia colleague Dr. Ralph Nunez has served as President and CEO of Homes for the Homeless. Each year, the organization provides shelter for about 1,000 families and 2,500 children. In addition to a place to sleep, "Homes" provides meals, after-school day care, adult education, summer camps and other services designed to help homeless families escape poverty. For about 20 years Dr. Nunez taught quantitative analysis to public policy students at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. In addition to working to help homeless families survive, he has worked to analyze and understand the causes and effects of homelessness. To do that, he and his colleagues began a small think-tank called the Institute for Children and Poverty.  According to the Institute’s website:

-More than 1.35 million children from 600,000 families are homeless in America, and available shelter and housing for homeless families is decreasing.

-Overcoming homelessness is almost impossible without steady employment, and more than two-thirds of homeless parents nationwide are unemployed.

-Homeless children have less of a chance of succeeding in school. Frequent school transfers are the most significant barrier to the academic success of homeless students.

-Homeless families are more vulnerable to serious health issues. Mental health, tuberculosis and HIV are far more common than in the general public.

-Homeless parents and their children are more likely to have experienced violence. One out of three homeless teens have witnessed a stabbing, shooting, rape, or murder in their communities.

-Homeless parents and their children are more likely to be separated from each other. In fact, 34% of school-aged homeless children have lived apart from their families. More than 60% of children placed in foster care come from formerly homeless families.

As the new Hoovervilles springing up on the West Coast indicate, homelessness is a symptom of poverty and the lack of low-cost housing. As President Obama indicated, we have a responsibility to help our neighbors who do not have the means to help themselves. One difference in New York City, when compared to some other American cities, is that homeless people are more difficult to ignore here.  While many homeless are “invisible,” many are not. This is a city of mass and walking transit. Most people can’t simply hide up high behind the wheel of their SUV and drive to the mall.  The responsibility for our neighbors here is not simply an abstraction – we see real human beings on our walk to work.

When I think about taking responsibility for our neighbors and building a community, I have to think about Leonard Stern, the wealthy and powerful business leader who founded Homes for the Homeless and then recruited Ralph Nunez to run it. Theirs is an inspiring partnership comprised of Stern’s strategic business sense and Nunez’s deep understanding of city politics and organizational management.  Homes for the Homeless is not perfect, but it is an impressive organization. It shows what can be done, and it has made a material and significant difference in thousands of lives. If you are interested in their story, check out this video and you’ll see what I mean.

I believe that we will come out of these difficult economic times, renewed and reminded of what matters. If you see a homeless child given a place to sleep and a chance to overcome the poverty trap, you can’t help but be motivated.  That motivation is the source of the hope I feel for the future.

"It's getting closer to the real value. Hopefully, with the new price, it will get more action," said exclusive broker Carrie Chiang, a senior vice president of the Corcoran Group.

Mr. Shabtai could not be reached for comment.

A single-family home along the limestone-and-granite corridor of New York's power elite is a rare find. In 2000, the Israeli-born Mr. Shabtai, 54, purchased the property from Judith Stern Peck, the ex-wife of Tribeca Grand Hotel owner Leonard Stern, for $8.2 million.

The property has quite a design legacy. Originally built in 1974, it was renovated in 1976 by Robert A.M. Stern and John S. Hagmann. A fire severely damaged the property in 1992, and Ms. Stern hired Costas Kondylis for a second pass. The renowned condominium architect-whose downtown development at Morton Square is doubling as the Olsen twins' dormitory-redesigned the interior. Ms. Stern listed the property throughout the 1990's, asking upward of $10 million in April 1998, before Mr. Shabtai negotiated $550,000 off the $8.75 million asking price when he nabbed it in July 2000.

Mr. Shabtai then went about undertaking a luxurious renovation of his own. The four-story residence retains the classic façade designed by Mr. Stern and has six bedrooms, five full baths and two powder rooms. Other luxuries include a glass-walled living room with views over Park Avenue, a spiral staircase, a paneled library and a spa-style master bathroom with a built-in gas fireplace and a 28-foot dressing room. The listing of the property also includes plans for a 1,100-square-foot private roof garden with a gazebo and a hot tub. If potential buyers fret over the daily schlep up the spiral staircase, the home also has a four-passenger elevator.

Now, with its nearly 10 percent discount, Mr. Shabtai may be one step closer to finding an approving buyer.

Men's Journal editor in chief Michael Caruso recently landed a $1.24 million Tribeca loft, city records show. In June, according to property records on file with the city, Mr. Caruso closed on a 2,000-square-foot former artist's studio on Murray Street, between Church and Broadway. The deal marks a return to downtown for the editor of the venerable Jann Wenner–published men's magazine.

"I used to have a place in Tribeca. I really like the neighborhood," Mr. Caruso told The Observer .

The fifth-floor apartment is a loft that formerly belonged to the artist Richard Boch, city records show. According to The New York Times , Mr. Boch moved into the loft in the late 1970's at a bargain-basement $400-a-month lease. In 2001, the mixed-use building at 9 Murray Street, which is also the site of the New Amsterdam branch of the New York Public Library, was converted from 14 rentals into condos. Mr. Caruso signed a contract to buy the place from Mr. Boch in April, before closing the deal in June.

He's not the only hard-charging editor in Mr. Wenner's stable of magazines to have a penchant for downtown real estate. In June 2003, Janice Min, the Us Weekly editor, scored a $1.75 million loft in the high-design Porter House lofts on West 15th Street in the meatpacking district. Her fellow neighbors in the building include Molly Shannon and fashion designer Carlos Miele.

Actor Harold Perrineau has traded a flashy Tribeca loft for a tropical paradise. In March, city records show, the actor-who recently appeared alongside Keanu Reeves in The Matrix Revolutions -sold his Warren Street loft for $1.15 million. The Brooklyn native is now living in Hawaii while filming the television series Lost , a drama about the survivors of a plane crash on a remote tropical island, which was recently signed for 11 episodes. So long, New York winters! "He's in limbo figuring out where he is going to live," Mr. Perrineau's manager, Stacy Abrams, said of the actor's current domestic plans. "If the show gets signed again, he'll live where they end up filming."

Mr. Perrineau left behind a prime piece of Tribeca. His former 1,600-square-foot apartment, on Warren Street between Broadway and Church Street, had two bedrooms, two marble bathrooms and details including a gourmet kitchen, a built-in washer/dryer and a video security system. The apartment first hit the market in December 2003 at $1.29 million, before Mr. Perrineau unloaded the place in March for $1.15 million to newlywed buyers-a finance executive and his attorney wife.

"It was big, minimal and airy," said Neil Levine of the Corcoran Group, who sold the loft. "They don't need to do a stitch to it. The apartment was in move-in condition."

Recent Transactions in the Real Estate Market

Upper East Side

166 East 61st Street

Two-bedroom, two-bathroom co-op.

Asking: $935,000. Selling: $940,000.

Maintenance: $1,663; 48 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: two months.

BIDDING UP FOR BABY After the couple who owned this renovated East Side co-op decamped to the Connecticut 'burbs so their children could frolic in a backyard, a growing family decided to trade up from a nearby apartment on 69th Street and Second Avenue to this spacious spread. In the competitive real-estate market that has descended over all of Manhattan, the couple paid $5,000 over the asking price. "They needed more space," said Leah Ozeri, a broker with the Corcoran Group who represented the buyers. The apartment, between Lexington and Third avenues, has Upper East Side staples including marble baths, open southern and eastern views, and a newly renovated kitchen. The building also offers a full-time doorman and a concierge. "It felt right for them; they loved it because it was big," Ms. Ozeri said. Anne Prosser, also of the Corcoran Group, represented the sellers.

Mr. Shabtai did not return calls for comment on the listing. Carrie Chiang, a senior vice president of the Corcoran Group who is representing the property, declined to comment on the identity of the seller, but she did speak to the apartment's luxurious details.

"It has an Art Deco modern design; it's very contemporary," Ms. Chiang said. "The interior was completely renovated, and we are awaiting approval to have a roof-deck hot tub installed."

Ms. Chiang represented Mr. Shabtai when he and his family purchased the six-bedroom house nearly four years ago.

The listing follows close on the heels of Sean (P. Diddy) Combs' recent townhouse sale at 813 Park Avenue for $15.9 million, making his the second of a very small number of Park Avenue townhouses on the storied street. Given the luxury real-estate market's continued resurgence, Mr. Shabtai, 54, may be hoping to find a buyer eager to own one of the Upper East Side's most unique residences-a single-family home along the regal lane of the New York's moneyed caste. The home, which was built in 1974, was completely renovated in 1976 after the former owners, Ms. Stern Peck and her then husband, Mr. Stern, commissioned Robert A.M. Stern and John S. Hagmann to complete an extensive renovation to the place. After a fire in 1992 severely damaged the property, Ms. Stern hired Costas Kondylis, the renowned condominium architect, to remodel the interior. The property bounced on and off the market throughout the 1990's, hitting the $10 million mark in April 1998, before Mr. Shabtai negotiated $550,000 off the $8.75 million asking price.

Since then, Mr. Shabtai has built on the home's prestigious architectural pedigree with an extensive renovation of his own. In addition to the proposed 1,100-square-foot roof deck with a garden, gazebo and hot tub, the four-story townhouse retains the classic façade designed by Mr. Stern, and it now has a living room with 14-foot ceilings featuring a glass wall overlooking Park Avenue, a master bedroom with a spa-style master bath and gas fireplace, a spiral staircase and-if hoofing it to the fourth floor seems a chore-a private elevator. The ground floor of the property includes a 1,150-square-foot professional space that any potential buyer can lease out (it's currently a doctor's office), which may help offset the $83,808 in real-estate taxes the new owner will have to pony up.

Still, some brokers with competing firms who are familiar with the property say that although the townhouse is one of the more alluring offerings to hit the fast-paced Upper East Side market this year, the location along Park Avenue, with its attendant traffic, may deter well-heeled buyers: If you're willing to pay eight figures for a private home, they reason, you might also seek the privacy of leafy side streets.

"People just don't want that much exposure. For that much money, people would rather have the privacy of a side street," one broker said.

But in a city where the real-estate market often defies logic, and penthouses trade for $45 million at the Time Warner Center at a time when many real-estate watchers said the $1.7 billion building was overpriced, Mr. Shabtai may just yet find a flush buyer to claim his Park Avenue perch.

On March 2, Meg Ryan's former neighbors at 420 West Broadway put their 3,400-square-foot raw-space duplex on the market for a Soho-esque $4.95 million. The listing comes after the loft development made headlines in January, when Ms. Ryan reportedly signed contracts to unload her 6,734-square-foot duplex penthouse-which had been asking $9.7 million-following reports that the 42-year-old flaxen-haired actress paid around $4 million for a Greenwich Village apartment.

Ms. Ryan's former neighbors purchased the loft in October 2001 for $3.725 million and never occupied the space. At press time, the owners' identity was unclear.

The unfinished loft overlooking Thompson Street is represented by a troika of brokers from Douglas Elliman. Shaun Osher, an executive vice president with Douglas Elliman, was unavailable for comment. Steven Ganz and Tom Postilio both declined to comment.

Like Ms. Ryan's downtown bachelorette pad, where she moved after her divorce from actor Dennis Quaid in August 2001, the neighboring loft is luxurious even by Soho's spendy standards, which have attracted well-heeled buyers including Andre Balazs and Lenny Kravitz over the years (Mr. Kravitz's Crosby Street loft is currently asking $14.95 million). The unfinished 420 West Broadway penthouse has 24-foot ceilings, a pair of spiral staircases, private elevator access and a 2,000-square-foot terrace.

But all this luxury comes at a price: The loft carries $6,161 monthly maintenance charges. Even so, the price may be worth it for someone wanting to reside atop one of Soho's most chic addresses; 420 West Broadway has gained a reputation among downtown real-estate watchers since it was converted to residential space three years ago. In April 2001, the developer Gregory Manocherian converted the former paper warehouse-which had been front and center in the Soho art scene during the 1980's, when the Leo Castelli, Andre Emmerich and Ileana Sonnabend all had galleries there-into a luxury co-op that drew the likes of Ms. Ryan, the actress known for her roles in perky romantic comedies (and for getting down with Mark Ruffalo in Jane Campion's In the Cut ). Today, the building-much like the neighborhood-has left its artistic roots behind for a more commercial slant: The ground floor of the sandstone and brick building is now occupied by the 10,000-square-foot DKNY boutique.

It appears that Mr. Cuomo couldn't bear the prospect of delivering a concession speech on Sept. 10, the date of the primary. He dropped out to save face, to spare himself humiliation, and-you can be sure-to preserve his political viability, to paraphrase the words of his former boss, Bill Clinton. But by dropping out, he has likely done permanent damage to that viability.

Mr. Cuomo's withdrawal speaks to his character-indeed, it is the culmination of his character problems. He dropped out on the very day that The New York Times reviewed his record as Mr. Clinton's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. The account demolished Mr. Cuomo's absurd insistence that he represented a change from politics as usual, that he was somehow more pure than those political hacks in Albany who seem interested in little except self-promotion and self-congratulation.

In the waning months of his tenure at H.U.D., Mr. Cuomo spent $688,000 in taxpayer money-funds that would have been better spent building homes for homeless children-to print and distribute a glossy piece of self-promotion that summarized his supposed accomplishments at H.U.D. In fact, the piece-which came with a CD-ROM and featured pictures of Mr. Cuomo with celebrities and world leaders-was political propaganda. It was released in late 2000, long before Mr. Cuomo was an announced candidate for Governor, but few doubted that this opportunistic young man was looking for a chance to run for office. The H.U.D. piece was a campaign document and nothing more; that Mr. Cuomo found a way to stick taxpayers with the bill tells us a great deal about his character.

Mr. Cuomo has a habit of taking credit for things he did not do himself. He told voters he created an organization called Housing Enterprise for the Less Privileged, or HELP. While there's little question that HELP has assisted homeless individuals and families, it is outrageous for Mr. Cuomo to assert that the initiative was his. In fact, a genuine philanthropist, Leonard Stern, originated the idea several years earlier with his Homes for the Homeless program. Needless to say, Mr. Stern's efforts never received the publicity that HELP received. It's not hard to figure out why.

The Times article further noted that under Mr. Cuomo's watch, H.U.D. sold 500 buildings in poverty-stricken neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Harlem to buyers who never followed through on promises to repair them. Instead, they turned around and resold them to unsuspecting homeowners.

Such inattention to detail, while traveling throughout the country in search of appealing photo ops, suggests that Mr. Cuomo was primarily interested in building an image.

He succeeded greatly. But the image isn't flattering.

Shanah Tovah

Each year, the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur offer an opportunity for those of the Jewish faith to offer heartfelt prayers, reflect deeply and take stock of their lives. This year, the anniversary of Sept. 11 falls within that 10-day span, and it seems likely that New Yorkers of all faiths will be in a particularly elegiac and pensive frame of mind.

The Jewish community in the United States will especially take time to consider the plight of Israel today, where terrorist attacks have disrupted normal life. No corner of the earth remains free from the threat of heartless suicide bombers, and those living in the Middle East have barely healed from one attack when another follows in its terrible wake. Americans have a profound connection to Israel, not least because it is the only democratic government in the entire Middle East. While it has become distressingly difficult to imagine a true and genuine peace at the moment, such a failure of the imagination would indicate that the terrorists and those bent on violence had won.

This period, which begins with the celebration this Friday night of the Jewish New Year, heralded by the call of the shofar, and leads up to the emotional, mournful and beautiful Kol Nidre service on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is a time of faith and family, penance and forgiveness. It culminates in prayers on Yom Kippur, when one asks that he or she be written into the Book of Life, based upon who has been righteous and who has not.

As families gather in New York to celebrate new beginnings and symbolically cast sins into the water, may all New Yorkers join in the spirit of renewal.

Women Pass the Stress Test

New Yorkers are famous for their stress-they love to talk about it, complain about it, and secretly embrace it as the mark of a true New Yorker. But it turns out that the popular model of stress, and how it results in a "fight or flight" response, may have been based on only half the population-namely, the male of the species. New research indicates that women have an entirely different response to stress than men do. Instead of "fight or flight," women respond to an influx of stress with something researchers are calling "tend and befriend."

As reported in the Harvard Women's Health Watch , when women are "under attack," their first instinct may not be to fight back or flee, but rather to protect their children (if they have any) and to seek help from others, most likely females. Two psychologists at UCLA concluded that evolution plays a big part: If a woman is pregnant, nursing or caring for young children, a response of fighting or fleeing would put the children in great danger. The smarter evolutionary investment is in befriending others, so that a social network protects the mother and kids from male violence. That women seek safety in connectedness was also shown in studies the UCLA psychologists conducted with animals: They found that crowding made male rats more stressed, while it actually calmed female rats. Which may be one reason, the researchers posit, that men who have had a bad day at work often isolate themselves when they get home, whereas women coming home from a tough day often find relief in connecting with and nurturing their children.

The body's chemistry is also at work. The pituitary hormone oxytocin, which has a calming effect and lowers anxiety, is released by both men and women under stress. But while female hormones increase oxytocin's effectiveness, male hormones chip away at its power. And men have the added problem of stress causing a release of testosterone, which often causes aggression.

All of which is to say that women would seem to be better adapted to handle stress than men are-whether the men are humans or rats.

In a newspaper interview six years ago, Judith Stern Peck, a family therapist who has lived at 870 Park Avenue for almost 25 years, said the reason she and her then husband, Tribeca Grand Hotel owner Leonard Stern, bought the seemingly-out-of-place house was the safety of being surrounded by the avenue's fortress-like apartment buildings. She stayed there through a divorce, a fire that caused her to move out and rebuild, and another marriage (to Stephen Peck, chairman of the board of trustees of Mt. Sinai Hospital). The departure of her three grown children was the only reason she would consider leaving, she told the interviewer.

Her youngest child now 33, Ms. Peck sold the house in late July for $8.2 million to Benny Shabtai, president of Raymond Weil-Seville Watch Corporation. The house has been on and off the market for many years: The asking price reached $10 million in April of 1998. It was marked down to $8.75 that October, and Mr. Shabtai signed a contract several months ago.

"I am very happy that she received a good price!" said Mr. Stern on July 5 at a Southampton dinner party to celebrate the birthday of former Senator Alfonse D'Amato. Mr. Stern, 62, is the chairman and chief executive of Hartz Group, which sells pet supplies and owns a few hundred commercial buildings. "I built that house," he joked. Ms. Peck did not return a call to her home.

Eight-seventy Park, between 77th and 78th streets, has a three-story open atrium facing the back, a grand staircase plus an elevator, five bedrooms, a paneled library on the third floor overlooking Park Avenue, a wine cellar and wood-burning fireplaces. Real estate taxes are $52,672.

The most recent renovation was done by Mr. Kondylis after the massive fire in October 1992, which completely gutted the house and required Ms. Peck to move out and to enter into a prolonged battle with her insurance company. (To add insult to injury, the place was burglarized shortly after the fire.) "It's in great shape!" said a broker. The new-and-improved, dinner-party-friendly kitchen is one of the house's highlights, with twin Sub Zero refrigerators and oven ranges.

Still, Ms. Peck struggled to sell the house before and after the fire because, unlike her, it seems townhouse buyers want off the avenues. It was "a tough sell," said a broker. "People want to be on a side street … There's a very, very small group of people who want to be on Park Avenue in a house."

Mr. Shabtai is in that small group. "I like the fact that it's on Park Avenue, the best location," he said. Mr. Shabtai and his family have been renting an apartment at Trump Palace on 69th Street and Third Avenue until minor renovations to the house–an expansion of the living room and the bedrooms–are completed, probably by December. He was represented by the Corcoran Group's Carrie Chiang. "The inside of the house is really beautiful and it was exactly what we were looking for," Mr. Shabtai said. "It was suitable to me the moment I saw it six months ago."

Still, he promptly negotiated $550,000 off the price.

UPPER EAST SIDE

DONNA DIXON AND DAN AYKROYD MAKE BOSOM BUDDIES ON 86TH STREET About the penthouse apartment that beauty-and-the-beast couple Donna Dixon and Dan Aykroyd bought at the Leighton House (360 East 88th Street) for $3.7 million in June: "God, they really overpaid!" said one broker.

But the couple, who met on the set of Doctor Detroit in 1982, apparently had an attachment to the building, where they've rented an apartment for three years. "Everybody loves them in the building," said one source. "They fit in … and they are adored."

Then they won't miss all the sucking up that goes on in Los Angeles, where they are reportedly selling their home of more than 15 years. Their six-bedroom estate in the Hollywood Hills went up for sale for $2.45 million in February. The 4,800-square-foot house, which was home to Ringo Starr in the 70's and Mama Cass in the 60's, has six fireplaces, a library, a gym, maids' quarters and an English garden.

But they might miss about half a home: the new apartment runs about 2,854 square feet, with just four bedrooms and only four and a half bathrooms.

860 Fifth Avenue

Two-bed, two-bath, 1,400-square-foot co-op.

Asking: $1.495 million. Selling: $1.495 million.

Charges: $1,433; 50 percent tax deductible.

Time on the market: one day.

FIRE SALE ON THE ROOF It was every co-op owner's nightmare. The woman who purchased this second-floor apartment about a year ago constructed a 1,200-square-foot terrace on the roof outside her window–wet bar, sound system, a garden with its own irrigation system–only to be told that she'd have to undo everything when she wanted to move. And she wanted to move immediately, considering that the little utopia had been created to make her husband's last days more enjoyable. When he died, she put the apartment up for sale for $1.995 million, but after the co-op board broke the bad news to her, she reduced the price by $500,000. The apartment sold the next day. Suzanne Turkewitz of Douglas Elliman, the woman's broker, said she is now creating another dream home just outside the city.

205 East 69th Street

Two-bed, three-bath, 1,500-square-foot co-op.

Asking: $895,000. Selling: $887,500.

Charges: $2,000; 46 percent tax deductible.

Time on the market: three months.

A SLOW AND PAINFUL PURCHASE Which is worse: Moving back to New York in the spring of 2000, only to realize that you sold your swank Manhattan apartment about six months before the biggest real-estate boom in the city's history–or death? A couple with two kids are returning to the city from a two-year stint in Asia to a frightening realization: They sold the place where they had lived like kings (for a marginal profit), only to return feeling like paupers. "These are people of means," said Julie Friedman of Belmarc Realty, their broker. "These are affluent people, but they got squeezed in this market." And they chose one of the worst six months to conduct their search–estimates of price increases during the first half of this year start at 25 percent. The couple finally took an apartment–in need of about $100,000 in work–in a prewar building which is changing its profile with a garden, a health club and, unfortunately, no more free electricity as of Aug. 1. "So many people are renovating and upgrading the [electric wiring] in their apartments that the building doesn't want to be responsible for it anymore," said Ms. Friedman.

UPPER WEST SIDE

108 West 80th Street

Five-story, 6,200-square-foot townhouse.

Asking: $1.55 million. Selling: $1.4 million.

Time on the market: two weeks.

GOOD NIGHT, GRANDMA So how did Matt, an architect in his 30's, get suckered into moving into this five-story townhouse with his wife, his mother-in-law, his wife's grandmother (Nana) and Nana's little dog? Of course, the mother-in-law, a lawyer who had been living in Bayside, Queens, agreed to help pay for the place. But there's still another argument: "He's a great guy," said Charles Godinksy, a broker with Prudential MLB Kaye International Realty. Mr. Godinsky showed the family around the Upper West Side for a year before they found something suitable. This 20-foot-wide townhouse was divided into 10 apartments (four of which were vacant). The extended family negotiated a contract in one day. And the late June closing was nothing short of functional. It was "the happiest closing I'd ever gone to," said Mr. Godinsky. The family will turn the four vacant apartments into two floor-through apartments: one for Matt and his wife (a semblance of privacy), one for the mother-in-law and Nana.

Corrections

In last week's Manhattan Transfers column, a resident of 998 Fifth Avenue was misidentified. While there is a Steven Rattner who is a managing director of fixed income in Europe at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, the Steven Rattner who lives at 998 Fifth Avenue is a founder of the Quadrangle Group, an investment fund in New York, and a former managing director at Lazard Frères & Company.

In the July 31 issue, the pictures of two buildings–one in Harlem and the other on the Upper East Side–were transposed due to a production error.

They left Mr. Macklowe a toehold.

Now the bank, which agreed months ago to sell the property to another developer for $150 million, is accusing Mr. Macklowe, who retains a tiny interest in the property, of "purposely trying to delay or scuttle" its deal. And Mr. Macklowe is back in a familiar place-court-fighting to keep C.S. First Boston from once and for all prying his grip from a property where he planned to build his crowning glory, a $400-million, 38-story skyscraper overlooking Grand Central Terminal.

It is, those who have watched his career agree, a vintage Macklowe performance: sly, litigious, and, above all, tenacious.

This, after all, is a onetime real estate broker who clawed his way into the clannish world of Manhattan's skyline shapers. Who made his reputation by illegally demolishing a Times Square fleabag hotel in the dead of night. Who's feuded with mayors, business partners, even made Martha Stewart an object of sympathy in a long-running legal feud over the property line between their East Hampton homes. Whose longtime second-in-command, Warren Cole, is now suing him, claiming Mr. Macklowe swindled him out of $18 million.

Yet for a developer who's built a career on winning at all costs, Mr. Macklowe's latest gambit has the distinct air of a lost cause. Even his latest victory-on April 11, a New York State Supreme Court judge temporarily blocked C.S. First Boston's attempt to remove Mr. Macklowe-seems likely only to delay the inevitable.

So why keep fighting?

"It's not like you just give up when you have a chance to put up a tower like this," volunteered one Macklowe associate. Big developers leave skyscrapers as their legacies, and Madison Plaza, at 42nd Street and Madison Avenue, was to be Mr. Macklowe's first large-scale project in years. The 62-year-old developer may also have another incentive to hang on: He's lately been grooming his son, William S. (Billy) Macklowe, 32, to take over the company.

"The plans for this building, Harry conceived of them and-this is just speculation-to have it taken away in the design stage, when the market is terrific, is hard to take," the associate said.

Then again, Mr. Macklowe has never been known as a sentimental man. As the deal stands now, Mr. Macklowe stands to make millions if he finishes assembling the jigsaw puzzle of properties and development rights necessary to build the skyscraper. If C.S. First Boston finalizes the deal itself, Mr. Macklowe is out of the money.

Neither Mr. Macklowe, C.S. First Boston, nor either side's attorneys would comment on the dispute. But some familiar with the Madison Plaza deal believe Mr. Macklowe's dithering is an attempt to squeeze the bank for more money, or even an increased ownership stake.

"He's Dracula," said one prominent Manhattan real estate figure familiar with the deal at 42nd and Madison. "You have to drive a stake through his heart to kill him. Only he doesn't have a heart."

Back to Life

Mr. Macklowe has made a career out of coming back when the naysayers have left him for dead.

A college dropout, he first entered the real estate scene in the late 1960's, as a broker for Julien J. Studley Inc. Even then, aggressiveness in pursuit of a deal was his calling card.

Leonard Stern, real estate mogul and former owner of the Village Voice , still remembers how, more than 30 years ago, Mr. Macklowe convinced the Japanese electronics giant Panasonic to move its U.S. headquarters to property Mr. Stern owned in Secaucus, N.J.

"The Japanese at that time did not look favorably [on the idea of] moving into the Meadowlands of New Jersey," Mr. Stern said. "He hired a helicopter, flew over and filmed the site, looking over to the skyline of Manhattan. Then he flew over to Japan, showed the video and made the deal."

"He made a million-dollar commission," Mr. Stern said, "and I got major tenants."

Starting in the mid 1960's and early 70's, Mr. Macklowe began developing properties himself. An art collector and avid sailor, Mr. Macklowe has made a reputation for his development creativity, and for his willingness to break some sails against the winds of public opinion.

"He is a very ingenious man," Mr. Stern said. "He is very creative, and I really think there are very few people in this city who are his peers in the real estate business from an intellectual point of view."

But his career has been notable as much for its setbacks as its comebacks.

His late-night demolition of the Times Square S.R.O., without permits or, he has always maintained, his knowledge, made Mr. Macklowe a symbol of the excesses of the 1980's real estate boom, and cemented his reputation as an outlaw developer. (A grand jury investigated, but never indicted him.) The Hotel Macklowe, which rose on the site, was lauded by the architectural critics. But Mr. Macklowe lost it to the bank when the real estate market soured. By 1990, his net worth was negative $134 million, according to Mr. Cole, his longtime top deputy.

That, Mr. Stern said, was the fate of "virtually every real estate guy who was first generation, [who] wasn't second and third generation and had property they'd inherited where the mortgage was paid off.

"He got hit, Trump got hit. A lot of guys got knocked out."

But not Mr. Macklowe. Through the 90's, he put the pieces back together, and, by 1998, his net worth was back up around $300 million and he was planning an initial public offering of his holdings, expecting to raise more than $500 million.

Mr. Macklowe was on the comeback trail, and Credit Suisse First Boston, led by its buccaneering head of mortgage securities, Andy Stone, was pulling the wagon, lending freely to finance his ambitious plans, including one to build a skyscraper at 42nd and Madison.

In an all-night bargaining session in July 1997, Mr. Macklowe wrested the majority of the property on which to build his tower-now a pair of vacant office buildings and several smaller properties, including a McDonald's-from a group of investors who had defaulted on their loans and filed for bankruptcy. The price was $60 million. C.S. First Boston put $105 million toward the project in exchange for half ownership.

Mr. Macklowe had Skidmore, Owings & Merrill draw up architectural plans for his skyscraper, which included an atrium and indoor garden.

At the time, Mr. Macklowe was borrowing heavily-C.S. First Boston had loaned him money to buy 2 Grand Central Tower and 540 Madison Avenue-but the I.P.O. was to offset his short-term debt.

Then the Asian financial crisis hit, the market for real estate stocks collapsed and the I.P.O. was canceled. C.S. First Boston, overextended in the Manhattan real estate market, reined in its real estate division. Mr. Stone departed stormily. With credit tightened, Mr. Macklowe suddenly found himself unable to come up with enough money to close a deal to refinance $300 million in C.S. First Boston loans. Signing a major anchor tenant for the building might have made those problems go away, but none was forthcoming, in part, industry sources said, because they were wary of Mr. Macklowe's reputation.

In a settlement agreement signed last July, Mr. Macklowe gave up the Madison Avenue site in return for just $14 million, and the bank's agreement to refinance his loans. He kept 2 Grand Central Tower and 540 Madison Avenue.

But the agreement left him a hand, however weak, in the game. Mr. Macklowe retained a 5 percent ownership stake in the site, and C.S. First Boston agreed to make its "reasonable best efforts" to assure that whoever built Madison Plaza would refer to Mr. Macklowe as a co-developer.

A second concession, however, would form the heart of the current dispute. Because Mr. Macklowe claimed he was already far along in negotiations to buy the five small parcels of land necessary to form the base of the building, as well as additional development rights from surrounding buildings that would allow additional height, C.S. First Boston agreed to make Mr. Macklowe its agent in putting together the package of properties for sale. Mr. Macklowe stood to make $9.5 million for completing the sales, or more if he brought them in under budget.

Mr. Macklowe quickly closed deals for three of the outstanding properties, turned them over to C.S. First Boston, and was paid an undisclosed amount.

At the same time, C.S. First Boston was nearing an agreement to sell the property, for a reported $150 million, to Toronto-based Brookfield Financial Properties. Brookfield offered the deal-closing ingredient that had eluded Mr. Macklowe: a major tenant, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

No Done Deal

There was one major snag, however. C.S. First Boston had offered Brookfield a 1.1-million-square-foot office building. C.S. First Boston only owned land and development rights sufficient to build an 880,000-square-foot building. And Mr. Macklowe had not yet turned over the outstanding parcels or development rights, without which the building would have to be shorter and irregularly shaped.

A December deadline to close the deal between Brookfield and C.S. First Boston passed. Angry letters went back and forth between Mr. Macklowe's lawyers and C.S. First Boston's lawyers.

"Your failure to satisfy the [agreement] in a timely manner ... has already delayed the pending transaction significantly, at great cost and expense to C.S.F.B.," the bank warned in a Jan. 14 letter to Mr. Macklowe. Mr. Macklowe's attorney shot back a letter denying he had missed any deadline, and threatening legal action if the bank tried to close the deals without him.

In late January, Credit Suisse First Boston asked a court-appointed arbitrator to declare it had "no further obligations" to Mr. Macklowe. Mr. Macklowe sued to keep the arbitration hearing from going forward. On April 11, a New York State Supreme Court judge ruled for Mr. Macklowe, on the technical grounds that the bank had not properly notified him of their complaints.

The ruling should only delay the hearing, but delay may be Mr. Macklowe's friend. In court documents, C. S. First Boston accuses Mr. Macklowe of desiring to keep "its development plans in limbo for an unlimited period of time," while demanding "payment, extensions of time, and other unwarranted concessions" from the bank. Some speculate he may want the bank to pay him to go away.

Even so, the deal seems likely to move on without him, sooner or later. Peter Rosenthal, a spokesman for Brookfield, said the developer is ready to finalize the deal. (Then again, Mr. Rosenthal said the same thing to the Daily News back in December.)

"The 900,0000-square-foot building works just fine for Brookfield and for the tenants they're negotiating with," Mr. Rosenthal said, adding that they expected to close "within 30 to 45 days."

By all indications, Mr. Macklowe isn't sitting still in the meantime. With money from other lenders, in the last year, he's completed and fully sold a new condominium development at 76th Street and Lexington Avenue. He's completed a major renovation of an office building at 400 Madison Avenue. And he's currently building a 300-unit apartment building at 26th Street and Avenue of the Americas in Chelsea.

He hasn't given up on building a signature office tower, either. One industry source said Mr. Macklowe has recently been scouring the city for another large commercial site.

The Son Rises

At the same time, he has been moving to change the public face of the Macklowe empire. Last year, he forced out Mr. Cole, who, as president of the company since the late 1980's, presided over Mr. Macklowe's return from the brink. By last September, however, Mr. Cole was gone, and Mr. Macklowe was refusing even to allow his former employee to move into an apartment he had purchased in one of his buildings, a lawsuit alleges. Mr. Cole's wife was pregnant with their first child at the time.

In a complaint filed last October, Mr. Cole claims that Mr. Macklowe fired him after a dispute over ownership stakes he was promised in 10 properties, worth $13.8 million. Mr. Macklowe, the complaint alleges, also failed to repay the $4.7 million Mr. Cole loaned the company "when Mr. Macklowe's business was cash-starved, which was often." (Mr. Macklowe has asked a judge to dismiss the case, saying that his agreements with Mr. Cole were not legally binding.)

Since Mr. Cole's departure, Mr. Macklowe has promoted his son, Billy, to executive vice president of the company, and moved him into Mr. Cole's old office. As he spends more and more time away from the company-Mr. Macklowe is building a multimillion-dollar yacht in the Netherlands, associates said-the younger Mr. Macklowe is already taking a stronger hand in running the company.

Like many second-generation developers, Billy Macklowe is smoother around the edges than his father, those who know him say, and is eager to improve the company's public image. The younger Mr. Macklowe shows an ease in the public eye. It would be hard to imagine Harry Macklowe slicing and dicing on the Food Network's cooking game show Taste Test , as Billy Macklowe, an accomplished chef, did a few years ago.

But those who know him have trouble seeing Harry Macklowe settling into a sea-going retirement. He just loves the bricks and mortar too much.

"His son is more active, sure," said Mr. Stern. "But, you know, Harry's still Harry."