It is also home to one of the city’s longest-running construction projects, the Second Avenue Subway, which has disrupted residents, merchants and traffic farther to the east for the last seven years. But the end is in sight. The project is slated for completion in 2016. And the removal of those barricades and final silence of the jackhammers will just be harbingers of the renaissance of a transportation corridor, and the neighborhood surrounding it. The advice of many a real estate professional: Buy soon if you can, rather than kick yourself later with 20-20 hindsight when the subway is done.

In recent years, the Upper East Side has, according to some experts, lost some of its luster as the magnet for the young, the hip and the cool arriving in New York to make their mark. But with its great schools, parks and amenities, it remains a draw for families, and others looking for a good value in a city that, even through a severe downturn, remains strong, vibrant and safe, and where owning even a tiny piece of the pie is an investment that seldom goes sour.

Robert Schulman, associate broker and executive managing director at Warburg Realty, says that now is a great time to buy on the Upper East Side, because the neighborhood is where you can get the best value. “In the past few years, it wasn’t appreciating as fast as other neighborhoods, so you get the most for your money,” he says. At the same time, he cautions that the opportunity to get great value won’t last long. “Prices on condos, co-ops and townhouses are steadily increasing.”

Even in this past winter, the season when the market typically slows, Jacky Teplitzky, managing director, Douglas Elliman, and leader of the Jacky Teplitzky team, says open houses have attracted steady traffic, and sales have been strong. She only expects those numbers to improve with spring.  “In relative terms, there is more to choose from in terms of housing as there is more inventory, unlike most of Manhattan,” she says, explaining why the Upper East Side will always be popular. “The options are diverse and there is a range of price points.”

Today’s buyer wants everything in mint condition. “They don’t want to do any remodeling,” Ms. Teplitzky says. “The ideal properties are move-in-ready. Buyers are specific in what they want regarding amenities as well, such as a doorman building, gym, storage and bike room. Buyers also want views and plenty of natural light.”

And they want condos. While 75 percent of the housing on the Upper East Side is co-op, luxury condo developments are what are really on the rise, so to speak, and large apartments in these brand new structures are selling out at the highest numbers. Among those buildings and developments are: The Skyline Development at 200 East 79th Street, The Lucida at 151 East 85th Street, The Brompton at 205 East 85th Street, the Georgica at 305 East 85th Street, 135 East 79th Street, and The Chatham, new luxury townhomes on East 65th Street, and The Helmsley Carlton House at 21 East 61st Street, formerly a hotel, now a condo building offering the luxury amenities of a hotel.

“In the case of The Lucida, The Brompton, Georgica, and 170 East End Avenue, we see that luxury condominium offerings are moving north and east,” say Adrienne Albert and Jacqueline Urgo of The Marketing Directors, a development advisory and master property marketing and sales force that works on behalf of owners and builders of new homes. “Expanded retail offerings and higher demand from a greater number of market segments means that the coming years will be good ones for residential real estate on the Upper East Side.”

Among the developments moving north and east, the Azure at 333 East 91st Street is a sort of hybrid co-op/condo (it’s legally a co-op but has condo rules). With its far east address, on First and 91st, the building might be seen as off the beaten track, but that is not what its co-developers, The DeMatteis Organizations and The Mattone Group, are finding. For one thing, several private schools in the area, Spence, Sacred Heart and Trevor Day, are all building athletic facilities nearby, which will further enhance the neighborhood. And the building is already 75 percent sold, with two-, three- and four-bedroom units on the 21st through 34th floors remaining. The developers built the building so that two two-bedroom apartments can be combined for larger family apartments, and the developer offers to do the combining itself, saving potential buyers many contracting headaches. The building also offers some 6,000 square feet of amenities, including a large dining room with catering facilities that residents can reserve and use for entertaining.

“The area is very popular among families because the neighborhood has the best public and private schools in the city,” says Douglas MacLaury of the Mattone Group, “and because it is near both Carl Schurz and Central Park.” The development even included the building of a public school, M.S. 114, a middle school with 530 seats, and a totally separate entrance, under a program which helps the city to get new and needed schools, and developers to get certain tax breaks.

The completion of the Second Avenue Subway will benefit those who buy into the Azure, and many others. “We predict that by the time the construction is complete, the face of Second Avenue retail will have changed completely, making way for high-end stores, markets and restaurants,” say Albert and Urgo of The Marketing Directors. “This will cause property values on Second Avenue and the nearby streets on the Upper East Side to rise. Plus, the new subway line will create easier access from the Upper East Side to other neighborhoods in the city, making it a great place to live.”

What's wrong with 823 Park?

Back in 2007 and 2008, buying at 823 Park Avenue seemed like the gold-standard of real estate investments. The newly-converted luxury condo on Park Avenue was a rare commodity in one of the city's most rarefied neighborhoods. How could an investment in one of its sprawling floor-throughs go wrong?

But in the years since, resales at the building have  failed to fetch more than the first wave of owners paid.

Maybe it's just not a $15 million kind of building.

Of course, buying at heady prices (more than $4,000 a square foot) right before a global recession isn't conducive to making good on one's investment. But now the trophy market is back, and sellers are still losing money.

Take the recent sale of a full-floor residence that belonged to Joseph Oughourlian and Jennifer A. Banks. The couple paid $13.82 million for the five-bedroom, 4.5-bath sponsor unit in January 2008. Earlier this month, they sold it at a considerable loss—for $12.9 million—to private equity honcho Thomas Uger, according to city records.

Considering the other places that Mr. Oughourlian might have parked his money before the recession (for example, with Madoff), a $1 million loss isn't the worst possible fate. But the couple had clearly hoped to do better when they listed the unit for $15 million with Corcoran's Charlie Attias in August.

What's more, Mr. Oughourlian's apartment isn't the only one at 823 Park that has given a less stellar performance the second time around.

There's also the 10th-floor apartment, which was purchased for $13.8 million back in 2008 and sold for a mere $13 million this fall. And the duplex that spans the second and first floors, purchased for $20 million by UBS exec Ramesh Singh in 2008. It's currently off-the-market, but was asking only $15 million last fall.

Like their neighbors, the Oughourlian Banks probably just miscalculated the market for lavish, 4,184-square-foot apartments with coffered ceilings, carved fireplaces, herringbone oak floors and mahogany-paneled libraries.

"That was the price we could get," Mr. Attias said when The Observer reached him on the phone.

Why such a low price?

He hesitated, then admitted that it might have something to do with the fact that the unit first sold before the recession."

It was, he added, a beautiful pre-war buliding, and beautiful pre-war buildings, particularly condo conversions, usually sell marvelously.

Just maybe not as marvelously as they did before the recession, when sinking a fat sum into a condo carried with it not only the promise of a place to live, but a potential jackpot.

kvelsey@observer.com

Pre-tree-lighting ceremony outside Brick Presbyterian Church, 62 East 92nd Street, 6:30pm, free and open to the public, donations may be made at fundforparkavenue.org.

Park Avenue promenade.

“Nobody on Park Avenue walks,” Michael Shvo said last month, standing near the back of the Drill Hall inside the Park Avenue Armory.

The Fund for Park Avenue was hosting a private cocktail reception to honor donors to its annual holiday tree-lighting drive, a signature project that dates back to 1949.

Mr. Shvo, the 40-year-old retired real estate glitz guru, was among the few dozen guests at the reception. Wearing a white dress shirt with black top-stitching unbuttoned past his clavicle, he was talking about a recent art transaction with a fellow developer when The Observer interrupted them to ask about the future of Park Avenue. Maybe there was room on it for a pedestrian pathway down the middle, so we could all enjoy the malls?

“I stopped walking a decade ago,” said Mr. Shvo nonchalantly, a statement of success rather than disability.

Nearby was Irwin Cohen, the man who turned the old Nabisco factory into the Chelsea Market. With the High Line nearby, he had seen the transformative power of an impressive infrastructure project firsthand—so how might he feel about reclaiming the Park Avenue median as an actual park?

“That’s ludicrous,” his wife Jill Cohen said. “What if you’re coming here? Where would your driver stand the car?”

“I don’t know that Park Avenue needs it,” a friend piped up. “The sidewalks are plenty wide already.”

“As long as they don’t make it bike lanes,” Mr. Cohen said.

Concerns over parking spaces and bikes aside, a clever group of planners and activists would like to transform the street into a world-class gathering place rather than a mere thoroughfare. In the middle of October, barely a week before the city was swept away by Sandy, two different designers on two different panels at the Municipal Art Society’s third annual MAS Summit hit upon the same radical idea: to build a pedestrian promenade down the middle of Park Avenue.

In various ways, the architects proposed to widen the lush mall running along the middle of the road, allowing for a path that could be home to benches, sculptures, even—gasp—food stands. It would be New York’s newest public space, and not one without precedent; the Bloomberg administration has reclaimed the streetscape to create plaza, piazzas and pocket parks everywhere from Times Square to Jackson Heights.

Just imagine ... It could be the Upper East Side’s very own High Line, a recreational and cultural destination to rival any in the city or the world, a place to relax, stroll, maybe buy a coffee or a Shake Shack burger from a kiosk. It could be the capstone of Mayor Bloomberg’s unorthodox reappropriation of the city’s streets, one that would take place right in the mayor’s backyard—a fact that, ironically may be the very reason this daring idea may ultimately die without ever being realized.
Both proposals, it turns out, started with the same inspiration: a somewhat well-known (at least within wonky planning circles) black-and-white photograph of gentlemen and ladies in repose in the very middle of the Park Avenue Mall. The photo was taken in the 1920s, a decade into Park Avenue’s life.

Park Avenue may seem like the last redoubt of grand old New York, but the street is younger than most. Built a century ago as a deck over the New York Central rail yards that once ran through Manhattan’s heart, Park Avenue, for a brief time, was an idyllic spot. A park ran down the middle, dotted with benches, trees and a pathway for the common man to enjoy.

So it would remain until the end of the decade, when cars began to dominate the city’s streets. Park Avenue was widened from two lanes to three, and what was left was a glorified, and at times grotty, median. “When we took over, it was basically a dog run,” said Ronald Spencer, an attorney and chair of the Fund for Park Avenue, which has been maintaining the strip since the 1970s. “People would take dogs there to do their business. It was just filthy with trash and debris, the grass run down to dirt.”
The fact that people used the median at all underscores a natural tendency to gravitate there, possibly because the green-space-starved Upper East Side consistently ranks near the bottom of the city’s precincts in park acreage per capita. Even with Central Park nearby.

Vishaan Chakrabarti, director of Columbia’s Center for Urban Real Estate and a principal at SHoP architects, believes a pathway could actually solve another of Park Avenue’s problems: traffic.
Currently, one of the biggest bottlenecks on Park Avenue comes from drivers making left-hand turns, according to Mr. Chakrabarti. He would engineer a smoother flow of traffic, carving at a left-hand turning bay by extending the medians to take up half, but not all of the middle traffic lane. He would then take this extra space, push the vegetation to the sides, and run pathways and mini plazas down the middle. “I think you could have a really great public space, and you could also improve traffic flow,” Mr. Chakrabarti said.

The trees and tulips so tenderly cared for by Mr. Spencer and his fellow funders would remain intact, and now people would be able to enjoy them up close, while the foliage would provide a subtle barrier from the cars whizzing by.

And the same would go for the sculpture, the Fund for Park Avenue’s other big project. Not only would there be more room for art, but people could actually interact with it. It could even be argued that this is an act of historic preservation, of returning Park Avenue to its original state. And everybody knows how much uptown loves historic preservation.

Currently, Mr. Chakrabarti’s proposal only calls for building the project from 46th Street to 59th Street, as a component of the city’s proposed Midtown East rezoning.

“I think people will fall in love with it and there will be a good chance it will get extended further north, but you have to take it slowly,” Mr. Chakrabarti said. “You know, the High Line was built in phases, and this isn’t dissimilar to the High Line. There will be people who say it could be a great new experience for New York. I think it could be sensational for public art, for tulips and all the other things that Park Avenue is known for.”

Mr. Chakrabarti believes the plan, or something like it, is an imperative for Midtown and the Upper East Side to remain attractive. He points to Google’s then-surprising decision to buy 111 Eighth Avenue two years ago for $1.8 billion in Chelsea, of all places. Looking at the attractive amenities, like the High Line, it starts to make sense. But a Park Avenue promenade wouldn’t need to be High Line fancy, he said, pointing to Columbus Circle as a modest yet inviting space.

Even more ambitious was the proposal for Park Avenue from SOM (though it gained far less attention than the other suggestion made by the firm at the MAS Summit—for a floating disc of a public plaza hovering over Grand Central Terminal). Created by SOM principal Roger Duffy, the firm’s plan would pedestrianize the entire length of Park Avenue, running from Union Square all the way to 125th Street.
Like Mr. Chakrabarti, Mr. Duffy sees this as a public priority. “When’s the last time we made a great civic gesture in northern Manhattan?” Mr. Duffy said, giving Ground Zero and the High Line their due. “The real issue here is the priority of money. The same money exists, there’s just less desire to use it for these things. It’s somehow a question of social priorities.”

Local Councilman Dan Garodnick believes that a revamped Park Avenue mall bears a look, albeit a cautious one. “It’s a novel idea, especially given how starved we are for open public space in the area, but it would need considerable study—particularly on traffic impacts—before it could be seriously evaluated,” he wrote in a brief email.

And perhaps the Bloomberg administration could be persuaded. “It’s consistent with what they’ve done in the past,” said Mr. Duffy, “but it also is perhaps better because it’s a feature that could be restored.” Play it as historic preservation, and the old dogs of the Upper East Side might just be won over.

It appears other city officials could be as well. At a transit conference last month, The Observer asked firebrand Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan if she might support the plan. “It’s certainly an interesting idea,” she said. “We’d have to study it, of course, and consult with the community, but it is intriguing.”

The community, the very one the promenade ostensibly benefits, may well be the biggest challenge to its survival. Mayor Michael Bloomberg may call the Upper East Side home, but in the 11 years he has been in office, remaking whole swathes of the city, few places have changed less. Sure, everything costs more, but the Greek diners, the galleries, the socialites are pretty much the same. There are few stunning new condo towers, cultural institutions or pocket parks that have been created on the mayor’s watch. There are no bike lanes. Every corner of the city has been reshaped, from Chelsea and the Village to Williamsburg and the Rockaways, Flushing and the South Bronx. Just not the mayor’s backyard.

The administration has been good enough to give the pathway over to bikers and walkers three times a year, for the summer streets program that shuts down Lafayette Street and Park Avenue from the Brooklyn Bridge to 72nd Street, so it can be done. But then again, who on Park Avenue is home on a Saturday in August anyway?

The rest of the year seems doubtful.

Of all the people The Observer spoke with at the fund’s cocktail hour, only Jean Shafiroff, one of the queens of the social circuit, thought plans for a pedestrianized Park Avenue were a good idea. “The city changes, and that is for the best,” she remarked. “There must be something for everyone.”

But for all the clinging to Gilded Age grandeur that goes on on the Upper East Side, all the Sturm und Drang about historic preservation, few want anything to do with restoring Park Avenue to its former pedestrian glory. As one woman, wearing a large pearl brooch and standing just behind Ms. Shafiroff, declared when she overheard the plans, “It’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. Soon they’ll be camping out,” she said, “like at Zucotti Park.”

The billionaire's building.

The opening shots of Park Avenue: Money, Power and The American Dream show the famed avenue in all its moneyed glory: idling Mercedes, impeccably coiffed society women and stern limestone facades with white-gloved doormen stationed outside like sentries. It is a vision so lofty that it is almost otherworldly—can the vast majority of Americans even conjure this up as the apex of the American dream, let alone attain it?

It’s a question that director Alex Gibney revisits repeatedly in his documentary about the growing gulf between the rich and poor and how that gulf has been widened by the political manipulations of the country's wealthiest citizens.

The press release about the film, bashed by The Observer in a previous post, was indeed misleading, but only in what it represented the film to be about: the two Park Avenues. This is not a story about the low or lowly classes. Nor is it really a story about 740 Park, the Upper East Side, the South Bronx or even New York. Those things just happen to be convenient physical touchstones.

This is a story about the richest of the rich, as it were, the residents of 740 Park—a building that is home to more billionaires than any other building in New York—and how they have managed to claim a larger and larger share of the nation's wealth, or as Mr. Gibney puts it in his opening voice-over, how they have enjoyed "unprecedented prosperity from a system they increasingly control."

As Michael Gross, the author of 740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building, which Mr. Gibney bought the rights to, wrote us earlier this fall: "we're both more interested in the perps than the vics." (Mr. Gross also acted as an adviser on the film and is interviewed extensively alongside New Yorker scribe Jane Mayer, Yale professor Jacob Hacker and Bruce Bartlett, a historian and adviser to presidents Reagan and H.W. Bush, among others.)

Indeed, the documentary unfurls like a crime story, with a raft of damning evidence revealing the shameful acts committed by the masters of the universe in service of accumulating even vaster fortunes than they already have.

At least, it's a crime story as told by talking heads. This is not a human interest film—partially as a matter of necessity. None of the men at the film's center—the Koch brothers, Stephen Schwarzman, John Thain, Sen. Chuck Schumer or Paul Ryan consented to an interview. Their onscreen presence is limited to archived videos from dinners and conventions and voice-over explanations from experts. Nor did Mr. Gibney manage to get inside the famed building.

We do get a glimpse into the hallowed halls (or at least the lobby) of 740 Park thanks to a former doorman, who talks about witnessing an eerie shift in the children of the super-rich: as little kids they joke and share special high-fives with the staff, but between the ages of 12 and 15, they shut off completely, emulating their parents' cool reserve. Also, David Koch is incredibly cheap, giving the doormen who regularly loaded his Hamptons-bound cars with heavy bags a $50 check at the end of the year.

Alas, Mr. Gibney uses such anecdotes to buttress one of his flimsier arguments, backed by a study by UC Berkeley professor Paul Piff: that wealth destroys empathy. The question of why the super-rich behave the way they do, and why they feel the need to claim even greater quantities of wealth, is a complicated (and fascinating) question that demands more in-depth exploration. As such, it's one which the film should have either mentioned in passing or left alone. Certainly, wealth can and does breed entitlement, but as Mr. Gross says at one point, "some people are just dicks."

The film includes trips to food pantries in the South Bronx and Wisconsin, an interview with a young social worker speaking about how early opportunity or the lack thereof begins to shape a life and plenty of shots of embattled-looking impoverished Bronx residents, but this all feels like window dressing for the takedown at the heart of the film.

Mr. Gibney is clearly most interested in illustrating how the nation's wealthiest have rigged the game, not only claiming a disproportionate share of the nation's wealth via devices like the carried interest tax rate, but using that wealth to fund groups and candidates who have by and large succeeded in turning the dwindling middle class against the the less fortunate, unions and each other. The latter accomplishment is arguably the largest battle won by the one-percenters in the wake of the financial crisis. After all, the great recession began with anger at greedy financial titans and foolhardy hedge funders, but somehow shifted to rage at greedy teachers and foolhardy middle-class home buyers.

And while the outcome of the most recent election at least proves that money is a deciding factor, not the deciding factor in a presidential election, dulling Mr. Gibney's argument slightly, he makes a compelling case that inequality imperils democracy and that the victims of the inequality include not only those who find themselves in the rapidly expanding underclass, but the American dream itself.

kvelsey@observer.com

Turning Park Avenue into a park. (NYC DOT)

Zip line! (NYC DOT)

Brace yourself for traffic jams and honking horns, the event of the summer that infuriates New York City drivers the most is back with a vengeance. Summer Streets begin this Saturday and while bridge and tunnel commuters across the city are throwing up their hands in frustration, DOT commissioner Sadik-Kahn tells pedestrians, don’t forget to try the zip line!

August 4 is the first of three consecutive Saturdays this month when New Yorkers are encouraged to hang out in the nearly seven miles of car-free streets that will stretch from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park. In addition to programs held in previous years such as picnic areas, exercise and dance classes, bicycle and rollerblade rentals and a rock-climbing wall, this year summer streets will also feature a yoga pop-up park and a 160-foot zip line.

Some of the more bizarre events on the program highlight the urban backdrop. “Truck’s Eye View” encourages summer street attendees to get behind the wheel of a truck to see how truck drivers see the roadway as part of a safety initiative. And, in a venture that would only truly jive with a populace raised on 90’s hip hop and urban heat waves, a fire hydrant sprinkler will be available at 52^nd Street.

The programming this month will also include collaborations with the Urban Art Program to create four temporary installations. “Bench Press” will offer collapsible benches exploring public seating in major areas. “Bus Roots” will repurpose bus rooftops into mobile gardens. “Cyclo-phone” is an exhibit of two bike powered musical instruments that will be found at Astor Place. And lastly, “LOVE TV” will invite New Yorkers to share stories of New York City.

Overall, the summer streets program will highlight the recent initiatives put forth by the city, encouraging fitness and environmentalism. In what perhaps might be a reference to the notion of spending a portion of your Saturday at summer streets in the front seat of a truck, Commisioner Sadik-Kahn said in a press release he hopes that “New Yorkers can reach new heights of fun on the first three Saturdays in August.”

Beware the Park Avenue pillagers!

Who is out of place here?

The residents of Carnegie Hill are not particularly experienced in protest techniques—they are more likely to walk through throngs of the demonstrators than to walk among them. But a new Toll Brothers development on Park Avenue has inspired angry Upper East Siders to take up the picket.

In a vertical city like New York, simple signs on sticks do not do much good, so neighbors have resorted to a more high-flying technique for their "visual protest" this morning, unfurling homemade banners from one of their buildings that read "Save Our History."

"We're all rookies at this, not professional protesters," said Lucinda Ballard, who lives in 1112 Park Avenue, right next to the two pre-Civil War townhouses that the Philadelphia-based Toll Brothers is almost certainly planning to replace with a tower, but has thus far refused to confirm.

Plans for something are certainly moving forward, however, and applications for building permits to remove cornices, replace windows and do "partial demolition," have been filed with the city.

Park Avenue Neighbors claim that the work is "clearly a first step toward razing these two historic buildings. The clock is ticking and the wrecking ball looms."

Limited liability corporation 89 Park Avenue LLC purchased both 1110 Park Avenue and 1108 Park Avenue in March, paying a total of $29.5 million ($16.5 million for 1110 and $13 million for 1108). Between the two properties, air rights allow for a 40,000-square-foot potential project (the Toll Brothers tower is rumored to be 15 stories).

Residents, particularly those of 1112 Park Avenue—who stand to lose not only the historic buildings but also their views—have launched a campaign to landmark the buildings, gathering hundreds of signatures on a petition to save the buildings and requesting an emergency meeting with Landmarks Preservation Commission chair Robert Tierney.

Wedged between two much-larger buildings and located outside the Carnegie Hill Historic District, the townhouses seem like obvious marks for development, but Ms. Ballard said that in the past, the owner of 1108 had assured them that he would never sell the property to a developer.

"This is not about disgruntled people losing their views. That is really not the issue," Ms. Ballard said. "These houses were built in 1856, when everything around them was cornfields, they are the oldest residential homes on Park Avenue north of 63rd Street. It is wrong to tear them down without a debate."

Although a request for Landmarks Preservation to extend the Carnegie Hill historic district from 86th to 96th Streets was filed two years ago, the request has not been calendared and residents are looking toward landmarking just the two townhouses to stop the construction work from damaging the buildings and weakening the case for preservation. They hold up the preservation of a historic horse stable in Greenwich Village as an example of what they hope to achieve.

"They're not architectural masterpieces, they were the houses of working class people and they tell a different story about Park Avenue," Ms. Ballard said.

For its part, Landmarks has not been particularly encouraging. "While it may be eligible for historic district status, the proposed district is not a priority at this time," spokeswoman Elizabeth de Bourbon wrote to The Observer. And views were not among the factors that the Commission considered, she told the The Wall Street Journal. "It is our job to protect the historic character and integrity of a neighborhood."

But if such traditional techniques fail, the group is not against adopting some very unPark Avenue-like tactics.

"This is the first time I've really been involved with anything like this," said resident William Simmons, sounding both surprised and excited to find himself in the role of protester. He admitted that he was a little disheartened by how small the banners appeared from the street, but not dissuaded from trying new and unorthodox methods.

"We're trying to figure out how to get our concerns in the public eye," Mr. Simmons said. "Do we take placards and go out and march? Maybe."

kvelsey@observer.com

The light-filled three-bedroom, which belonged to philanthropist Gladys "Patsy" Pulitzer Preston, granddaughter of famous newspaper publisher Joseph, has been sold to Edward Shugrue III and his wife Greta. (Preston died this past October).

Preston may not have  writer, but even without a byline, her name appeared in print with some regularity over the years. Not only was she featured as one of the "World's Loveliest Sportswomen" in a 1952 edition of Sports Illustrated after catching a 1,230-pound Black Marlin while fishing off the coast of Peru, but a few years later she married Lewis Preston, who would go on to lead both J.P. Morgan Chase and the World Bank.

The Shugrues do not appear to have any noble journalistic lineage (Edward is the CEO of a company that manages commercial real estate assets), but it's just as well. For most journalists, the $5.8 million property was as unattainable as one of the coveted prizes handed out every year by Columbia.

The couple paid full asking price for the co-op, which was listed with Brown Harris Stevens brokers Ann Jeffrey and Daniel Kessler. Maybe they were won over by the circular gallery in the center of the apartment, "a welcoming dining library," as the listing puts it, or the living room with a wood-burning fireplace and pale blue wallpaper painted with branches and birds?

There's also a large, light-filled master bedroom with a separate dressing room and abundant closet space, according to the listing. Perhaps that's where Preston stashed her fishing trophies, which from what we can tell, were not displayed in the home.

kvelsey@observer.com

Zygi Wilf

Although the Vikings may be the consummate heartbreak team, their owner, Zygi Wilf seem to be doing just fine for himself.  The real estate developer and his wife, Audrey, have just purchased a New York apartment, paying no less than $19 million for the place.

The Wilfs new four-bedroom, 4.5-bath spread comes just as the winter months are settling in over the Midwest. If their place feels a bit drafty, however, they have a working fireplace to warm it up. The Wilfs have ascended to their own private Valhalla, a full-floor co-op on the penultimate floor of 778 Park, where the terraces are as expansive as Asgard. Mr. Wilf knows a thing or two about apartments already, having built thousands of them in 39 states through his Garden Homes company.

According to a listing from Warburg broker Robert Schulman, "The master bedroom and marble master bath provide a quiet Zen-like retreat," perfect for meditating over that disastrous mid-season trade of Randy Moss last year. With three guest bedrooms, the Wilfs can surely have Adrian Peterson stay with them during his convalescence! Featuring park views and 12-foot ceilings the home is the opposite of Brett Favre—which is to say far from an overpriced  disappointment.

The home was originally listed for $24.5 million in 2009 by Irving and Judith  Shafran, who recently bought an apartment from the Sulzberger family on Central Park West for $10.25 million. The building, the redbrick sibling to storied 740 Park, was home to such titans as Brooke Astor and William F. Buckley.

Take a tour of Zygi Wilf’s $19M palatial pad [PICTURES]>>>

eknutsen@observer.com