No word on whether the Times globe comes with the apartment.

The newspaper industry may be in secular decline, but at least the Sulzbergers' bank accounts will be buoyed in the coming months: the late Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger, Sr.'s palatial pad just sold for a cool $12.5 million, according to city records.

The eighth-floor corner unit at 1010 Fifth Avenue, a 15-story limestone prewar, has three bedrooms, including the master, which overlook the Metropolitan Museum of Art, plus another overlooking East 82nd Street. And it also has no shortage of storage space: we count 18 closets, including a few walk-ins (the Times may need to find a new place to keep its archives).

Sheila Ellis at Sotheby's was tight-lipped about her listing when we called, which she shared with Patricia Wheatley, though the duo wasn't shy about touting its bold-faced bonafides in the listing, which described the co-op as "the home of one of the world's most prestigious and well known families."

Now it's the home of Alessandro Saracino and wife Maria de la Fe. Mr. Saracino works at is a partner at Pavia & Harcourt LLP, toiling in the firm's litigation and arbitration practice group, which specializes in intellectual property. And it must pay well, because 1010 Fifth only allows 40 percent of a unit's purchase price to be financed—the rest has to be paid in cold, hard cash.

That said, Mr. and Ms. Saracino did get a bit of a deal on the co-op: it was listed for $14 million at the beginning of December, and the Sulzberger heirs were apparently quite eager to sell, even at a discount, because the listing entered contract less than two weeks after it was put on the market.

Perhaps the younger Sulzbergers just wanted to put Manhattan behind them. Judith Sulzberger's sons sold their San Remo pad in 2011; Sam Dolnick, Punch's grand-nephew, bought a $1.9 million townhouse in Carroll Gardens in 2012, and Arthur G. Sulzberger III bought a more restrained $610,000 one-bedroom in Cobble Hill in the same year.

Sounds like somebody's been reading the Times' trend pieces.

Junior, though, has stayed true to his blue-blooded uptown heritage: the New York Times publisher owns a $3.9 million penthouse on the Upper West Side.

They're not exactly giving it away at $15 million either. (NYT)

It turns out that the townhouse at 12 East 82nd Street did not, in fact, sell for anything close to its $19 million asking price. An in-progress gut renovation and a missing rear wall proved daunting, even in this giddy trophy market.

When The Observer first learned that the five-story brick federal townhouse was in contract early this January, we were taken aback. We have, after all, seen a lot of bold asking prices and Janna Bullock, the Russian developer selling the place, is famously fearless when it comes to defending her real estate investments and her honor. But $19 million beggared belief. Assuming that the would-be owners had likely knocked the price down, we called Sotheby's broker Nikki Field, who has the listing with colleague Patricia Wheatley.

Ms. Field told us that the townhouse was not only in contract, but in contract for close to the $19 million asking price. The Observer felt like we'd been hit with a ton of bricks—a whole rear wall of them, in fact. Ms. Field attributed the handsome contract, and the decision to raise the price $4 million in December—from $15 million to $19 million—to overwhelming interest in the property.

Now, the sale has closed for a thoroughly underwhelming $15 million, city records show. Ms. Field has not yet returned The Observer's request for comment on the discrepancy (perhaps we just have very different understandings of "close"?)

Ms. Bullock paid $14 million for the house back in 2006, buying it from plastic surgery addict Jocelyne Wildenstein. The house was already in the midst of a renovation at that point, Ms. Wildenstein having decided that the house "needed a little work" and Ms. Bullock gamely continued the job, knocking out walls both interior and exterior before listing the place for $15 million this November. All things considered, the closing price isn't stunning, but Ms. Bullock did get her first asking price and the house spent very little time on the market.

Maybe the buyer, 1282 Street LLC, discovered the missing back wall and demanded a discount?

The buyer's LLC is registered to an apartment on the 17th floor of 151 East 85th Street owned by Leslie Lewis Sword. The buyer could well be someone else, however, given that deeds and residencies don't always match up. And why not leave the new owner at least a modicum of privacy given that he or she will be entirely exposed for at least as long as it takes to construct a new rear wall?

kvelsey@observer.com

The front of 12 East 82nd looks pretty good.

You know that the luxury real estate market has reached a fever pitch when gutted townhouses with only three walls start selling for $19 million. True, it is the back wall that's missing from 12 East 82nd Street, but backless townhouses don't have the same allure as backless gowns.

The five-story brick federal townhouse is in contract for close to the $19 million ask, confirmed Sotheby's broker Nikki Field, who has the listing with colleague Patricia Wheatley.

Russian developer Janna Bullock, the owner of the townhouse and its next-door neighbor, is not known for her timidity—last year she mounted an art exhibit at 14 East 82nd to strike back at all the nasty rumors that have been circulating about her in the Russian press. But it takes a certain kind of chutzpah to ask mint-condition prices for an empty shell. (A chutzpah, we might add, that has been amply rewarded.)

But the back is a mess. (NYT)

The would-be buyer is apparently unconcerned with the townhouse's deshabille. And he or she is not the only one. Ms. Field said that they decided to raise the price $4 million in December because of overwhelming interest in the property.

"There's very little inventory," said Ms. Field. Another broker noted that the location was excellent, even if the townhouse is not. And the townhouse is landmarked, so it's most definitely not a teardown.

Ms. Bullock purchased the house from plastic surgery addict Jocelyne Wildenstein, a.k.a. "the Cat Woman," for $14 million in 2006. Ms. Wildenstein had started a massive renovation of the house before she decided to sell, filing an application to install a hydrotherapy pool on the first floor. A broker who had seen the house when former owner Fred Levinson lived there said that it was a perfectly normal townhouse when it was sold to Ms. Wildenstein.

Ms. Bullock was clearly not thrilled with what the Cat Woman had done with the place after sinking her claws into it. But Ms. Bullock, a well-known townhouse flipper, lost her appetite for the renovation and listed the house for $15 million this November.

Besides the beautiful blue tarp shown in the photo above, the buyer will get a 21-foot by 86-foot structure on a 102-foot deep lot, as well as a façade of marble and limestone. The listing doesn't pull any punches: "TO BE BUILT OUT AND IS BEING SOLD IN 'AS IS' CONDITION," it cautioned potential buyers.

The pending sale will come as welcome news to the neighbors, who complained about the eyesore to the Times last spring.

“The rain goes right through it,” neighbor Johanna Van Straaten told the Times. “I put up flowers in my window so I wouldn’t have to look at the building.”

kvelsey@observer.com

Hopefully it works, as the listing has bounced from Stribling, where it was listed for $11.5 million in the fall of 2007, to Brown Harris Stevens the following year, with an audacious tag of $15 million, before arriving at Warburg around the time our article appeared, when the ask was set at $10.95 million. For what it's worth, Dana wrote that nobody is exactly sure the building's ever broken the $10 million mark, so if this one pulls it off, bravo.

 -- What's it like working the ESPYS, ESPN's annual awards show? The Desk has no idea, but now we know it pays well enough to buy your own million-dollar two-bedroom in the East Village. Maura Mandt, who has produced the show -- among other things -- eight times since 1998, just bought a co-op at 50 East 10th Street. The final price was $1.15 million, down from $1.25 million but also more than the $999,000 the unit was asking back in March. That sale entered contract but never closed, and the apartment was relisted in June. The seller was Joan Bardach, a clinical psychologist.