Hill, West and Goldstein, the architects you never knew you knew. (Peter Letre)

The sun was setting over New York harbor, and behind it, the coast of New Jersey. From the 17th floor of 11 Broadway, through the not-floor-to-ceiling, turn-of-the-last-century office windows, the Statue of Liberty was plainly visible. She appeared to be waving through the late-summer haze. Milling about and sipping champagne were some of the city’s biggest developers and their employees, names emblazoned upon apartment towers from this end of Manhattan to the other and beyond.

Silverstein, Ratner, Extell, Elad, Milstein, Glenwood, Trump. All the big firms were there, along with many other machers and dealmakers. It could have been a convention of The No Nonsense Apartment Builders Association of the Greater Five Boroughs. Instead it was the third anniversary party for Goldstein, Hill & West and the unveiling of their new downtown offices.

The foyer is painted a slick graphite gray, with a globular chandelier overhead, but beyond that, the designer pretense fades away. There are no amoebic benches, no plywood bookcases, no 3D printer for producing models of unusually torqued and cantilevered buildings. Little hangs on the walls besides drafting templates and zoning handbooks. It is this simplicity of design, aesthetic and attitude that draws the city’s biggest developers to the firm.

“I like them, they’re good guys, they’re rational, they understand the business” Extell founder Gary Barnett told The Observer recently. “They know how to get a project done, the know it has to make sense. You can’t just build any crazy old thing.”

Slideshow: The Works of Goldstein, Hill & West >>

It typically takes decades for an architect to reach any level of success, let alone work with the biggest names in New York City real estate. So how has an upstart firm managed to storm the city in just three years?

The designers have been doing it for decades, actually, albeit in the shadow of another architect who received the most of credit while Alan Goldstein, Stephen Hill and David West did the work. Before New York knew Richard Meier and Jean Nouvel, Frank Gehry and Christian de Portzemparc, Neil DeNari and Bjark Ingels, Herzog & de Meuron, the condo king was Costas Kondylis.

Born in Greece and trained in Switzerland, Mr. Kondylis came to New York four decades ago, and in that span of time he developed the pre-eminent residential architecture firm in the city. His most famous client is Donald Trump, for whom he designed one of his most recognizable buildings, the black obelisk looming over the U.N. known as Trump World Tower. For more than a decade it was the city’s tallest apartment building, and one of its most sought-after. Derek Jeter was among those calling it home. But The Trump World Tower, designed with Mr, Hill, is just one of the more than 70 projects Costas Kondylis & Partners created in New York in 21 years.

Map:The World of Goldstein, Hill & West >>

Nearly half of those are now Goldstein, Hill & West’s, or at least the partners lay claim to them, since they did the work while Mr. Kondylis was, they say, gallivanting around the globe. When his three partners decided to dissolve the old firm and start their own, it fell to them, not Mr. Kondylis, to finish the buildings, along with another 40 or so new projects they had since accumulated.
Not since McKim, Mead & White were at the height of their prewar powers have three architects played such a remarkable role in reshaping the city’s architectural landscape. The only thing more remarkable is how unremarkable many of these buildings are.

“We work with very conservative clients sometimes,” Stephen Hill said during a recent interview in a bright conference room inside the firm’s offices. “They want a building that works, a building they know they can sell. Those designer buildings are good for some people, but not everyone. We create buildings for everyone.”

“It’s not all about style,” David West concurred, “and I think there’s been a lot of that lately. It’s a trap. This shouldn’t all be about the ego of the creator.”

In a field with no shortage of egotism—call it the edifice complex—these three architects may be the least vainglorious guys in the business. They could even be called subservient, though proudly so, eagerly doing the work developers demand of them, rather than making demands of their clients. This is not haute couture but a custom-made suit from a reasonable tailor in some second-story Madison Avenue hole-in-the-wall. The buyer gets exactly what they want, no muss, no fuss, no commotion. It looks good, but it won’t turn any heads.

Indeed, you probably walk by at least one of Goldstein Hill & West’s buildings a week without even realizing it. Maybe a dozen, if you live uptown.

When the partners decided to split off from their mentor three years ago, there was some serious anxiety about whether they could keep the business afloat. For years, Mr. Kondylis had been chasing outsize projects, with limited return, in places like Shanghai and Dubai. “He had a real desire to make himself internationally famous,” Mr. Hill said. “It wasn’t sustainable. It became apparent the firm wasn’t going to survive.” (Mr. Kondylis did not return requests for comment.)

The partners bridled at the fact that their ongoing work in New York was essentially subsidizing a jet-setting lifestyle for the man whose name was on the front door. When Lehman Brothers collapsed, the real estate industry went into free-fall. No sector was harder hit than architecture, which lost more jobs in the U.S. than any other in 2009, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. All in all, it was not a great time to start an architecture firm.

“We knew a percentage of our clients would stick with us and give us new work,” Mr. Hill said. “When word got around, 100 percent of our clients are with us.” On a summer day three years ago, the three partners informed Mr. Kondylis of their decision to leave. When the separation was completed in August, they packed up and moved into a space a few floors down in the same building, at an engineering firm they had worked with previously.

“We came into work on Monday almost as though nothing had changed,” Mr. Goldstein said.

In many ways, it hasn’t.

Arrayed behind the three partners in the conference room were two dozen poster boards printed with the firm’s latest projects, a fantasy skyline of glass, steel and brick that was taking shape quickly on the streets outside. That they have so much work while the real estate industry has barely recovered is astounding, but when you are the most amicable—and affordable—firm in town, the surprise begins to fade. It is the speed, the intelligence and the reliability that the city’s biggest builders have long relied on these three men for.

“They try to sense your needs,” Larry Silverstein said. “They are very cooperative, they are very helpful, and their participation is full.” Translation: they are not obstinate or ostentatious, like the starchitects who have come to dominate the city over the past decade, if less in actuality than in perception and press clips. (Mr. Meier, a New Yorker, has three buildings. Mr. Gehry and Mr. Nouvel each have two. Messrs. Herzog & de Meuron have one.) Even Mr. Silverstein has fallen under the spell, hiring Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Fumihiko Maki, all Pritzker Prize winners, to design his three World Trade Center office buildings along Greenwich Street.

Mr. Silverstein’s work is typical of what many developers have turned to these three architects for over the decades. He hired Mr. West back in his Kondylis & Partners days to design Riverwalk, a pair of 40-story brick rental towers on 42nd Street and 12th Avenue that opened in 1999. In an out of the way location, but with impressive views of the river and the West Side all the same, Mr. Goldstein came up with two stout crescents, offset just so to maximize visibility. Mr. Silverstein was ready to finish the project on the other half of the block when tragedy struck at what would become Ground Zero and he did not return the to the project until 2006.

In the meantime, glass was in while masonry, a mainstay in New York though little changed since the pyramids, was out. This was thanks in large part to Richard Meier’s sleek Perry Street lofts that opened in the Village in 2001. Mr. West was not enthralled with the style, but like all his partners, he was happy to oblige. “We are all susceptible to fashion,” he admitted. “Glass buildings may not be the most efficient or appropriate in New York, but we design what our clients want and what the market demands.”

The result is two 60-story towers, at once slender and gigantic, containing more than 2,000 apartments stretching across more than 1.2 million square feet. Mr. Silverstein was never going to rebuild the Twin Towers, so this is as close as New York will get.

Mr. Silverstein admits that with the few remaining parcels he controls in the area, he might turn to a flashier firm for his future projects, but he is also content to work with Goldstein Hill & West again. “They will shape it with you, and they will shape it for you, and they are very flexible,” he said. “With these guys, you always know what you’re gonna get, and you always get exactly what you want.”

In the world of New York City development, that can be an important thing. This is the most expensive city in the nation in which to build by a wide margin—many developers peg the price at twice what it would cost to build in Minneapolis, Tuscon, even Philly or Boston—because of land values and construction costs, be it materials or union contracts. The wonkier your building is, the more it is going to cost, and unless you think buyers will pay a considerable premium for some Pritzker poo, it is probably not worth it.

That is why from Riverside South to the Apthorp to the Plaza Hotel, up and down First, Second, Third avenues, Tribeca, both Villages, Brooklyn, even Jamaica, Queens, Goldstein Hill & West is there.

Many developers approach the firm even before they are ready to build or even buy a property. “David West is an architect, but he’s also probably the best zoning attorney in the city, one of the two or three best,” one developer who has called on the firm multiple times said. Mr. West analyzes every angle, every facet, every possible shape of a site in order to determine the biggest possible building that can rise on it. This can create a sense of gigantism, of bursting at the seams, but at 40 stories, in the home of the Empire State Building, who really notices?

“The truth is, many of these forms are not that flexible because there are so many constraints,” Mr. West said of building regulations and construction constraints—the more complex a building, the skilled the labor, the more it costs.

“Some architects have these randomized openings and windows, because it looks cool on the outside,” Mr. Goldstein pointed out. “You know what? You live inside the building.”

“Irrespective of style, there are certain things every building has to have,” Mr. Hill added. “Underneath it all, it's the same basic structure there, and that's what they rely on us for. Otherwise it's just a show piece.”

After Mr. West sets the parameters for the buildings, it falls to Messrs. Goldstein and Hill to design the skin and conceive of the interior layouts that encase Mr. West’s bounteous boxes. They are expert at arranging kitchens to make a galley feel like a chefs. A soffet here or a dropped living room there suddenly makes a home feel twice as big. "Even the right tread size for an emergency stair can make all the difference in a building, Mr. Goldstein said. “Five feet every fight, over the course of 40 stories, that can really add up."

"It’s like the recipe to McDonald’s special sauce," he added.

“It’s a special instinct,” Mr. Hill said. “We’ve been doing this long enough, we just know what works.”
The deferential approach may lead to plenty of commissions, but the awards, the press, the plaudits are less forthcoming. When The Observer mentioned the firm to one of the city’s mid-career hotshot designers, he responded, “Who?” We explained the Kondylis connection. “Oh, those guys. That stuff is just the worst.” In a word, boring.

But their clients do not see it that way. “Most architects, frankly, are assholes,” one developer said. “They couldn’t make your life more difficult. That is why we work with Goldstein Hill & West whenever we can.”

Even developers who have worked both sides of the field, like Mr. Silverstein or Izak Senbahar, president of Alexico Group, appreciate the Goldstein, Hill & West approach. Mr. Senbahar employed Richard Meier to build a third Perry Street-style tower at 165 Charles Street and hired French designer Jacque Grange for the Mark Hotel. But more often than not, he has worked with Mr. West on his residential buildings, including the Grand Beekman, the Elektra and the Laurel.

"They're a developer's architect, as we call them," Mr. Senbahar said. "They understand it's difficult to building in Manhattan, there are serious money concerns and they are very proactive." Mr. Senbahar even tapped the firm to help Herzog & de Meuron make their ambitious 57-story Tribeca tower work.

It is perhaps the perfect revenge for designers who have been ignored by the public that they are now playing savior to the starchitects, called in by developers to fix their long-suffering projects.

At 200 Chambers, Lord Norman Foster grew weary of pressure from the community board, so Mr. Hill was brought in to finish the condo for the Resnick family. Should Bruce Ratner decide to ditch modular construction at Atlantic Yards, SHoP will still design the façade, but the interiors will be Goldstein, Hill & West’s. That is already the case at Herzog & de Meuron’s 56 Leonard Street.

And in perhaps the firm’s greatest coup, the city’s biggest and grandest, apartment tower (for the moment), One57, is also a Goldstein, Hill & West production, according to two separate sources. French Pritzker Prize winner Christian de Portzamparc had been working on the building, but like so many other developers, Mr. Barnett turned the designs over to Mr. Hill to make them work.

When Kondylis & Partners dissolved, Mr. Barnett, and more specifically his bankers, were anxious about leaving Extell’s biggest project to date in the hands of an untested firm, no matter how experienced the partners. Mr. de Portzamparc was brought back on to reconceptualize the 1,005-foot tower, and he has gotten all the credit ever since. When asked about the switch, Mr. Hill said he still sees his design, its familiar bends and curves. “I feel like Christian put his skin over the building that we formed and shaped,” Mr. Hill said.

Mr. Barnett bristled at the assertion. “They were doing some work on it for a time, and we decided to go in a different direction,” he said. “Everything—the layouts, the plans—is different. That is an ugly thing for anybody to have said. It is untrue.”

Still, it would not be the first—or probably the last—time Goldstein, Hill & West is brought on to pinch hit. “These are very expensive projects; they have to work,” Mr. Goldstein said. “Star architects, it’s not for the style. It’s merely a name—it’s marketing.” Well, it works, as One57 just sold that $90 million apartment, and more may be on the way.

Still, New York is a big city, with millions of people, but only so many billionaires to house. “I think we’re starting to get away from that,” Mr. Goldstein said of the starchitect craze.

“A couple of the developers have told me,” Mr. Hill interjected, “if I just pronounced my name Stefan, maybe changed my last name to something French or added an ‘e’ onto the end, we would get all the work in the world.”

mchaban@observer.com

At least one and possibly all five towers at the massive Riverside Center development will not be the work of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Christian de Portzamparc. The French designer helped Extell Development and the Carlyle Group sell their swank plans' to the community and the City Planning Commission. The latter was so taken with the crystalline designs of Mr. de Portzamparc, who also designed the LVMH headquarters and Extell's One57 tower, that restrictive zoning covenants were set to ensure the buildings would look as promised.

But now, Extell and Carlyle have turned over one of their tower sites to the Dermot Company, which has hired local firm SLCE to design the apartment building on the West End Avenue section of the site. While Dermot insists its project will be up to the standards promised during last year's public review process, some, including the exacting City Planning chair Amanda Burden, worry the design doppelgangers will lead to lesser work.

“I am extremely disappointed to learn that the developer of Riverside Center has chosen not to retain Christian de Portzamparc as architect for this project," Ms. Burden said in a statement.

When Dermot came to the local community board last month to present its version of the designs, there was some disappointment that they had not been joined by Mr. de Portzamparc. "If you look at it, they're more usual, they've probably been value-engineered," Ehtel Shefer, chair of the board's Riverside Center working group, told The Observer in a phone interview. "I don't know if it's the feeling of the entire board, but certainly some people were disappointed."

Back in 2005, Carlyle and Extell bought the remaining undeveloped portion of Donald Trump's Riverside South development from his Hong Kong partners (to the consternation of Mr. Trump) for $1.76 million. Much of it has since been developed as new towers by Gary Barnett, Extell's principal, but the southernmost parcel had to be rezoned because previous plans called for a new television studio to be built on the site.

Instead, Mr. Barnett trotted out his plan for a 3.1-million-square-foot city within a city within a city designed by Mr. de Portzamparc. Five jagged towers were arrayed around three acres of open space. After much back-and-forth with Councilwoman Gail Brewer, the developers agreed to building 20 percent of the apartments as affordable housing and to include a school on the site.

When it came time to start building, Carlyle, which controls a majority stake in the site, decided to hold a competitive bidding process, to which Extell was invited but not guaranteed the chance to build the first tower. Instead, the prize went to Dermot. When it comes time to build the remaining four parcels, Carlyle expects to go through the same private bidding process.

Mr. Barnett said that given the large amount of affordable housing and the school in the first building, he was less interested in winning the project. He still hopes to take the lead on some, if not all, of the other development sites, though he acknowledged there was no guarantee any of the towers would be his to build.

"I hope we get to build some, but I don't know," he said. "If we do, I can tell you, Christian de Portzamparc will be our architect."

Carlyle declined to comment.

Councilwoman Brewer was ambivalent about the changes. "I was more concerned with the school and the affordable housing, but I can see why people might be angry about this," she said, adding that of Mr. de Portzamparc, "They certainly made a hard sell for him during the ULURP."

In a brief statement, Dermot principal and COO Stephen Benjamin, stressed that his tower was still under design and, given the zoning covenants, would still resemble what was originally proposed. “We are in the midst of the design process for a spectacular building that will be in full compliance with the zoning as is our obligation and right," Mr. Benjamin said.

Ms. Burden raised the same point in her statement, that even if the de Portzamparc name is not on the final buildings, his master plan for the site remains, and the essence of his work will persist.

"The integrity of de Portzamparc’s work will be maintained because key architectural features—including, among others, building silhouettes, distinctive sloped and angled sculptural  forms, facets and sloping tower tops—are embodied in the land use approval and are a condition of developing the site," Ms. Burden said. "De Portzamparc was instrumental not only in shaping the site but also in developing these design controls."

"The City Planning Commission fully understands that a developer may decide to change architects over time for a number of reasons," she continued. "De Portzamparc’s important contribution to this project will survive this developer’s decision to look elsewhere for design services."

This is not to suggest that SLCE is necessarily a worse choice as the project's architects, either. In fact, the firm is frequently brought on by developers to serve as the architect of record for more highfalutin designers like Mr. de Portzamparc.

The globetrotting architects (Gehry, Nouvel,Koolhaas and the rest of the designer jetset) are not usually experienced in the intricacies of jurisdictional buildings codes, idealized layouts and local tastes. It falls to firms like SLCE and Goldstein Hill & West—which has also done extensive work at Riverside Center and may well wind up designing some of these tower—to bring a strarchitect's dream into the realm of the buildable, the inhabitable, the comfortable.

That said, some connoisseur's counter that these firms' work can be pedestrian and developer-driven, lacking the flair of some of their more renowned rivals.

Neither is this switcheroo exactly new. That is a big part of the reason the City Planning Commission works so hard to ensure certain design flourishes and details in ambitious projects like the Riverside Center.

Mexican master Enrique Norten was originally pitched as the architect of the Edge condominium towers on the Williamsburg waterfront, only to be swapped out for Stephen P. Jacobs and Associates when it came time to build. Richard Meier and SOM came up with the scheme for Sheldon Solow's Con Edison development just south of the United Nations. Parcels have since been sold off, with more on the block, and it is uncertain who might wind up conceiving of the final projects.

Most famously, Bruce Ratner dumped Frank Gehry from his Atlantic Yards project after the recession led to a reevalution of the work of the Pritzker Prize winner, whose buildings are notoriously expensive and difficult to execute. Mr. Ratner tapped Ellerbe Beckett, a no-nonsense designer of sports venues throughout the nation, to replace Mr. Gehry on the Barclays Center. Even though she had no oversight of the project at any point, Ms. Burden was said to be so bothered by the switch that she successfully lobbied to have local wunderkinds SHoP brought on to help redesign the facilities.

The most apt comparison to the situation at Riverside Center might be what happened at the World Trade Center. Little remains of Daniel Libeksind's masterplan but the outlines of the project, a crescent of towers stepping down in size along Greenwich Street. Granted, some of the world's most famous architects have stepped in to replace Mr. Libeskind. At the same time, the strict design controls at Riverside Center will make any successors who are not Mr. de Portzamparc stick much closer to the French architect's vision.

Ms. Sheffer points to an incident closer to home, Fordham University. The school was working on plans to redevelop its Manhattan campus near Lincoln Center, which included selling off some parcels for development. While there was a general consensus that a residential tower proposed by Douglaston Development was too big, people at least seemed to like the design created by celebrated architect Cesar Pelli, he of World Financial Center and Bloomberg tower fame.

"The deal seemed to be the deal," Ms. Sheffer said of Fordham's plan, "but then they made a deal with Glenwood, and suddenly it looks like everything else Glenwood has done and that's not every interesting."

She hopes this will not be the case at Riverside Center. "I think the feeling was, the de Portzamparc buildings, it was a vision, a particular kind of towers that related to each other and to the open space and the neighborhood, with the view down to the river," Ms. Sheffer said. "In the renderings, it certainly didn't look like the rest of Riverside South, and that was a good thing. But now, we can't be so sure. Maybe it's a lot of hype, maybe not."

But would this be New York City real estate if that were not the case?

Update: This story has been changed to include details about other projects that have gone through similar design switches as well as other projects SLCE has worked on. Also, a previous version stated that Dermot was developing two towers on the site, rather than just one. The Observer regrets the error.

The entrance to the new tower. (DNAinfo)

The Christian de Portzamparc project is at the northwest corner of the site. (DNAinfo)

We already know that the DMZ between the Upper West Side and Hell's Kitchen (call it Lower West End Avenue?) is a happening spot, with the Walentases, the Dursts, the Elghanyans, basically everybody building a slick new project over there. The biggest, of course, is Riverside Center, Gary Barnett's massive reimagining of the final plots of the Riverside South complex.

Earlier this week, Extell returned to the local community board with plans for affordable housing in the project, according to DNAinfo, and therein he revealed the latest detailed designs for the Christian de Portzamparc-created project.

Construction at Riverside Center is expected to start on the first tower, known as Building 2, at the corner of Riverside Drive and West 61st Street, in November, pending city approval.

This particular project is Building 2 in this diagram. (DNAinfo)

Twenty percent of the building's 616 units are slated to be affordable, ranging between $529 for a studio and $1,009 for a three-bedroom apartment. Qualifying families must earn between 40 and 50 percent of the annual median income in the city, which is between $23,000 and $43,000, depending on household size.

The board generally looked favorably on the project, though, naturally, there were calls for even more affordable housing.

Update: The project is actually being developed by the Dermot Company and designed by SLCE, not Mr. Barnett and Mr. de Portzamparc. The parcel for building 2 has been sold off to the former firm following a public approval process involving the latter—where the public quite liked the work of Mr. de Portzamparc. Now that he has been switched out, it will be curious to see what people think.

Living large. (City Realty)

In February of last year, Ilan Bracha, the developer and star broker now heading up Keller Williams NY told The Observer, "We'll be No. 1 in five years," He was referring to his firm, but the Bracha family has now taken the top spot elsewhere—at Gary Barnett's hugely successful Rushmore condominiums at the Riverside South development.

Mati Bracha, Ilan's wife, just paid $5.28 million for penthouse 3A, according to city records. It was not immediately clear if Mr. Bracha would be moving in.

The four-bedroom, 4.5-bath home is spread over 3,056-feet, taking a full floor atop the north building in the twin-towered complex. It first came on the market in July 2009 for $6.8 million, so like her husband, Ms. Bracha has a way of negotiating for the real estate she wants. Mr. Bracha did not immediately return calls and emails seeking comment.

Among the other notable residents of the tower were Alex Rodriguez, who flipped a similar full-floor residence in the south tower earlier this year, as well as Robin Williams, who rented while on Broadway, and Itzhak Perlman, the famed violinist who calls the Rushmore his primary home. The latest arrival is Knicks star Tyson Chandler.

The Brachas lived just down the block from 80 Riverside Boulevard, at Trump Place at 120 Riverside Boulevard. They purchased that home for a far more paltry $544,000 in 2006, just as Mr. Bracha's career was beginning to take off.

Maybe the family stumbled on the new place because Mr. Bracha has been marketing in the building himself, recently listing PH4B, in the south tower. The asking price is also $6.8 million. Wonder if who ever the buyer turns out to be will enjoy the same discount the Brachas did.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

The third baseman is in the process of taking a walk, but it appears he will score on the place after only 8 months.

The condo was quietly listed in October for $8 million, according to The Journal, and apparently Mr. Rodriguez has caught a buyer and will make a hefty profit on the play. But what's two mill and change to a guy who makes $32 million a year? Not much, but it does set a new bar for the building, which will make Gary Barnett very happy.

Who could blame the buyer for stepping up to the plate, as this place is nicer than the Steinbrenner's luxury box, a sumptuous modern man cave, according to pictures of his apartment. Apparently gentlemen prefer Warhols, as Mr. Rodriguez has at least six Marylin Monroe prints adorning his white-washed walls. A black leather pool table, views of the Statue of Liberty, and a minimalist kitchen finish off the interior.

According to broker Adam Modlin, the place is a "trophy residence." Hey, at least he got one trophy last year.

The high-profile, high-priced A-Rod sale is good news for the troubled Rushmore. Earlier this week, a supreme court judge affirmed a standing three-year order which would require the co-developers, Mr. Barnett's Extell and Carlyle Realty, to return $16 million to disgruntled buyers, The Real Deal reports.  The order, originally signed by former Attorney General Cuomo, was contested bitterly in three separate courts.

With Mr. Rodriguez' sale, however, it's likely that the condos in question are worth more than the buyers paid three years ago. Looks like Mr. Barnett got the last laugh.

eknutsen@observer.com

The rushin' rabbi.

It seems that we're in the wrong profession. Although The Observer has long considered a career in rabbinical studies, we fully intend to pursue our religious calling after noticing a recent real estate transaction involving Rabbi Alvin Kass.

Rebbe Kass, who also serves as the NYPD's head chaplain, and his wife Miryom have just purchased a sweet new home at 80 Riverside Boulevard in tony condo complex The Rushmore.

Dr. Kass has led the East Midwood Jewish Center for the past 25 years. . Perhaps the biggest difference between the rabbi's current home on East 21st Street and his new one—besides being a glassy condo compared to a vinyl-sided detached home—is that the good rabbi will be paying for it himself. His current residence is owned by the synagogue, whereas the new one he is paying for out of pocket. It looks like the Talmudic industry (with supplemental income from the NYPD) pays well, as Rabbi Kass spent a full $3.41 million on the place.

It seems that the Kasses knows how to strike a deal. Although the four-bedroom, 3.5-bath condo was originally listed at $4.2 million, it had dropped to $3.49 million when the contract was signed, meaning the couple knocked $80,00 off before they settled. Mazel tov!

Perhaps the Rabbi is trying to work on his celeb connections (courting Madge and her kabbalists perhaps?), as The Rushmore has been a hot spot for hot shots from A-Rod to Robin Williams in recent years. Let's just hope he does not catch the Evil Eye over here, as plans for a new synagogue by venerated real estate rebbe Joseph Pinto in another Riverside South complex have soured recently.

eknutsen@observer.com

In February, the Yankees slugger was reportedly warming up to buy a four-bedroom condo at the two-towered Rushmore on Riverside South. The full-floor-spread was said to cost between $5.5 million and $6 million. Extell Development even released a statement in which founder Gary Barnett said Mr. Rodriguez chose the development because he "loved the building, the park and the water views, but we think that the clincher was the baseball field outside the front door."

The deal finally hit public records yesterday, or at least the sale did--it is not entirely clear Mr. Rodriguez is the buyer.

The deed, which dates from March 29 and cost $5.5. million, lists the purchaser of the 3,585-square-foot aerie as The Rushmore 35CD Trust, under the direction of Lester Knispel. Befitting most celebrity sales, this one was performed by a big-time Hollywood business manager, whose clients include Barbara Streisand, Pamela Anderson and Jewel, along with athletes Shaquille O'Neal and Lamar Odom--Mr. Knispel was best man at his 2009 wedding to Khloe Kardashian.

The  Valley-based Mr. Knispel does not represent Madonna's ex-lover, however, nor does he work for Mr. Rodriguez' most recent muse, Cameron Diaz, who was house hunting with the ballplayer at the time of this deal. An assistant told The Observer last night that she could not find a record of the sale.

A call to Extell was equally inconclusive. "I don't know," chief counsel Ahuva Genack said. "A lot of people buy in the building, but I would know about it." Adam Modlin, Mr. Rodriguez' broker, declined to comment.

It would make some sense that this is not A-Rod's roost. A $5.5 million home in the middle of glassy Upper West Side tower is nice, but does it qualify as a trophy, the kind the shortstop spent years scouring the city for? Mr. Rodriguez' last home, at the Trump Park Avenue, was listed for $14 million and sold for $9.9 million, about half what he is paying for his new place.

This also would not be the first time the press scared off a potential buyer, eh Sarah Jessica Parker?

Read past Manhattan Transfers here. >>

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

Alex Rodriguez took a full-floor five-bedroom at the Rushmore in February, and he will now have a neighbor in Carmelo Anthony. The Daily News hears that the Russian-baiting Knicks superstar has grabbed four homes in two Extell developments, the recently completed Aldyn next-door to the Rushmore and the nearby Ashley, at 63rd Street and West End Avenue. All that space is for family and assitants, but it may be temporary:

"We looked for apartments with similar qualities as Carmelo's other homes in Denver in Los Angeles," said [Douglas Elliman's Prince] Dockery, whose Prince Group specializes in high-end lower Manhattan properties.

"The key thing is the family wanted to be in New York and didn't opt for a 10,000-square-foot home in Westchester or New Jersey."

So even athletes are into gentrification! How long before Eli Manning abandons Hoboken for the Flatiron?

Speaking of, Curbed reports that Mets third baseman David Wright is selling his bachelor pad at Infinite Flats. The reason is--what else--Barnett threw him uptown into a $12,000-a-month rental at the Upper East Side's Lucida.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

Mr. Rangel just purchased one of two remaining penthouses in the Extell-developed Rushmore—there were initially 10 on the market, StreetEasy shows, two in each tower—for $6 million, according to city records. Two floors down from the top of the complex's south tower, the five-bedroom had been asking $6.21 million since November.

The apartment was purchased by Clear Riverside LLC, but a $2.34 mortgage lists Mr. Rangel as the sole operator in this concern.

The new Rangel roost—records show another in Miami—covers a whopping 3,072 square feet with 360-degree views around the slender glass structure. It is 15 percent smaller than Mr. Rodriguez' bullpen but five floors higher and thus $500,000 more. A swelling great room occupies the southwest corner of the condo, with full Hudson views. Five bedrooms and five baths ring the other side of the spread.

The building is still far from the hype of other boldface Upper West Side buildings, like the Time Warner Center, Trump International and 15 Central Park West, which Mr. Rodriguez recently left and where William Lie Zeckendorf's penthouse set a per-square-foot record five times that of Mr. Rangel's new roost—Mr. Rangel's Rushmore penthouse went for $1,953, by comparison. Yet it has also seen quite the reversal from the time when it was best known for typographical lawsuits. 

The Rushmore is also outselling its predecessors along Riverside South, which must have Extell chief Gary Barnett excited about the prospects of his recently completed Aldyn and the massive Riverside South, a five-tower complex that is poised to begin construction after being approved by the City Council in the fall.

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mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

Barnett's Extell Development even went so far as to send out a release bragging about the building's newest signing. "We are thrilled to have Alex and his family buying at the Rushmore. He loved the building, the park and the water views, but we think that the clincher was the baseball field outside the front door." It's an odd choice of words, since Rodriguez' family currently seems to consist of Cameron Diaz and little else. Could the Orthodox Barnett stand the thought of a divorcée in his building?

According to The Journal, Rodriguez' apartment covers the entire 35th floor in one of the towers and cost between $5.5 million and $6 million. No unit fitting the discription is listed on StreetEasy, but there is a similar five-bedroom two floors up, for those curious for a floorplan. It, along with one on the 31st floor, had been asking $7.5 million, so it looks like Rodriguez may have scored quite the steal.

Why would anyone leave the best building of all time, 15 Central Park West, though, where Rodriguez was renting a $30,0000-a-month two-bedroom? The Post reports that "A-Rod loves plush 15 CPW but that the pad is not 'private enough.' It was up for sale while he was renting it--and potential buyers and gawkers were disturbing him by poking around too much." And here we thought he loved crowds.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo