By Stephen Jacob Smith 6/05 3:53pm

Manhattan Transfers

Swipe one of Judge Judy's artworks and you'll end up in a lot more than small claims court.

Judge Judy Sells $8.5 M. Pied-à-Terre at the Sherry Netherland

Order! All rise!

The judgments on Judge Judy might not be real, and the participants may only receive a few hundred dollars for appearing on the show, but Judith Sheindlin‘s payday is very real: the most famous judge on television just sold a pricey pied-à-terre at the Sherry Netherland Hotel, according to city records.

Her Honor (the woman, not the woman’s 150-foot yacht) picked up the two-bedroom co-op on the 11th floor of 781 Fifth Avenue back in 2009, paying $6.75 million. It was a healthy discount off the nearly $8 million ask—and a massive break from the original $15 million price tag the co-op was sporting back in 2008. But what goes around comes around and Judge Judy also got less than she wanted, settling for $8.5 million though she was originally asking $9 million. Read More

By Stephen Jacob Smith 4/30 5:31pm

What's Old Is New Again

The Trump SoHo: a modern "apartment hotel" with a condo twist.

From the Ansonia to the Trump SoHo: A History of Rule-Bending Residential Hotels

The Trump SoHo, the lone protrusion in an otherwise mid-rise Hudson Square, is one of the most controversial buildings in lower Manhattan—so controversial, in fact, that it helped inspire the neighborhood’s recently-passed rezoning. Built in an industrial and commercial zone, the tower styles itself as a “condo hotel” under a loophole worked out by the Bloomberg administration. While marketed as a condo building, buyers are technically not allowed to stay in their rooms for more than 120 days out of the year, or for more than 29 days out of any 36-day period.

But, as Andrew Berman at the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation pointed out to The Observer, these restrictions are basically unenforceable (the Department of Buildings’s press office didn’t know offhand if anyone’s ever gotten in trouble for violating these provisions, or if they’re even responsible for enforcement), and now Mr. Berman has noticed something strange: the city’s own tax lot data codes the property as ”mixed residential and commercial buildings”—apparently a contravention of the zoning code. Read More

By Kim Velsey 8/24/12 1:14pm

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

The Carlyle: where the costs of the high life are particularly high.

Room Service and Housekeeping Are Awesome, But Are They $455,352 A Year Awesome?

For a lot of people, $455,352 is the kind of money that buys a nice house in the suburbs or a one-bedroom apartment in New York. But for some, it’s just the cost of annual maintenance fees on an apartment at one of the city’s hotel co-ops.

Paramount Pictures chairman Brad Grey drops a half-a-million dollars a year for the maintenance fees on his 3,000-square foot apartment at the Carlyle, The New York Times reports, which charges the city’s highest monthly maintenance fees of $10.23 per square foot. And he had to shell out $15 million to buy the apartment in the first place. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 2/16/12 5:22pm

Manhattan Transfers

The Sherry Netherland at 781 Fifth Avenue

Fitness King Power Lifts $7 M. On Fifth

Roy F. Zurkowski was one of the lucky few in the world who was able to make millions off precisely what made him most happy: fitness. In the ’80s, Mr. Zurkowski became one of the original iron-pumping kingpins, cashing in on the wave of Regan-era health consciousness sweeping the nation. By 1983 all his clubs were purchased by Bally Manufacturing Corp, thus beginning the Bally empire.

Mr. Zurkowski passed away in November 2010, leaving behind a gym-sized home at the Sherry Netherland. That co-op has just sold for $7.1 million, city records show. Read More

By Matt Chaban 3/08/11 6:49pm

Manhattan Transfers

Moose Loose in the Sherry! $11.1 M. Deal

In December, Sandy Mactaggart donated his $23 million estate outside Edmonton to the University of Alberta. He and wife Cecile were moving to the Bahamas for their health, according to The Vancouver Sun, but it looks like they will be making a layover in New York first. Mr. Mactaggart, who made a fortune over the Read More

By Matt Chaban 1/26/11 9:24pm

Manhattan Transfers

Brazilian Beer Baron Drinks Up at Sherry-Netherland

Do they serve Brahma beer at Harry Cipriani?

They better start, because Roberto Moses Thompson Motta, a Brazilian-born investor and director at Anheuser-Busch InBev, just moved in upstairs. Mr. Motta purchased a two-bedroom apartment at the Sherry-Netherland, that distinguished prewar co-op/hotel at the foot of Central Park, paying $4.495 million in December, according to city Read More

By Chloe Malle 12/15/09 8:27pm

Judge Judy Buys Swanky Sherry Chambers; Seller’s a Cold Case

The jury’s in: Judge Judy Sheindlin just laid down $6.75 million for an 11th-floor apartment at the swanky Sherry Netherland co-op at 781 Fifth Avenue. Although Ms. Sheindlin declined to comment through her publicist, it is presumed that this two-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom corner apartment will act as a pied-à-terre for the TV judge, who ranked 13th Read More