By Stephen Jacob Smith 2/25 4:49pm

Manhattan Transfers

Don't worry, 100 Eleventh Avenue residents, Rasputin has not risen from the dead—that's just Vincent Gallo.

Indie Filmmaker Vincent Gallo Picks Up Nouvel Pad

Ladies, gird your loins—indie film star and would-be prostitute Vincent Gallo is moving to New York. (In case you’re curious, Mr. Gallo offers his services for $50,000 a night, $1 million for sperm and another half million if you want “natural insemination,” according to his website.)

Mr. Gallo, perhaps best known for being fellated by Chloë Sevigny in his 2003 art house film The Brown Bunny, just picked up a one-bedroom condo at 100 Eleventh Avenue, Jean Nouvel’s bespeckled blue West Chelsea erection. He snagged the apartment from Diane Zuckerman and Michael Hite, who were apparently desperate to sell, because they parted with the fifth-floor unit for $2 million—a hefty discount from the $2.4 million that they paid the developer for the unit back in 2010, when the city’s real estate market was still reeling from the recession. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 1/27/12 10:23am

Manhattan Transfers

8 Photos

Neon!

High-Powered Art Couple Sell Highly Priced Condo on the High Line

Both Perry Rubenstein and his wife, Sara Fitzmaurice are adept sellers. As an art dealer, Mr. Rubenstein has sold millions of dollars of artwork to collectors across the globe. Ms. Fitzmaurice, the founder of PR mega-company Fitz&Co, sells brands, ideas and campaigns for the art world. It should come as little surprise, therefore, that the two have sold their Chelsea apartment for an incredible profit. Read More

By Tom Acitelli 8/09/11 2:56pm

$$$

The Chelsea: Everybody in.

Chetrit’s $85 M. Chelsea Hotel Loan; His Junior Partner’s Housing Violations

Real estate investor Joseph Chetrit closed on his nearly $80 million Chelsea Hotel buy early last week, and now information has trickled out about how he and junior partner Clipper Equities paid for it.

They got an $85 million, 36-month loan from Paris-based banking behemoth Natixis. The loan has a 12-month repayment extension option, and was brokered for the borrowers by Meridian’s Ronnie Levine and Aaron Birnbaum. (Real Estate Weekly has more news on the loan.)

Clipper, incidentally, was the controversial would-be buyer of the massive affordable-housing complex in Brooklyn, Starrett City, offering $1.3 billion in 2007. Read More

By Tom Acitelli 8/09/11 8:49am

The Transom

Something is happening, but we don't (fully) know what it is...

Chelsea Hotel Passover: A Lot More Than Four Questions as Chetrit Marks the Doors

Shortly before noon last Thursday, a woman with a German accent stepped to the front desk of the Chelsea Hotel, and demanded in clipped English her reservation.

“The hotel’s closed,” said a distracted employee behind the desk. He was holding a severance letter presented earlier by the hotel’s new owner, The Chetrit Group, led by the enigmatic real estate investor Joseph Chetrit, whose holdings include the Willis Tower in Chicago, North America’s tallest building, and over 4.9 million square feet of commercial space in New York City.

“Closed? I have a reservation, please,” the woman said.

She got no answer. Sensing something, she tried again.

“Is this the InterContinental?” Read More

By Molly Fischer 8/04/09 11:56am

Your Open House: Nobody Needs the High Line, But…

Pouring rain: bad for walking in the park, but apparently good for apartment hunting. Broker William Landhauser said that he had seen noticeably more people than usual at his Sunday open house, a Chelsea condo built by Douglaston Development just a few blocks from the High Line.

The condo, at 555 West 23rd Street, Read More