Upper East Side residents talk trash.

Something stinks on the Upper East Side.

According to DNAinfo, Upper East Side residents are fed up with the way the Clermont, a luxury apartment building at 444 East 82^nd Street, dumps its trash.

Building staff faced a trash tribunal at a Community Board 8 Environment and Sanitation Committee meeting last week. Residents, board members and sanitation department representatives gathered to talk trash—blaming the Clermont for the huge, messy heap of garbage bags they said often block the sidewalk on York Avenue near 81^st Street. One area resident called the garbage an “eyesore” and “an outrage.”

We completely agree with New York City's garbage collection system being gross, but how, exactly is it an outrage? Is not the sidewalk trash bag heaping system observed throughout the city?

Abraham Rill, a manager at the Clermont who attended the meeting, dismissed the complaints as rubbish, and refused to acknowledge the claim that the Clermont’s trash is any more offensive than that of neighboring buildings. Rill suggested that all garbage is unsightly, no matter where or how it’s dumped.

So why, exactly, has the Clermont been singled out? Is it really that much worse than other buildings?

The Observer reached out to the Department of Sanitation's community liaison Iggy Terranova to help us sift through the refuse. Mr. Terranova confirmed that the accumulation outside the Clermont is large, but explained trash piles of that magnitude are not unusual for New York. In a city of 8 million people, there is bound to be a lot of garbage—and a lot of complaints.

The Clermont has faced several sanitation sanctions in the past—the Department of Housing Preservation & Development has registered three violations for big piles of refuse that had been stored in the building’s private courtyard. According to HPD’s website, at least one of these violations yet to be resolved.

Though the heaps are irritating to residents and passersby, perhaps it’s time for them to take their bellyaching to the curb. After all, trash is trash, no matter how you stack it.

The couple doesn't want for wall decorations.

Art dealer Otto Naumann has spent decades staring at very old paint in his gallery on East 80th Street (he's the man to call if you're in the market for a 17th century Dutch masterpiece), but he was far less enthusiastic about staring at it on the walls of his townhouse on east 78th Street.

Townhouse ownership can be a drag, Mr. Naumann told The Observer when we reached him on the phone this morning. He couldn't be happier to call a brand new four-bedroom co-op at 333 East 91st Street home.

The apartment is filled with great light. Just not so great for the art. (Photos courtesy Otto Naumann).

"I do not even know what day garbage is collected on East 91st Street, " exclaimed Mr. Naumann with delight. "I no longer have to lug bags of garbage to the curb every week."

Nor did he have to worry about the roof, the boiler, the plumbing, or anything else. Although he had taken his snow shovel along to clear off the colossal 1,800-square-foot terrace at his new apartment.

"I only have a tiny tool chest now. I sent all our tools to our house in Nantucket," said the exultant home buyer.

Mr. Naumann and wife Heidi Shafranek bought the Yorkville sponsor unit condop for $3.58 million from developer 1765 First Associates LLC. for a little over the $3.57 million ask (a frequent fixture at art auctions, Mr. Naumann apparently has few reservations about stepping up in a competitive bidding situation—he once lamented losing a bidding war over a Rembrandt to casino mogul Steve Wynn).

And while it may not be a rare Rembrandt, who wants to risk losing out on an airy, 2,597-square-foot spread with one of the few terraces in the building? Especially one that comes with a huge living room, east and west exposures and a pristine "blue lagos caesarstone countertops," according to the listing, held by Prudential Douglas Elliman brokers Ammanda Espinal and David Greczek.

"We've moved three times in six years and I think this is the best move I've ever made," said Mr. Naumann, recounting a very unfortunate experience with a condo project at 219 East 67th Street, followed by the headache-inducing townhouse on East 78th (he had hoped to move his gallery there, but found it unfeasible). In the years that followed, the house itself also became unfeasible. He realized that he and his wife were essentially been living on two floors of the building. He realized it had been six months since he'd entered the library and three since he'd visited the parlor.

But how did his art collection look in such a modern spread?

"The old art looks gorgeous in the new space," Mr. Naumann said happily. "We just can't put drawings near the windows, but there's a corridor and we've packed it with drawings."

kvelsey@observer.com

142 East End Avenue (StreetEasy)

Way back in 1995, a forensic pathologist took the stand of the O.J. Simpson trial. An expert witness for the defense, Michael Baden suggested that there had been two killers that fateful night, and O.J was ultimately let off. Mr. Baden has unloaded some serious baggage recently, but it isn't an explanation for his dubious theory. No, in this case it comes in the form of a four-bedroom, four-bath townhouse in Yorkville.

Dr. Baden, who  briefly served as New York's Chief Medical Examiner in the late 1970s, just sold a townhouse at 142 East End Avenue, according to city records. While he got O.J. off scot-free, the good doctor took a hit on the sale. Originally listed last May for $4.1 million, the blood-red brick townhouse just fetched $3.55 million.

The buyers are Christina and Ulises Liceaga. Mr. Liceaga, an architect at Fractal Construction, said he was well aware of the previous owner's morbid profession, but the intrigue was of little interest to him or his wife. "We were not even curious about it. It's jut a house, it doesn’t matter who owns it," he said rather flatly, refusing to discuss the matter further. We take it they're not worried about finding bloody gloves in the backyard, then.

Mr. Baden, who was also the Chairman of Forensic Pathology on the House panel that re-investigated President Kennedy's murder, has lived in the home since 2000. Corcoran broker Leighton Candler sold the 31-foot-wide home on behalf of Mr. Baden, but her scant description of the place leaves much to be desired. She notes only that it is a one-family space with views of Charles Schulz Park's grassy knolls. The Observer may have to call her in to testify if we want to more.

eknutsen@observer.com

There are the typical problems, namely units that came on the market mere days before the collapse of Lehman Brothers and have sat there unsold ever since. But there is also the shadow of another collapse looming over the Azure, that of the crane that fell in May 2008, killing two operators inside.

Nearly two years after the accident, the building had its grand opening in April, but there was little movement in the apartments -- until now, a sign that the building may have finally rebounded from its bad luck.

Over the past three months, a dozen units have closed in the building, with 12 more now in contract, the developer told The Observer. That would nudge the 128-unit building over the 15 percent mark, allowing for units in the building to start closing. In deed! The Observer has reported at least three of these sales.

"Azure offers quality construction, superior amenities, spectacular prices and competitive pricing," Douglas MacLaury, senior vice president of the Mattone Group, which is co-developing the project, said in an email. "Comparable inventory on the Upper East Side has been dramatically reduced over the last three quarters, so from a supply and demand perspective Azure is well positioned to move to over 50 percent sold in early 2011."

Whether or not this bold proclamation comes true -- it's still dicey out there! -- one thing is certain: The Azure has faired considerably better than 303 East 51st Street. That is the project that suffered the first crane collapse of 2008, in March of that year, which crushed a townhouse and killed seven people. That project was sold amidst its foreclosure last year and remains incomplete.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

- Max Abelson

3333 Broadway, between 133rd and 135th Sts., as seen from Google Earth

Sounds positively suburban next to the density envisioned by Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn (below): between 436,363 and 523,636 inhabitants per square mile (based on estimated population of between 15,000 and 18,000 residents over 22 acres). That is the density for the whole footprint, including the open space, the arena, and the office towers.

More Manhattan than Manhattan: Frank Gehry's Atlantic Yards

Jim Stuckey, Forest City Ratner's project manager for Atlantic Yards, said this morning (after the release of the draft environmental impact statement) that many areas of the city have the same zoning designation that Atlantic Yards would. True, but those areas are just narrow strips of intense zoning that apply to the lots lining major thoroughfares such as York Avenue and West End Avenue, while the side streets of the Upper East and West Sides are dappled with charming brownstones.

Imagine that high rise from "The Prisoner of Second Avenue" being replicated, side by side, front to back, for seven city blocks, with only a few narrow streets in between.

Will Forest City get its target $800 a square foot for market-rate condos amidst such density? Let's hope they did their market research.

For comparison purposes, here are the other densest census tracts in the country, compiled by The Real Estate from Census 2000 data. They are all in New York City.

2. Bronx: E. Kingsbridge & 198th St. b/w Valentine & Grand Concourse: 212,000 inhabitants/square mile
3. Washington Heights: 173rd and 180th Streets b/w St. Nicholas & Amsterdam: 210,628
4. Queens: LeFrak City: 201,878
5. Yorkville: 86th & 89th Sts. b/w 1st & 3rd Aves.: 199,444
6. Washington Heights: 158th & 165th Sts. b/w St. Nick & Ft. Washington: 193,382
7. Yorkville: 89th & 94th b/w 1st & 3rd Aves. (incl. Ruppert Towers): 191,747
8. Washington Heights: 169th & 173 Sts. b/w Amsterdam & Ft. Washington.: 191,199
9. Yorkville: 94th & 96th Sts. b/w 1st & 3rd Aves.: 189,172
10. Upper East Side: 69th & 74th Sts. b/w 1st & 3rd Aves.: 186,884

-Matthew Schuerman