Short story writer Caitlin Macy and her husband, JPMorgan Chase trader Jeremy Barnum, have purchased a $3.5 million duplex on the 10th and 11th floors of 1 Lexington Avenue, the landmarked co-op on the corner of Gramercy Park North. The couple lived in a duplex seven floors below it until 2006, when they sold it for $2 million and moved to an Upper East Side condo off of Fifth Avenue. Their new digs at 1 Lexington come with a 24-foot wide master bedroom, an 80-foot terrace and floor-to-ceiling French doors, and the package was so appealing that the Barnums signed a contract in four days, listing agent Gale Rundquist, of Prudential Douglas Elliman, told the Observer. Originally listed for $5.3 million in late 2007, interest in the apartment didn’t pick up until October 2009, at which point the family beat out several other prospective buyers for the spot, Rundquist said. Uma Thurman lives in a duplex on the eight and ninth floors, directly below the Barnums’ new one. Restaurateur Danny Meyer also owns an apartment in the buildling. [NYO]

141 East 19th Street (Photos: Sotheby’s International Realty)

For the buyer looking to live in Candy Land, the ideal home has just hit the market. Curbed has compiled a slide show of 141 East 19th Street, an $8.75 million Gramercy Park townhouse between Third Avenue and Irving Place that was owned by designer Abbijane Schifrin. The 5,009-square-foot home was built in 1855 and remodeled by famed architect Frederick Sterner in 1908. While the subtle, elegant exterior blends in with many of the neighboring townhouses — Sterner remodeled several on the block, according to listing firm Sotheby’s International Realty — the interior is a flurry of color. [more]

Real estate investors and New York’s leading health care organizations are actively reviewing the prospects of acquiring three hospital sites in New York City. Offers for sale or net lease on the complex are due Thursday for the most sought-out hospital site, the Cabrini Medical Center. The property is located within the heart of the Gramercy Park section of Manhattan between Second and Third avenues with frontages on the north side of East 19th Street and the south side of East 20th Street. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court has retained Grubb & Ellis New York to offer the medical center for sale. The property consists of five buildings totaling 452,600 square feet of gross building area, with 367,700 square feet of total zoning floor area. The five buildings are built and operated as a single complex of buildings interconnected at various levels. With the exception of two of the buildings, the properties can be acquired individually. [more]

Last Thursday, Gramercy Park’s Cabrini Medical Center filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, leaving a valuable asset for the taking. The medical center closed its doors March 17, 2008 and the following day, the 338-bed hospital handed over its 60 hospice beds to Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers. Cabrini was one of the five hospitals in New York City slated for closure in 2006 by the Berger Commission on Health Care Facilities. After the hospital shuttered a year ago, the facility provided ancillary health services like inpatient medical/surgical, psychiatric and rehabilitation services, and was a state-designated AIDS center. Over the past two years, Cabrini was in negotiations with Saint Vincent’s to buy two of its buildings, Crain’s reported. The most important asset of the bankrupt medical center is its 18-story hospice located at 227 East 19th Street between Second and Third avenues. Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada holds a $35.1 million first mortgage on the building. [more]

Several Manhattan neighborhoods saw sizable rent drops or increases in April, according to the monthly rental market report from the Real Estate Group New York.

The steepest decreases came in Gramercy Park, Chelsea and Tribeca. Non-doorman one-bedrooms in Gramercy Park saw a 9.7 percent drop in rents, and non-doorman two-bedrooms in Chelsea saw a 9.2 percent drop. Doorman two-bedrooms in Tribeca saw a 9.4 percent decline in prices. The largest year-over-year change was a 10.4 percent drop in doorman studio rents, to $2,300 this month from $2,567 in April 2008. TRD
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