From left: 12 East 82nd Street and 890 Park Avenue (building credits: PropertyShark)

Even as the city’s economy rebounds, and the demand for lavish homes like those on classic Upper East Side blocks reaches a fever pitch, the New York Times noted that some curious cases of neglect are interspersed among the luxury addresses. For example, the five-story townhouse at 12 East 82nd Street, located just steps from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, features shattered and dusty windows, a faded facade, and worn, unaligned doors. In fact, the building has been vacant for years as the entire back wall is missing revealing exposed beams and a blue tarp. [more]

Janna Bullock and the townhouse at 34 East 62nd Street

Russian developer Janna Bullock has listed a yet-to-be-built new development townhouse for $40 million at 34 East 62nd Street, according to data from Streeteasy.com. The site is the onetime location of a townhouse famously blown up by Nicholas Bartha, a doctor who is believed to have destroyed the home in order to avoid selling the home and splitting the proceeds with his ex-wife. He was in the property when it exploded in 2006, and later died from his injuries. [more]

34 East 62nd Street rendering

There would seem to be something ill-omened about 34 East 62nd Street. This single plot of land between Madison and Park avenues was for years home to a noble townhouse, set among Cumberland House apartment building to the west and the Browning School to the east.

Indeed, having been built in 1882, it was the oldest building on that distinguished block. In the early 1940s, a group known as “The Room” met clandestinely within its walls to discuss urgent matters of peace and war and communicate the fruits of their deliberations to Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the fullness of time, however, it passed through a number of hands, before landing in those of the deranged Nicholas Bartha, a 66-year-old internist, who, you will recall, blew the place up on July 10, 2006, with himself in it (although he was rescued and later died from his injuries), rather than hand it over, in divorce proceedings, to his estranged wife.

Christopher Gray wrote shortly afterwards in the New York Times, “just as this unusual block has lost its oldest building, in a few years it will most likely gain its newest.” Well, that time, it appears, is now upon us. [more]

Real estate developer Janna Bullock is putting her house at 14 East 82nd Street on the market

Now that she’s unloaded 9 East 67th Street, Russian beauty and real estate developer Janna Bullock is set to put another one of her townhouses on the market. The house, at 14 East 82nd Street, will hit the market tomorrow with a price of $20 million, according to listing broker Nikki Field, a senior vice president at Sotheby’s International Realty. Bullock — well-known for successfully renovating and flipping Manhattan townhouses — purchased the house in 2005 for $12.2 million, according to city records, and hosted the Kips Bay Decorator Show there in 2007. Bullock first put the 21-foot-wide Beaux Arts mansion, designed in 1903 by C.P.H Gilbert, on the market for $25 million in the fall of 2007. She had offers for $23 and $24 million, Field said, but decided instead to take it off the market in February 2008 and remove the show-house remnants. [more]