Maurice Mann’s condominium conversion at 36 Gramercy Park East has crossed the 50 percent sold mark, with 19 of the 30 units available for sale in the building now either closed or in contract, according to Nest Seekers International, which is marketing the project. (The building has 51 units in total, but some are still occupied by rent-stabilized tenants.) Sales launched just under a year ago, and in March, the brokerage team increased prices by as much as 23 percent in response to what it described as high demand for the homes. Prices for the remaining units range from $1.325 million for one-bedrooms to $5.895 million for three-bedrooms. TRD… [more]

Developer Maurice Mann’s latest condominium conversion, at 36 Gramercy Park East, is shaping up to be a more popular version of his efforts at the Upper West Side’s Apthorp, where he stepped down as manager last year amid a bitter feud with partner Africa Israel Investments and mounting controversy about the building’s offering plan. The 13-story building, which is ready to begin closings, is similarly historic, having been built around the same time as the Apthorp, in 1908. Like the Apthorp, where Mann still holds an ownership stake, it has also been home to its fair share of big names, like actor John Barrymore and Alfred Ringling, of Ringling Brothers Circus fame. But unlike the Apthorp, the Gothic-style icon breezed through the approval process at the Attorney General’s office in just 35 days, thanks in part to 10 former tenants who wound up buying condo units at insider prices, at an average of $1,818 per square foot. (Note: correction appended). Those discounted prices exceed the $1,150 per square foot that Apthorp tenants paid to buy their units, as well as those of tenants at most other recent condo conversions in the city, brokers said. In total, 13 of the building’s 31 available condominiums are in contract, compared with around three dozen of the Apthorp’s 163. [WSJ]

… [more]

The skinniest house in the city has hit the market for the first time since 2000, priced at $2.75 million. The home, at 75 1/2 Bedford Street, was built in the mid-1800s. Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay once lived there, and actors Cary Grant and John Barrymore are also rumored to have lived in the house. It last sold in 2000 for $1.6 million. The Real Deal profiled the house in February 2008, when brokers estimated that the house could be worth $2.5 million…. [more]