Midtown office building, once home to Hearst mistress, hits the market

Joseph P. Day Realty’s 9 East 40th Street could fetch $70M: source

9 East 40th Street, Darcy Stacom and Marion Davies (Credit: Google Maps and Getty Images) 
9 East 40th Street, Darcy Stacom and Marion Davies (Credit: Google Maps and Getty Images) 

A storied Midtown office building that was once home to actress and Hearst mistress Marion Davies has hit the market.

Joseph P. Day Realty, which has owned the 100,000-square-foot property at 9 East 40th Street for around 50 years, is now looking to sell. According to a source, it could fetch between $65 million and $70 million.

The 18-story building sits half a block from Bryant Park, between Fifth and Madison Avenues. The building once housed the office of publisher William Randolph Hearst’s personal counsel, according to a 1928 article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Film actress and producer Marion Davies, best known for being Hearst’s longtime mistress, lived in the building’s penthouse for a while.

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CBRE’s Darcy Stacom and Ryan Spector are marketing the listing.

The property, built in 1913, has a $6.5 million mortgage from Iowa-based CMFG Life Insurance Company that was issued in 2016, property records show. The office portion is 77 percent occupied. Law firm Quinn McCabe and brand consulting firm Siegelvision are the biggest tenants. A deli called Marche Madison occupies the retail space.

Davies was a rising actress when she met William Randolph Hearst, the infamous newspaper tycoon and founder of Hearst Communications. Hearst pressured studios to cast her and directed his publications to cover her career. She retired from acting in 1937 and died in Los Angeles in 1961.