A pair of billionaires locked in a dispute over renovations at one of New York’s most exclusive addresses are both fighting for quality of life, each in their own way.
Hamburg Tang, the 80-year-old founder of the semiconducter firm Alloys Unlimited, along with his wife Miranda, is suing Oaktree Capital head Howard Marks, accusing him of conducting interminable, loud, damaging renovations at his duplex 740 Park Avenue unit.
Marks’ work allegedly cracked ceilings and molding in the Tangs’ apartment, damaged “irreplaceable artwork,” and makes it hard for the couple to sleep, according to the suit, the New York Post reported.
The Tangs are also suing the building’s co-op board.
The couple have lived at 740 Park since 1995. Marks bought his unit in 2012 from Courtney Sale Ross, the widow of Time Warner founder Steve Ross, for $52.5 million, a record price for co-ops at the time.
According to the suit he’s been repairing it ever since, and violating the building’s rules that restrict renovation work to daylight hours between May and September. The co-op board allegedly granted Marks five extensions of his original work timetable.
In the suit, the Tangs’ attorney Adam Leitman Bailey accused the co-op board of wanting to “kowtow to its largest (by far) shareholder.”
“We realized the board is a white man’s billionaires’ club,” Bailey told the Post. “Because my client is not in that club, they were not treated with the same respect as others,” Bailey told The Post.
The Tangs are demanding the board stop the work. [NYP] – Ariel Stulberg