Category — Co-op Lofts

Liberal author Nomi Prins just sold her 2500 square foot co-op loft apartment at 20-24 East 20th Street for $2.475 million. Prins is a former managing director at Goldman Sachs who left the world of investment banking and financial world to…well, critique it.

The enormous 3 bedroom, 2 bath apartment is located in the Ladies’ Mile Historic District just south of the Flatiron building, making any alterations to the building’s facade subject to approval from New York’s Landmark’s Preservation Commission. historic Flatiron District.



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The buyer was Jeffrey Dello Russo, apparently a lasik eye surgery doctor who practices with is father.In addition to his lasik surgery skills, Dello Russo seems to be a brilliant negotiator: Prins apartment was originally listed for $2,895,000 followed by a steep price reduction to $2,650,000, before selling for $2,475,000.. That’s a whopping price drop of $425,000!

The drastic reduction from the “ask” to the “sell” price raises some serious questions:

• Did the apartment need work?
• Did the co-op increase monthly maintenance charges for shareholders recently?
• Are major capitol improvements pending that will result in an assessment on all shareholders?
• Was Prins in a hurry to sell her co-op?

Prins’ broker was Patrick Gavin at Prudential Douglas Elliman. This is the first co-op transaction in the building in at least two years.

Prins is the author of two books “Other People’s Money: The Corporate Mugging of America,” and “Jacked: How “Conservatives” Are Picking Your Pocket (Whether You Voted for Them or Not)” Other People’s Money earned honors as a Best Book of 2004 by The Economist, Barron’s, and Library Journal.

The co-op is located one apartment building away from the brownstone where former President Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was born. Teddy’s grandfather Cornelius bought Nos. 26 and 28 as wedding gifts for two of his children. Theodore, Sr. — Teddy’s father — and his wife moved into No. 28 in 1854. His uncle Robert lived at No. 26 with his bride. The former NYC Police Commissioner’s original home isn’t standing — the townhouse that remains was constructed a few years after Roosevelt’s presidency ended by admirers and history buffs.

The enormous Soho loft owned by acclaimed artists Bruce Nauman and Susan Rothenberg just sold for $2,675,000, according to New York City public records.

The loft sold for far less than the original asking price of $2.9 million listed by Brown Harris Stevens brokers Felise Gross and Diane Abrams.

A drop of $225,000 from the original ‘ask’ is considerable. It makes you wonder whether or not the brokers priced this co-op appropriately when it was originally listed, and whether there could be other factors involving the particular unit or the co-op that surfaced during the deal, resulting in the price drop. As in most co-op deals, we will probably never know the answers to these questions.

Broker Sandy Mattingly pontificated last fall about the marketing of this loft, and contrasted it with another in the same cooperative. One
anonymous commentator on Mattingly’s blog posted a scathing critique of building’s the co-op’s board.

The buyers were Scott W. Weber and Amalia Weber.

At 2400 square feet, the loft is big, particularly since this space is something of a ‘railroad’ loft: it’s long and thin like a brownstone railroad apartment.

Bauman was profiled on PBS as one of America’s “most innovative and provocative of America’s contemporary artists.” His neon works are legendary and enchanting.

Rothenberg is recognized for her contemporary paintings and drawings. In addition to showing her work at museums in the United States and abroad, she has earned numerous awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grant, a Cornell University Alumni Award, the Skowhegan Medal for Painting, and Sweden’s Rolf Schock Prize in 2003.

Bauman and Rothenberg are both represented by the Sperone Westwater gallery in New York.