

More generally, he said, the impact of notable deaths on a building can be circumstantial. Still, Cody Vichinsky, whose brokerage Bespoke is marketing units in the building, said, “The fame of the building is more important than the fame of its tenants.” Countless Beatles fans have made pilgrimages to the site of his death, which is not exactly a selling point for the co-op. The single-family Long Island home where grisly murders in 1974 gave rise to the popular film and novel “The Amityville Horror” was frequently visited by gawkers and became difficult to sell, though it did fetch $605,000 in 2017.Īmong the most infamous events associated with a New York City residential property was John Lennon’s assassination in 1980 outside the Dakota, 1 West 72nd Street, where he lived. (Ledger had been renting a pad on the fourth floor.) The $49 million deal was one of the priciest of last year. Heath Ledger’s 2008 overdose at 421 Broome Street didn’t stop the owners of its triplex penthouse from flipping it for a $14 million profit.

It sold for $5.8 million just months after being put on the market for $6.35 million. Hallowed halls: The most haunted buildings in NYCĬonsider the Upper East Side co-op at 850 Park Avenue, where designer Kate Spade was found dead of suicide.Joan Rivers’ longtime UES penthouse hits the market for $38M.Unlike in other states, agents in New York need not disclose that a death happened on the property and, until fairly recently, newspapers rarely included a home’s address in their coverage of such events. Two factors help apartments avoid or overcome the stain of a newsmaking death, Leitman Bailey noted. Death’s certainly not going to get in their way.” “Nothing’s going to get in the way of buying the best apartment they can. “They clean them up, they put them on the market and they sell,” real estate attorney Adam Leitman Bailey said. Such properties tend to overcome unfortunate events that occur there. The answer, observers say, is probably not. Not only was Arnal a top executive at a major retailer, but the Tribeca condominium where he perished, known colloquially as the “ Jenga tower” for its unusual design, has some of the city’s priciest apartments, with sales routinely closing for tens of millions of dollars.Īrnal’s shocking death raises the question of whether the tragedy will become an obstacle for agents selling units in the high-profile property, where prospective buyers have the choice to live just about anywhere they please. 2 by jumping from the 18th floor of 56 Leonard Street, the news spread quickly across social and traditional media. When Gustavo Arnal, the chief financial officer of Bed Bath & Beyond, died by suicide Sept.
