![]() WireImageĬompared to jewel heists, floods are small change, but 740 has those, too. The pad of Steven Mnuchin - Donald Trump’s money man - has flooded neighbors’ homes. The building’s manager was the next to go, that September. The porter left, too, that August, after he got $40,000 to go quietly. ![]() “Whatever ended up in the Long Island Sound,” the building source says. A law enforcement source told The Post that the co-op board had sabotaged the investigation, but some staffers think the tenant’s PI scared the thieves. When David Ganek (who is suing the US government for “recklessly” shutting down his Level Global hedge fund) asked for a police report to make an insurance claim, police were finally called, but made no arrests. After the handyman was fired, he was approached by private detectives working for one of the robbery victims. That June, the building hired a private security firm, which discovered that 740’s surveillance cameras had been turned off during at least one robbery, and identified a recently hired handyman and a porter who’d worked in the building since 2008 as having entered the video control room just before the system went down. They think nothing of leaving a diamond watch on a counter and forgetting it’s there for two weeks.’ - female tenant of 740 Park Ave. “It’s too obvious if you take something big.” They think nothing of leaving a diamond watch on a counter and forgetting it’s there for two weeks.”īut she credited the thieves with smarts for ignoring the museum-quality art on many 740 walls. The tenant added that 740 residents “have so much, they barely notice. Still, “it’s the last place you’d expect a robbery,” a second, female tenant said. If you have five residences and 15 watches, the chances are you’ll think you misplaced it. “I was shown other apartments by the staff when people were away. “It seemed high-security until you got inside,” the resident said. Hedge-funder Israel Englander and his wife, Caryl, were among several robbery victims. But at the time, a former manager and a resident called the thefts no-brainers, since few residents locked their doors. The thieves were inept a building source says Merkin, the Madoff crony, kept wads of cash in a closet that wasn’t touched. Financier Ganek and his novelist wife, Danielle, were hit first, losing $100,000 worth of watches and jewelry then hedge-funder Englander and wife Caryl, who lost a $7,500 gold watch the elderly widow of financier Charles Dyson (an $82,000 diamond bracelet) and finally, Merkin and wife Lauren (jewelry worth more than $50,000). The robberies began the next spring, but weren’t reported to police until after the six-week crime spree ended. (David had no comment.) Novelist Danielle Ganek and her financier husband, David, are said to be selling their place. Late last year, that super was also replaced: A staffer hints he fell afoul of George David, retired chairman of United Technologies, who became co-op board president last year. (Robert Pincus, the building’s manager through Brown Harris Stevens, declined to be interviewed.) Two months later, a new super replaced 10 staffers - six were fired, four retired. “That building had been mismanaged and ripped off for years,” says a former executive at the building’s management firm. In May 2012, a series of staff convulsions began with the departure of 740’s longtime superintendent. Brand-name heirs Thomas Tisch and Ronald Lauder. Hedge-funders Charles Stevenson, Israel Englander, David Ganek and Steven Mnuchin - now Donald Trump’s chief fundraiser. But today’s trail of tears begins in 2011, when Occupy Wall Street protested outside 740’s bronze front doors because of its owner roster: Koch. It failed as a co-op in the Depression, and its apartment values didn’t recover for 40 years. The 86-year-old building has had hard times before. ![]() Among those forced from their homes was New York’s richest man, David Koch.Īnd late last month, the co-op was sheathed in scaffolding after chunks of its limestone façade fell to the street below. Ezra Merkin, the fund-feeder to convicted Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff. In April, a two-alarm fire began in a sauna in the sixth- and seventh-floor duplex owned by J. Residents are still disturbed by a string of unsolved robberies that happened three years ago. Currently, three of its fabled duplexes are on the market for sums ranging from $22.5 million to $32.5 million, and the record-setting 2014 sale of another duplex - for $71.3 million - still represents the second-highest price ever paid for a New York co-op.īut lately, the building has been a public embarrassment. has long been known for its embarrassment of riches. ![]()
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