Apthorp Going Condo In Record Deal

Good-bye to all that: The Apthorp, one of the most coveted and romanticized rental buildings in New York City, will be converted into condos, according to The Wall Street Journal. Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev bought a 50 percent stake in the 163-unit building at 2207 Broadway in a $426 million deal that closed on Wednesday night.

With the Apthorp's ground-floor retail factored into the deal, the purchase price is about $2.4 million per apartment, making it the most expensive price ever for an American residential building.

The Apthorp, with rents as high as $20,000 a month, has been home to Conan O'Brien, Al Pacino, and Nora Ephron, who last year wrote a long love letter to the Upper West Side building in The New Yorker. Ms. Ephron, like many Apthorp tenants, had been protected from market-rate rents through regulation. Many apartments remain rent-stabilized, meaning the new owners will have to either buy out tenants or otherwise boot them for the condo conversion.

- Tom Acitelli