MANHATTAN

It seems like just the other day we were writing about the famously snooty River House co-op — oh, wait ... it was just the other day! — which refused to allow in such louts as Diane Keaton, Gloria Vanderbilt and Joan Crawford. (It has allowed Uma Thurman, Barbara Taylor Bradford and Henry Kissinger, among others.) But now River House, a 1931 beauty at the East River end of 52nd Street, is easing into the 21st century, says The New York Times. For one thing, the paper marveled, its board president was talking to The New York Times. It does need good press — its reputation hasn't done apartment sales any good, with places going for far less than comparable ones, brokers say. And a foreclosure auction last week? That simply is not cricket, old chap. But between this new openness and an ongoing $50 million refurbishing, things may change for the better for what really is an extraordinary edifice. As one broker quipped to the Times, “Even when they were making them like this, nobody was making them like this.”

Joan Rivers' tragic and untimely death not only deprived the world of a comic genius but also — can we talk? — a condo board president. And she surely would have liked to have known that her and her board's long-running battle with eccentric resident Elizabeth Hazan, who owed $200,000 in arrears, has ended. The story has more twists than a European road — Hazan had signed her apartment at The Spencer over to a Belize-based corporation, a judge in November forbade her access to the place, and much more went on — and the insults got extremely personal on both sides. But the day of Rivers' death, just before she passed, the New York Daily News reported that her board and Hazan reached a settlement after three hours of negotiation before a judge. It's nice to think of Joan, out there somewhere, having the last laugh.

"Hell is other people," said Jean-Paul Sarte. And if he'd lived at 166 Perry Street, that other person would be Richard Easton — a condo tenant who, according to a lawsuit by unit-owner Elena Teranina, has been engaged in activities "of such a nature that there is no telling when he might decide to verbally or physically attack someone, or to engage in vile or inappropriate conduct." As she and at least one neighbor told the New York Daily News, this includes tossing knives at deliverypersons, ordering the staff to call him "Prince," walking through the lobby in his underwear and demanding oral sex from a female building employee. So is this the case of some poor soul with serious mental problems, who needs help and not persecution? Given the fact that Easton — who claims it's all a merry mixup — is a high-profile matchmaker who's appeared on The Real Housewives of New York, we're going to go out on a limb and say probably not.

Following the stringent conditions that the River House co-op board placed on the sale of Arlene Farkas' 14-room apartment, which wound up scotching a $7.8 million sale to the French government, the place will be sold at a public foreclosure auction today, reports the New York Daily News. Farkas, who owes $6 million in mortgage payments has lived at the old-money co-op in Turtle Bay since 1969 and, for the larger part of 24 years, was negotiating the legal waters of divorce and share-ownership. This followed her discovery that husband Bruce R. Farkas, an heir to the Alexander's department-store fortune, was simultaneously married to another woman for many years. Which is a whole story in itself.

The fallout continues from the September 2012 rape at The Alfred Condominium, where a 16-year-old pizza deliverer spent 22 minutes wandering hallways and attacking Kia Graves before leaving the building unimpeded.

An attorney for Graves — who is suing the condominium as well as Halstead Management, doorman Luis Rodriguez, rapist Cesar Lucas, who was convicted last month, and his employer, New York Sal’s Pizza — told the New York Daily News that Rodriguez heated and ate dinner and was busy reading at the front desk without noticing, apparently, how long it was taking the pizza boy to return. The attorney added that Graves and her mother called the doorman after the assault, but that Rodriguez let Lucas go after speaking with him briefly — and then went back to his food. Rodriguez's attorney countered that his client's description helped police nab Lucas quickly, and is representing the doorman in an age-discrimination claim related to his firing.

It was Michael Wolfe's first co-op. The 30-unit property at 1107 Fifth Avenue on East 92nd Street impressed the young manager. "I remember walking into the building. I had always lived in a private home, and I couldn't believe that apartments could be so big. There was a grand lobby, with a doorman and staff. It even had manned elevators. I thought they gave it that classy hotel, classy building feel."

How much is your cleaning bill? It's probably not $100,000. Yet that's the final figure after the condo board of The Alfred, a 219-unit building 161 W. 61st Street in Manhattan, added fines, unpaid common charges and interest after billing a hoarding couple for cleaning their dangerously unsanitary apartment — and getting a defiant response. And while this all began a full four years ago, the case of the condo cleaning shows that with patience a board can obtain the court decision it needs to be rid of an objectively objectionable resident.

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, a co-op board takes away a parking space from a little old lady with Parkinson's, saying her car's insurance and registration had lapsed — they hadn't — and that the car didn't run ... so they took away the spot while the car was in the garage to, y'know, run. Doesn't sound like the board's running on all cylinders, either. Same might be said on Fifth Avenue, where a co-op board president who lost a bid for an apartment in her building allegedly decided no one else could buy it, either. Plus, Patrick Stewart makes it so with a condo buy in Brooklyn.

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, a condominium board sues its developer. a co-op buyer sues a seller, and a co-op shareholder sues his neighbor. Plus, a lawyer sues his clients, whom he'd represented against a co-op board. Ah, springtime in New York!  We've also a co-op board trying to evict an agoraphobic transgender smoker, but hey, that could happen anywhere....

So let's check in and see what co-ops and condos the one percent are buying and selling. According to 6sqft.com, the New York Knicks' new president, Phil Jackson, just spent $4.85 million to buy a posh place at the Osborne Apartments at 205 West 57th Street, where the likes of Leonard Bernstein, Lynn Redgrave, Bobby Short and many other notables have lived. In fact, Jackson's got 3B, directly under the apartment where Bernstein, Short and actor Larry Storch had lived at various times. The 1883 landmarked building went co-op in 1961. At the equally storied 15 Central Park West, Sara Blakely, founder of the Spanx undergarment empire, and her husband just sold their condo apartment for $30 million, after having bought it for $12.11 million in 2008, says the New York Daily News. So you gotta wonder: Where do you go when 15 Central Park isn't good enough?