YESTERDAY, The Post had a list of all 24,111 properties in the city that owe back taxes and large water bills, and as such are facing foreclosure.
We reviewed the list and found a few interesting addresses.
The Macklowe family’s financial mess apparently messed with a teeny payment for 48 E. 57th St., which is a slice of the Drake Hotel assemblage.
Finance records show 64 cents is owed from 2008, for what is coded as a “bill payment.” No kidding.
The Hotel Pierre is listed but it’s over a discrepancy in its water bills. A spokesman said, “It was worked out and there are no liens on the building.”
The Zeckendorfs paid $430 per foot for a “volume of air” over the Grolier Club at 47 E. 60th St. as part of a prospective Park Avenue assemblage.
But the taxes on the Club haven’t been paid since April 2008 and now the city is owed just over $240,000.
The Club’s director was out of town when we tried to reach him, but William Lie Zeckendorf said, “We own the air. It’s news to us.”
Over at 11 E. 57th St., a tony townhouse owned by Hearst Communications That was leased to Jil Sander and then transferred to Prada in 2007. But in 2004, someone stopped paying the bills that now total just over $1.04 million.
The company’s head of real estate didn’t return calls prior to press time.
The mighty Vornado Realty Trust in July somehow made a clerical error and $55,238.23 now shows as being past due on the office building at 2 Penn Plaza.
They have since made over $12 million in other payments. They declined to comment.
Keith Rubenstein of Somerset Partners and his wife have a habit of buying homes and renovating them. And one at 8 E. 62nd St., which was bought for $35 million in 2007, now has an outstanding tax tab of $180,681. They don’t live in the house yet, as it’s still being renovated.
Rubenstein didn’t return a call for comment.
In total, the properties listed owe $400.5 million in property taxes and another $144.4 million for water bills.
The city has 988,420 taxable properties and these days needs every penny. All the liens are tick ing up at 9 per cent to 18 percent interest, plus fur ther surcharges when the lien is sold. Some liens can eventually be foreclosed.
