The Cost Of Air

A dissident group of an elite society of bibilophiles is protesting that the cost of air above their Upper East Side club is too low. I swear to god that’s what the story is:

So rich was the price negotiated for some 86,000 square feet of air over the Grolier Club and Christ Church at Park Avenue and East 60th Street — $430 a square foot — that the magazine Business 2.0 listed the sale as one of “the 101 dumbest moments in business” last year.

But several members of the Grolier, an elite society of bibliophiles, now say the price for their portion, at least — about $6.9 million — was too low.

The club stands between the church, at 520 Park Avenue, and two tenement buildings owned by the sibling developers Arthur W. and William L. Zeckendorf. The developers plan to knock down the tenements and, using the air rights, put up a 35-story apartment building whose top floors will have views of Central Park.

Some Grolier members say their club deserves a higher price for its ether than the church is receiving because its 16,000 feet remain pivotal to the deal. So now they want the club to pull out. It is a dispute that has split the normally docile precincts of the club, even bringing tears amid heated accusations of conflicts of interest at one uncharacteristically raucous meeting.

Without the club’s air rights, the Zeckendorfs and their partners would almost certainly have to scale back their plans for a luxury high-rise building next door.

See also: They Sell . . . Air? (November 30, 2005)