Despite his $31.5 million bid:
A big part of the sheik’s problem was his 15 kids, not to mention his two wives and boatload of staffers who accompanied him everywhere, sources said.
There wasn’t “a chance in hell’’ of his offer being accepted, the source added.
The sudden influx of potential foreign residents — young and old — to the storied address would have been in stark contrast to the previous tenant.
The previous tenants were the doll collection of Huguette Clark, who lived in a hospital for the last 20 years of her life.
Board members were also concerned because, as a foreign head of state, the 52-year-old sheik couldn’t be held accountable for anything that might happen there, they said.
“He had diplomatic immunity,’’ one source noted.
Posts
15 comments:
"Huguette" - what a moniker!
_XC
“He had diplomatic immunity,’’ one source noted.
Yeah...so it would be impossible to get him to cut his grass.
Ok, my fascination with the trivial knows no bounds. If you go to http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/ and type in this name you get nothing.
But there is a lot of cool stuff in there.
-XC
15 kids? Instant tenement.
Imagine the kitchen smells the neighbors would have to live with.
I live next door to a 3-generation Pakistani family. Fortunately, I like the smell of curry.
Raaaaacccisssttt! Religionist (or whatever it is Hatman is)!
Expat(ish) said...
"Huguette" - what a moniker!
Old French name for a girl, very respectable a few generations ago.
The story of Huguette Clark was one of my favorite internet reads for awhile, back when her eccentricities came to light a year or so ago.
I know what the co-op board is talking about -- preventing misery.
The elderly gentleman from Iran who lived across the way from me for the last 8 years was suddenly replaced by a group of 20 something Hispanics. Endless traffic and sleepless nights.
Lousy management here -- supposedly this area of the apartment complex is reserved for elderly and disabled, but the manager is a young Hispanic woman, and there you have it, misery in its full glory.
What was the broker thinking in presenting a buyer like that to the co-op board at 907 Fifth? Perhaps the broker was just trying to get them set up to approve the real buyer who will now step forward, with the path having been eased by letting the board say a very public no to an Arabian prince. Get it out of your system, board: just say NO, to get you in the mood to say YES to the next.
Fortunately the 1% is a more populous group than you might imagine. Billionaires are really a dime a dozen these days, at least in some parts of the City. Perhaps some discreet Parisian, needing to flee the sans culottes about to take over l'Etat, is already in the wings.
Edith Wharton, where are you?
It's just as well that Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani didn't get in.
Did he really think his name would fit on his mailbox in the lobby?
Wow. The history of Huguette Clark is fascinating. Looked it up on wikipedia and then MSNBC. There's a pretty amazing biography waiting for someone there.
"Mitchell said...
It's just as well that Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani didn't get in.
Did he really think his name would fit on his mailbox in the lobby?"
Damn, beat me to it!
Once they heard he was from a Gutter, it was hard to get him approved... first impressions and all that.
Or was that pronounced Quatter?
Either way, it is not a polygamous friendly building. What was he thinking? That this is Utah?
Nobody in their right mind would want a neighbor with diplomatic immunity.
tim m.,
The problem with diplomatic immunity is that it's not reciprocal. This is, to me, quite similar to the outrage that it's a crime for you to lie to federal investigators, but perfectly legal for them to lie to you.
This basic unfairness can be resolved in two ways, of course--instead of abolishing diplomatic immunity, just make it so that everyone else is likewise immune for whatever they do to the diplomat. Problem solved! (With great modesty!)
Post a Comment