HABITAT Magazine

The super-rich get richer and the rest of us…sue the super-rich.

That’s the scenario playing out now on Billionaires’ Row, where the luxury condo tower at 220 Central Park South — famously home to hedge-fund titan Ken Griffin’s record-breaking $238 million quadplex purchase in 2019 — is being sued by its next-door neighbor, the Gainsborough Studios co-op, for damages caused by years of heavy-duty construction, The New York Post reports.

Gainsborough Studios at 222 Central Park South, a landmarked co-op dating from 1908, is suing for no less than $3 million worth of repairs. According to the lawsuit, the developer of the supertall property, Vornado Realty Trust, had promised to pay for all such damage but is now refusing to honor its agreement, says the co-op’s lawyer, Peter Salzler, an associate at Braverman Greenspun.

This tangled saga began more than a decade ago. A “massive pit” was blasted through bedrock when excavation for 220 Central Park South began in 2014, the complaint, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, says. The colossal new edifice, which comprises an 18-story villa section plus the 70-story tower, wraps around two sides of Gainsborough Studios, on an L-shaped site. By the end of that year, the complaint adds, the 16-story Gainsborough Studios had twisted by shifting downward and eastward — moving nearly an inch at the top. The building later faced pricey repair costs for foundation cracks, broken windows, chipped skylights, clogged air conditioning and damage to its historic facade, the complaint says. The damage has now been fixed — at Gainsborough’s expense.

“I wish I’d never heard the name Vornado,” says Donald Denton, a 20-year Gainsborough resident. “They made a lot of money and left us with a lot of repairs, and they haven’t lived up to their end of the bargain.”

Vornado’s lawyer, Thomas Cerussi of Cerussi & Spring, did not respond to requests for comment, nor did Vornado.