Hotel that launched Trump to Manhattan fame to be torn down

NEW YORK  — The building that helped Donald Trump make a name for himself in his first big deal in Manhattan is being sold to developers who plan to tear it down.

Developer TF Cornerstone said Thursday that it and a group managing billionaire Michael Dell’s money have agreed to buy the Grand Hyatt New York next to Grand Central Terminal and replace it with a mixed-used tower that will include office and retail space and a smaller hotel.


Trump partnered with the Hyatt Corp. to buy what was then the Commodore Hotel in the late 1970s in his first splash in Manhattan real estate. He refurbished it into a sleek glass tower and used its success as a stepping stone to his next big gamble a few years later, the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.

Trump sold his stake in the Grand Hyatt in 1996.

Neither the White House nor the Trump Organization responded to requests for comment.

When Trump struck a deal to buy the Commodore from the bankrupt Penn Central Corp., the city itself was on the verge of bankruptcy and most other developers were not interested.

As Trump tells it, he realized there was something special about the Commodore after a walk by the hotel early one morning.

“The lobby was so dingy it looked like a welfare hotel,” he wrote in “The Art of the Deal,” but then his eye caught a hopeful sign. “There were thousands of well-dressed Connecticut and Westchester commuters flooding onto the streets from Grand Central Terminal and the subway stations below. The city was on the verge of bankruptcy, but what I saw was a superb location.”

Eager to make his mark in Manhattan, Trump took the plunge, using guaranteed loans from his father and generous tax abatements from the city.

Within a few years, he transformed the tired, old Commodore into a gleaming, reflective-glass tower. His timing was near perfect, too. He opened the hotel just before the start of 1980s boom and was soon able to rent rooms for as much as $1,100 a night.

In the latest deal, the new building will cover 2 million square feet and include a new Grand Hyatt with 500 rooms. The current hotel has 1,298 rooms.


The deal still requires local and state approval. The land under the Grand Hyatt is owned by the Empire State Development Corp., the state’s business-development arm.

TF Cornerstone’s partner in the deal is MSD Partners, which invests assets owned by Dell and his family. Dell is the founder of Dell Technologies and is estimated by Forbes to be worth $34 billion.  /muf

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Amazon opens new ‘4-star’ retail store in New York

NEW YORK – Amazon has opened a new retail store in New York on Thursday selling a range of products from the online colossus that gets top ratings from customers.

The brick-and-mortar outlet in New York’s trendy Soho neighborhood will sell consumer electronics, kitchen, home, toys, books and games, and “chose only the products that customers have rated 4 stars and above, or are top sellers, or are new and trending,” Amazon said in a statement.


Amazon has previously opened physical stores that sell books, and has had pop-up outlets in some locations, but Amazon 4-Star is a new concept that offers a variety of goods in different categories.

“We created Amazon 4-Star to be a place where customers can discover products they will love,” a company statement said.

“Amazon 4-Star’s selection is a direct reflection of our customers – what they’re buying and what they are loving,” it added.

Amazon, one of the world’s most valuable companies whose growth has made founder Jeff Bezos the world’s richest person, has been in recent years moving increasingly to physical stores.

It has opened more than a dozen Amazon Books stores that sell top-selling titles and some additional merchandise. And it has acquired the grocery chain Whole Foods, which has several hundred stores.

Amazon has also introduced a handful of concept Amazon Go grocery stores that operate without cashiers, with purchases automatically scanned and billed to customer accounts. /kga

source: business.inquirer.net

Fire breaks out at Trump Tower – fire department

NEW YORK, United States — A fire erupted on the 50th floor of Trump Tower in New York late Saturday, the fire department said, adding there were no immediate reports of injuries.


Smoke rose from the skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan around 6 pm (2200 GMT) but later subsided.

Streets surrounding the building owned by US President Donald Trump that serves as the headquarters for The Trump Organization and houses a penthouse, were closed off.

The New York City Fire Department tweeted a picture of the building showing flames but the blaze appeared to have been contained as firefighters made their way into the building.

Trump himself said the blaze had been extinguished.

“Fire at Trump Tower is out. Very confined (well built building). Firemen (and women) did a great job. THANK YOU!” he wrote on Twitter. /cbb

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Empire State Building lights up in blue, red, yellow for ‘Yolanda’ victims

MANILA, Philippines—For two consecutive nights, blue, red and yellow colors illuminated the iconic Empire State Building in New York City in solidarity with the victims of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (Haiyan).

The 103-story skycraper rising above the Manhattan skyline began to display the colors of the Philippine flag on Friday (Saturday in Manila), and again on Saturday, New York time.

“Empire State Building raises awareness and support for Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines,” the management of the 82-year-old building said on its website.

Each night, the building’s tower lights take on a new lighting sequence, representing major holidays, iconic milestones and global events.

source: globalnation.inquirer.net

Feds hit Wells Fargo with mortgage-fraud suit

NEW YORK -- The U.S. attorney in Manhattan has accused Wells Fargo of defrauding a government-backed mortgage insurance program, in another major civil case brought in the wake of the housing bust and financial crisis.

The mortgage-fraud suit, filed by U.S. attorney Preet Bharara, seeks "hundreds of millions of dollars" in damages for claims the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has paid for defaulted loans "wrongfully certified" by Wells Fargo.

The suit alleges the San Francisco banking giant falsely certified loans insured by the government's Federal Housing Administration.

“As the complaint alleges, yet another major bank has engaged in a longstanding and reckless trifecta of deficient training, deficient underwriting and deficient disclosure, all while relying on the convenient backstop of government insurance," Bharara said in a statement.

Adding "accelerant to a fire," Bharara said, was Wells Fargo's bonus system that rewarded employees based on the number of loans it approved.

The lawsuit alleges the bank failed to properly underwrite more than 100,000 loans it certified to be eligible for FHA insurance. When Wells Fargo discovered problems with the loans, it failed to notify HUD, which administers the FHA program, as required, the suit said. The action alleges more than 10 years of misconduct.

"The extremely poor quality of Wells Fargo's loans was a function of management’s nearly singular focus on increasing the volume of FHA originations -- and the bank’s profits -- rather than on the quality of the loans being originated," Bharara's office said in a statement.

Wells Fargo denied the lawsuit's allegations, saying it acted in good faith and in compliance with government regulations.

"Many of the issues in the lawsuit had been previously addressed with HUD," Wells Fargo said in an emailed statement. "Wells Fargo is the leading FHA lender and has acted as a prudent and responsible lender with FHA delinquency rates that have been as low as half the industry average. The Bank will present facts to vigorously defend itself against this action. Wells Fargo is proud of its long involvement in the FHA program, which has helped so many people obtain affordable mortgages and become homeowners."

The Wells Fargo case is the fifth such mortgage-fraud case against a major lender brought by Bharara's office.

Three of those cases settled this year: CitiMortgage Inc. for $158.3 million, Flagstar Bank F.S.B. for $132.8 million, and Deutsche Bank and MortgageIT for $202.3million. A lawsuit against Allied Home Mortgage Corp. is pending.

A separate mortgage-fraud task force led by the New York attorney general brought an unrelated lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase & Co. last week.

Wells Fargo stock fell on news of the lawsuit. The bank's share's lost 70 cents, or 2%, to $35.10 in Tuesday trading.

source: latimes.com

Gregg Allman Delays Book Tour for Cardiac Testing

Gregg Allman will undergo diagnostic cardiac testing tomorrow at the Mayo Clinic's campus in Jacksonsville, Florida to determine whether he needs additional care stemming from his recent hernia operation. Allman received a liver transplant at the same facility back in 2010.

As a result of this testing, Allman will delay the publicity tour for his forthcoming memoir, My Cross to Bear. "I've been working on the book for years and am grateful for all the support I've received in putting it together," the rocker said in a statement. "As soon as doctors give me the thumbs up to go back on the road, I will be heading out onto my book tour and I can’t wait to meet all of my fans." Allman was set to appear on The Colbert Report and Piers Morgan Tonight.

Allman's summer tour with the Allman Brothers Band is not expected to be affected by this testing. The band recently sold out a run of concerts at the Beacon Theatre in Manhattan and will announce more tour dates on May 1st.

An exclusive excerpt from My Cross to Bear appears in the new issue of Rolling Stone, on newsstands Friday.

source: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/gregg-allman-delays-book-tour-for-cardiac-testing-20120426

US actor Ben Gazzara dead at 81–report

NEW YORK — The US actor Ben Gazzara, who enjoyed a long career on Broadway and in Hollywood, died of pancreatic cancer on Friday in Manhattan, the New York Times reported. He was 81.

Gazzara, who starred in films, television and on the stage played Brick in the original Broadway version of Tennessee Williams’ “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof,” originating a tough-guy persona that he would cultivate on the big screen.

In his later years he worked with the Coen brothers in “The Big Lebowski,” in 1998, in the television series “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,” and more recently in many movies made for television.

Gazzara’s lawyer told the Times that the actor died at a Manhattan hospital.

source: http://entertainment.inquirer.net/29047/us-actor-ben-gazzara-dead-at-81-report