On July 10th, 2006, a four-story townhouse at 34 East 62nd Street collapsed after an explosion. It turned out the owner, Dr. Nicholas Bartha, had tampered with the gas line in order to blow up his home and kill himself in the process to avoid selling the landmarked house and giving his estranged wife half the proceeds.
Now, 15 years later, the townhouse that replaced the 1882 "Neo-Grecian gem" has been sold. It was listed at $19.75 million, significantly lower than its original 2017 asking price of $32.5 million (!!).
At the time, Bartha had been embroiled in a contentious divorce proceeding for years. In a New York magazine feature, which detailed Bartha's difficult upbringing in Romania amid the Iron Guard, his divorce lawyer explained, "That house to Dr. Bartha was the incarnation of the American Dream. It validated all the work he had done, how far he had come from his childhood. It was all he cared about. That house was his mistress."
While a referee in their divorce proceeding determined Bartha should pay his wife $1.23 million, they did not list the house—which Bartha had bought with his late mother in 1980 for $395,000—as a marital asset. Bartha decided to appeal that divorce decision, which did not work out how as he hoped.
"Early in 2005, the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court held that the town house was marital property. It was an unusual decision that the New York Law Journal noted on its front page, partly because the appellate court determined that the home was community property 'regardless of the form in which the title is held,'" the NY Times reported.
Firefighters at 34 East 62nd Street, which was destroyed in an explosion on July 10, 2006
That decision sent Bartha into a tailspin, reportedly attempting suicide numerous times before the July 10th, 2006 explosion. He had been served eviction papers on July 7th, 2006, and on July 10th, he sent his wife a rambling email—"When you read this lines your life will change forever. You deserve it. You will be transformed from gold digger to ash and rubbish digger"—before causing the blast.
The incident was so alarming that the White House issued a statement saying that it was not related to terrorism.
The empty lot at 34 East 62nd Street on July 28. 2006, a few weeks after the explosion.
Four people were injured by debris from the explosion. Bartha, 66, was found in the rubble in the basement, unconscious and covered in burns. He was taken to Weill Cornell Medical Center, where he died days later.
34 East 62nd Street in 2019
Developer Janna Bullock bought the property for $8.3 million in 2007 and first proposed building a modernist townhouse, in hopes of flipping it for $20-30 million. However, Bullock ended up selling the lot to Woodbine & Co. four years later for $11.9 million.
Woodbine built a much more traditional townhouse, which was approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Partner Ted Muftic told the Wall Street Journal, "Obviously, it was a tragic incident and a dramatic incident for the neighborhood. Because of that, we wanted to build something that would draw a bright line under the events of that day and mark the next chapter in the history of that block."
The 9,200-square-foot mansion's listing shows it staged with furniture and fixtures, but it's actually being sold as a raw space.
