The city’s poshest ZIP code has been divided and conquered.
The Upper East Side’s famed 10021 ZIP – the long-established millionaire mecca, a parallel to Beverly Hills’ coveted 90210 – was split into three parts last year, and has now fallen from its top blueblood spot.
The new neighboring 10065 – formerly part of 10021 – is now the Upper East Side’s most expensive address.
Since the split, in July 2007, the average real-estate sales price in the 10065 has hit $2.9 million – topping 10021’s $2.2 million average, according to Streeteasy.com, a real estate-tracking Web site.
The hot ZIP’s stock continues to soar, too – with the current market price for homes selling at an average $4.1 million, nearly $1.5 million higher than residences in 10021.
Moviemaker Spike Lee, The Donald’s ex, Ivana Trump, corporate raider Henry Kravis, Revlon’s Ronald Perelman and NBC “Today” show host Matt Lauer all reside in the flush 10065 neighborhood, which spans 61st to 68th streets from Fifth Avenue to the East River.
Coveted real estate in the 10065 includes The Pierre hotel, whose penthouse is on the market for $70 million, and the renovated Lexington Avenue Barbizon Hotel, with apartments for sale for $12 million.
Since July, 10021 hasn’t been able to keep pace, despite being home to 740 Park Ave., once home to John D. Rockefeller and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and where the city’s richest man, billionaire businessman David Koch, hangs his hat.
Up the street, Brooke Astor’s famed 778 Park Ave. duplex just hit the market for $46 million this past month. And real-estate tycoon Aby Rosen is asking $75 million for his town house at 22 E. 71st St.
“People work their whole lives to get into the 10021 ZIP code” – which now covers 68th to 76th streets from Fifth Avenue to the East River, said Brown Harris Stevens Realtor Nancy Candib. “They were upset when it was taken away from them.”
In July, the US Postal Service carved up the historic 10021 ZIP code, which once stretched from 61st to 80th from Fifth Avenue to the East River, into three sections, creating the new 10065 ZIP code and its smaller cousin, the 10075, the area from 76th to 80th.
But now, those who ended up in the new 10065 are lording it over the 10021.
“[The 10065’s] most beautiful and notorious buildings compete with anything in the 10021,” said Candib.
Many buyers still prioritize the 10021 – what with its long history of being home to the richest of the rich. But times change; TriBeCa prices are the highest in the city, and now 10021 isn’t even the priciest ZIP above 14th Street.
Michelle Kleier, president of Gumley, Haft and Kleier, a Manhattan real-estate brokerage firm, admits there are “some pretty amazing buildings in 10065, but the 10021 has the cache.
“Socialites and socialite wannabes still seek out the 10021 addresses. It’s status. It proves that you have arrived,” she said.
The change didn’t sit well with lifelong residents who were booted.
“People may prefer to associate with people in the new ZIP codes,” said David Michonski, CEO of Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy. “People define themselves by their real-estate holdings much more than their ZIP codes.”
But, said Candib, “the 10065 just might be the new and improved 10021.”