Death of a New York Real Estate Agent

[lofter1]

Real Estate Agent Found Slain in 5th Ave. Home


Bob Gruen/bobgruen.com
At a 1979 event, from left, Joey Ramone, Linda S. Stein, David Bowie, Dee Dee Ramone,
his wife, Vera March, and, standing, Danny Fields.

NY TIMES
By BRUCE LAMBERT
November 1, 2007

A woman who helped pioneer the punk music scene, influenced the careers of Madonna and the Ramones and went on to become known as a real estate agent to the stars was found bludgeoned to death Tuesday night in her apartment at 965 Fifth Avenue, the police said yesterday.

The victim, Linda S. Stein, 62, was found shortly before 10:30 p.m. by her daughter Mandy and a friend, who called 911. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

The building, at the corner of 78th Street, has the security of doormen, elevator operators, and surveillance cameras mounted on the sidewalk canopy and in the lobby, but a reporter found an unlocked service door on the side street. There were no signs of forced entry at the apartment, nor did anything appear to be missing, investigators said.

Ms. Stein’s body was found face down in the living room in a pool of blood, the police said. She was wearing a sweatshirt with a hood, which was pulled over her head. Investigators at first believed the bleeding could have resulted from a fall, but when the hood was pulled back, a severe skull injury was exposed. Yesterday, the medical examiner’s office ruled the death a homicide.

Ms. Stein had many tumultuous relationships in her life, but investigators have not focused on any particular people, and did not comment on possible motives, a law enforcement official said. Investigators said they thought Ms. Stein was seen alive earlier on Tuesday, and they were trying to determine who was with her later that day.

Ms. Stein parlayed her show business connections — including a decades-long friendship with Elton John — into a high-profile real estate career. Her transactions included big-ticket properties in New York, but also ranged to the West Coast and even France and Italy.

The buyers and sellers in her deals read like a boldface-names column: Sting bought from Billy Joel, Harrison Ford bought from Debra Winger, and Jann Wenner bought Perry Ellis’s town house. Other clients included LaToya Jackson, Sylvester Stallone, Mary Beth Hurt, and Andrew Lloyd Webber, who bought at Trump Tower.

“My clients are my friends,” Ms. Stein was fond of saying. One of them, Mr. John — whom she met when he was still named Reg Dwight — said in a statement: “I’m absolutely shocked and upset. She’s been a friend for over 37 years and will be greatly missed, She did so much for breast cancer and was a huge supporter of my AIDS foundation.” Ms. Stein was a breast cancer survivor.

A fixture at charity galas, gallery openings and luxury stores, Ms. Stein developed her own celebrity in real estate — a profession in which agents often shun the limelight. She was the model for the brash broker portrayed by Sylvia Miles in the film “Wall Street.” In the film, the broker tries to sell an apartment to the yuppie character played by Charlie Sheen.

The daughter of a kosher caterer, Ms. Stein was born in Manhattan, grew up in Riverdale and worked first as a fifth-grade teacher. A blind date with Seymour Stein, the founder of Sire Records, put her life on a new path into the popular music business. After their marriage, the couple worked together.

Sire’s performers included Madonna, the Talking Heads, the B-52’s and the Ramones. Mr. Stein was also credited with creating the Top 100 charts for Billboard. He was unavailable for comment last night.

Ms. Stein was a co-manager of the Ramones as they helped spawn punk music and is credited with arranging their breakthrough performances in England. Her co-manager at the time, and a longtime friend, Danny Fields, attested to her forceful style. “She had powerful emotions,” he said, “and she didn’t appreciate being dissed or not having a phone call returned.”

A fan as much as a manager and promoter, Ms. Stein sporadically joined the Ramones on their road tours. She also joined Mr. John on shopping trips for furs and jewelry.

The Steins eventually grew apart, and divorced in the late 1970s. A Vanity Fair profile of Ms. Stein later quoted her ex-husband as saying: “Our marriage for me was like eight years on a roller coaster, and not always strapped in.”

By then Ms. Stein was reinventing herself in real estate. She started by claiming a finder’s fee from the society brokerage firm Edward Lee Cave when she helped sell the triplex penthouse at the San Remo on Central Park West that she and her husband had shared. Starting as a novice, she quickly established herself at the Cave firm and later switched to Prudential Douglas Elliman.

Prudential’s president and chief executive, Dottie Herman, called the murder “a terrible tragedy” and added, “Linda Stein was the broker to the stars and very loyal to our company, a good friend to all and to me personally.” Pam Liebman, president of the Corcoran Group, said, “She was the first broker to make a name for herself in dealing with the celebrity elite.”

Despite the divorce, the Steins stayed in touch. “They fight and then they make up,” Mr. Fields said. “It’s like they’re married, but they’re living separate lives.”

Besides Mandy, the Steins had another daughter, Samantha. Ms. Stein also had a 3-year-old granddaughter, Mr. Fields told The Associated Press. The two daughters left Ms. Stein’s building about a half-hour apart last night, without comment. One broke into tears when reporters and photographers rushed around her.

One building resident, Seymour Holtzman, said: “I felt 1,000 percent safe here before,” but added that he now planned to get a security system for his apartment.

Reporting was contributed by Al Baker, Christine Haughney, Daryl Khan, Anthony Ramirez and Ben Sisario.

Copyright 2007The New York Times Company

[stache]

This should get solved pretty quickly.

[Front_Porch]

A great piece from Jim Farber, the Daily News music critic:




Linda Stein was in tune with rhythm of New York

She was a louder-than-life New Yorker who muscled and charmed her way into the inner circle of some of the most powerful scenes in the city from music to real estate.


The rich and wild story of Linda Stein, the one-time manager of the seminal punk band The Ramones and ex-wife of the man who signed Madonna, parallels the last 30 years of this city's history.


In the mid-1970s, Stein was smack on the cutting edge, at a time when the whole city was moving in that direction.


Stein was around at the birth of CBGB, co-managing The Ramones with Danny Fields, while advising her then-husband, Seymour Stein, on the careers of key label bands from the Talking Heads to The Pretenders.
She was a fixture in clubs from Studio 54 to the Mudd Club and later a reliable voice in gossip columns, aided by her quick wit and fanciful way with a four-letter word.


By the late 1980s, Linda Stein had moved with the city's flow to find its new cutting edge - super-priced real estate.


She finessed herself into becoming one of the city's most powerful agents - the "Realtor to the Stars" as photographer Patrick McMullen famously called her.


She had the goods to prove it, landing mega-million-dollar apartments for Madonna, Sting, Billy Joel, Christie Brinkley, Bruce Willis, Jann Wenner, Michael Douglas, Steven Spielberg and old friend Elton John.


Elton became one of her first celebrity comrades in the '70s, though her list of big-name associations runs from musicians to moguls to movie stars (including ally Sylvester Stallone).


That's a long way from where Stein started, as Linda Adler, the daughter of a kosher caterer in Riverdale, the Bronx. By junior year of high school, she was adept at making connections that would pay off.

According to a lengthy New York magazine profile of Stein, her junior high prom date was none other than Elliot Roberts, who later managed Neil Young.


For a short time, Stein taught fifth grade in the city but nothing so routine could last long in her life. Soon enough she was married to Seymour Stein, an ambitious record promotion man, who went on to become the legendary force behind Sire Records, a hugely influential label in '70s and '80s rock and pop.


Stein had two daughters by her husband but by 1979 she was divorced.
It was then she found her new forte in real estate. City property had been undervalued for years but things were about to change. Stein was there right as the co-op sweep began.


Stein sold Wenner a townhouse that belonged to Perry Ellis for $4.2 million in 1987, and bagged Andrew Lloyd Webber a duplex in the Trump Tower for $6 million in 1988, according to the New York magazine profile.
Stein moved over to Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate in 1990, and soon sold Andy Warhol's old place for $3 million.


Yet her character was better known, and more beloved, than her commissions.


"She was the Auntie Mame of both rock 'n' roll and real estate," old friend Danny Fields said.


True, no one who knew her considered Stein soft and cuddly, but she had humor and edge to burn. Friends say she could shock and engage in equal measure, making her the kind of person everyone in this town recognizes - a real New Yorker.



ali r.
{downtown broker}

[ati_m]

So shocking =(
I've seen so many of her listings in the past 2 years or so...

... R.i.p..

[lofter1]

Assistant Arrested in Killing of Real Estate Agent

NY TIMES

By AL BAKER and SEWELL CHAN
November 9, 2007

A Manhattan personal assistant fatally bludgeoned her boss, the well-connected real-estate agent Linda Stein, in the woman’s opulent Fifth Avenue apartment because Ms. Stein “just kept yelling at her,” a law enforcement official said today. The assistant was arrested this morning.

Officials said the assistant, Natavia Lowery, 26, of Brooklyn, made statements implicating herself in the Oct. 30 killing of Ms. Stein after detectives interviewed her and re-interviewed her in recent days. Criminal charges from the Manhattan district attorney’s office are pending. Ms. Lowery was being held at the Seventh Precinct on the Lower East Side.

According to the woman’s account, her tempestuous relationship with Ms. Stein — a punk-rock pioneer and real estate agent who worked with numerous celebrities — built from animosity to violence, the official said.

“It was that Linda just kept yelling at her, over everything” the official said. “They fought. It was like a continuous thing, like a buildup.”

Another official, Paul J. Browne, who is the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said that investigators followed a dual path of combing for physical evidence while conducting dozens of interviews with Ms. Stein’s friends, acquaintances and family members.

Investigators returned to Ms. Stein’s apartment to examine the door frame of the apartment and collect fiber samples from the carpet, while detectives from the 19th Precinct in Manhattan and from the Manhattan North Homicide Task Force interviewed Ms. Lowery repeatedly.

Ms. Stein, 62, a real estate broker at Prudential Douglas Elliman, had a varied and storied career. Born in the Bronx, the daughter of a Jewish caterer, she was a pioneer on the punk-rock scene and became a manager for the Ramones. Later, she turned to real estate, working with celebrity clients like Madonna and Billy Joel.

The singer Elton John is preparing a memorial concert in Ms. Stein’s memory.

Citing friends of Ms. Stein, The Daily News reported that the real estate broker might have met Ms. Lowery when the younger woman worked as a secretary at the Rogers & Cowan public relations agency in Manhattan.

The News, citing unidentified sources, reported that Ms. Lowery had been arrested in December on misdemeanor charges of identity theft and petty larceny — and that Ms. Stein did not know about the arrest.

According to The News, Ms. Lowery had been accused of stealing a high school friend’s identity and using it to open accounts at Target and T-Mobile and to make additional purchases in Virginia. The charges against Ms. Lowery were eventually dropped and the case was sealed, The News reported.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

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http://gawker.com/



Natavia Lowery, slain broker Linda Stein's personal assistant, has been arrested for Stein's murder after "implicating herself." Lowery, a former member of the Black Finesse Modeling Troupe, has previously been arrested on charges of identity theft. According to the Daily News, "Some of Lowery's relatives insisted she was innocent." Some!
[NYDN]

[infoshare]

Assistant Arrested in Killing of Real Estate Agent
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/ny...9e4&ei=5087%0A


By AL BAKER and SEWELL CHAN
Published: November 9, 2007

A Manhattan personal assistant fatally bludgeoned her boss, the well-connected real-estate agent Linda Stein, in the woman’s opulent Fifth Avenue apartment because Ms. Stein “just kept yelling at her,” a law enforcement official said today. The assistant was arrested this morning.


Officials said the assistant, Natavia Lowery, 26, of Brooklyn, made statements implicating herself in the Oct. 30 killing of Ms. Stein after detectives interviewed her and re-interviewed her in recent days. Criminal charges from the Manhattan district attorney’s office are pending. Ms. Lowery was being held at the Seventh Precinct on the Lower East Side.

According to the woman’s account, her tempestuous relationship with Ms. Stein — a punk-rock pioneer and real estate agent who worked with numerous celebrities — built from animosity to violence, the official said.

“It was that Linda just kept yelling at her, over everything” the official said. “They fought. It was like a continuous thing, like a buildup.”

Another official, Paul J. Browne, who is the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said that investigators followed a dual path of combing for physical evidence while conducting dozens of interviews with Ms. Stein’s friends, acquaintances and family members.

Investigators returned to Ms. Stein’s apartment to examine the door frame of the apartment and collect fiber samples from the carpet, while detectives from the 19th Precinct in Manhattan and from the Manhattan North Homicide Task Force interviewed Ms. Lowery repeatedly.

Ms. Stein, 62, a real estate broker at Prudential Douglas Elliman, had a varied and storied career. Born in the Bronx, the daughter of a Jewish caterer, she was a pioneer on the punk-rock scene and became a manager for the Ramones. Later, she turned to real estate, working with celebrity clients like Madonna and Billy Joel.

The singer Elton John is preparing a memorial concert in Ms. Stein’s memory.

Citing friends of Ms. Stein, The Daily News reported that the real estate broker might have met Ms. Lowery when the younger woman worked as a secretary at the Rogers & Cowan public relations agency in Manhattan.

The News, citing unidentified sources, reported that Ms. Lowery had been arrested in December on misdemeanor charges of identity theft and petty larceny — and that Ms. Stein did not know about the arrest.

According to The News, Ms. Lowery had been accused of stealing a high school friend’s identity and using it to open accounts at Target and T-Mobile and to make additional purchases in Virginia. The charges against Ms. Lowery were eventually dropped and the case was sealed, The News reported.

In a phone interview from her home in Dalzell, S.C., Ms. Lowery’s aunt, Julia Carrow Lowery, 44, said a detective had called her sister this morning to say that Ms. Lowery had been arrested.

Ms. Lowery insisted that her niece enjoyed working for Ms. Stein. Natavia Lowery found the job through a temporary employment agency and began work for Ms. Stein in July, the aunt said.

“She always talked about the lady, how nice she was,” Julia Lowery said. “She was not nice to a lot of other people, but she was nice to Natavia.”

Julia Lowery said her niece grew up in New York, graduated from a college in the South and “comes from a good Christian family.”

“My niece is not even capable of doing something like that,” Ms. Lowery said. “When she gets mad, she is not capable of going into a rage.”

[MidtownGuy]

Linda Stein must have been a royal bitch of a boss to actually drive someone to murder her. I'm not saying she should be killed for it, but why would you be always yelling and screaming at someone, if they're that bad, then why not just fire them? And if a boss is always yelling and screaming to the point that you start to imagine KILLING him/her, I think it's definitely time to quit and find another job! Anything beats prison!!
Maybe there's more to the story?

[Fabrizio]

I'll bet Stein saved this girl with a job, generosity and opportunity. So she was big, loud and carried on... an old NY-style way of getting things done that doesn't work in today's culture and with today's young people. Stein isn't here to defend herself.... I bet this girl is going to get off very easy.

[lofter1]

The fact the the prior identity theft situation was dropped / sealed is an interesting legal wrinkle.

I think there's more that will come out on this one.

And, without sounding too cold, curious how they'll cast the film version ...

[lofter1]

Celeb realtor's assistant confesses to murder


(AP Photo/Andy Kropa)
NYPD detectives escort Natavia Lowery from the
Seventh Police Precinct in New York.

BY ROCCO PARASCANDOLA
November 9, 2007

The personal assistant did it, cops say.

The mystery surrounding the penthouse murder of celebrity realtor Linda Stein was solved yesterday, police sources said, when her personal assistant implicated herself in the Upper East Side murder, telling detectives she was tired of constantly being yelled at and reprimanded.

The assistant, Natavia Lowery, 26, of Williamsburg was arrested early today and will be charged with second-degree murder in the Oct. 30 slaying of Stein, 62. Stein first made her mark as a punk rock pioneer, then switched gears and made millions selling high-end real eastate as the so-called "Realtor to the Stars."

During a press conference today, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Lowery told detectives that Stein was "verbally abusive" to her the day of the murder, using profanity and derogatory language. She also said Stein blew marijuana smoke in her face before she snapped and hit Stein six or seven times with a yoga stick, Kelly said.


(c) The New York Times / May 7, 2001
Linda Stein

Stein, known for both her caring ways and her tempestuouus personality, was a demanding boss, "too demanding," Lowery said, according to one source.

"She was constantly yelling at me,'' one source quoted Lowery as saying. "She basically said Stein wouldn't stop and that she couldn't take it anymore."

The fatal confrontation, police said, took place the afternoon of Oct. 30, when Lowery showed up at Stein's Fifth Avenue home, a penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park.

Mandy Stein found her mother dead in a pool of blood in her Fifth Avenue apartment, overlooking Central Park, the night of Oct. 30.

Lowery is scheduled to be arraigned later today.

Police at first believed Stein, a cancer survivor, fell and banged her head and that the blood thinner medication she took explained the amount of blood.

An autopsy the next day, however, concluded that she had been murdered, beaten about the back of her head and neck with a blunt object.

Given the relatively tight security at the building, detectives almost immediately zeroed in building workers and those closest to her family, friends and colleagues.


Copyright © 2007, AM New York

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The last listing of Linda Stein









Posted by Laura Mann
REAL LI
November 1, 2007

Prudential Douglas Elliman agent Linda Stein, who was killed yesterday in her Manhattan apartment, counted photographer Peter Beard among her recent clients.

Beard’s Montauk estate, which includes a carriage house and four rustic cabins, has been on the market since 2005. The five-acre property sits on an 80-foot bluff overlooking the Atlantic. Last year, Prudential’s CEO Dottie Herman told Newsday that it is the last available oceanfront property before the Montauk lighthouse.

The Beard estate is also listed with Prudential’s agent John Golden, who told Newsday today, "Linda and I worked together for years. She was a great broker and passionate about real estate, and she was great at it. She was one of a kind."

Last year, the price on Beard's estate went from from $32 million to $20 million. It is currently listed at $26 million. Beard’s ex-wife, model Cheryl Tiegs, is still listed as owner on property records.

[stache]

It's so Y2K!

[lofter1]

I'm confused ...

[lofter1]

aha ...

Yoga Stick (Danda)

Yoga Danda, also known as Yoga staff is a special T - shaped wooden stick that is mainly used by yogis from ancient times for meditation purposes. This ancient meditation tool when supported under the armpits, regulate the breathing, hence often used prior to Pranayama or meditation. It offers a convenient way to alter breath flow between nostrils and help gaining the maximum out of Pranayama techniques, especially those requiring alternate nostril breathing, such as Nadi Shodhana Pranayama. This danda is used to create a balance between Ida nadi (mental energy) and Pingala nadi (physical energy), and ease the flow of Sushumna nadi (spiritual energy).

The Yoga Danda is a T-shaped wooden staff which is usually 2 feet in height and has a U shaped bent in its horizontal part to provide a comfortable support to the armpit.

To use Yoga danda sit on the floor in any meditative posture such as Siddhasana, Sukhasana or Padmasana with your spine straight. Support your torso on the Yoga Danda by resting your armpit on the U-shaped horizontal member of the staff. The Danda should be placed under the side that has the open nostril. For example, if the flow is free on the right nostril, support your right armpit on the Yoga danda. After a few minutes, you will feel the flow of breath easier through other nostril, the left nostril. Once you achieved the balanced flow you can remove the Yoga danda. The stick can also be used to rest arm while rotating mala beads.

This excellent Meditation tool has been used by yogis as it assists in one's spiritual practice. The wandering yogis used this stick as a vital complement to their yogic practices. It has a great symbolic value, when viewed straight on, it resembles a spinal column descending from the shoulders of a human being. In spiritual terms, this is known as the Meru Danda, or the cosmic pillar that is the center of the Universe. The yoga danda is supposed to remind us that wherever we are is the center of the universe - and that is within us, the spinal column up which rises the Kundalini Shakti - the creative power of the universe.