A Townhouse Exploded, But The Value Was In The Land (And A Book)

A Manhattan Townhouse At 34 E 62nd Street Exploded In A Divorce Proceeding
Most Of The Value Is Found In The Land Because Improvements Depreciate
The Property Was Sold And Resold Over The Years For Higher Prices

In 2006, A Manhattan townhouse, 34 East 62nd Street, exploded after a divorce decree that forced the husband, Dr. Nicholas Bartha, to sell. This was the same man who declared to his wife: I WILL LEAVE THE HOUSE IF I’M DEAD. Little did everyone realize that he was speaking the truth.

A few years prior to the tragic 2006 event, I was hired by the attorney for the wife of Dr. Bartha to appraise the townhouse for the divorce action. I recall it took Dr. Bartha, the husband and sole occupant, many months if not longer, to allow me access to the interior of his brownstone. I’m a little hazy about the specific timings between events, given my appraisal was about twenty years ago, but here is how I remember the event flow.

On the morning of the inspection, I met Dr. Bartha in his office on the ground floor. After a few pleasantries, we headed to the basement. However, in the basement, as I started taking pictures, he changed his mind about allowing me to do that. I indicated to him that when I am not allowed to take pictures, I will indicate that as such in my final appraisal report. He noticeably relaxed after I showed him how I was deleting the handful of digital pictures I had already taken of the basement, specifically of the new boiler and gas lines that he had described to me in great detail, seemingly proud of the new installation. I didn’t think anything of those gas lines until he blew up the house a few years later. The basement was well-lit, the floor was gravel, and the area was essentially empty. After we finished inspecting the basement, he walked me through the entire house without incident. He was quite calm and courteous, behaving appropriately in contrast to the awful way he reportedly treated his wife. I was expecting to see the spray-painted swastikas the wife’s lawyer had warned me about, but I saw none, assuming they had been painted over.

A 2005 appellate court opinion said the doctor had “intentionally traumatized” Cordula Bartha, a Jew who was born in Nazi-occupied Holland, by posting “swastika-adorned articles and notes” around their home. The opinion also said Bartha had “ignored her need for support and assistance while she was undergoing surgery and treatment for breast cancer.”
NBC News

Eventually, I had to appear in court to testify about my appraisal report results. Both parties met in front of a special referee in the courthouse at 60 Centre Street in downtown Manhattan, and I was the only witness in the courtroom. Dr. Bartha did not hire an appraiser to represent him, but his attorney was diligent and worked hard to find issues with my report, but he was unable to discover anything material. Dr. Bartha was at the large table all of us shared, but I never heard him speak before or after my testimony. I also met Mrs. Bartha for the first time in the courtroom since she was not living in the home during my interior inspection a while back. Much later, when the case was finalized, the wife’s lawyer told me the court decision used the market value in my report.

I always deem it a good indicator of my performance as a witness when opposing counsel hires me or my firm shortly after the case for a new matter. We’ve been working with Bartha’s attorney ever since. After my testimony, I moved on to other appraisals, and I believe the case dragged on for a few years. By 2006, all efforts made by Dr. Bartha to avoid selling the property had been exhausted.

On July 10, 2006, the townhouse exploded after Dr. Bartha apparently opened the gas lines. There had been several complaints from neighbors about a gas leak made to the utility company just before the explosion. Emergency services assumed he opened the new gas lines, the very gas lines I viewed alone with him during my inspection of the basement. A year prior to the explosion, he had been found by his business partner passed out with the gas on. After the explosion, he was pulled from the rubble by the fire department after texting the rescuers about his location. He became the suspect almost immediately. I had read that he had passed away shortly after he was hospitalized.

By the end of the day yesterday, fire marshals and detectives from the Police Department’s arson and explosion squad were trying to piece together what had happened. One law enforcement official said detectives were investigating the possibility that Dr. Bartha had wanted to kill himself and blow up the building, but added: “Do we have him turning that gas on and lighting a match? No.”
New York Times

Before & After

Now She Has Nothing?

The question on most people’s minds in 2006 was along the lines of “That poor widow. He blew up the house, and now she has nothing.” What most people don’t understand is the general rule that land appreciates, and improvements on the land depreciate. When that townhouse blew up, the vast majority of the value was held by the land itself, which was then covered with rubble.

About three weeks after the explosion, the Wall Street Journal called and interviewed me on camera in front of the now-empty lot. I can’t find the old clip (and 2006 was the bronze age for video quality), but I know it aired on August 2, 2006, both on the WSJ website and WCBS Channel 2. I took a screenshot of the video at the time. I remember thinking it was quite odd to stand in front of a pile of rubble that I had previously walked through, and the person I walked through it with had perished.

Source: Screengrab from 2006 WSJ Interview

It’s A Small World, Afterall

After my video interview aired, a colleague of mine, who was a former managing director of one of the large Manhattan real estate brokerage firms, told me he was leasing a ground floor office adjacent to the townhouse within the co-op apartment building next door known as Cumberland House at 30 East 62nd Street. He was working at his desk when a wall of debris came pouring over him from the adjacent property’s explosion. He wasn’t hurt other than some cuts and bruises. In addition, a commercial appraiser I know reached out and told me he was inspecting a building across the street from the former townhouse on an appraisal assignment when the explosion occurred. Amazing. I also remember reading about some pedestrians walking on the sidewalk when the townhouse exploded who were injured, supposedly 14 people, but thankfully, no one was killed. The news coverage of the tragedy triggered its share of other real estate personal stories related to difficult situations.

You Could Write A Book About This!

This event ended up receiving national news coverage and extensive local and regional coverage. The reporting went into Dr. Bartha’s family history and his obsession with his ownership of the townhouse.

A few years later, I was contacted by an assistant for the writer Gay Talese, who said they wanted to interview me for a story on the explosion. I had long associated the famous author with his well-known book “Thy Neighbor’s Wife.” He had read the court documents about the divorce case connected to the townhouse explosion and came across my name as an expert witness in the proceedings. When we met at my office, he walked in energetically with his famous hat and handed me two of his books as a thank-you for my time. He was very direct and knew the details of the case. He mentioned he wasn’t sure whether he would write this story as an article or make it a book. He ended up doing both. More time passed, and last week, I happened to be looking at Amazon to buy a few books and was automatically recommended a book by Gay Talese, published in 2023. I noticed the cover of a book had an image of a collapsed townhouse. It piqued my curiosity, so I purchased a hard copy, which I got this weekend. I haven’t read it yet, but I skimmed through it and found references to my testimony as an appraiser. Yay!

The Man Who Blew Himself Up [American Heritage]

Bartleby and Me: Reflections of an Old Scrivener [Amazon]

She Ended Up Selling The Lot To A Developer

His wife sold the lot for $8,350,000 on January 31, 2007. Hopefully, she survived her cancer scare and was able to rebuild her life.

Lots of property transfers occurred at 34 East 62nd Street over the years, and a new structure was built and eventually listed for $32,500,000 in 2017. On July 24, 2015, the property sold for $11,950,000 and sold again for $18,000,000 on October 6, 2021, with the new structure. On April 4, 2024, the property was listed for sale for $35,000,000 but was cut to $29,500,000 on June 7.

Because the real estate market doesn’t care what anyone wants or thinks, it keeps on moving forward despite a tragedy like this.

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A Townhouse Exploded, But The Value Was In The Land (And A Book)