71st St.-Lexington Corp. v Frankel (2025 NY Slip Op 50425(U))
[*1]
71st St.-Lexington Corp. v Frankel
2025 NY Slip Op 50425(U) [85 Misc 3d 1245(A)]
Decided on March 7, 2025
Supreme Court, New York County
Lebovits, J.
Published by New York State Law Reporting
Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.
This opinion is uncorrected and will not be
published in the printed Official Reports.
Decided on March 7, 2025
Supreme Court, New York County
71st
Street-Lexington Corporation, Plaintiff,
against
Eric Frankel, Defendant.
Index No. 653548/2023
Schwartz Sladkus Reich Greenberg Atlas LLP, New York, NY (Maria I. Beltrani,
Matthew Ulmann, and Daniel Ash of counsel), for plaintiff.
Foster Garvey
P.C., New York, NY (Maurice W. Heller of counsel), for defendant.
Gerald Lebovits, J.
This motion is the latest skirmish in a long-running fight between plaintiff 71st
Street-Lexington Corporation, a cooperative housing corporation, and defendant, Eric
Frankel, over control of shares in plaintiff owned (or formerly owned) by defendant's late
mother.
Plaintiff owns an apartment building on East 72nd Street in Manhattan. Defendant's
mother was the proprietary lessee of one of the apartments in the building. She died in
2005. After her death, defendant, as executor of his mother's estate, requested the transfer
of the proprietary lease to himself in his individual capacity. Plaintiff refused consent to
the transfer. Litigation ensued. (See Frankel v 71st St. Lexington Corp., Index
No. 105742/2011 [Sup Ct, NY County].)
Under a May 2014 stipulation in that action, defendant was to remove his belongings
from the apartment by July 2014; and would be permitted access to the apartment
thereafter only upon 24 hours advance written notice, and only for the purpose of selling