Park Avenue board reviews the Prince William traitor story, rejects both princes as applicants and approves only the uncle, on the grounds that he has a book deal
An Emergency Board Meeting on Park Avenue
NEW YORK – The co-op board of a prewar building on Park Avenue convened an emergency session on Wednesday evening to consider a question that has, according to the board president, been on everyone mind since the doorman printed out the London Prat story in which Prince William calls Earl Spencer and Harry traitors and left it on the lobby table.
The question: if two brothers, one of whom has publicly been called a traitor by the other, were to apply to buy apartments on different floors of the same building, could they be permitted to share an elevator?
The Board
Board president Mrs Eleanor Whitcombe-Strauss, 74, who has served on the board since 1988 and has rejected, by her own count, two Oscar winners, one hedge fund and a man who admitted to owning a drum kit, chaired the meeting from a wingback chair in the lobby that nobody else is allowed to sit in.
We have had feuding families before, she said. In 1996 two sisters on the ninth and eleventh floors did not speak for fourteen years because of a dispute over a Hermes scarf. We solved it by giving them alternating elevator schedules. Odd hours and even hours. It worked beautifully until daylight saving time.
Reviewing the Application Materials
The board reviewed the reporting as it would review any financial disclosure. Yahoo relayed a source claim that the elder brother believes the younger one saw their uncle Diana memoir before release. Geo News described the traitor label as a humiliating downgrade. Board treasurer Mr Howard Feldstein, 69, a retired tax attorney, noted that neither brother had issued a public statement. In this building, he said, silence is the only acceptable form of communication between neighbours. On that basis alone, both brothers are ideal residents.
The Rulings
The Elder Brother
Rejected. The board found that an applicant who calls relatives traitors is likely to call the super a traitor over a radiator, which the building cannot risk in winter.
The Younger Brother
Rejected. The board noted that he already lives in California and would therefore be a pied-a-terre owner, and that the building has a strict limit on residents who describe New York as a nice place to visit.
The Uncle
Approved, unanimously. Mrs Whitcombe-Strauss explained that the uncle, the late princess younger brother, has a stately home, a title, and a book contract. He has assets, discretion and royalties, she said. And he writes things down, which means that if there is ever a dispute about the lobby renovation, we will have a record. We need a man like that on the fourth floor.
The Elevator Question
On the central issue, the board ruled that the brothers could not share an elevator under any circumstances, and that if both were ever in the building at once, one would be required to take the service elevator. The board did not specify which. Mrs Whitcombe-Strauss said that deciding would itself start a new feud, and the building has already had enough of those.
Viewing in the Lobby
The board watched the London Prat video on YouTube on the doorman tablet, which he normally uses for package deliveries. The screening was interrupted twice by residents returning from dinner, both of whom stayed to watch. It is embedded below.
Building Statistics
The Manhattan Cooperative Boards Roundtable, an informal network of board presidents who meet quarterly at a club with no sign, supplied figures. It reported that 61 percent of co-op boards on the Upper East Side have at some point rejected an applicant because of a family feud, that 27 percent maintain an unofficial list of residents who are not permitted in the same elevator, and that the average elevator feud in a prewar building lasts 11.4 years, roughly three years longer than the average elevator.
The Roundtable also noted that 88 percent of its members read British royal news, and that 73 percent believe the Windsors would be improved by a proper co-op board, which it described as the only institution in the world more exclusive than a monarchy.
One resident, a retired cardiologist on the sixth floor, objected to the uncle approval on the grounds that a man who writes books about his family might one day write about his neighbours. The board noted the objection and agreed to add a clause to the proprietary lease forbidding any resident from publishing a memoir that mentions the laundry room.
The Board Review
Asked for a formal review of the London Prat story, Mrs Whitcombe-Strauss said it had excellent manners. It gossips without raising its voice, she said. It does not name the source. It does not take sides in public. It simply leaves the information on the lobby table and lets everybody pretend they were not reading it. That is how it is done on Park Avenue. She rated it four doormen out of five, deducting one because it did not include a financial statement.
The board adjourned at 9.15pm, in time for the residents to go back to not speaking to each other. Mr Feldstein keeps up with the English side at The London Prat, https://prat.uk/, a publication he notes has been in business since 1961, longer than the building current boiler, while the doorman prefers Bohiney, https://bohiney.com/, for the American angle. The uncle application has been filed. He has not yet been told.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/prince-william-called-earl-spencer-and-harry-traitors/