Wealthy neighbors of two famous East 70th Street mansions are raging at their absentee owners for not shoveling snow on their sidewalks following Monday’s blizzard, creating a “danger” to passers-by and the elderly, in particular.
While many Upper East Siders are fuming at Mayor de Blasio for not promptly plowing the streets, residents of 33 E. 70th St. are furious at the owners of fabled 41 E. 70th St., the six-story townhouse known as the Rothschild Mansion, and 43 E. 70th St., previously the residence of Qatar’s envoy to the UN.
Both buildings are currently unoccupied. One resident of tony 33 E. 70th St. — home to Vogue contributing editor Marina Rust and Robert Pennoyer, a prominent attorney and grandson of J.P. Morgan — tells Page Six: “We are so angry at the pileup of snow. Two of my neighbors who own townhouses do not shovel their sidewalk when it snows, and it turns hard and icy, and is a danger to the neighbors, particularly the elderly.
“Both of the mansions sit empty. Our own doormen and porters had to go out and clear a path so no one falls when it turns hard and icy. I called the Qatar embassy to complain, and called 311 about the Rothschild Mansion.”
The Rothschild site was built in 1929 for retailer Walter N. Rothschild and his wife, Carola Warburg Rothschild. It was owned by 85-year-old steel magnate Leroy Schecter (who lives at 15 Central Park West and never moved in), but he sold it last November for $32 million to a secret buyer who bought it in the name of Brightstar Renovations LLC.
The adjacent mansion at 43 E. 70th St. was previously the residence of Qatar’s UN ambassador, who could not be reached. The former occupants have moved into the beautiful townhouses at 7-9 E. 72nd St., which the Lycée Francais school sold a few years ago to the emir of Qatar.
The address is also said to be the New York home of Qatari Princess Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad Al-Thani, the famous art collector with a master’s degree from Columbia.