Thursday, September 8, 2011

Is David Schwimmer the 'Friends' star who now owns the demolished 331 E. Sixth St. townhouse?

Yesterday, we posted that comment from a reader who believed a cast member from "Friends" was the owner of 331 E. Sixth St., the now-demolished circa-1852 townhouse.

As the day progressed, a few commenters left hints pointing to David Schwimmer — you know, Ross.

And now, an anonymous commenter left us this juicy piece of detective work on the "Friends" post:

Gary Kress is the manager of 331 East 6th St Townhouse, LLC. That LLC is the current owner of this property. Gary Kress is also a name partner of Murphy & Kress, an accounting firm in Santa Monica that has numerous Hollywood types among its clientele. He has a relationship with Schwimmer through Dark House, a production company whose president Schwimmer is.

Indeed.


Well, as Muckety pointed out a few years back, Murphy & Kress is "an accounting firm that takes care of a clientele so exclusive that it refuses to confirm its clients. FEC filings indicate that Murphy & Kress handles financial affairs for Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Denzel Washington ... among other prominent figures in the film industry."

According to CorporationWiki, "Dark Harbor Stories, Inc. has a location in Santa Monica, CA. Active officers include David Schwimmer and Gary J Kress. Gary J Kress serves as the registered agent for this organization."

If all this does come back to Schwimmer... well, then he's your new neighbor!

Let's assume that this is his new home... We're wondering why:
• With all the available upscale townhouses on the market in the city, why did he buy this historic building only to tear it down?
• Didn't his people think tearing down this historic townhouse would raise the ire — and suspicion — of neighbors?
• What was so special about this particular location? Proximity to Indian food?
• How often will a busy person like Schwimmer actually even stay here?
• What does he have in store for the place? Indoor pool? Theater? Bowling alley?

What else do you want to ask?

21 comments:

  1. Investment property - like all college towns the east village's real estate values will continue to increase

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  2. No no no. It's Aniston. Whenever something goes horribly disastrously wrong... it's Aniston.

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  3. Why? Because he's an asshole.

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  4. He just got married... perhaps he's building the ultimate mancave.

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  5. re-posting.
    you have got to be kidding me. david schwimmer, your karma is F*CKED forever in the east village. please just get the f*ck out of here and go to the west village where you yuppie celebrity scumf*cks belong. maybe there are still some unprotected historic treasures over there for you to demolish. THANKS.
    the landmarks preservation committe should be completely and utterly ASHAMED of them selves. WTF are they doing over there? sitting on their G-D asses all day and taking bribes from developers?!?!?!
    and PS - "Friends" f*cking SUCKED! Hated your stupid idiot cornball show!!! It did nothing but help RUIN NYC through stupid plastic empty renditions of our culturally rich and unique city, obviously you continue to pillage it by destroying historic treasures, good move. NOT.
    Go back to LA where all the other scum have no taste and NO CLASS.
    YUCK

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  6. Wow.

    Ok, I have a question. If you felt you had to destroy the entire building, why did you choose to preserve this little scrap of fence?

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/goggla/6125722588/in/photostream

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  7. no its this guy who bought it. guess having a small bit on The Single Guy pays better than you'd expect.
    http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0806217/

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  8. The guy who played Ross on Friends is a giant douche? Ssshhhhhhocking.

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  9. I wouldn't be surprised if a nice neighborly "welcoming" committee, complete with tar and feathers, is organized for Mr. dip shit Schwimmer.

    [Glamma: I fucking HATE that show as well!!!!]

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  10. "How often will a busy person like Schwimmer actually even stay here?"

    Well, that might be the problem. He hasnt been 'busy' in years. He's bored, figured he would tear down a building.

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  11. "I wouldn't be surprised if a nice neighborly "welcoming" committee, complete with tar and feathers, is organized for Mr. dip shit Schwimmer."

    This fake internet tough guy shit is stupid and tiring. Nothing will happen and rightly so because no one has done anything illegal. You don't like it? Tough. Change the laws or buy the property yourself. But making stupid threats is for idiots and children.

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  12. If it turns out not to be Mr S- , is everyone who commented going to offer a public apology? Just wondering.

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  13. Yes, if that is the case I will publically apologize to schwimmer and simply redirect my entire tirade to Mr. S. No problem whatsoever!

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  14. i still think its marcel that bought and demolished that property

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  15. First of all, there was nothing historic or distinguished about this house. It was a generic boxy low rise building with no ornamentation or detail of any sort. Second, it was gutted and subdivided into apartments decades ago, and had no ornamentation or interesting details inside either. Regardless of who owns this place, maybe you should give them a chance, and see what they actually do with the property. It might be significantly more attractive than what was there. This whole notion that "Ye Olde New York" trumps everything else, and that the preservation of mediocrity must occur simply because it is old, is precisely why NYC has such boring contemporary architecture. This notion of contemporary NYC as some sort of quaint Victorian village is pathetic and retrograde..., We lag behind the rest of the international capitals, because of these fanatics obsessed with preserving the most trivial pieces of junk... Look at a truly historic city like London, and how contemporary architecture is constantly mixing with structures centuries old.

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  16. ^^ thanks Ross for the explanation

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  17. @Anon 12:02 - it helped that London was bombed out in the 1940s or there wouldn't be so much late 20th century architecture there. They also preserve an awful lot of thing because they are old and that city takes pride in it's heritage. I lived there for several years.

    Referring to 331 as old junk is completely ignorant. Take a look at the builing behind this one on 7th Street. The owners have done a complete gut renovation while preserving the style, integrity and history of the building. They've taken care to acknowledge the building's role in this neighborhood/city while modernizing it. If only others would follow suit.

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  18. There is nothing ignorant about my opinion. Please temper your language. I am a fan of preservation when it has merit. In fact, I am one of the people originally responsible for getting South Beach landmarked as the first 20th century neighborhood to receive such recognition in the US.

    Accusing me of being ignorant, or of somehow being affiliated with whoever owns this property is typical of the rabid rants of the preservationist fanatics. Even the most inconsequentual mediocrity needs to be preserved, or duplicated... It is this type of mentality that gave us "Ye Olden Battery Park City" a "neigborhood in keeping with the historic character of Lower manhattan"... Sadly, future generations of East Villagers will have no examples of contemporary 21st century, small scale residential living, because of the omnipotent retrograde attitudes shown in these comments. Instead, future generations will be faced with crumbling slum tenememnts of the 19th century, beutifully preserved to a standard which is not even original to the period when they were built... The other side of the coin called the Disneyfication of NYC.

    As for London, I too have lived there for many years. The structures to which I refer were not bombed during the war. Londoners know what to preserve, and what to replace. They are masters of knowing how to integrate the most fabulous contemporary designs, into ancient areas... always preserving a harmonious scale... The Courtyard of The British Museum had not been bombed a couple of years ago, when Norman Foster completely rethought it for contemporary times. Ditto, Rem Koolhaas plans for the entrance to the V and A.. or countless new residential buildings in historic SOHO near Wardour Street...

    Sadly, this unAmerican disregard for progress and for looking towards new ideas, is permeating every aspect of our society.. It is lazy thinking at best, and extremely dangerous at its worse..

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  19. Woot. If Schwimmer actually does move in, I'll be living 20 blocks away from him!

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  20. can we check that last IP address? i think schwimmer is mad at us.

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  21. @ anon 10:43

    Ha. I was wondering about that myself...

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