Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• Andrei Vavilov has officially exited the Plaza. The Russian financier, who sued the Plaza last year to get out of buying a $53.5 million penthouse spread—and ended up paying $11 million for a smaller apartment as part of a legal settlement—has taken a loss on the sale. Vavilov sold the apartment to an heir to the Goya Foods fortune for $8.4 million. [NYO]
• Investor Paul Cejas has dropped the price of his apartment at 834 Fifth Avenue, five months after he listed it for $18.5 million. The fifth-floor co-op is now on the market for $16.5 million. [Cityfile, BHS]
• Leona Helmsley's former Greenwich mansion has gotten another price chop. The 40-acre estate known as Dunnellen Hall is now $60 million, which is a whole lot less than its original listing price of $125 million. [Luxist, DO&A]
• Brandon Fradd, founder of the hedge fund Apollo Medical Partners, has sold his apartment at 68 Jane Street. The three-bedroom that Fradd listed for $4.45 million back in February sold for $3.7 million. [Cityfile]

It sounds like Saturday evening was an eventful one in Greenwich. Apparently a group of residents called the police after they spotted what they thought was a UFO in the sky:

The bright, moving lights in the sky caused several people to call police to report a possible UFO sighting. Some reports indicated there had been 30 to 40 individual lights glowing in the night sky. The questions prompted police to send two marine officers to investigate the sighting.

Needless to say, extra-terrestrials did not decide to make Greenwich their latest stopping off point. So what was it? If you guessed it was 30-40 "genuine oriental sky lanterns" resembling "mini hot-air balloons" set aloft in the sky as part of a fancy birthday party, pat yourself on the back. [Greenwich Time]

Greenwich Goes Green (and Gold) | Here's a question for you: How much do you think this brand new garbage bin is costing the town of Greenwich? If you guessed $675, you've probably been to Beverly Hills recently, since that's one of the only other places that has purchased the "hunter green and gold-lettered" receptacle. The total tab for the 34 new bins is going to come out to about $25,000; the good news is that an anonymous donor has stepped in to cover the costs. And Greenwich will be now cleaner than ever. Which is great to hear because as we all know—and as one local official points out—"it's important to have the proper receptacles so that the trash hits the bin and not the sidewalk." [GT]

• Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack and his wife Christy appear to be the mystery buyers behind last month's purchase of the limestone carriage house at 165 East 70th Street. The 107-year-old home, which was sold to Mack in "distressed condition" for $13.5 million—and which comes with a 12-car garage, believe it or not—was purchased from Bunny Mellon, the 99-year-old widow of philanthropist Paul Mellon. [NYO]
• Sandy Gallin, the Hollywood talent manager-turned-serial house flipper, is at it again. The onetime manager of stars like Michael Jackson and Barbra Streisand, Gallin has placed his 14-acre estate in Bridgehampton on the market for $32 million. [WSJ, Saunders]
• Steve Black, co-CEO of JP Morgan's investment banking division, has sold his estate in Greenwich for $18.9 million. The English-style mansion, which Black bought for $13.75 million in 2001, had been "quietly" on the market for $21 million. The buyer is believed to be to be investor Gerhard Andlinger. [WSJ]More

• Iris Cantor, the widow of Cantor Fitzgerald founder Bernie Cantor, has gone into contract to sell her penthouse at 110 Central Park South. The four-bedroom pad, which Cantor bought for $15 million in 2006, had been listed recently for $11.9 million. [NYO]
• Pro golfer Cristie Kerr and her husband, Aviator Sports president Erik Stevens, have picked up an 11th-floor condo at One Morton Square. The couple paid $2.3 million for the three-bedroom pad. [Cityfile]
• Hedge funder Steve Eisman has unloaded his nine-room apartment at 1125 Park Avenue for $5.2 million, or $1.795 million less than what he paid for it in March 2008. Eisman can afford to take the loss. His Front Point Partners is believed to have made a fortune betting against subprime lending. [NYO]More

• Whoopi Goldberg has put her SoHo loft on the market. The View co-host and comedienne has listed the 3,600-square-foot, two-bedroom space located at 101 Wooster Street for $3.99 million. [NYP, Sotheby's]
• Bruce Lisman, the former co-head of global equities at Bear Stearns, has finally closed on the sale of his apartment at 923 Fifth Avenue. The four-bedroom spread sold for just $12.8 million, which is $300,000 less than what Lisman paid for it in 2006 and nearly $10 million less than what Lisman was asking when it first went on the market in 2007. [Cityfile, previously]
• Michael Birkin, who recently stepped down as vice chairman of Omnicom Group, has picked up a full-floor loft in SoHo. Birkin and his wife Katrina paid $4.75 million for the two-bedroom space at 60 Greene Street. [Cityfile]
• Donald Trump has reportedly taken a loss on the sale of the Beverly Hills estate he bought for $10.35 million last year. The mansion on North Rodeo Drive sold $9.5 million, or $2 million less than its asking price. [Real Estalker]More

• Lorraine Bracco has gone into contract to sell the riverfront cottage in Snedens Landing that she bought with ex-husband Harvey Keitel in 1989 and which has been on the market for a few years now. The buyer? Phish frontman Trey Anastasio, who is reportedly paying around $2 million for the 1,800-square-foot house. [NYP]
• Gerhard Andlinger, the investor who sold his penthouse at the Time Warner Center for $37.5 million earlier this month, is picking up another pricey home. Andlinger is in contract to buy the 20,000-square-foot manse in Greenwich that belongs to Steve Black, the co-CEO of JPMorgan's investment banking division, which had been "quietly" on the market for $19.5 million. [NYP]More

• Richard Bressler, a managing director at the private equity shop Thomas H. Lee Partners and the former CFO of Viacom, has gone into contract to sell his duplex at 850 Park. The five-bedroom apartment, which Bressler purchased for $9.75 million in 2005, had been on the market since March and had been priced most recently at $13.5 million. [Cityfile, Corcoran]
• Mortgage company founder Steven Schnall and his wife Sherri have dropped the price of their massive townhouse at 2 North Moore Street less than three months after putting it back on the market for $33 million. The 11,000-square-foot mansion is now listed with Deborah Grubman for the bargain price of $29 million. Get it while it's hot! [Cityfile, Corcoran] More

The real estate market in hedge fund-heavy Greenwich continues to disappoint: Sales were down nearly 70 percent during the first quarter of 2009 compared with the same time period a year earlier, and the average sale price plummeted 23 percent. The good news? Greenwich-based hedge funds like Steve Cohen's SAC Capital and Paul Tudor Jones's Tudor Investment Corporation scored big gains last month as May "turned into one of the best performing months in history." Does that mean that some newly optimistic financial titan will find the cojones to pay $75 million for Leona Helmsley's former estate, which has been languishing on the market for months now? Let's hope so. It sure would be a pity if the 75-foot outdoor pool and industrial ice cream machine didn't get any use this summer. [Greenwich Time, NYT/Dealbook]

Mel Gibson is about to go through a messy divorce, which explains why in recent weeks he's slashed nearly $10 million off the price of his vast estate in Greenwich. Originally priced at $39.5 million, the 15,800-square-foot "Elizabethan-inspired Tudor mansion" is now available for $29.75 million. The 75-acre property comes with lots of extras, including a terraced pool, tennis court, greenhouse, stable, staff houses, log cabin and stream-fed pond. The downside? Unless prospective bidders happen to be devoutly Catholic or just die-hard fans of The Da Vinci Code, they'll have to plan on spending millions more freshening up the spooky, church-like home. After the jump, a little tour of a property you would not want to wander around at night.More

Sugar Daddy Case in Greenwich Concludes with Guilty Pleas | Remember Stephen Dent, the DuPont heir who used the website SeekingArrangement.com to meet young women for sex, but ended up becoming the victim of three different extortion attempts? A couple involved in one of the plots, Christopher and Dawn Jessop, pleaded guilty in a Connecticut courtroom yesterday. The husband was sentenced to 18 months in jail; his wife received three years of probation. And hopefully Dent has found more useful (and less dangerous) ways to spend his free time. [NYM]

The Noels' Golf Game Goes On | It looks like the Noels haven't been banned from Greenwich's Round Hill Club, after all. Daily Intel spoke with the club's manager who assured them that the Noels remain members "in good standing," and also happen to be "very nice people." [Daily Intel]

The Noels Suffer Another Bruising Blow | Bernie Madoff was kicked out of the Palm Beach Country Club a couple of months ago, as we first reported. Now it looks like the Walter and Monica Noel are facing the same sort of rejection. A tipster tells Guest of a Guest that the disgraced family has been booted from Greenwich's Round Hill Club. Update here. [GoaG]

Extorted DuPont Heir Is Also a Masochist, Apparently | For the past few weeks, newspapers in Connecticut have been buzzing about a wealthy man who used SeekingArrangement.com to meet young women for sex and who became the victim of an extortion attempt when a lady he encountered on the site vowed to publicly expose his taste for prostitutes if he didn't come up with $100,000. (The site, which is designed for sugar daddies and the women who love them, was profiled in New York Times Magazine last month.) Over the weekend, the name of the mystery man was revealed—he's DuPont heir and money manager Stephen Dent. And it turns out this isn't his first time he's been down this road. According to the police in Greenwich, at least three women he has met on the site over the past few years have tried to blackmail him. Even more surprising? He says he's coping with the saga just fine thanks to the "tremendous support he has received from his wife." [Greenwich Time]

• Leona Helmsley's former estate in Greenwich is now available at a discount. Priced at $125 million when it first went on the market last year, the 40-acre manor-style property known as Dunnellen Hall is now just $75 million. [GT, DO&A]
• Investor Paul Cejas has put his two-bedroom, fifth-floor apartment at 834 Fifth—the building that's home to Rupert Murdoch, Woody Johnson, and socialite Carroll Petrie—on the market for $18.5 million. [NYO, BHS]
• John Legend has cut the price of his apartment at 72 East 3rd Street, which he purchased in 2005 and originally listed for $1.245 million last December. The two-bedroom condo is now priced at $1.195 million. [NYM, PDE]