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An Upper West Side condo board is taking a rare and drastic step against one of its own residents — asking a Manhattan court to force longtime owner Lawrence Feldman to sell his apartment and leave the building after what it describes as a violent, middle-of-the-night rampage in which he allegedly threatened to kill two people.
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The board of the Admaston, the condominium at 251 West 89th Street, filed suit in Manhattan Supreme Court this month, accusing the 75-year-old musician of turning a quiet residential building into the scene of a frightening, hours-long outburst. The complaint, reported by the New York Post, seeks a permanent injunction, damages, a $250,000 surety bond — and, most strikingly, a court order compelling Feldman to give up his home.According to court filings, the trouble unfolded over two days in mid-May. The building’s management company alleges Feldman “went on a violent, drug fueled rampage, threatening to kill two people,” pounding on a neighbor’s door overnight, chasing the resident manager to his apartment, striking a staffer and smashing a doorman’s monitor before police led him out in handcuffs.
Feldman has owned apartment 3C since 1986, when he paid $146,500 for it — roughly $450,000 in today’s dollars. Comparable units in the building now sell for between about $1.6 million and $4 million.
The most alarming account comes from neighbor Bridget Gilbertson, who lives across the hall and was home alone around 2 a.m. when, she told the court, a loud pounding started outside her door. She alleges Feldman screamed death threats and a graphic threat of sexual violence — “I am going to kill you, Bridget Russo,” she recalled in her filing — prompting her to check the lock and call 911. She says she later watched him lying on the lobby floor, screaming obscenities at a responding officer, kicking furniture and claiming to have a knife. Gilbertson and her husband, Christopher Russo, have since moved out and are “living out of a suitcase in a hotel,” she told the court, because they no longer feel safe at home.
Building staff described their own confrontations. One doorman, Rasim Paljevic, said Feldman roamed the lobby for hours, “sometimes muttering and sometimes screaming,” and alleged he smacked a porter; Paljevic wrote that he was “scared” and had never seen anything like it in his years working in buildings. A second doorman, Smail Ramusevic, claimed Feldman threatened to kill him and grabbed him by the thigh. Resident manager Almir Feratovic — who lives in a basement apartment with his wife and three children — told the court that staff had reported Feldman saying, “I am going to kill Almir.”
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Police handcuffed Feldman and took him to a hospital on May 15. He was back in the building the next day, according to the filings, which the board’s attorneys at Fox Rothschild say is part of why residents and employees remain fearful.
Feldman’s wife, Sandra Lee Church, pushed back on the portrayal. She told the Post she was asleep when it happened and described a long-running friction with Gilbertson. “I just don’t think that Lawrence was in his right mind,” she said, attributing his behavior to the lingering effects of an epidural and calling the episode an isolated one. Feldman, Gilbertson, Russo and the condominium’s attorney all declined or did not respond to requests for comment.
The legal fight is a jarring turn for a musician with a decades-long résumé. Per his professional biography, Feldman has recorded or performed with Tony Bennett, Rod Stewart, Linda Ronstadt and Liza Minnelli, played with the New York Philharmonic, and appeared on hundreds of recordings, film scores and Broadway productions in addition to his stint in the “SNL” band and The National Jazz Ensemble.
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