In the spring of 2018, Jeffrey Epstein got an email from his neighbor at the time, Howard Lutnick, then the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald. “Are you aware as to them building to block our park views,” Lutnick wrote as Annabelle Selldorf’s now-widely-praised designs for the Frick were going before the Landmarks Preservation Commission. “What should we do about it? Time is of the essence.” Epstein replied via his assistant within a day in his typical, busier-than-God style: “no i was not.”
Epstein’s infamous mansion at 9 East 71st Street faced the Frick’s six-story research library and had unimpeded views to the west, over the Frick-family mansion toward Central Park. At No. 11, Lutnick had only a sliver of Epstein’s views — and apparently feared losing them. Within a week of his first message to Epstein, the now–Commerce secretary was pressing his neighbor to draft a letter to the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
