Booming market for Dr. Doom lot

Vacant E. 62nd St. lot where Dr. Nicholas Bartha's townhouse stood has $8 million price tag. Potential buyers have been flooding the phone lines of the broker hired to sell the site of the upper East Side townhouse blown up by the late Dr. Nicholas Bartha.

"We really have had a great deal of interest," said Florrie Milan, a broker with Brown Harris Stevens who has listed the 20-by-100-foot lot on E. 62nd St. for a cool $8 million.

"Where else can anyone buy a piece of land today on Manhattan's Gold Coast on the upper East Side? This is such an opportunity, even though it's so sad," Milan said yesterday.

Bartha, 66, died July 15, five days after he rigged his gas meter and set off a massive explosion that leveled the townhouse, which authorities say he wanted to destroy to spite his former wife, denying her the profits from its sale.

The father of two owed just over $4 million to his ex-wife, Cordula, from their divorce settlement and was being forced to sell his beloved 124-year-old home to pay the bills.

With the rubble gone, the listing for the now-vacant lot reads: "Seize this opportunity to build your dream house!" and touts its location on "a quiet, lovely treelined street in New York City's upper East Side Historic District." You gotta love those copywriters!

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/445250p-374958c.html