Lt. Sharpless,

As I reported to you a year or more ago, the Anthony "Fat Tony" Comstock
residence on Beekman Road is indeed among the living (or standing, if you
prefer), around the corner from the Fabulous Walter Mansion, and next door to
the home of a  friend of my oldest son.

I was trying to sucker you into an article about the scumbag (I mean,
distinguished attorney, large-scale owner of Summit commercial real estate,
and citizen of our fair municipality) who bought it (I would guess for $500
K), couldn't sell it (it's on a huge, flag-shaped lot) for the $2.5 mill or
so he thought he should get, and wanted to demo the house and subdivide the
lot, or alternately subdivide the lot and build two houses (next to the
railroad tracks at the rear of the present lot and several hundred feet from
Beekman Road), and do the universe a favor by having saved the Historic
Comstock House, which would not be at all compromised by having lost its
grounds and having a private street within inches of its truncated front
porch.

In the absence of permission from the zoning board (I think that's who it
was) to do the above, this Distinguished Citizen advised the people who live
adjacent to the house (which has been an eyesore for at least 15 years, and
vacant for probably 3 or 4) that he would have no choice but to develop it
for use as a group home.  He had the gall to make this announcement at a
public meeting,  managing to outrage even the good Republican believers in
property rights of our fair city.

He got turned down, and the house continues to sit there, vacant and
unrepaired, but remarkably intact, considering. After a neighbor considered
buying it and restoring it, but backed out, I thought I had a couple of ideas
for it, and told him I had people who might be interested. However, the Owner
had some prospect that he was about to go to contract with, so thanks but no
thanks.  In the meantime (and this was probably 4 months ago) guess what
happened?  Nothing. Stugazz. Zip.

Does this answer your question?

Ralph

PS--Apologies to Mr. Tangora and others who may have been uninterested in
this dissertation.  If you fell asleep midway, feel free to delete it upon
awakening.