650 Fifth Avenue (earlier known as the Piaget Building) is a 36-story 150 m (490 ft) building on the edge of Rockefeller Center on 52nd Street in New York City.
The building was designed by John Carl Warnecke & Associates for the Pahlavi Foundation founded by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1978.
Juicy Couture has its flagship store in the building.
In December 2008, the Asset Forfeiture Unit and Terrorism and National Security Unit of the United States Attorney's Office sought to take 40 percent ownership in the building after it charged that Bank Melli of Iran owns that percentage of the building in violation of the Sanctions against Iran. The other 60 percent of the building is owned by the Alavi Foundation -- a Bonyad that is successor to the Pahlavi Foundation.
Bank Melli had originally financed it with a $42 million loan in 1978. In the 1980s, financier Ivan Boesky had an office in the building.
According to the U.S. government, the Alavi Foundation transferred 35 percent interest in the building to a shell company Assa Company Limited, which had just one employee, in exchange for Bank Melli officially cancelling the loan. However, the shell company officially registered in Jersey, was reported to be owned by Bank Melli.
Famous quotes containing the word avenue:
“Only in America ... do these peasants, our mothers, get their hair dyed platinum at the age of sixty, and walk up and down Collins Avenue in Florida in pedalpushers and mink stoles—and with opinions on every subject under the sun. It isn’t their fault they were given a gift like speech—look, if cows could talk, they would say things just as idiotic.”
—Philip Roth (b. 1933)