Permission to Dispose of Trust Property Would Raise Her Income to $60,000
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NOW GETS $43,000 [sic] FROM IT
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Trustee Has Offer of $1,200,000 for Realty In West Thirty-Fourth Street---Affects Vincent
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A petition filed to the Supreme Court yesterday by the United Trust Company, which was named as trustee in the ante-nuptial agreement executed in 1911 by the late Colonel John Jacob Astor, his intended wife, Madeleine T. Force, and her father, William H. Force, by which Mr. Astor put the property at 22 to 30 West Thirty-fourth Street in trust, the income to be paid to her after his death during her lifetime, shows that Mrs. Astor, who is now Mrs. William X. Dick, has been receiving $46,000 a year from the property.

The trust company asked permission to sell the property, and if it is granted the three parcels involved will be sold to Nathaniel Spear for $1,200,000, and the income to Mrs. Dick will be increased to $60,000. Mrs. Vincent Astor has an interest in the property because it will go to her husband upon the death of his former stepmother, and for that reason an order was obtained from Justice Erlanger yesterday to serve a copy of the petition on Mrs. Astor in Paris by mailing it to her in care of Morgan, Harjes & Co. before Aug. 4.

The case is to be heard on Aug. 16, when an application for the appointment of a referee to take testimony and report on the application will be made. Notice is also to be served on Mrs. Dick at Islip, L. I., and on Vincent Astor at 23 West Twenty-sixth Street.

The petition states that the ante-nuptial agreement provided that Mrs. Madeleine Force Astor was to get the income from the property if she survived her husband, and that she did survive him when he died April 15, 1912, on the Titanic. His will, giving the property to his son Vincent as part of the residuary estate after the death of the life beneficiary, was probated May 22, 1912.

The petition states that the premises consist of a six-story business building, 73 feet deep, covering 22 to 26 West Thirty-fourth Street, and two four-story buildings, each 25 feet wide, consisting of Nos. 28 and 30. The first parcel is leased to Spear & Co. under a lease expiring Sept. 1, 1925, at $22,500 a year, and the two other buildings are rented to the United Cigar Stores for $23,500 until May 1, 1925, making the total rental $46,000.

The trust company states that unless the property is sold it probably will be necessary to "expend considerable money in the alteration of the two buildings now leased to the United Cigar Stores before the same can be leased again for a term of years." The petition says further:

"An opportunity has now arisen whereby the Petitioner can sell the entire premises to Nathaniel Spear, President of Spear & Co., the lessee of the larger portion, for a price which, in the opinion of the petitioner, represents the fair market value of the premises. The agreement entered into with the said Nathaniel Spear, subject to the approval of the court, is to sell the premises above stated for $1,200,000, all of which is to be paid in cash, which will result in an income of $60,000 instead of $46,000, and the Petitioner will be relieved of the expense of altering the premises."

[Note: The property mentioned in this article is now part of the site where the Empire State Building is located. MAB]