PAST NOW A PRESENT
’60 Four Seasons sign thief sells it for charity
His penance was making his crime pay — for charity.
A 71-year-old retired developer copped to stealing a bronze sign from the Four Seasons restaurant in 1960 and holding it all these years before returning it to an auction of items from the iconic, recently shuttered eatery Tuesday.
Fredric Lary, who now lives in Hollywood, Fla., was a student at Martin Van Buren HS in Queens Village when he pulled the “Mad Men” era caper.
Lary learned of the auction earlier this year and reached out to the restaurant, asking if his sign could be sold for charity.
The sign, estimated to go for up to $5,000, instead went for a staggering $40,000.
“I said, ‘Let’s auction it off and pay penance by donating the proceeds to the Children’s Health Fund,” he told The Post. “I was thrilled [by the final price].”
Back in Lary’s youth, the Four Seasons was New York’s hot new restaurant and the small sign on an outside wall — about 3 inches tall and 2 ½ feet long — beckoned. “It was 1960, and I was pledging for my high school fraternity . . . the pledges had to go on a scavenger hunt. We needed to bring back a recognizable sign,” Lary recalled. “I saw the sign and I thought, wow, that would definitely get me into the fraternity.” When Lary reached out to the Four Seasons, he had already beaten the rap.
The statute of limitations on grand larceny is five years.
The buyer who declined to be identified,was moved by the Four Seasons’ rich history, noting, “This place has hosted countless power lunches that cut across politics, media, finance and more.”
Lary’s sign wasn’t the only Four Seasons leftover gobbled up for a big price. The very first item sold — a 23 ½-inchby-14-inch bronze Four Seasons sign — went for $96,000.
The Four Seasons opened at 99 E. 52nd St. in 1959 and shut its doors on July 16. A new version is set to open next year at
280 Park Ave.