Actor and filmmaker Ed Burns owns JFK Jr.’s Tribeca apartment. He bought the top-floor loft, Apartment 9E at 20 North Moore Street, from Kennedy’s estate around April 2000, and property records and real estate reports indicate he still holds it in 2026.
How the Apartment Left the Kennedy Estate
John F. Kennedy Jr. bought the loft in 1994 for approximately $700,000. He moved in and was later joined by Carolyn Bessette after their 1996 wedding. Both died in the July 1999 plane crash.
Kennedy’s will, which became public after his death, left “all my interest in my cooperative apartment located at 20-26 Moore Street, Apartment 9E,” including his co-op shares and proprietary lease, to Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. Because Carolyn died in the same crash, that bequest failed. With no surviving spouse or children, the apartment fell into the residuary estate, which the will directed into the John F. Kennedy Jr. 1983 Trust. The bulk of that trust ultimately benefited the three children of his sister Caroline Kennedy: Rose, Tatiana, and Jack Schlossberg.
The will named Kennedy’s cousin Anthony Radziwill as executor, with Timothy Shriver designated as backup. Radziwill was battling cancer and died weeks after Kennedy, in August 1999, so Shriver likely stepped into the executor role. The estate sold the loft to Burns the following spring, a relatively quick turnaround for an estate of that complexity.
Who Ed Burns Is
Ed Burns is best known for writing and directing films including The Brothers McMullen and She’s the One. He married model Christy Turlington in 2003, and the couple has raised their family in the Tribeca area. The purchase was not widely publicized at the time, which is part of why the ownership of the apartment remains a common search question more than two decades later.
Why the Sale Price Is Hard to Pin Down
The exact price Burns paid has not been widely reported in public records. The transaction would have been subject to New York State real estate transfer tax, computed at $2 for every $500 of the sale price, and the New York City Real Property Transfer Tax.1New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. Real Estate Transfer Tax If the sale exceeded $1 million, an additional 1% state mansion tax would also have applied.2New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. FAQs Regarding the Additional Tax on Transfers of Residential Real Property for $1 Million or More
Unlike many high-net-worth Manhattan property owners who hold real estate through limited liability companies to keep their names off public records, Burns appears to have purchased the unit in a more straightforward transaction. LLC ownership has become standard practice in luxury New York real estate because the city’s property records are public. Using an LLC as the title holder replaces the owner’s personal name with a company name on the deed, making it harder to connect a specific person to a specific address.
The Building Itself
20 North Moore Street is a nine-story red-brick structure with a sage-green cast-iron door, set along the cobblestone streets of Tribeca. When Kennedy owned the unit, it was structured as a cooperative apartment, meaning he held shares in the building’s corporation and a proprietary lease for his specific unit rather than owning the physical space outright the way a condominium owner would. Co-ops are common in older Manhattan buildings and give the building’s board significant control over sales and renovations. Whether the building has since converted to a different ownership structure is not reflected in the available records.
Comparable top-floor loft units in the surrounding blocks now routinely trade in the multi-million-dollar range, a long way from the $700,000 Kennedy paid in 1994. Any future sale would trigger the standard state and city transfer taxes and, since July 2019, an additional supplemental tax on New York City residential sales of $2 million or more, with rates that scale up based on the purchase price.1New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. Real Estate Transfer Tax
How to Verify the Ownership Yourself
You can confirm current ownership of 20 North Moore Street, or any other Manhattan property, through the city’s Automated City Register Information System, known as ACRIS. The system is free and available online through the New York City Department of Finance, with records going back to 1966.3NYC Department of Finance. ACRIS You can search by address, by block and lot number, or by party name to pull up recorded deeds, mortgages, and other documents.4NYC Department of Finance. Property Related Documents
One caveat: if a property is held by an LLC, you will see the company name on the deed rather than an individual owner. New York does not currently require domestic LLCs to publicly disclose their beneficial owners at the state level, though the property itself and its transaction history remain part of the public record.