GREENWICH, CONN — .
Sylwester Lemanski was this close to selling a $400,000 Lamborghini to a Wall Street investment banker.
The customer had been eyeing the car for months at the dealership Lemanski manages. He had decided on the model and color -- a titanium Murcielago -- and needed only to sign on the bottom line.
Then, as financial markets teetered in March and layoffs mounted on Wall Street, the customer started getting cold feet. Lemanski could feel the deal slipping away.
"After a little bit you just have to ask someone the question: 'Are we, or are we not?' " Lemanski recalled. "He said, 'Sorry, not.' He said what's going on with all the investment banks was stopping him from making the purchase."
Times are definitely tough when Greenwich is feeling the sting.
The ritzy enclave north of New York City, home to dozens of hedge funds and scores of investment bankers, stands out from other upper-crust communities around the suburbs of New York, even Scarsdale and Chappaqua. Greenwich is the only one, for example, that has white-gloved police officers directing traffic along its lightly traveled main street.
But like so much of the rest of the country, the town's once red-hot residential and commercial real estate markets have cooled from a boil to a simmer. Some of the shopkeepers that line fashionable Greenwich Avenue are complaining of slow sales, dwindling foot traffic and suddenly price-conscious consumers.
Everything is relative, of course. The average home here sells for more than $2.8 million and lease rates on commercial properties tower above those of neighboring communities -- sometimes even outstripping Manhattan. The median household income in Greenwich last year was $115,644, compared with $49,314 for the U.S. as a whole.
"Most of us would like to have the problems that Greenwich has," said Edward Deak, an economics professor at nearby Fairfield University. "But Greenwich is not immune from the larger economic problems that we're facing, both on Wall Street and on Main Street."
The pain is felt at PetitPatapon, a children's clothing store where a baby's cotton sundress goes for $79. Business is slow, said co-manager Nancy Harper, and customers demand bargains.
"Half the time we're just standing around bored, just wanting people to come in," Harper said.
"I go into some of the other shops. They're all having a hard time. People are just not coming in and buying."
