740 Park: “Gossipalooza”
The release this week of my pal David Netto‘s luscious book, Rosario Candela & the New York Apartment, 1927–1937: The Architecture of the Age, celebrating the architect of 740 Park Avenue, has renewed interest in the great cooperative apartment houses of Manhattan and, apparently, my 2005 book 740 Park. Reviewing Netto (whose collaborators include Paul Goldberger […]
Flight of the WASP to land in Newport
I’ll be at Newport, Rhode Island’s Redwood Athenaeum, the country’s oldest continuously operating library, on July 31st to give the fourth annual John J. Slocum Jr. Memorial Lecture. I follow Christopher Buckley, Bob Woodward, and 740 Park’s Steve Schwarzman to the Slocum podium–and I’m honored. I’m not as rich as they are, but promise the […]
It’s My Tetralogy
Publishers Weekly has announced my next book, fourth in a series of social-archaeological excavations of luxury real estate. A Caribbean cousin of 740 Park, Unreal Estate and House of Outrageous Fortune, it’s the story of the island of St. Barthélemy, which I’ve been visiting since the late 1980s and I couldn’t be more excited about […]
German Coup: The 740 Park Connection
Nine far-right plotters accused of seeking to overthrow the German governmenty went on trial in Stuttgart today, including their leader, Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss. “In all, 27 people face charges, including high treason and belonging to a terror organization, but they will be tried in three separate courtrooms in different cities,” CNN reports. One of Prince […]
R.I.P. Alice Mason, 100
I’m quoted in today’s New York Times obituary of Alice Mason, the real estate broker and hostess. For lesser beings like me, an invitation to one of her dinner parties was a signal of, if not acceptance, then a certain achievement. I still recall my thrill when I saw fury in the eyes of the […]
A Confederate Descendant in 740 Park
John Thain‘s financial acumen helped him win jobs running the New York Stock Exchange and Merrill Lynch but it didn’t make him lucky in real estate at the legendary 740 Park cooperative. Thain bought Enid Annenberg Haupt’s jewel box penthouse on the building’s 17th floor in 2006 for $27.5 million, listed it for sale in […]
WASPs Take Flight
Though it does not yet have a jacket, and won’t come out until November 14th (the waiting is the hardest part), my new book, Flight of the WASP: The Rise, Fall and Future of America’s Original Ruling Class, is now available for pre-order from the bookseller of your choice. From Bookshop.org From Barnes & […]
(Not) Everyone Loves a Rogue
Richard Avedon’s mural sized group portraits and off-takes from their making drew me to the Metropolitan Museum of Art this weekend, where I also confirmed that Rogues’ Gallery, my 2009 expose of the museum’s leaders, is still banned from sale in its store. (Flattered!) So, I’m delighted to say that, out of the blue, shepherd, […]
A Shaded View of Me
I first wrote about Diane Pernet when she was a New York designer in the mid-1980s. Now, she’s a fashion critic, entrepreneur, film festival founder, critic and blogger. Wearing that last hat at A Shaded View Of Fashion, she’s just posted a lengthy interview with me, looking both backward (I recall some of my favorite […]
This Duplex is a Tangy Treat at $26 Million
Virginia Smith at the Wall Street Journal reports a 740 Park duplex has come on the market at $26 million. The C-line apartment, on the 10th and 11th floors, appears to be the one owned since 1994 by Hamburg Tang, a semiconductor tycoon, and his wife Miranda. In 2016, Tang, then 85, sued neighbor Howard […]