Alex Gibney‘s documentary Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream, based on my book 740 Park: The Story of the World’s Richest Apartment Building, aired worldwide last fall and is currently available for sale or rental in the iTunes store and on Hulu (as well as free online in the truncated-for-broadcast PBS version via Youtube). This week’s issue of The New Yorker is led by a story about Gibney’s film, detailing the pressure put on WNET, New York’s public television station, for broadcasting it. Though this is hardly the first time a wealthy subject has pushed back against revealing … Continue reading →

Did someone say, how was your weekend? Well, busy. First we were unwillingly evacuated from our home. So I didn’t have time to post about NASCAR champ Jeff Gordon listing his apartment at 15 Central Park West, subject of my just-completed next book, or about France selling the home of its UN ambassador at 740 Park, subject of an earlier real estate opus. Then, Le Monde published a story on the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute and its ball quoting my Rogues’ Gallery, and Gwyneth Paltrow, one of the select invited guests, opined that, “It sucked.” And finally, my exile on … Continue reading →

In the last pages of 740 Park, written nine years ago, I challenged Stephen Schwarzman to live up to the standard set by John D. Rockefeller Jr., who’d once owned the private-equity chief’s apartment in that fabled building, and add significant philanthropy to his resume. It took a few years, but Schwarzman did take up that challenge, as has been noted in this space. Today’s New York Times finds the Blackstone boss in China, giving away money for good again, donating a third of the cost of a new $300 million scholarship program for study in China, and helping raise … Continue reading →

Alex Gibney‘s documentary Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream, based on my book 740 Park: The Story of the World’s Richest Apartment Building, is now available for sale or rental in the iTunes store. UPDATE: This week’s issue of the New Yorker is led by a story about Gibney’s film, detailing the pressure put on WNET, New York’s public broadcasting station, for broadcasting it.

The Times’ Real Estate section on Sunday will include a story on New York’s growing obsession with closets by Elissa Gootman. It seems I let slip the title of my new book, just completed, on Fifteen Central Park West. It’s…here.

The new listing of a tower duplex at River House for $25.5 million by Brown Harris Stevens this week might seem to have been inspired by my Unreal Estate column on the building in this month’s Avenue Magazine, but in truth, it’s come on the market because its owner, Betty Evans, just died. Hers happens to be the only River House apartment I ever visited. She was a niece of Julia Loomis Thorne who, with her husband Landon, were two of the most fascinating characters ever to inhabit 740 Park, the subject of my 2005 book. Evans was one of … Continue reading →

Where’s Barclay’s banker-in-chief Robert “Bob” Diamond been since leaving Barclays in disgrace amidst a rate-fixing scandal last summer? Licking his wounds (and counting his millions) right in our midst in a modest $37 million penthouse at Fifteen Central Park West. Read that and other tales of high-end apartment insanity in Manhattan–and of the people who spend eight figures on it without blinking–in “Bonfire of the Verities,” my update of Tom Wolfe’s 1985 discussion of “the Good Buildings” in the new issue of the digital only Newsweek via The Daily Beast. 740 Park was one of the good buildings. These are … Continue reading →

To each his own. Trophy building, that is. The Real Deal’s Jane Timm and Candace Taylor look at several of the city’s finest residences, then, now and, it predicts, in days to come, in this story on what it calls It Buildings. Two are the subjects of books by this blogger: Then, it was 740 Park. Now, I’m finishing my book on 15 Central Park West. One quoted broker says “she’s shown apartments at [the as yet unfinished] One57 to 15 CPW owners, some of whom are looking to sell before the older building loses its cachet,” the paper reports. … Continue reading →

The new issue of the bi-annual fashion magazine Husk has an interview with me by Eugenia Lapteva and a lengthy and irreverent guide to the residents of 740 Park (and some gate-crashers, too). I told Husk that 15 Central Park West is the new black, but apparently they still hanker for old school East Side co-ops. That’s alright. I still like my Turnbull & Asser blazer as much as I do the Rick Owens jacket I wear in the photo by Hadley Hudson that accompanies the piece. To read it in pdf form (be warned, it’s a big download) click … Continue reading →

Sandy Weill takes the cake, but he’s hardly along in cashing in on do-ops, condos and townhouses this year. The baker’s dozen biggest deals in residential real estate in New York City are the subject of my Unreal Estate column in the new December issue of Avenue magazine. And yes, 740 Park makes the list along with 15 Central Park West. (It’s a few pages–five clicks–into the “most talked about” feature.)

Saul P. Steinberg, the financier, died yesterday at age 73. Though he declined to be interviewed for 740 Park, he nonetheless emerged as the book’s leading character, appearing in its opening pages and later, at the center of some of its most raucous moments. Felled by a stroke in 1995, he lost his business and sold his massive duplex apartment, one of if not the grandest in the city, to Steven Schwarzman for a then record-setting $29.9 million in 2000, and left the public stage he had occupied since the 1960s. He is survived by his second and third wives … Continue reading →

“None of those Park Avenue billionaires will sleep any less soundly after watching this film,” says the Telegraph’s Neil Midgley after viewing Alex Gibney‘s Park Avenue, based on my book 740 Park, which debuted on England’s BBC4 the other night. The reviewer went on to condemn the documentary as “a pretty thin retread of some already well-vented resentments in US politics.” The Independent disagreed, hailing Gibney’s conclusion that, “The US, built on the promise that anyone can drag themselves out of poverty if they work hard enough, actually has lower social mobility than most other comparable democracies.” Gripepad reports. You … Continue reading →

Good things are worth waiting for, like this review of Alex Gibney‘s Park Avenue by Kim Velsey of the New York Observer. “The documentary unfurls like a crime story,” she writes, “with a raft of damning evidence revealing the shameful acts committed by the masters of the universe in service of accumulating even vaster fortunes than they already have….[Gibney] makes a compelling case that inequality imperils democracy and that the victims of the inequality include not only those who find themselves in the rapidly expanding underclass, but the American dream itself.”

Alex Gibney‘s Park Avenue cleaned Amazon out of copies of 740 Park, but it’s now back in stock and available for purchase again. Happy Black Friday!

I never watched ABC’s supernatural soap opera 666 Park, and now it’s been cancelled, which makes me think I made the right choice. It was “shameless when it came to the inaccurate portrayal of Manhattan real estate,” Kim Velsey writes in her analysis of its failure in the New York Observer. But the real reason it’s died, she thinks, was “the erratic plot, the wooden acting, the lack of any sympathetic characters and for those who care about these kinds of things, the incoherence of the ‘evil’ plaguing the building.” So I wonder, if someone accurately dramatized the story 740 … Continue reading →

For those who missed it last week on PBS, Alex Gibney‘s documentary inspired by 740 Park is available for viewing online. You can watch it here.

Neil Genzlinger reviews Oscar-winner Alex Gibney‘s “Park Avenue” in today’s New York Times. The documentary based on 740 Park: The Story of the World’s Richest Apartment Building airs tonight at 10 PM on PBS in America. Check local listings for air times elsewhere in the world.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek reviews Alex Gibney’s documentary based on 740 Park: The Story of the World’s Richest Apartment Building, and critic Greg Evans gives it a rave and 3 1/2 stars. It airs on PBS November 12th at 10PM.

Alex Gibney‘s Park Avenue documentary inspired by my book 740 Park is now streaming for free on Hulu. Please like its Facebook page, too.

“Gross delights in telling inside stories about the gaudy world of master-of-the-universe apartments,” Max Gross (no relation) writes in an article in today’s New York Post on Alex Gibney’s “Park Avenue” documentary, based on 740 Park. The Post also sneaks the name of the worst tipper at 740 Park, which is revealed in Gibney’s film. UPDATE: Business Insider give Gibney’s trailer some linkage love.

The 14th issue of Acne Paper, a lavish, oversized custom publication, is a tribute to New York City and features an interview with me by Freddie Campion about luxury real estate, focused on 740 Park and my upcoming book on Fifteen Central Park West. If you don’t mind loading a PDF file, you can find it here.

Watch Is the American Dream Out of Reach? on PBS. See more from Independent Lens.

How do you make a documentary for a series called Why Poverty? based on a book about a plutocrat palace? That’s what Kim Velsey asks in this New York Observer post on the soon-to-be-released movie, Park Avenue. When the Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney called to see if he could buy the rights to 740 Park and base his film on it, he summed up the answer to Velsey’s question thusly: We’re both more interested in the perps than the vics.

The Hollywood Reporter just revealed a secret I’ve been keeping since last year. Alex Gibney, the acclaimed documentarian, has acquired and made a film version of 740 Park. It’s called Park Avenue: Money, Power and The American Dream and it will air on PBS on November 12th as part of the international Why Poverty? documentary series, and will also be available on Hulu, iTunes and Netflix for digital download later this month. I’ll post links once I have them. Thanks to the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer who played matchmaker for Gibney and me. UPDATE: Curbed comments on the Gibney/Gross collaboration, … Continue reading →

Tomorrow’s New York Times notes the posting in city records of the recent $19.5 million sale of the late Randolph and June Speight’s apartment at 740 Park to a Goldman Sachs partner, and pulls a bunch of juicy details from the pages of 740 Park, the book, to buttress its item. Those tid-bits are uncredited, and at this point, who cares? But one error begs for correction. Big Ticket columnist Robin Finn pulled a bunch of names from the book for her list of those “turned down” by 740′s co-op board (long run by Speight), but incorrectly includes the singer … Continue reading →

The longtime home of 740 Park’s longtime co-op board head Randolph Speight (a compelling presence in my book 740 Park) and his widow June, on the market since her 2008 death, is reported sold today by Kim Velsey at the New York Observer. She IDs the buyers as Jonathan Sobel, a former Goldman Sachs partner, and his wife Marcia Dunn. “Shouldn’t Mr. Sobel be joining the rest of the Goldman gang in 15 Central Park West, or even showing them all up and buying into One57?” Velsey asks. Then she answers her own question. “Some buildings, 740 Park chief among … Continue reading →

When I started researching the book that became 740 Park, I began with a list of fascinating buildings, and eventually settled on one. But the others retain their fascination and thanks to Avenue, which gave me a column in the spring named after my current book, Unreal Estate, I now get to write about them, too. My September column (read it here) peeks past the doorman at 834 Fifth, home of Rupert Murdoch, A. Alfred and Judy Taubman and Carroll Petrie, among many others.

Who would you rather share an elevator with? A puppy or an armed Secret Service man and Paul Ryan? In this week’s New York Observer, Kim Velsey looks at the tribal rights of fundraising nights in New York’s best buildings, and includes 740 Park (home of big Republican donors like David Koch and Steve Schwarzman) in her survey of buildings where candidates feed at the money trough.

David Geffen‘s reported purchase of tax-avoider Denise Rich‘s Fifth Avenue apartment for $54 Million sets a new record, says Matt Chaban of the New York Observer. It’s been more than a decade since 740 Park held that record. Sell, Steve Schwarzman, sell!

Three weeks ago, Bank of America quietly sued Kent Swig, his estranged wife Elizabeth Macklowe Swig, and The 740 Corporation, the cooperative that owns 740 Park, seeking to foreclose for non-payment on the Swigs’ duplex apartment there, and seize their proprietary lease and the associated shares in the fabled co-op, presumably planning to put it on the market to recoup what is owed the bank on a consolidated $17.6 million loan against the apartment. Read the lawsuit here [pdf alert]. My question: Whose apartment will be listed first? The Swigs? Or Ezra Merkin, owner of apartment 6/7B at 740, who … Continue reading →

The late June and Randolph Speight’s apartment at 740 Park, aka 71 East 71st Street, is in contract reports Kim Velsey of the New York Observer, who got the news from the Olshan Luxury Report of weekly apartment sales. Velsey has some fun considering possible reasons for a $12 million price chop (tp $23 million) since the unit was first listed in the days before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, following Mrs. Speight’s death. Regardless, it’s a great estate sale. And now, let the speculation begin about who will sell next at 740 and whether it will ever retake the … Continue reading →

In next week’s Newsweek, Rebecca Dana revisits some 740 Park stories while discussing Andrew Madoff‘s failure to find a rental apartment.

So, it turns out that the sale of Courtney Sale Ross‘ double duplex apartment at 740 Park–first reported here–was indeed closed for “about $52 million,” as reported elsewhere–$52.5 million to be precise–and not the asking price of $60 million, as Gripepad initially heard. The buyers, reports Kim Velsey of the New York Observer, are Howard Marks, head of the Oaktree Capital investment firm, and wife Nancy. Gripepad’s favorite fun fact from the official city filing? Real estate taxes on the transaction totalled $1,483,125. That won’t buy you much at 740 Park, but elsewhere in Manhattan, it’s the price of a … Continue reading →

My scoop late last week on the sale of Courtney Sale Ross‘s double duplex at 740 Park Avenue has since been picked up and linked by The New York Observer, curbed, and Business Insider, all of whom were kind enough to credit Gripepad. It was also picked up five days late and a credit short by The Wall Street Journal today. The Journal set the sale price at $52 million, slightly below ask. Eventually, city records will show who got that right. As far as credit goes, as the merchant John Wanamaker once said, “Courtesy is the one coin you … Continue reading →

Could it be the halo effect of Sandy and Joan Weill‘s unloading their 15 Central Park West penthouse for $88 million? The proverbial little bird chirps that Courtney Sale Ross has finally found a buyer for her double duplex apartment at 740 Park–and got her asking price of $60 million via Kathy Sloane at Brown Harris Stevens, whose listing for it is here. Officially listed last November, though it was available as a semi-secret pocket listing long before that, the apartment is on the 12th and 13th floors of the fabled co-op. Ross and her late husband, Warner Communications mogul … Continue reading →

It’s back to #2 on the Book Soup bestseller list for Unreal Estate this week. Mmmmm. Good.

In a post-Christmas surge, Unreal Estate has vaulted back up to the #6 position on the Los Angeles Times non-fiction bestseller list.

There’s a snappy slide show of real-estate-listing photos of apartments now on sale at 740 Park on Business Insider today. There’s even a news hook for it–announced the day before–the listing of Vera Wang‘s fab duplex there. And since the item claims that I “run a blog about the building,” I figured I’d better link to show it’s still alive, even if my attention has moved elsewhere, to the west coast, for instance. But what the hey, I say. New babies tend to hog all the attention. Today’s the six-year-old’s turn. Proving there’s life in this not-quite-abandoned old blog yet.

“Otherwise Occupied,” my latest column for Crain’s New York Business, looks at bankers, Babbo, 740 Park Avenue (above) and Occupy Wall Street, and concludes: Let them eat Chef Boyardee.

….but Occupy Wall Street is currently en route to 740 Park, identified for their purposes as the home of David Koch. So what are Steve Schwarzman, John Thain, Ezra Merkin, Izzy Englander, David Ganek, Charles Stevenson, Steven Mnuchin, Thomas Tisch and Ronald Lauder–chopped liver?

I got a Google alert this morning pointing towards a HuffPo piece by an Occidental College professor named Peter Dreier that claims the 740 Park Avenue duplex owned by Steven and Heather Mnuchin (above) was sold for a measly $9 million two years ago when the Mnuchins moved to LA after Steven took over a bank there. Just for the record: not so. I doubt you could buy a closet at 740 for that price! The Mnuchins still own their place in the best little apartment building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Curiously enough, Occidental College has a … Continue reading →

The business pages at the New York Post think Ezra Merkin, a resident (above, right) of 740 Park, might be New York’s worst Blue Meanie. It seems he’s spent more fighting an arbitration award to a victim of the Bernie Madoff (above left) mess–he was one of Madoff’s big middlemen–than the size of the award itself. Ouch.

Elise Knutsen of the New York Observer reports that the paper has received a letter from Brown Harris Stevens,the management company for 740 Park Avenue, firmly denying a source’s contention last week that it or the building’s board had any knowledge that one of BHS’s owners, Kent Swig, had borrowed against his 740 apartment (now occuppied by his estranged wife, the former Elizabeth Macklowe). “The suggestion that Brown Harris Stevens would somehow violate the rules of a building it manages, and thus its fiduciary duties, in order to accommodate a principal is absolutely untrue and very damaging to Brown Harris … Continue reading →

A few months back a genius told me she was convinced that luxury real estate had run its course as a subject of fascination. So how come even the Daily Mail in London thinks the spurious tale of the possible foreclosure of Kent and Elizabeth Swig‘s apartment at 740 Park is big news? This story has legs, but will it stand? Stay tuned. Apparently, you won’t be alone.

Yesterday, The New York Observer named several 740 Park households that were hit by the headwinds of economic distress in recent years. Today, there’s the first new listing in a long time at the storied tower, and none of the Observered names are involved. Computer gaming mogul Gregory Fischbach and wife Linda, a former fashion magazine editrix, have listed the former Thelma Chrysler Foy jewelbox (above) on the 17th floor of the trophy building, according to the New York Post, which hints that it’s a so-called pocket listing–i.e. not in the broker database open to all, but held tightly by … Continue reading →

In today’s New York Observer, Elise Knutsen looks at 740 Park and some of the families there who’ve felt the effects of the Great Recession.

Blairsden, the 62,000 square foot 38-room Peapack, New Jersey mansion built by C. Ledyard Blair, heir to the Union Pacific fortune and a former resident of 740 Park, is on the market. Built in about 1900 at a cost of $2 million, it’s also a relative bargain at $4.9 million, even if it now sits on 34 acres compared to its original 423 acres.

Courtney Sale Ross is going for the record books, listing her double duplex at 740 Park for $60 million. You go, girl! Check it out in today’s Wall Street Journal.

The cat’s out of the bag. Curbed National’s chief real estate savant Sarah Firshein just revealed the jacket of Unreal Estate — and wheedled out me the first hints of what’s inside, even as I’m still knee-deep in answering queries from the copy editor. You’ll get no more out of me. So go there instead. Curbed will even lead you to Amazon where you can pre-order the book (which will be published November 1, 2011).

In my Crains New York Business column this week, I wonder why condos are worth more than co-ops. In dollars, that is. UPDATE: Curbed New York is quite amused by this column, and uses it as an excuse to say that 740 Park is “the only [book] that matters” on the subject of New York City co-ops. Whoo-hoo!