Michael Gross

R.I.P. Joseph Brooks

Michael Gross — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:48:40 +0000

New York Magazine’s Daily Intel has resurrected “The Great Zatzby,” my 1992 profile of Joseph Brooks (nee Joe Zatz), the former boss of Lord & Taylor and Ann Taylor, who died last week at age 84. This morning’s obituary of Brooks in the local community newspaper omitted most of the blood, sweat, tears and juice in his biography, but thanks to New York and Google Books, you can wallow in them here.

Coming into Los Angeles

Michael Gross — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:40:46 +0000

Attention Angelenos: Click through for the details on my February 12th appearance at the Beverly Hills Women’s Club and the next day’s Aaroe Architecural Forum lecture at the Pacific Design Center’s Silver Screen Theater. (That’s Lynda and Stewart Resnick‘s Sunset House under construction, at right)

Back on the block, still on the list.

Michael Gross — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:00:23 +0000

Unreal Estate is now (unreally!) in its eleventh week on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list. My new Crain’s New York Business column is about the persistence of beach books. And in case it’s not obvious, Gripepad is off the beach (at right) and back in business.

Later…

Michael Gross — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:32:37 +0000

Unreal Estate is “an astounding history,” says New York Social Diary

Michael Gross — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:28:21 +0000

David Patrick Columbia has written briefly about Unreal Estate before. Today, he offers a lengthy review, and it’s as provocative as I tried to make the book. “Houses are fascinating because houses are people,” he writes. “And when there’s the more, there’s the merrier, not to mention hucksters and hustlers, money managers and lawyers, and the misled, the misplaced, as well as the maudlin, and even murderous. It’s life on the other side of the real fence, and it’s not like yours or mine. That’s what you get in this book; the hot skinny and with caviar and creme fraiche. And Michael serves it up with an appetite for it as big as any reader’s. He does not disappoint….Michael’s style is strong and doesn’t skip a beat. If he’s going to take on a story, he’s going to get it. Dogged, that appetite for uncovering, disrobing the characters – although never unkindly, yet with a curiosity that would once have been called vulgar, but these days is right on the money….The intrepid journalist always looking for the scoop. Break the story, tell the truth, show the consequences, unmask the villains. Them, and the village idiots. There are quite a few of those garnishing the real estate fables in Unreal Estate.” There’s lots more on the book, last week’s book party, and even a certain book reviewer who doesn’t agree with David at New York Social Diary.

Hey, Mitt: How do I fire my health insurer?

Michael Gross — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:16:36 +0000

My new column in Crain’s New York Business is about the unfortunate politics of health insurance.

Unreal? No, unbelievable!

Michael Gross — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:32:22 +0000

For the ninth week, Unreal Estate is holding the fort on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list. This week, it’s at #7. Thanks again, California. I look forward to saying that again in person on February 12 at the Beverly Hills Women’s Club and the 13th at the Aaroe Architectural Forum at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood.

L.A. on Park Avenue

Michael Gross — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:45:14 +0000

Star Corcoran broker Wendy Sarasohn hosted a book party for Unreal Estate on Wednesday night, where I spoke to a crowd of New York real estate heavyweights including Corcoran CEO Pam Liebman (at left in the photo with Wendy and me) and New York’s highest-earning realtor (and go-to guy for 740 Park apartments), John Burger of Brown Harris Stevens. The New York Observer’s Elise Knutsen was there and reports on the festivities here. And Guelda Voien of The Real Deal has a report and photos, too. (Photo above by Richard Lewin)

Hand-fed but lacking in nutrients

Michael Gross — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:42:42 +0000

Today’s announcement of a new head of contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in its in-house newsletter, er, sorry, the Arts section of the New York Times, was heavy on hand-fed detail but sorely lacking in context. The Met’s relationship to contemporary art has been contentious almost from the day the museum opened, and is an unlikely foundation for its emergence as “a Major Player,” as the C1 headline has it, yet art-world reporter Carol Vogel (who has gone far since her days as an assistant to caricature-quality fashion editor Carrie Donovan at the Times’ magazine) chose to concentrate on the Euro-centric board’s and (British) museum director Thomas Campbell‘s hiring of a (British) curator, Sheena Wagstaff, rather than the more serious and complex business of the museum’s highly fraught, century-plus hide-and-go-seek non-relationship with living artists. For more on that, I humbly suggest a look at my Rogues’ Gallery. Check the index for mentions of George Hearn, his Hearn Fund, the egregiously unsung Robert Beverly Hale, the extraordinary Henry Geldzhaler (pictured, who does rate a name-check from Vogel), and William S. Lieberman, to name but a few, for the context Vogel’s pals at the museum would probably prefer you forget. It’s a jungle at 1000 Fifth, Sheena. Make sure you bring your bug repellant.

Appearing this week at Burbank’s Bob Hope Airport…

Michael Gross — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:38:23 +0000

That’s Unreal Estate front and center in Burbank. Meanwhile, on the right coast, Elise Knutsen offers up a squib on my next book, House of Outrageous Fortune, for my new publisher, The Free Press at Simon & Schuster, on observer.com. And as if all that isn’t enough attention for one Wednesday, The Fame Game has named me the week’s #1 literary Mover and Shaker, edging out James Frey and Candace Bushnell. The great Gay Talese and the egregious Ann Coulter round out the top five. (Photo by the The Real Estalker aka Your Mama)