Michael Gross

Gibney’s 740 Park documentary in eye of PBS storm

Michael Gross — Mon, 20 May 2013 14:48:53 +0000

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 last fall and is currently available for sale or rental in the iTunes store and on Hulu. 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 revelations, and 740 Park resident David Koch, the focus of the piece, makes an easy target for his political opponents, it’s still a compelling read. My longtime friend and colleague Greg Mitchell at The Nation was kind enough to mention Gibney’s source in a post on the piece today.

Twelfth Avenue flip-out

Michael Gross — Wed, 15 May 2013 13:21:59 +0000

Michael Holtz (at right), the founder of the Smartflyer travel agency, owns four apartments in a West Side Highway condo, a fraction of the eleven he’s bought and sold in the last fifteen years (including one at Fifteen Central Park West and another in the boombastic One57). He’s the subject of my latest “On the Flip Side” column in Alexa Luxe Living in the New York Post.

How do you really feel, Gwyneth?

Michael Gross — Sat, 11 May 2013 22:37:54 +0000

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 57th Street ended with a new boom and thankfully, no bang. Developer Extell even apologized, sort of, and grudgingly, for treating One57′s neighbors like, well, guests at the Costume Institute gala. So how was it? Well, it still sucked to get kicked out of my home again, even if only for a day. But tomorrow is another day, even if it’s still this weekend.

In the shadow of Ext-hell’s One57

Michael Gross — Tue, 07 May 2013 13:52:00 +0000

Wealth and powerlessness (the latter, mine) are the subject of an opinion piece, “In Manhattan Real Estate, Wealth and Power Are Relative,” that marks my return to the (online) pages of the New York Times.

A Spring Awakening of True Love on West End Avenue

Michael Gross — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:28:26 +0000

Spring Awakening producer Tracy Aron‘s Clarence True-designed mansion on West End Avenue is the focus of my latest Unreal Estate column in Avenue Magazine, in better building lobbies now. You can also read it here. Listing is on the Corcoran web site.

Mo’ money, mo’ problems for Metropolitan Museum

Michael Gross — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 14:39:07 +0000

In a followup to its revelation yesterday that the Metropolitan Museum of Art has charged admission for forty-plus years in violation of its lease, reporters Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein offer up Art of the $teal , a Sunday feature stuffed with more examples of the museum administration’s contempt for the public that owns its buildings, the land they sit on, and the art within. Gripepad supports the Met’s desire to collect admission, but finds its devotion to the public, to its own history and to the truth, in the words of its chief dissembler, a matter of interpretation.

Artful dodging at the Metropolitan Museum

Michael Gross — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 14:31:14 +0000

The New York Post filed a Freedom of Information Act request to gain access to the long-hidden agreement that–Metropolitan Museum of Art officials have always alleged, most recently in statement by museum director Thomas Campbell–gave them the right to charge admission. But reporter Julia Marsh‘s story today reveals that no such agreement exists. The link above does not include the response to the Post’s charges from Museum spokesman Harold Holzer that appears in the iPad version of the paper today. He calls the report “a matter of interpertation.” This from the same flack who called Rogues’ Gallery “highly misleading,” yet failed to point out a single error in its pages. Artful!

Mi Coachella: Sex dolls, French food and mud baths

Michael Gross — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:59:28 +0000

I ran away to the circus two weekends back, or rather to Palm Springs and vicinity, where the Coachella circus had pitched its tents. My report on what I found is in tomorrow’s New York Post travel section. That’s Hope Springs, a lovely Desert Hot Springs resort, at right.

The Schwarzman Challenge

Michael Gross — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 15:06:38 +0000

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 the rest. As at the New York Public Library, recipient of his first $100 million gift, which renamed its main building for him, the program and the new college (at right, as designed by 15 Central Park West architect Robert A.M. Stern) will both bear his name, distinguishing his gifts from those of Rockefeller and the great friend of libraries, Andrew Carnegie. But let’s not quibble. That’s what it takes these days. Ya did good, Steve. Keep it up.

Park Avenue on iTunes

Michael Gross — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 14:49:10 +0000

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.