Debby Waldman writes: “Gross has found some fascinating characters. There’s the manipulative Texas-born social climber Dorothea Shearn, wife of William Randolph Hearst’s trustee, who once invited her sister for Christmas and failed to show up for dinner, leaving her to dine on a can of Spam. There’s jet-set hostess Peggy Bancroft, whose famed parties included such guests as the king of Spain, and whose second and third husbands were European noblemen. Disgraced banker Saul Steinberg lived at 740 until the 1990s, as did Wall Street takeover wiz Henry Kravis of Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts… There are other recognizable names connected with the address, among them the parents of designer Vera Wang, the mother of Bewitched star Elizabeth Montgomery, and the grandparents of U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry’s first wife. And there are also plenty of others whose impact on American society and culture may well have gone unnoticed, had they not had the opportunity — Gross would no doubt call it foresight — to have lived at 740 Park Avenue.” — The Edmonton Journal, January 29, 2006