Bill Gates: His Do-Right Pre-Nup Woman
Twenty-three years ago, I interviewed Ann Winblad, now 70, the venture capitalist who was Bill Gates‘ girlfriend before his now-ruptured marriage to Melinda French Gates, and has reportedly remained close to the second richest man in the world ever since. The interview, for my book on the Baby Boom, My Generation, was edited out of […]
God Save the King (of Sweden)
It’s bittersweet to have a story in the final print issue of Departures before it goes to the magazine graveyard, but sweet to share this piece on the rebirth of the Hotel Carl Gustaf on St. Barth. (That’s the view from its restaurant, pictured.)
Hack Flack
The recent hack of my website continues to reverberate, and the Cast of Characters for 740 Park is currently offline, but IT wizards are at work on restoring it. Apologies, and thanks to Mark David of Dirt who alerted me to the page’s disappearance while sharing some news of the Park Avenue fortress.
Gyrating Prices at 740 Park
As Manhattan’s luxury real estate market corrects and slowly begins to recover from its COVID swoon, there are, as in the stock market’s constituency, bulls, bears and pigs running free. Which brings us to the latest reveal of a listing at 740 Park Avenue, by the juicy real estate gossip site, Dirt. Tamara and Randy […]
Words of Wisdom…and Otherwise
Robin Givhan‘s column in today’s Washington Post–concerning Senator Ron Johnson, Sharon Osbourne and Dolce & Gabbana (strange bedfellows) notes, “Anyone with something to say that’s more than pablum inevitably draws a bit of blood; the truth, in particular, hurts….Wouldn’t we all like a bit of peace and quiet? But the ultimate answer to the insult […]
Flipping Out
Will Lie Zeckendorf, co-developer with his brother Arthur Zeckendorf of 15 Central Park West, and former owner of apartments there, in the Majestic on Central Park West, and in 740 Park Avenue, has flipped apartments again, reports the New York Times, buying a third-floor eleven-room flat in architect J.E.R. Carpenter’s 960 Park Avenue for $11 […]
Florida, Man! Palm Beach Has a Moment
A year ago, I spent a week in Palm Beach and got the sense it was changing for the better. On December 27, Departures published my “The New Palm Beach Story,” on the resort’s renaissance (it was behind a firewall until now). That was, of course, before the right-wing riot of January 6th, Joe Biden’s […]
I’ve Been Hacked!
A hacker got into my web site and a number of past Gripepad posts were rendered unreadable–and can’t be recovered or repaired. If you tried to visit and were redirected in the past week or so, apologies. That should not happen again. If you see anything else out of the ordinary on the site, I […]
Howard Rubenstein, R.I.P.
In the winter of 1999, I spent several weeks shadowing the PR giant Howard Rubenstein for this New York magazine cover story, “Shadow Warrior”. I walked into the assignment a skeptic but finished it an admirer. Rubenstein, whose first real-estate developer client was Fred Trump, died yesterday at 88 years. He was small in stature […]
A Rogue’s Reward
Eleven-plus years after Rogues’ Gallery was published, I discovered this appreciation, penned by Steven Miller, a museum director (at Boscobel, one of my favorites), curator, educator and prolific writer, the latest entry in Amazon’s customer reviews: “Having been in the museum field in various director and curatorial positions for fifty years, I can attest […]