The Fed: Manhattan luxe real estate market squirms like a slug
The Federal Reserve Bank says the market for high end real estate in the nation’s hottest market “has been particularly sluggish, reflecting excess supply” since the beginning of the year. You read it here first. Business insider reports the finding and uses Arthur and Will Lie Zeckendorf‘s 15 Central Park West as a symbol of […]
The Donald, redefined.
What does presidential front-runner Donald Trump have in common with an LSD chemist, a mad bomber leftist, an Apple Computer coding legend, a bisexual feminist porn star, a Jesus freak turned Queer theorist, an environmental activist, a rabid southern racist, arch-conservative conspirators and unregenerate rock’n’rollers, a ghetto weed dealer, a hanging judge, a Vietnam war […]
Fashion Models: Genetic lottery winners or victims?
In today’s New York Post, Dana Schuster looks at a class action lawsuit filed by a group of disgruntled former fashion models who claim their agencies exploited, manipulated, stole from them, and lied to them. So what else is new?
Aby, baby (Part 2)
The embargo has finally lifted on my Centurion magazine (black cards only, kids) profile of the controversial and wildly outspoken real estate developer and art collector Aby Rosen. Read it here.
Michael J. Kennedy, R.I.P.
Michael Kennedy, a prominent radical lawyer of the Sixties who became a noted Manhattan social figure in the Nineties, died on January 25th at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center at age 78. Kennedy was active to the end, and was last spotted by Gripepad at a screening of The Revenant just before Christmas. New York Magazine […]
Horses (with apologies to Patti Smith)
In “All The Mayor’s Horses,” on The Awl, writer Brendan O’Connor tackles the ticklish and abiding question of New York’s horse carriage trade, which has been a (forgive this) pet subject in this pillar for several years now. In 2009, Gripepad mocked a proposal to replace the carriages with ersatz vintage electric cars. The actual […]
Aby, baby
“The Rise, Fall and Rise of Aby Rosen,” my Centurion magazine profile of the art-collecting real estate developer and operator, is still embargoed, but Rosen has posted it on the web site for his rising tower by Sir Norman Foster, 100 East 53rd Street (pictured), and you can read all about his life, times and […]
Treasury Dept. will follow in footsteps of House of Outrageous Fortune
The United States Department of the Treasury announced today that it will begin to do broadly just what the New York Times bestselling House of Outrageous Fortune did for one prominent building, 15 Central Park West, back in 2014, and “identify the natural persons behind companies used to pay ‘all cash’ for high-end residential real […]
RIP Ziggy Stardust
David Bowie at Radio City Music Hall February 1973
Modeling: Reality compared to what?
Last week, the Telegraph in the United Kingdom ran a story, “Debts, £300 salaries and career instability: the reality of modelling today,” that read like an obituary for the posing trade. “Few girls make it big these days, and fewer still have the backing to convert a smash debut into longevity,” the newspaper’s Ellie Pithers […]