Another Outrageous Book Blurb
The author of Sin in the Second City and American Rose, Karen Abbott, has offered up another early endorsement of House of Outrageous Fortune: Fifteen Central Park West, the World’s Most Powerful Address. “Both an incisive social commentary on our modern Gilded Age and an irresistible peek behind the walls of 15 Central Park West, […]
One57: “Tall and clunky, preening and graceless”
Misery loves company so I was happy to learn I’m not only one hating on Extell’s One57, aka the Sandy Crane Tower, aka the Towering Infernal. New York Magazine’s architecture critic Justin Davidson brought the starchitect designed monstrosity down several notches this week in what I think is the first serious review of it (as […]
Another Outrageous Endorsement
Another advance reader of House of Outrageous Fortune: Fifteen Central Park West, the World’s Most Powerful Address, author-journalist Dana Thomas, author of Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, says, “Want to understand what Occupy Wall Street was about? In House of Outrageous Fortune, Michael Gross explains it–and then some. With a rollicking, informative history of […]
Inside the Schulhofhaus at 770 Park
The September issue of Avenue is out with a new Unreal Estate column on the sale of Mickey and Paola Schulhof‘s Parisian-style duplex at 770 Park Avenue. Read it here.
Flashback: Classic Madonna
Back in 1986, I wrote Vanity Fair’s first cover story on Madonna, who’d just released her record (for they were still records then) True Blue. VF has resurrected the piece for its online 100th anniversary celebration. Read it here. I imagine that her look back then (pictured) is not one she fondly remembers. Not so […]
Meet Real Estate Barbie
“The Rockstars of Real Estate” appeared on a panel co-moderated by Dan Peres, editor of Details, and this writer, in the penthouse of the new condominium The Whitman, overlooking Madison Square, last night. Click through for a report on the proceedings by The Real Deal’s Katherine Clark, as well as the latest romantic gossip about […]
Empty Mansions: Recluse and finally free
The late heiress and recluse Huguette Clark’s strange, sad story has inspired the new book Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune. I review it today on The Daily Beast, where I call it “an evocative and rollicking read, part social history, part hothouse mystery, part […]
R.I.P. trophy real estate?
Back in late 2011, a big-time book publisher told me, “Trophy real estate is played out.” How’d that prediction work out? One indication: Howie Kahn looks at some of “the new rock stars of real estate” and the eight-figures properties they sell (like the one pictured) in the September issue of Details magazine. Could that […]
Income Inequality: The CNN Reading List
John Sutter of CNN.com has crowd-sourced a list of 99 must-read books on income inequality, presumably for the 99%, though some of the 1% might do well to read a few of them. My 740 Park makes the list at #30, between titles by George Bernard Shaw and Jonathan Kozol. Isn’t that rich?
Anthony Marshall wins parole
The New York Times has just reported that Anthony Marshall, only child of the late Brooke Astor (pictured), has been paroled for medical reasons after serving six months of his sentence of one-to-three years for looting his mother’s fortune before her death. Gripepad has noted under-reported aspects of the Brooke Astor story, some of which […]