At the Acne
The 14th issue of Acne Paper, a lavish, oversized custom publication, is a tribute to New York City and features an interview with me by Freddie Campion about luxury real estate, focused on 740 Park and my upcoming book on Fifteen Central Park West. If you don’t mind loading a PDF file, you can find […]
(740) Park Avenue by Alex Gibney: The Trailer
Watch Is the American Dream Out of Reach? on PBS. See more from Independent Lens.
Through the looking glass
How do you make a documentary for a series called Why Poverty? based on a book about a plutocrat palace? That’s what Kim Velsey asks in this New York Observer post on the soon-to-be-released movie, Park Avenue. When the Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney called to see if he could buy the rights to 740 Park […]
Oscar Winner Alex Gibney Films 740 Park
The Hollywood Reporter just revealed a secret I’ve been keeping since last year. Alex Gibney, the acclaimed documentarian, has acquired and made a film version of 740 Park. It’s called Park Avenue: Money, Power and The American Dream and it will air on PBS on November 12th as part of the international Why Poverty? documentary […]
Streisand at 740 Park: A correction
Tomorrow’s New York Times notes the posting in city records of the recent $19.5 million sale of the late Randolph and June Speight’s apartment at 740 Park to a Goldman Sachs partner, and pulls a bunch of juicy details from the pages of 740 Park, the book, to buttress its item. Those tid-bits are uncredited, […]
Labor of love on East 64th Street
The hidden history of real estate broker Kenneth Laub‘s townhouse on one of Manhattan’s most breathtaking blocks, now on the market for $27.75 million, is the subject of my latest Unreal Estate column in Avenue Magazine
Cavallo, my sweet: A sunny island with a noirish past
My debut story for Departures magazine appears in its new, October issue and looks at the chiarosco history and bright present of the Isle de Cavallo, a tiny French island nestled between Corsica and Sardinia. It’s behind a firewall for now, available only to subscribers, but I’ll post a link once it’s unlocked. Until then, […]
At long last, 740’s Speight pad sells
The longtime home of 740 Park’s longtime co-op board head Randolph Speight (a compelling presence in my book 740 Park) and his widow June, on the market since her 2008 death, is reported sold today by Kim Velsey at the New York Observer. She IDs the buyers as Jonathan Sobel, a former Goldman Sachs partner, […]
Real Estate Mud Wrestling: 15CPW vs. One57
The New York Times Big Deal column is as obsessed with Extell’s upraised starchitect digit on 57th Street, One57, as I am with 15CPW, and in his latest installment of Gary Barnett Eats Midtown, reporter Alexei Barrionuevo talks about the push and pull of providing the billionaires Barnett says are flocking to buy apartments there […]
One57 Mystery Buyer: A (Not So) Big Reveal
Our local newspapers are lately locked into a top-this battle to hype uber-luxe apartments for the uber-wealthy. Extell’s Gary Barnett, now feverishly flogging his West 57th Street development One57, is the current master of highrise hype. But though his fan dance is all about obfuscation, the real estate gossips are all atwitter as he pours […]