This is a book about the 1%, the billionaires, or some of them, who
can pay $50 million for a condo they use a couple weeks a year while
otherwise camped in one of their other lavish homes. Mitt Romney
accused ordinary people of feelings of entitlement when they expect
social security and medicare but Mitt was playing to his audience,
the true practitioners of entitlement. But this is not a political
book. The wall street protests are mentioned in passing but its focus
is the acquisition of Fifteen Central Park West property, the
construction of the outstanding structure and the selling of its
units to the aristocracy of money. That oligarchy ranges from
celebrities like Sting and Denzel Washington, Wall Street tycoons,
rags to riches immigrant billionaires, heirs, Saudi Royalty, Jewish
entrepreneurs and foreigners seeking a stable place to flee should
their little dictatorship fall apart. Mini-bios of the developers,
bankers, architects and many purchasers occupies a fair part of the
book.
To demonstrate that this project cost some money and byzantine
maneuvering, a section on the wheeling and dealing necessary to get
the land and city permits, financial backing and partners in place is
narrated. A sub-story of the last three hold-outs at the Mayflower
Hotel, which sat on the otherwise empty lots, is included where two
were given a million dollars each to vacate and the third held out
long enough to be offered and finally accept $17 million. This is not
just heady, this is stratospheric financial opera.
Whenever I encounter splendid architecture, whether the Parthenon or
15CPW, my response is always twofold: first admiration and then
lament that the same energy could have gone into social justice.
There was never any danger of that here. One of the billionaire
occupants switched his allegiance from Democrat to Republican before
2008 over the single issue that Obama was calling for some minor
regulation of the market rules. I express this over and over again,
my befuddlement over people who have more money than they can ever
spend worrying themselves crazy over a little tax, or a simple
regulation designed to protect investors from predators. The idea
that they are driven, at root, by fear takes on credibility in the
face of such irrational behavior.
The architect, Robert A.M. Stern, modestly claims that city code
created the building, requiring the lower “house” on the park and
the tower behind. But it was the developers, brothers Arthur and Will
Zeckendorf who backed to the hilt the architect's insistence on the
expensive Indiana white limestone against the bean counters at
Goldman Sachs, the chief financiers. Much ink is spent on the
developers and their family history, descendents of famous developer
“Big Bill” Zeckendorf, who went bust in his endless juggling of
projects, meshing, or not, with economic trade winds. Bust of course
doesn't mean penury for the super rich. Their father too went belly
up when his ambitious plans met the wrong economic trade winds. The
brothers thus developed cautiously yet with a persistence and
ambition that, so far, has served them well. The profits on Fifteen
Central Park West are enormous, the price-per-square-foot reaching
unprecedented numbers, $10,000 and rising. One penthouse apartment
went for $80 million. The term “flipping” is where purchasers
sell their units. No one re-sold and less than doubled their
investment. Some “flipped” without even moving in. One $9 million
unit sold two years later for $29 million. The buildings cachet
almost guarantees a never-ending value increase.
There are some smaller units but most occupy half a floor with many
purchasers buying a “duplex”, meaning the whole floor. Then there
are the penthouses on top of the House and tower, situated such and
so expensively that one could claim, credibly, to be living on top of
the world. Imagine spending millions on a brand new “apartment”
then gutting it for redesign. Many did. The cartoonist Lurie for
example ripped out all the walls and replaced them with glass so upon
entering one has an immediate panorama view of the park and skyline.
One of the tenants has signed the Gates/Buffet pledge to leave money
to charity. Another sold his unit, pledging the profit to subsidize
anti-poverty work in New York. Still another called for reinstatement
of the Glass Steagle Act, the man who more than anyone else, was
responsible for its repeal. So there is some conscience at Fifteen
Central Park West, or guilt, but mostly it seems to be occupied by
those who look through the reverse telescope, the distorting lens of
Mitt Romney. But hey, they're pretty nice people once you get to know
them, if you can afford the proximity.
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