A solid and informative exploration of major New York real estate developments.
An insider looks at New York City’s commercial real estate business.
In this business book, Piore profiles the dominant figures in large-scale real estate development in New York in the 1990s and 2000s and the ways in which their projects reshaped the city’s skyline and communities. The construction of Hudson Yards opens the work, which then jumps back in time to review the city’s physical decline in the ’70s and its ’90s renewal before returning the focus to the large developments of the last two decades. In addition to Hudson Yards, the volume examines the construction of commercial and residential spaces at Columbus Circle, the redevelopment of the World Trade Center, and the growth of high-rise condos selling for record-setting prices to international buyers whose identities are concealed by shell corporations. Developers Steve Ross, Harry Macklowe, and Kent Swig are the book’s main characters, with other developers, financiers, and real estate brokers playing smaller roles. The work is filled with juicy quotes and insider gossip, not only about the projects, but about the men’s personal lives as well, with Swig’s and Macklowe’s expensive divorces getting plenty of attention. Some anecdotes appear multiple times throughout the text, like Macklowe’s late-night demolition of a building, adding to the sprawling nature of the narrative. But on the whole, Piore does a good job of keeping the threads of the story clear as he moves from one project to another. The complex financial and regulatory aspects of real estate development are explained in sufficient detail, making the volume appropriate for nonspecialist readers. As the work is focused primarily on major deals and the people involved in them, the sociological implications of the resulting housing shortages and growing economic inequality are only briefly touched on. Still, the author does acknowledge the problems along with celebrating the audacity and success of the long-shot bets that have resulted in multibillion-dollar wins.
A solid and informative exploration of major New York real estate developments.Pub Date: April 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73794-340-2
Page Count: 380
Publisher: The Real Deal
Review Posted Online: March 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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