An incisive but somewhat tedious report of New York’s “new money.”
Travel + Leisure contributing editor Gross’ (Unreal Estate: Money, Ambition, and the Lust for Land in Los Angeles, 2011, etc.) latest chronicle of the .01 percent shifts to the other side of Central Park.
Whereas 740 Park (2007) told the story of old-money New York and co-op living in one of the city’s most storied buildings, this book examines 15 Central Park West, 740 Park’s new rival. Unlike its crosstown counterpart, 15 CPW’s pedigree is not blue-blood–bred. It was bought—in cash—by the world’s new elite. Built in 2007 by noted architect Robert A.M. Stern, 15 CPW was conceived as apartment living for a new age of financiers, moguls, celebrities, tycoons and anyone else who could afford an apartment’s exorbitant price tag. Exclusivity was only a matter of how much you could pay, not whether you fit the building’s profile. Consecrated to the idolatry of money, it’s no surprise that the bank principally in charge of financing the project was Goldman Sachs and no further surprise that most of the bank’s senior management received sweetheart deals on their new apartments. Among the building’s A-list have been Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Citigroup founder Sandy Weill, Denzel Washington and Sting. While the lives of the rich and famous have seemingly endless appeal, much of the building’s story is bogged down in ancillary histories, like a century’s worth of real estate development on Manhattan’s West Side and Columbus Circle area and a generational history of the legendary Zeckendorf family. (Brothers Arthur and William led the development of 15 CPW.) While this detail provides a solid foundation for understanding why 15 CPW came to be, it is also exhaustive and not always relevant. It seems that every person caught in the development and purchase of 15 CPW is treated with a back story, and this only reinforces the age-old truism that no matter how much money you have, it doesn’t necessarily make you interesting.
An incisive but somewhat tedious report of New York’s “new money.”Pub Date: March 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4516-6619-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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