âMichael Grossâs new bookâŚpacks [in] almost as many stories as there are apartments in the building. The Jackie Collins of real estate likes to map expressions of power, money and ego⌠Even more crammed with billionaires and their exploits than 740 Parkâ (Penelope Green, The New York Times).
With two concierge-staffed lobbies, a walnut-lined library, a lavish screening room, a private sixty-seat restaurant offering residents room service, a health club complete with a seventy-foot swimming pool, penthouses that cost almost $100 million, and a tenant roster thatâs a roll call of business page heroes and villains, Fifteen Central Park West is the most outrageously successful, insanely expensive, titanically tycoon-stuffed real estate development of the twenty-first century.
In this âstunningâ (CNN) and âdeliciously detailedâ (Booklist, starred review) New York Times bestseller, journalist Michael Gross turns his gimlet eye on the new-money wonderland thatâs sprung up on the southwest rim of Central Park. Mixing an absorbing business epic with hilarious social comedy, Gross âtakes another gossip-laden bite out of the upper crustâ (Sam Roberts, The New York Times), which includes Denzel Washington, Sting, Norman Lear, top executives, and Russian and Chinese oligarchs, to name a few. And he recounts the legendary buildingâs inspired genesis, costly construction, and the flashy international lifestyle it has brought to a once benighted and socially dĂŠclassĂŠ Manhattan neighborhood.
More than just an apartment building, 15CPW represents a massive paradigm shift in the lifestyle of New Yorkâs rich and famousâand is a bellwether of the cityâs changing social and financial landscape.