What do you think?
Rate this book
740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building
For seventy-five years, it’s been Manhattan’s richest apartment building, and one of the most lusted-after addresses in the world. One apartment had 37 rooms, 14 bathrooms, 43 closets, 11 working fireplaces, a private elevator, and his-and-hers saunas; another at one time had a live-in service staff of 16. To this day, it is steeped in the purest luxury, the kind most of us could only imagine, until now.
The last great building to go up along New York’s Gold Coast, construction on 740 Park finished in 1930. Since then, 740 has been home to an ever-evolving cadre of our wealthiest and most powerful families, some of America’s (and the world’s) oldest money—the kind attached to names like Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Bouvier, Chrysler, Niarchos, Houghton, and Harkness—and some whose names evoke the excesses of today’s monied Kravis, Koch, Bronfman, Perelman, Steinberg, and Schwarzman. All along, the building has housed titans of industry, political power brokers, international royalty, fabulous scam-artists, and even the lowest scoundrels.
The book begins with the tumultuous story of the building’s construction. Conceived in the bubbling financial, artistic, and social cauldron of 1920’s Manhattan, 740 Park rose to its dizzying heights as the stock market plunged in 1929—the building was in dire financial straits before the first apartments were sold. The builders include the architectural genius Rosario Candela, the scheming businessman James T. Lee (Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s grandfather), and a raft of financiers, many of whom were little more than white-collar crooks and grand-scale hustlers.
Once finished, 740 became a magnet for the richest, oldest families in the the Brewsters, descendents of the leader of the Plymouth Colony; the socially-registered Bordens, Hoppins, Scovilles, Thornes, and Schermerhorns; and top executives of the Chase Bank, American Express, and U.S. Rubber. Outside the walls of 740 Park, these were the people shaping America culturally and economically. Within those walls, they were indulging in all of the Seven Deadly Sins.
As the social climate evolved throughout the last century, so did 740 after World War II, the building’s rulers eased their more restrictive policies and began allowing Jews (though not to this day African Americans) to reside within their hallowed walls. Nowadays, it is full to bursting with new money, people whose fortunes, though freshly-made, are large enough to buy their way in.
At its core this book is a social history of the American rich, and how the locus of power and influence has shifted haltingly from old bloodlines to new money. But it’s also much more than filled with meaty, startling, often tragic stories of the people who lived behind 740’s walls, the book gives us an unprecedented access to worlds of wealth, privilege, and extraordinary folly that are usually hidden behind a scrim of money and influence. This is, truly, how the other half—or at least the other one hundredth of one percent—lives.
The last great building to go up along New York’s Gold Coast, construction on 740 Park finished in 1930. Since then, 740 has been home to an ever-evolving cadre of our wealthiest and most powerful families, some of America’s (and the world’s) oldest money—the kind attached to names like Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Bouvier, Chrysler, Niarchos, Houghton, and Harkness—and some whose names evoke the excesses of today’s monied Kravis, Koch, Bronfman, Perelman, Steinberg, and Schwarzman. All along, the building has housed titans of industry, political power brokers, international royalty, fabulous scam-artists, and even the lowest scoundrels.
The book begins with the tumultuous story of the building’s construction. Conceived in the bubbling financial, artistic, and social cauldron of 1920’s Manhattan, 740 Park rose to its dizzying heights as the stock market plunged in 1929—the building was in dire financial straits before the first apartments were sold. The builders include the architectural genius Rosario Candela, the scheming businessman James T. Lee (Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s grandfather), and a raft of financiers, many of whom were little more than white-collar crooks and grand-scale hustlers.
Once finished, 740 became a magnet for the richest, oldest families in the the Brewsters, descendents of the leader of the Plymouth Colony; the socially-registered Bordens, Hoppins, Scovilles, Thornes, and Schermerhorns; and top executives of the Chase Bank, American Express, and U.S. Rubber. Outside the walls of 740 Park, these were the people shaping America culturally and economically. Within those walls, they were indulging in all of the Seven Deadly Sins.
As the social climate evolved throughout the last century, so did 740 after World War II, the building’s rulers eased their more restrictive policies and began allowing Jews (though not to this day African Americans) to reside within their hallowed walls. Nowadays, it is full to bursting with new money, people whose fortunes, though freshly-made, are large enough to buy their way in.
At its core this book is a social history of the American rich, and how the locus of power and influence has shifted haltingly from old bloodlines to new money. But it’s also much more than filled with meaty, startling, often tragic stories of the people who lived behind 740’s walls, the book gives us an unprecedented access to worlds of wealth, privilege, and extraordinary folly that are usually hidden behind a scrim of money and influence. This is, truly, how the other half—or at least the other one hundredth of one percent—lives.
576 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
317 people are currently reading
1770 people want to read
About the author
Michael Gross
11 books82 followersThis book list is a work in progress. Michael Gross is recognized as one of America’s most provocative writers of non-fiction–its “foremost chronicler of the upper-crust,” says curbed.com. His latest book Unreal Estate, to be published November 1, 2011, is a west coast version of his bestseller, 740 Park, this time exposing the most exclusive neighborhoods of Los Angeles–Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills, Bel Air and Beverly Park–and their residents. 740 Park, published in 2005, is the inside story of New York’s richest, most prestigious cooperative apartment building. Built by James T. Lee, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ grandfather, and long the residence of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., 740 Park is today the home of some of New York’s wealthiest and most prominent families. Fortune has described 740 Park as “jaw-dropping apartment porn.” It offers an unprecedented peek into the world of such latterday financial heroes and villains as Stephen Schwarzman, Ezra Merkin and John Thain.
In between these real estate epics, Gross published the wildly controversial expose of New York’s cultural elite Rogues’ Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money that Made the Metropolitan Museum in 2009, setting off an extraordinary campaign by some of New York’s most influential citizens to suppress the book. It failed. The New York Times Book Review called it “a blockbuster exhibition of human achievement and flaws” and Vanity Fair said it is simply “explosive.” Why? “Gross demonstrates he knows his stuff. It’s a terrific tale…gossipy, color-rich, fact-packed …What Gross reveals is stuff that more people should know,” according to USA Today. A paperback edition was released in May 2010.
Before 740 Park, Gross wrote Genuine Authentic, a biography of fashion designer Ralph Lauren. It was acclaimed by The New York Times as a work of “impressive reporting” that “hack(s) through the hype and half-truths” of the Polo purveyor’s legend. Publishers Weekly praised his “meticulous research and artful prose…The crackerjack journalist simultaneously tells a compelling story and gives it meat enough to be satisfying.”
A Contributing Editor of Travel & Leisure, Gross has also worked as a columnist for The New York Times, GQ, Tatler, Town & Country, and The Daily News; a Contributing Editor of New York (where he wrote 26 cover stories, including the magazine’s all-time best-selling reported cover story on John F. Kennedy, Jr.), and of Talk; a Senior Writer at Esquire, and a Senior Editor at George.
In 2000, Gross published My Generation, a generational biography of the Baby Boom. It was called “wonderful” by the Washington Times, “trenchant, well-dramatized, thought-provoking and unusual” by Kirkus Reviews and “hugely entertaining…a brilliantly reported story,” by the Orlando Sentinel.
Gross’s 1995 book, Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women, was an investigative tour-de-force, and a blistering expose of the fashion-modeling business. It was a New York Times bestseller, and a selection of the Quality Paperback Book Club. Model, which remains in print and in demand more than a dozen years after its first publication, was also published in France, the U. K., Canada, Australia, Germany, Japan, Brazil, and China. Most recently, an updated edition was published in Russia. Click here to read reviews of Model.
Over the years Gross has profiled such subjects as John F. Kennedy Jr., Greta Garbo, Stephanie of Monaco, Richard Gere, Alec Baldwin, Madonna, and Ivana Trump; fashion figures Tina Chow, Calvin Klein, Diane von Furstenberg, Isaac Mizrahi, Ralph Lauren, and Steven Meisel, and he’s written on topics as diverse as philanthropy, the theft of the internet domain sex.com, plastic surgery, divorce, the A-List, Sex in the 90s and Greenwich Village-the last in an article that introduced the phrase “quality of life” into New York City’s 1993 mayoral campaig
In between these real estate epics, Gross published the wildly controversial expose of New York’s cultural elite Rogues’ Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money that Made the Metropolitan Museum in 2009, setting off an extraordinary campaign by some of New York’s most influential citizens to suppress the book. It failed. The New York Times Book Review called it “a blockbuster exhibition of human achievement and flaws” and Vanity Fair said it is simply “explosive.” Why? “Gross demonstrates he knows his stuff. It’s a terrific tale…gossipy, color-rich, fact-packed …What Gross reveals is stuff that more people should know,” according to USA Today. A paperback edition was released in May 2010.
Before 740 Park, Gross wrote Genuine Authentic, a biography of fashion designer Ralph Lauren. It was acclaimed by The New York Times as a work of “impressive reporting” that “hack(s) through the hype and half-truths” of the Polo purveyor’s legend. Publishers Weekly praised his “meticulous research and artful prose…The crackerjack journalist simultaneously tells a compelling story and gives it meat enough to be satisfying.”
A Contributing Editor of Travel & Leisure, Gross has also worked as a columnist for The New York Times, GQ, Tatler, Town & Country, and The Daily News; a Contributing Editor of New York (where he wrote 26 cover stories, including the magazine’s all-time best-selling reported cover story on John F. Kennedy, Jr.), and of Talk; a Senior Writer at Esquire, and a Senior Editor at George.
In 2000, Gross published My Generation, a generational biography of the Baby Boom. It was called “wonderful” by the Washington Times, “trenchant, well-dramatized, thought-provoking and unusual” by Kirkus Reviews and “hugely entertaining…a brilliantly reported story,” by the Orlando Sentinel.
Gross’s 1995 book, Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women, was an investigative tour-de-force, and a blistering expose of the fashion-modeling business. It was a New York Times bestseller, and a selection of the Quality Paperback Book Club. Model, which remains in print and in demand more than a dozen years after its first publication, was also published in France, the U. K., Canada, Australia, Germany, Japan, Brazil, and China. Most recently, an updated edition was published in Russia. Click here to read reviews of Model.
Over the years Gross has profiled such subjects as John F. Kennedy Jr., Greta Garbo, Stephanie of Monaco, Richard Gere, Alec Baldwin, Madonna, and Ivana Trump; fashion figures Tina Chow, Calvin Klein, Diane von Furstenberg, Isaac Mizrahi, Ralph Lauren, and Steven Meisel, and he’s written on topics as diverse as philanthropy, the theft of the internet domain sex.com, plastic surgery, divorce, the A-List, Sex in the 90s and Greenwich Village-the last in an article that introduced the phrase “quality of life” into New York City’s 1993 mayoral campaig
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 130 reviews
February 3, 2024
Dull!
My God, this book is dull! How in the world could a book about the most expensive apartment building in the world, arguably, or in New York, inarguably, be so dull and boring?
Even the tidbits of gossip could not enliven this snooze fest. The continuous name dropping of people who are not, and have never been famous, is just intolerable!
I was foolish enough to spend several months of my life, which I will never get back, trying to read this book, because I somehow had the hope that eventually I would learn something extraordinary! It never happened.
Because I am a fan of history, and only because of this, does this book grudgingly get one and a half stars.
So the book cost seven dollars, and I have to say that it was not money well spent. I would say the same thing even if it cost one dollar!
Two stars. ⭐️⭐️
My God, this book is dull! How in the world could a book about the most expensive apartment building in the world, arguably, or in New York, inarguably, be so dull and boring?
Even the tidbits of gossip could not enliven this snooze fest. The continuous name dropping of people who are not, and have never been famous, is just intolerable!
I was foolish enough to spend several months of my life, which I will never get back, trying to read this book, because I somehow had the hope that eventually I would learn something extraordinary! It never happened.
Because I am a fan of history, and only because of this, does this book grudgingly get one and a half stars.
So the book cost seven dollars, and I have to say that it was not money well spent. I would say the same thing even if it cost one dollar!
Two stars. ⭐️⭐️
July 24, 2010
I was so hoping this was going to be a big, juicy gossip fest like Mr. Gross' previous book Model. Unfortunately, you have to wade through over 100 pages of muck and detail (which some will find enlightening) on how this apartment building came to be built. I am really sorry but I just don't care. Finally, the gossip about the tenants comes and it is only in bursts and spits intermingled with more information on the finances of this building. I would give it a lesser rating but there is some fun gossip. I have to begrudgingly give Mr. Gross some credit because I know now the name of the president of the Chase Bank during the Depression and their attorneys.
December 9, 2015
After 3 1/2 weeks of stopping and starting I have finally polished through 740 Park. Sometimes, even when dishing on the lives of the wealthy there is TMI and Gross passed that point at page 100. Not with salacious, gossipy details but with minutia that becomes mind-numbing. This book is over 500 pages and it is 500 pages of small print, densely packed onto the page. I would have hoped in a book about opulence there would be some opulence but instead there are only 3 or 4 black and white photos. No eye candy or real estate porn at all. Disappointing and not one of Gross' better NYC books.
July 20, 2023
Wordy but interesting!!!
October 1, 2012
There were some very interesting characters who lived at this address, and so many connections one to another, especially in the early years when apartments were rented only to those who were socially acceptable as well as wealthy. The building was designed by the Italian architect, Rosario Candela, already known for luxury NYC apartments. It was built by James Thomas Aloysius Lee and his partners. Lee was an adventurous land developer now probably most famous as Jacqueline Kennedy's grandfather, known to Caroline as Grampy Lee. The building did not make Lee a profit, and apartments were relatively stable in price until the 1980's and '90's when the new robber barons began to replace the old society folks. Originally conceived by Lee as a cooperative that would form a club of extraordinary gentlemen who shared the same values, Lee had to settle for renting. Tenants included John D. Rockefeller, Junior, the Brewsters, Landon Thorne and other successful NYC businessmen, many self-made, European royalty, mostly of the minor variety, Jack Bouvier and his wife Janet and daughters Jacqueline and Lee among other less famous names. At one point, Junior Rockefeller bought the building and mercifully rescued Lee from the albatross of debt it represented. After the severe business decline of the late '60's and '70's, the renters finally agreed, under duress, to form a coop and assume the debt as a group. From then on, a board of directors decided which applicants were acceptable. From early days, a few Jewish apartments were designated, and it has only been recently that the informal quota has disappeared.
I enjoyed the author's description of the life of the wealthy in NYC; the richest build homes at first, starting downtown and moving uptown along Park and Fifth Avenues as the years passed. But slowly, private homes were replaced by high rise buildings so that by the '30's, everyone who was anyone was looking for a Candela apartment in one of the best buildings. 740 Park was the best, but for some of the most traditional newly made men, the least pretentious of the meritocracy, Park Avenue was a "Jewish address," so one half of the building fronted 71st Street, and the more staid preferred that address, as well as the less ostentatious entry. The building was divided into four sections, A, B, C, and D-lines, so named because each had its own bank of elevators. There were servants' rooms in many of the apartments, and extra rooms for help downstairs. Each apartment had its own storage room for cigars, wine and extra furniture. There was an enormous amount of remodeling, combining and recombining of apartments over the years. Many tenants and/or owners never occupied the rooms. Many others kept empty apartments after the death of parents who lived there as investments. Some who bought and redecorated lived there for only months or a few years before moving again. There were deaths, scandals, tragedies. Many of the owners ended up broke; some crashed and burned others went to jail. Many tenants were widows living alone, but there were also young families with children. Often the children hated the building. Employees robbed the tenants blind.
I liked the social history very much, but I would say that the author gave so many familial and business connections that one's head spun.
I enjoyed the author's description of the life of the wealthy in NYC; the richest build homes at first, starting downtown and moving uptown along Park and Fifth Avenues as the years passed. But slowly, private homes were replaced by high rise buildings so that by the '30's, everyone who was anyone was looking for a Candela apartment in one of the best buildings. 740 Park was the best, but for some of the most traditional newly made men, the least pretentious of the meritocracy, Park Avenue was a "Jewish address," so one half of the building fronted 71st Street, and the more staid preferred that address, as well as the less ostentatious entry. The building was divided into four sections, A, B, C, and D-lines, so named because each had its own bank of elevators. There were servants' rooms in many of the apartments, and extra rooms for help downstairs. Each apartment had its own storage room for cigars, wine and extra furniture. There was an enormous amount of remodeling, combining and recombining of apartments over the years. Many tenants and/or owners never occupied the rooms. Many others kept empty apartments after the death of parents who lived there as investments. Some who bought and redecorated lived there for only months or a few years before moving again. There were deaths, scandals, tragedies. Many of the owners ended up broke; some crashed and burned others went to jail. Many tenants were widows living alone, but there were also young families with children. Often the children hated the building. Employees robbed the tenants blind.
I liked the social history very much, but I would say that the author gave so many familial and business connections that one's head spun.
December 23, 2020
Very interesting history of 740 Park, NYC, who’s who and who’s not and who is married to whom and then not!
Moral of the story: “Money really is a source of a lot of evil. Money corrupts. People go nuts.” Fern Tailor de Navarez, quoted in the book
“Power is a transitory thing...but I also find, in my religious bent now, that God tests one with wealth—a lot or a lack” Michael Leader, quoted in the book
This is a long read but for those who want to know the history and occupations of the inhabitants, it is worth it as a reference.
Moral of the story: “Money really is a source of a lot of evil. Money corrupts. People go nuts.” Fern Tailor de Navarez, quoted in the book
“Power is a transitory thing...but I also find, in my religious bent now, that God tests one with wealth—a lot or a lack” Michael Leader, quoted in the book
This is a long read but for those who want to know the history and occupations of the inhabitants, it is worth it as a reference.
April 10, 2020
Good stories are good stories even if the juice has dried up from the gossip angle. I tend to wait years before I read these types of stories that way same of the guilty have long since done the walk of shame. I just love good stories told well, which this book delivers.
February 2, 2018
Thought this would be a work on wealth and American society but it is basically just a gossipy look at rich people with no reflection or thought.
September 21, 2018
I couldn’t finish it in the space of my loan! It was incredibly detailed. Perhaps too detailed. This book was a mammoth! I loved reading about the building and the people, to an extent. But I couldn’t handle such crushing minutiae concerning generations of Old and New Money, with every connection in between.
February 10, 2013
Well-known writer (NY Times, New York, Town & Country, etc.) Michael Gross gives us an in-depth introduction (as far as is possible without most tenants direct input of the residents of 740 Park Avenue), Steven Candela's most coveted creation. The sub-title, is "The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building." From the history of the building to some of the current residents (most recently divulged in a PBS airing of Independent Lens) Mr. Gross chronicles the eccentricities, intrigues, exclusivity, and foibles of 740's denizens.
Mildly interesting, but at times, truly TMI, at times I was bored stiff with the pettiness, sordid affairs, and truly bad (even despicable) behavior of the very rich. The PBS production (Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream) is by far superior for imparting information on what is transpiring now with the residents of 740 Park Avenue, and the average American at the other end of that avenue.
Mildly interesting, but at times, truly TMI, at times I was bored stiff with the pettiness, sordid affairs, and truly bad (even despicable) behavior of the very rich. The PBS production (Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream) is by far superior for imparting information on what is transpiring now with the residents of 740 Park Avenue, and the average American at the other end of that avenue.
October 5, 2018
This building is deemed the richest because most of the residents had to be fabulously wealthy to get to live there. (Not just rich.) Some kept that wealth, and those who did not were politely asked to move out. No kidding. Many hearts were broken that way. Others stayed a lifetime, and their children, too. You'll read details of the lives of the Rockefellers, the Bouviers, Vanderbilts and others you've never heard of. Barbra Streisand was not approved when she applied for an apartment at 740. Other rich Jewish business people were allowed in. These 510 pages are not about the building itself, but what happened there, and to whom and they open your eyes to the effect of enormous wealth on the people who acquire it, and those who inherit it. The writing is gripping and full of humanity. I recommend the book highly. You'll be surprised by what you'll learn.
September 14, 2020
Somehow I finished this, though I took a long break from it to read bicycle diaries. It reads like a Vanity Fair article, but without the photographs, which is probably why it was not riveting. The author writes for Vanity Fair, so hey, that part makes sense. There were some interesting characters in the book, but you never get to spend all that much time with them, because we are busy moving to another apartment. Overall, I rate it "Meh."
December 22, 2009
I note with all honesty that I couldn't finish this, but it was as much my fault as the author's. Too many other things going on, and this was just too damned big for a book about one building and its denizens. There were some really interesting old money stories from New York society in the couple hundred pages I read, but the descriptive material about the interiors was often tedious and I didn't have the stamina to keep going. I think I had to be more of a Manhattanophile.
May 31, 2017
Didn't manage to finish this. I don't know what I expected, but this is just an interminable amount of pages about some society people you've never heard of who lived in a certain building. Might be an interesting book if you happen to be particularly interested in New York high society since the great depression, but I couldn't get through it.
January 6, 2013
I'm sure this might be interesting to some people, but I had to stop. Too many names, who married who, in families I don't know, but should know because of how rich they are. Just not interested.
July 29, 2022
I usually don't rate books that I don't finish, but I got a large chunk of the way through this before I couldn't do it to myself any longer. Anyone who was even tangentially related to 740 Park has their entire family tree reported back to the landing of the Dutch or English on the continent. It gets hard to keep track of who is the grandfather of whom or why they are important. Then, there are the financial and social bios of all those ancestors and their club memberships and how their fourth cousin twice removed once described their temperament, etc. It is that ad nauseam, until you forget about whom you're supposed to be reading and how they were even remotely connected to the building. I was expecting much more architectural history and much less genealogy. The text is very dry and dull--and SO long--and unless you were connected to one of the names mentioned, it is difficult reading. I kept trying to get to the "good part" of the book, but it just didn't come.
May 18, 2022
I gave up sometime around the 1940's. Gross seems determined to give us the names, ancestry, social background, and a few pithy quotes about every single person who occupied 740 Park at any point in the building's history for any length of time, and it's flat-out overwhelming. I get it - I can virtually see him running searches through the Library of Congress's historic newspaper database looking for mentions of J. Reclusive High-Status Millionaire, and then hitting up ancestry.com for some tidbits about how, precisely, Mrs. Millionaire was descended from the Mayflower and/or Peter Stuyvesant - but it's absolutely too much. Gross would have done better to focus on a couple of people (or apartments) and then mention others only as background gloss.
September 25, 2018
Quotable:
“There is today but one issue before the people. That issue is treason against our country – treason committed by millionaire outlaws who purchase public men and corrupt political parties to serve their law-defying corporations.” -Clarence J. Shearn, 1908 acceptance speech for nomination for Governor of New York on the Independence Party ticket.
After you divorce the favorite daughter, you’re not going to be staying with the company very long.
“[I]n Manhattan you can be sexy without good looks if you have money.” –friend of Barbara Steinberg.
“There’s no offending these types of people,” says the financial observer. “It’s all about the publicity.”
“There is today but one issue before the people. That issue is treason against our country – treason committed by millionaire outlaws who purchase public men and corrupt political parties to serve their law-defying corporations.” -Clarence J. Shearn, 1908 acceptance speech for nomination for Governor of New York on the Independence Party ticket.
After you divorce the favorite daughter, you’re not going to be staying with the company very long.
“[I]n Manhattan you can be sexy without good looks if you have money.” –friend of Barbara Steinberg.
“There’s no offending these types of people,” says the financial observer. “It’s all about the publicity.”
June 29, 2022
This book took a long time to get through. While the facts were interesting, it seemed disorganized and keeping track of all the family, social, and business relationships was really tedious. Eventually I gave up trying to do that and just powered on through.
I had hoped there would be a little more about the building itself and maybe the lives of the servants and maintenance people who worked there, instead of just the apartment owners. And I would have loved to see some floor plans and more photos. By the end I was really glad to be done reading about rich people.
I had hoped there would be a little more about the building itself and maybe the lives of the servants and maintenance people who worked there, instead of just the apartment owners. And I would have loved to see some floor plans and more photos. By the end I was really glad to be done reading about rich people.
September 15, 2017
A wonderful real estate read, with historical bits about some of NYC's most illustrious names. great for real estate buffs and NYC historical enthusiasts, but a very slow pace and cumbersome/tenuous ties weigh it down. Too many extraneous social details about names modern New Yorkers would never know take more space than the names we do know. Worth the read for the more exciting parts, but perhaps a good one to put down and pick up again as you read something else concurrently.
February 19, 2019
So boring. I was determined to finish this tome, thinking that it might get better. It didn’t. Page after page after page of name after name after name. It was dizzying. You never find out anything about the goings on in the day to day lives of anyone. No inside gossip or stories about the co op board. Just nothing there. I only gave it two stars because the research is impressive. I was really disappointed overall.
July 8, 2023
Great idea - poor execution. A real drag; had to make myself read it.
A lot of name dropping and jumping around without a cohesive theme throughout the book.
Learned a few things, but not enough to recommend it:
*740 was one of the buildings that was really hard to get into due to strict co-op board
*Rockefeller Jr lived there
*Governments bought apartments there was diplomats to live
*Another testament that money doesn’t make people happy: a lot of divorces, cheating
A lot of name dropping and jumping around without a cohesive theme throughout the book.
Learned a few things, but not enough to recommend it:
*740 was one of the buildings that was really hard to get into due to strict co-op board
*Rockefeller Jr lived there
*Governments bought apartments there was diplomats to live
*Another testament that money doesn’t make people happy: a lot of divorces, cheating
June 27, 2025
To be honest I did not read this cover to cover …tried NOT. Read much of the book in short chapter events. Enjoyed stopped and skipped ahead. Found another fun chapter.
The concept of a magnificent NYC building for the rich and the tales that the walls should be able to tell intrigued me. The author’s style and the very fine print were hindering to making this an enjoyable read.
Lots of wealthy unhappy people.
The concept of a magnificent NYC building for the rich and the tales that the walls should be able to tell intrigued me. The author’s style and the very fine print were hindering to making this an enjoyable read.
Lots of wealthy unhappy people.
April 5, 2018
(I admit to skimming some once I passed the halfway point.) This book is about the emergence of NYC in the early 20th Century and the interrelatedness of its Power Families; Old Money vs. New Money but always Money; architecture, decor, and excess; many names and stories seen through the lens of one iconic building.
April 30, 2023
Fascinating book, not at all what I expected going into it. Slow paced, meandering narrative focused on social observations about the history of one of the most interesting apartment buildings ever. Really enjoyed but was tough going given the pace and level of detail.
September 1, 2023
Really just a collection of anecdotes about very rich people who happen to have lived in the same building. There's no unifying narrative or storyline. Very New York-centric as you might imagine. 2.5 stars and not something I would recommend.
October 31, 2017
Why did I keep reading?
The premise is that those people are worth caring about.
My response to that premise? Show me!
The premise wasn't proven.
The premise is that those people are worth caring about.
My response to that premise? Show me!
The premise wasn't proven.
November 8, 2017
A little too much detail about the people who lived there. I would have liked more about the architecture, interior design, etc.
June 3, 2019
Too long and too many names. I would have just focused on key families and explored them further but with so many names it was hard to follow narratives.
April 27, 2020
Fantastic read
Displaying 1 - 30 of 130 reviews