House of Outrageous Fortune: Fifteen Central Park West, the World's Most Powerful Address
*Starred Review* Fifteen Central Park West is the New Gilded Age address of a new generation of moguls enjoying the costliest real estate in an enclave of international wealth from the worlds of finance, technology, information, and entertainment. Gross, chronicler of the wealthy in 740 Park (2005) and Unreal Estate (2011), looks beyond the list of notable tenants (Sting, Denzel Washington, top executives from Goldman Sachs, Google, and Yahoo) to explore the changes in the architectural and social landscape of elite Manhattan. Gone are the days of snobbish cooperative boards declining the déclassé, gone are the old assumptions of the “good buildings.” Gross details the ego-bruising battles to get into 15 CPW and the campaigns to snag just the right tenants for the “tycoon-stuffed” building. Gross offers historical perspective on the real-estate market in Manhattan, on the rise and fall of trendy buildings and their owners and tenants up to the latest shift in real-estate and financial markets, which has broadened the upper crust to include the newly wealthy, foreigners, and more ethnic Americans. Drawing on interviews with real-estate titans and power brokers, Gross provides a deliciously detailed and completely engaging look at how the 0.1 percent live in one building. --Vanessa Bush