Steve's San Remo Apartment gets a book mention


The New York Post
May 17, 2005 Tuesday
All Editions; Pg. 14
MANHATTAN'S POSH PROPERTY PICTURE
Cindy Adams

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STEVEN GAINES' last book "Philistines at the Hedgerow" peed on the Hamptons. Now he's back with "The Sky's the Limit: Passion and Property in Manhattan" about the billion dollar real estate on our tiny 12-mile island.

And he skewers everyone. Like apartment-shopping Warren Beatty who only asked if Robert Redford lived nearby. Like broker Alice Mason saying classy buildings don't like Jews and: "This is the way it works. One Jewish person on every co-op board vetoes all the other Jewish people." Like Steve Martin who combined two flats when marrying actress Victoria Tennant then separated them with a soundproof wall after a divorce.

At the party in Alex Kuczynski and Charles Stevenson's pitiful little $30 mil Park Avenue hovel-plus-terrace, Gaines said what's up with N.Y.C. realty:

"Manhattan, where you live represents who you are. Lower East Side, you're poor, you're pale, you smoke. Chelsea, you're gay. Central Park West, liberal. Park or Fifth is the Goldcoast, but young people flocking in don't care about Park or Fifth. They're creating their own status. They'll do TriBeCa or Wall Street where office buildings are now condos. Sutton Place is dead. Isolated. You can't get a cab.

"Real estate here is like Holland's 1850's tulip craze where people paid hundreds of thousands for one bulb. Desire has outpaced reality. In '76, I bought my West 11th townhouse for $62,500. Today it's multimillions. Prices can't keep going up and up. When the market soon freezes at whatever its high, it will remain that way for decades until we catch up to its worth."

Meanwhile, Little, Brown publishes this June 1. And if you have anything left over from your maintenance, it's $26.95.
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- posted by sookeyjane 5/18/2005 05:09:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS