740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building [Hardcover]

Michael Gross (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 18, 2005

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 elite: 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 country: 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 Park: 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 that: 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Of all Manhattan's fabled East Side dwellings of the super-rich, 740 Park Avenue has perhaps the best pedigree. Designed by Rosario Candela and developed by James T. Lee, Jackie O's maternal grandfather, as a cooperative haven for the elite, it had the misfortune to open just as the stock market crashed in 1930 and was forced to operate partly as a rental for some decades. The last sale was to Lee himself, for son-in-law "Black Jack" Bouvier, his wife and daughters Jackie and Lee. John D. Rockefeller Jr. signed a rental lease in 1936 for a massive apartment (more than 20,000 square feet), and Marshall Field III took another. Gross (Model) has solidly researched the denizens of the building, who they were, what they did, and who and how many times they married. This information, while exhaustive, is also exhausting. Things perk up as we approach the modern era, and the old rich give way to a newer cast of sometimes dubious billionaires. Ron Perelman, Henry Kravis, Steve Ross and Steve Schwartzman are cited among the newer tenants. A bit of a bore for average readers, this will be a useful tome for those interested in New York's social history.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“In 740 Park, Michael Gross penetrates the bewitching and private worlds of the privileged and very rich denizens of 740 Park Avenue on New York’s Upper East Side. Gross, a born storyteller, delights in his tales of upstairs and downstairs over the decades in the grand building. This is social history at its best.” —Dominick Dunne

“740 Park is a concrete capsule of American capitalism as seen through the fates, fortunes, and foibles of its inhabitants. This biography of New York’s most magisterial building is an immensely entertaining, dishy, and ultimately serious book.”
—Jane Stanton Hitchcock

“The Lolita of shelter porn . . . 740 Park delves into the rarified world of one of the city’s most exclusive co-ops, where billionaires like Ronald Lauder, Steve Schwarzman, and David Koch rest their heads.” —Michael Calderone, New York Observer

“740 Park is a historical building that is worthy of the comprehensive and fascinating coverage that Michael Gross has devoted to it. This book is as entertaining as it is informative—it’s a terrific story.” —Donald Trump

"Jaw-dropping apartment porn."
–Fortune

"Gobs of real-estate porn."
—The New York Times Book Review

"[A] great read... gossipy... revealing,"
—People

"As rich as his subjects."
—Forbes FYI

"Life after folly-filled life flashes forward like Park Avenue canopies viewed from a speeding town car."
—New York Times

"Finally! A look inside the golden tabernacle of high society."
—Kitty Kelley

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 576 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; First Edition edition (October 18, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385512090
• ISBN-13: 978-0385512091
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (69 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #501,802 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael Gross is one of America's most provocative non-fiction writers. A contributing editor of Travel + Leisure and columnist for Crain's New York Business, he's written for Vanity Fair, Esquire, GQ, Town & Country,the New York Times and New York, and authored ten books, novels, biographies and social histories, among them, his latest, Rogues' Gallery, a history and expose of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the critically-acclaimed best-sellers Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women and 740 Park. His next book, Unreal Estate, a social history of the estate district of Los Angeles, will be published in November 2011.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

108 of 118 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Yawn... December 18, 2005

By DLP

Format:Hardcover

Don't be fooled by the exciting sounding "apartment porn" review by Forbes -- this is one tedious book. While there were some very interesting sections (on the building's architect Candela, a brief history of cooperative apartments in NYC, and John D. Rockefeller), they were few and far between. The majority of the text is dull and repetitive. The author was able to get dirt on a number of current and former residents of 740 Park, but he could not get his hands on a floor plan or any decent photos of these luxurious apartments? All in all, quite a disappointing read.

47 of 50 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars hmmm February 10, 2006

By Sennie

Format:Hardcover

Well, the author definitely spent a lot of time researching this book. That is obvious. I really thought this would be another Bonfire of the Vanities type of book about the rick and famous and their habits, lifestyle etc. I am half way through the bookand I've had enough. There are about 5 paragraphs about each tenant that ever lived in 740 Park.This book is almost like a school textbook with a little history of this and that person except this book is about an apartment building. Not enough information on each tenant for me to develop an interest in the subject, just enough information on who lived in which apartment during which years.

The book started off well enough but after awhile, I lost complete interest in the history of each unit and who lived there, etc. I actually can not remember half the people who subleased, leased or bought the apartments after awhile.

Great attempt. The writer, as I mentioned, definitely did a through research on the history of this building and is obviously a gifted writer. However, a short and brief background information on each tenant failed to draw me in. I would recommend this book to anyone who is doing research in real estate in NY, but would not recommend this book for just reading for enjoyment.

95 of 106 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars No Photos and Plodding Writing November 17, 2005

By Jery Tillotson

Format:Hardcover

When I read a book like this one, that describes the history of a building or how the rich are very different from you and I, I want photos to help fill out the story. This book contains two mediocre pictures of two different rooms in the fabled structure on Madison where only the super rich can reside. I pass by this building every day and was naturally curious to see what all the shouting was about. To me, it looks like hundreds of other bland, brick structures that line Park and Fifth Avenue. Perhaps that's the first tip-off that the ultra-rich want to live quietly behind barricades of stone and marble. I wish there were pictures of the some of the residents and the interiors. Word descriptions can only go so far.