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The Sky's the Limit: Passion and Property in Manhattan (Hardcover)

~ Steven Gaines (Author)
Key Phrases: top brokers, board package, ooo square feet, New York, Fifth Avenue, Central Park West (more...)
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Buying real estate in Manhattan is like buying real estate nowhere else in the world: a hoity-toity book called the Social Register dictates who can live where; co-op boards in luxury buildings often require a buyer to have at least 20 times the price of the apartment in assets; and the cost of an apartment rarely holds any relationship to the true value of the space. Indeed, Manhattan real estate is a cutthroat, baffling but thrilling world, and Gaines takes readers on a spectacular ride through it. The author of Philistines at the Hedgerow profiles some of the game's influential brokers, with a roving eye for detail (e.g., Linda Stein, who's sold homes to Bruce Willis, Steven Spielberg and Andrew Lloyd Webber, "has a brash, husky voice with the delivery of a red-hot mama, and her expressive face telegraphs the subtlest of emotions"). Gaines is at once intrigued and appalled by the excesses of this world, gloriously rehashing, for example, the juicy details of how Gloria Vanderbilt sued the board of directors of River House, a posh Upper East Side building, for rejecting her as a buyer. But Gaines isn't just concerned with modern-day foibles: throughout this addictive narrative, he weaves a captivating history of the city and its toniest neighborhoods. Agent, Richard Pine. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker

The Manhattan cooperative apartment is, according to Gaines's sportive look at New York City's residential real-estate market, "the ultimate exclusionary tool in American housing." This was not always so. In 1879, Philip Hubert, a former French teacher who became an inventor and architect, proposed giving the city's millions of tenement dwellers partial ownership of their homes as a program of uplift: "fireproof buildings in lower class areas for the lower class." Once Hubert's "home-club plan" caught on, it wasn't long before high-end speculators got in on the action. Now, to be considered for some venerable buildings, an applicant must submit three months' worth of cancelled checks, forgo a mortgage, and-in one memorable case-pretend to have a cold in order to mask a Bronx accent.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (June 1, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0316608513
  • ISBN-13: 978-0316608510
  • Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #633,772 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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More About the Author

Steven Gaines
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› Visit Amazon's Steven Gaines Page
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
top brokers, board package, ooo square feet
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Fifth Avenue, Central Park West, Sutton Place, San Remo, Douglas Elliman, Upper West Side, Park Avenue, River House, Dolly Lenz, Donna Karan, East River, Time Warner Center, Wall Street, Linda Stein, Alice Mason, Long Island, Edward Lee Cave, Michael Shvo, Shvo Group, United States, Social Register, Tommy Hilfiger, Upper East Side, Betty Sherrill
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The Sky's the Limit: Passion and Property in Manhattan
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Customer Reviews

26 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (26 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Get comfortable + move into this book for an engrossing read, June 19, 2005
I approached this book with indifference. But by page three, I was a convert, and engrossed in this vuyeuristic story of opulence and property on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, an area the contains the greatest concentration of personal wealth on Earth. I never knew the names behind these social register families, the newly-rich strivers, the surnames who raise most of the funds for New York's cultural institutions, and the re-branded real estate brokers who serve these super rich co-op owners. Gaines throws in the juicy stories of how Nixon was rejected by buildings, how Vanderbilt sued for entry into a GB (Good Building), how Streisand got stuck with her place for years, and how the powerful and wealthy are brought low by dictatorial co-op boards. There are stories of well positioned board packages, the mistakes of wearing the wrong clothes or being a pretty divorcee at board interviews, and how one should say that they love dogs if the board president is the largest funder of the ASPCA. Gaines uses the story of Tommy Hilfiger and his "board package" to show the evolution of upper east side real estate - namely the acceptance of some "garmentos" in to the best good buildings. Of course, when Hilfiger finally got a place, his divorce forced the apartment to be flipped (and flipped again.) When people say a book a juicy, this is the sort of book they mean. It is hard to put down, and it illuminates a world few of us will ever experiences.
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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars How the Super Rich Buy Manhattan Real Estate, July 17, 2005
By Izaak VanGaalen (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
Real estate seems to be the number one topic at dinner and cocktail parties. Everyone has a story about how incredibly real estate prices have risen and how someone has made a killing. Nowhere is this phenomenon more over the top than in Manhattan.

Steven Gaines is an investigative journalist who, in a previous work has examined the mansions and millionaires of the Hamptons, now focuses on the exclusive world of Manhattan co-ops.

According to Gaines, the "good buildings" and the "best addresses" run along Fifth and Park Avenues. One such good building is located at 820 Fifth Avenue. Gaines tells us that everyone was shocked when the board of the co-op approved Tommy Hilfiger. Its not that he didn't have the $100 million liquid assets needed to qualify, but the fact that he designed baggy gansta rap clothing.

Gaines gossipy anecodotes are told mainly from the point of view of some of the carriage trade brokers that do the deals. Many of the brokers are very hard-working and much more sensible than their clients.

Dolly Lenz, for example, was the highest earning broker for Prudential out of a sales force of 58,000 nationwide. Not only does she work in the rarified atmosphere of Manhattan co-ops, she also has the distinction of having sold the most expensive house in the New York.(Burnt Point in the Hamptons was sold to the CEO of Kinray for $45 million.) Working seven days a week and the ability to thumb-type 80 words per minute on her Blackberrry, she still finds time to have dinner with, say, Bruce Willis or Barbara Streisand.

Another good story, had to do with the San Remo building, possibly one of the most exclusive buildings in Manhattan. Steven Jobs of Apple Computer bought the top two floors of the North Tower and spent five years and $15 million renovating it. The other tenants were so frustrated by the renovation that they brought action limiting the amount of time renovations could take. Jobs lost interest in the building and offered it to Bono of U2 for the cost of the renovation. Bono, smelling a bargain, snapped it up.

Gaines is very good at analyzing the social distinctions between the different buildings and neighborhoods and the people who inhabit them. Although it may not add much to the sum total of human knowledge, it does entertain and give insight into the otherworldly ordeals of the super rich.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Buying in a Manhattan 'Good Building', June 27, 2005
Among the many excesses that New York City can claim is one of the most rediculous real estate systems in the world. The sub-title of this book says a lot, there is a passion in the real estate business in Manhattan. In a space of only a few square miles the rich (sometimes famous, sometimes not) have created a strange sub-culture that exists just like others around the city.

The difference here is that these people are the people you would expect to be secure in their lives, not filled with petty gossip and rivalries. But that's not the case. A good bit of the book is about the co-op board who has the right to accept or reject a new prospective purchaser. For instance no attractive divorced women need apply, the wives of the existing tennants don't want their husbands riding in the elevators with them. Likewise, no single men, we, after all, don't want gays in our building. I was surprised to read a lot of this. I would have thought that the civil rights legislation would have prevented such actions. But perhaps that was only to be applied in the South.

Very interesing side of the housing market.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars interesting topic, poorly executed
Gaines' prose is all over the place. I was also yearning for some footnotes to legitmate some of his stories. Read more
Published 1 day ago by A. Zelcer

1.0 out of 5 stars The Skys the Limit


The book arrived smushed and torn. I sent it back in the return envelope and never received confirmation that it was returned OR a replacement!!
Published 5 months ago by J. guzzle

4.0 out of 5 stars Should be read by every new yorker from the city
A person can live in new york city and feel the energy all around and never know why. The reason is because a lot of what separates nyc from other places cannot be understood by... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Brugal1618

4.0 out of 5 stars The Manhattan Gold Rush
The Sky's the Limit is a very entertaining look at the "gold rush" mentality that surrounds the best real estate in Manhattan. Read more
Published 14 months ago by stoic

4.0 out of 5 stars big money in the big city


I had no idea that New York's high-end apartment and coop market is a whole world unto itself. Read more
Published on December 22, 2007 by Vincent J. Fulton

4.0 out of 5 stars A City of Vultures-no not monsters but realtors and brokers!
My sister rented an apartment in New York City and it was a ruthless process. Never mind that she's a lawyer working on Madison Avenue for an international firm headquartered in... Read more
Published on November 24, 2007 by Sylviastel

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Little Read
This is a great read - especially if you've never really understood what the big deal about co-ops v. condos is or even just don't know the difference. Read more
Published on January 5, 2007 by netta

4.0 out of 5 stars Seems like Coop Boards have more power than the IRS
This book was great! Another fascinating look at the New York real estate market and where there is no limit on what you'll pay for a place to live. Read more
Published on June 23, 2006 by Reading Rocks

5.0 out of 5 stars The Sky's The Limit - That says it all!
Gains takes you inside the history of many of the top buildings in NYC (A.K.A.- good buildings or GBs) as well as a beginning to present time chronicle of the often stuffy co-ops... Read more
Published on March 27, 2006 by Kevin Kingston

3.0 out of 5 stars Real Estate in the Big Apple
Fifth Avenue is the address against which all others are measured, according to Gaines. It is 6.5 miles long, mostly high-end retail space and skyscraper office buildings. Read more
Published on February 20, 2006 by Loyd E. Eskildson

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