who can afford a space like that, they simply don't live in the same reality that the rest of us do. And I'm not even thinking about the poor and the struggling. I happen to be doing okay, thank you very much, meaning I do not live from paycheck to paycheck. I live frugally, but I have more or less everything I need. But there is no way I am within any kind of shouting distance of the sort of place that this property represents. And, as I think about it, this is a very good way of showing how very different the 1% is from the rest of us. Even people who are vastly better off than I am can't possibly afford to buy in a building like this. And the really scary thing is that they just don't get how far removed they are from us.

I'm removed from the homeless. I also do volunteer work at my local homeless shelter, which helps remind me of how very well off I am. Someone who buys a place at 432 Park Avenue? I doubt they do volunteer work with the homeless. It's possible they donate money, but they never come into even brief contact with those at the very bottom.

And that, in a nutshell, is what's wrong. The very rich are very isolated from the very poor. They simply haven't a clue -- heck, I barely have a clue and I at least do my volunteer stint.

Everything about them reminds me of the North Korean traffic cops directing traffic on empty streets.

Doormen, security guards and concierges stare blankly at their cell phones, elevators are always on the ground floor at the ready. Parking garages are nearly empty with only a few dusty Audi's and BMW's with expired tags. Furniture, floors and fixtures in the suites are sun bleached. Some of them have a musty rotting smell from forgotten flowers stewing in a vase of brown water. Comparatively ancient electronics are a common sight. Old projection TV's and CRT computer monitors are a sign the unit hasn't been occupied in years.

A security guard once told me their most frequent visitors were process servers.

in the shade, and how they are evading taxes

Here's a bit of it. See the link for the images before and after the new developments (the below image is after the new developments)

passed away and could not advocate against it, they started issuing permits. It is just awful there now.

San Francisco is like that.
Hellaciously expensive, as indeed all of Cal. is.

these are pied-a-terres that begin at $7 million each and include several full-floor parcels in the $75 million range.


In the Medieval era, towers were erected to separate royalty and feudal overlords from the rest of the population during times of plague and suffering. It was an effective barrier, both physical and symbolic. A 1,400-foot skyscraper, in America’s most populous city, in which fewer than 100 people will reside, is perhaps the perfect present-day parallel to such behavior.

http://fortune.com/2014/11/24/432-park-avenue-inequality-wealth/

I've been saying for years we're slipping back into medieval times; paid private armies staffed with professional soldiers, complete separation of rich and poor, people working for less that it takes to maintain life, Religious zealotry abounds, yes, we're getting the whole shitty deal back.

oh.....wait....

Certainly getting warm.

And people like Palin who show by example you do not have to have a brain to become famous.

What a ugly building. If I had wealth, I'd be in one of those old classy buildings near the park instead.

Why aren't they smart ? Ugly shit for ugly people

Progessive Era 2.0 to follow soon, perhaps ?

"By the time of the 1801 census, England had a population of just over 8 million living in a country of some 32 million acres
– and about 80 to 90 per cent of this land was owned by the aristocracy or landed gentry.
Some of them had estates of thousands of acres, including large kitchen gardens, lawns, shrubberies and other landscape features,
as well as orchards for fruit, woodlands for fuel, rivers and lakes for fishing, and huge swathes of land for farming and shooting wild animals and birds.They received ever-increasing income from their tenant farmers, mines and other industrial concerns, as well as from urban developments.

Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

excellent fun read, btw.

Wonder if any of the units will be lived in full time??

Some of us prefer to see nature when we look outside of the window.

it looks like nothing more than a big target for people enraged at "Middle Eastern oil magnates, Chinese billionaires, Russian oligarchs, and the Latin American aristocracy "

Just sayin'.