Next time I plan a purchase I’ll first apply for approval from the new progressive Jacobin economic justice watchdogs or I might be subjected to five class struggle critical articles in this paper as Griffin has. Who knows if things “progress” as they have been, the new Sandinista sympathizers might take his apartment as a form of social justice and then, just as they did in Nicaragua, live in it themselves.
If Griffin was smart he would sell it and buy himself a nice place in Basel, Switzerland or Singapore, where his property would be a lot safer.
5
How about 240 million meals for Syria, Haiti, Venezuela, ...?
11
People with too much money. They’re pathetic.
15
Is this the second act of the Gilded Age, and are hedge fund managers the new robber-barons? I'd hate to be around for what comes next.
7
The only issue with these "Super Talls" is that they lack style. Iconic Skyscrapers such as the Chrysler Building have been heralded since their construction. The Developers were not just looking to make a buck, but to add to the greatest skyline on the planet. This new crop of groups like Extell and RAMS could care less about the skyline or the greatness of New York City. They are Generic, and that is how they will be remembered.
9
Whenever I read articles about these pharaonic palaces in the sky and look at the accompanying photos of living spaces referred to as “great rooms,” I always ask myself the same question - “ is that a place you would like to curl up on the sofa in, with a good book and a glass of wine? The answer is always a resounding “No.”
15
Deblasio administration allowed this. People in Penthouses don't use local small businesses, they don't send their kids to public schools.
8
All the anger (jealousy) here is funny. It's his money to do with as he pleases. Grow up.
3
Brings to mind the Lennon/McCartney lyrics, The Fool On The Hill.
4
Is that a laminate floor in the 212 Fifth Ave penthouse? For $62.8 M? And I thought Bev Hills was tacky.
5
Aside from the overall disgusting aspect of all this, the buyers and the entire industry, etc., it seems to me that these trophy places have no human scale. I'll bet even the broom closets aren't cozy. Personally, I find it all cold and off-putting. Probably the same could be said for the eventual occupants.
8
Why do we never see the annual property tax cited in such articles. Kenneth Griffin, like all the billionaires, needs to pay a fare and full share of property tax, not some figure based based on future depreciation. These articles seem to avoid the question of annual taxation entirely while sensationalizing the sale price.
12
I guess you gotta do something with all that money if earning or inheriting it is all you have. That money won't buy the talent to play a musical instrument well, paint a stunning picture, write a great book, fall in love. For us 99 percenters there is consolation in the fact that there are just some things money can't buy.
16
@Jimmy
Look at Lloyd Blankfein and Gary Cohn. Apparently, money can't buy hair.
3
How many days will it take to break Griffin's record purchase price? I'll give it a week, two at most.
1
Dear God, please give me a penthouse like this. I promise, I will divide it into 2 equal parts, and I will donate the second one jointly to all commenters of this article.
4
I was talking to a neighbor about the Griffin sale. He wasn't interested in talking about the record setting price paid for the apartment. Living directly in the shadow of these mega towers there is a latent concern they may become terrorist targets.
5
Yea! He is above everybody in the NYC. This is real difference between 100 mln and 200 mln penthouses.
2
If you compare the prices to Teheran or Caracas or other oil capitals they are not very different. Comparable to Hong Kong real estate. Prices in the US are relatively low.
1
A 2% wealth tax added on the the sale seems right yo me.
7
I stroll Branch Brook Park in my Newark neighborhood at Cherry Blossom Festival and I feel like a billion bucks.
9
There was a time in my life when I was genuinely impressed and awed by these magnificent homes. Now, as a homeowner myself, I can only think about what must be carrying costs of 4-5m per year for this condo. Not to mention assessments. Billionaire or not, $500K per month in fixed costs will start occupying a place in your head sooner or later.
8
@M These people spend $45 million on a painting or sculpture, I think you are not quite putting yourself in their shoes. When is the last time you read about an American billionaire having a personal bankruptcy auction?
6
@M
So 6 million bucks a year. If you have ten billion and hundreds worldwide do, you, your son and grandson could hang on for about 166 years. You would have 9 billion left over.
Billionaires have a lot of dough. A billion is to a million roughly as 33 years are to 11 days. On the national debt scale, a trillion would be 33,000 years, from now back to way before the Neolithic to late Neanderthal days.. Mounts up, doesn't it?
5
@CK
And then the painting or sculpture goes into a vault where they never see it until they flip it for another $20 million. Even the robber barons of the 19th century weren't as crass as these guys who just slosh electrons around, performing no useful function in society.
3
Some guy or gal climbs to the top. So what and why do people lament? A Real estate transaction is just a exchange between two willing partners. All transactions between free people is what drives the market of of a free society.
5
@Tony
There is no such thing as free at least in New Jersey.
1
"A Real estate transaction is just a(n) exchange between two willing partners."
Right, because this article illustrates typical real estate transactions that occur EVERYDAY in the USA with the average citizen. Yet another reader who read a NYT article and.... somehow overlooked the not necessarily hidden point of it-to reveal how the biggest money corrupts core values- flew at light speed way above their heads...
And the "free society" mention is amazing. People who cannot afford to pay the most basic health insurance or a quality college education, the vast majority of Americans, possess the same "freedom" as the buyers and speculators involved with these transactions..come on..
6
Politicians are in the pockets of real estate developers. Democrats(!) got rid of rent control/rent stabilization laws because landlords were crying crocodile tears that they couldn't "maintain" their properties properly. The only thing that deregulation did was to unhinge rental prices all over the city. Some naive souls believed that putting more deregulated apartments to the market would drive prices down, dream on. A family has to pay upwards of $5,000 a month for a very small, very modest apartment in Manhattan (that's by a very conservative estimate, as most one bedrooms go for about $4K). Guess how much a family has to earn to be able to afford that. So it's all our own doing, poor thinking, poor planning and lots and lots of greed. You reap what you sow.
11
@realist No one has to live in Manhattan. It's nice but not necessary.
4
Its interesting how you almost never see people who have worked tirelessly and earned.., truly 'earned' their wealth, set these kinds of ridiculous records. Its rarely a guy who built a business from the ground up (a Buffett or a Gates or a Bezos) paying an obscenely unjustifiable amount for something and most often an investment banker or a hedge fund manager or a Saudi royal.
Didn't have to work as hard to get it, so its easier to throw it away senselessly, I guess.
14
@Surprised
Bill Gates' spice pantry is probably bigger than your house.
1
@Surprised do you think that Ken Griffin didn't work hard to get where he is? He didn't have billions of dollars just handed to him. Like him or hate him, it's hard to say that he did nothing and had everything handed to him.
4
To the article author, a real estate reporter; why is it "lousy" --definition: disgusting-- to have many multimillion-dollar apartments in in this city? After all, this city is perhaps the greatest city in the world, and certainly the center of this country's financial universe, and cultural universe, etc. And in a free society, where people are able to earn and spend what they want, what's so terrible about people building expensive places if other people are willing to buy them?
We'd all like to have more money. And we can always look at what anyone spends on something and say; "well, you should spend less, you don't need to spend so much, you should have given more to charity..." but that's a separate issue. There will always be people at the top of the hierarchy. So what.
7
A vaguely interesting article about folks whose lives are built around money: the acquisition of money, the preservation of money, the display of money, and, always, the thoughts of money. I'm not envious.
25
I am sure most think about more than money.
Most think about clothes, cars, vacations, parties, their kids' schooling, and maybe even a charity or two. Some, I'm sure, think about cocaine and so on.
No doubt poor and middle-class people would be equally occupied were they to find themselves with $900,000,000 to play with. You think they'd be angelic? Can there be a reason so many Lottery winners go broke?
Some would be as angelic as some rich people already are. Some would be as callous.
4
What a crazy world: $10,000 a square foot is a good price?
1
Buyers of super-expensive penthouses want to feel themselves on top of the world and they are ready to live dangerously, disregarding 9/11/2001.
2
There's nothing to justify this kind of expenditure, and I find it horrifying that this article appeared next to another on the NYT website that asked "what is a pint of poor person's blood worth?"....the answer is, whatever doesn't trickle up to satisfy the vampires in the 1% is worth very little in a culture that allows for this kind of excess.
9
At what level can the rich feel OK with a higher tax rate? When they earn 100 times average household income? 1000 times? This must be an example of why greed is one of the deadly sins.
11
They sell us the idea of capitalism and teach us to repudiate socialism. They teach us that money and wealth is the ultimate goal. When the idea of limiting vast amounts of wealth is brough about, it is classified as socialism. But anything related to socialism is tabboo in America, so it is even condemned by the average person... I guess deep inside they think that they will be very rich some day and so don't want to risk it...What the people don't see is that America's capitalism only benefits the very rich and the chances of an average individual amounting this much wealth is probably close to that of winning the Powerball... Thare should be a limit to the amout of wealth a single person can possess. Say a limit unreachable by 99% of the population...
11
Who teaches that money is the ultimate goal? I find it hard to believe that, say, David Rockefeller, whose every property and possession after his death was sold off to provide money for, or was given directly to, charity, dandled his children in his knee and sang, "Money, money..."
Rich people should be taxed 50-60 percent as they were when I was a child. But do not think that doing so will change human nature, not theirs and not ours.
We will still have mass shootings and crazy people pushing commuters into train tracks.
A $500,000 parking space? For what -- Skylab?
3
We've got the picture on these repetitive articles. Pigs wallowing in their suet. Anything less, according Howie Starbucks, would be un-American.
2
Well, if you build it, they will come.
But it doesn’t have a terrace. He got swindled.
7
How empty and drafty a place like this must actually feel. It must be like living in the equivalent of several football fields.
11
@P
Reminds me of the famous hall of mirrors scene in "Citizen Kane"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fIP7g9en10
A rational explanation of the seemingly incomprehensible real estate market, much appreciated.
Also, it's heartening to see he is donating so much to charity. 700 million already, and "billions" planned for education. Funding education is a cause near and dear to me, it's good to see a person with means taking up the cause himself.
It's also more than a little sad that he has to take the initiative to give back because our government refuses to tax him at the rate they should.
30
@Joel
Very much agree. I don't care how much one earns or has, it is an embarrassment to own this kind of extravagance, when there are so many hard working people unable to afford a modest home. Also, as nice as it sounds that he is giving quite a lot to Harvard, what is that money used for? Much of it to fancy new buildings and to increase already high remuneration to administrators, investment advisers and high profile staff. Also, to be considered is the huge tax deduction the donor receives and all taxpayers end up subsidizing. Tax them higher on income and much higher on their estates when they pass.
6
@DLS
While we can debate this real estate purchase, with regards to the Harvard donation - click on the link in the story. The $150 million gift (the largest in the school's history) is principally focused on supporting Harvard’s financial aid program, which Griffin described as “an investment in the next generation of leaders as we continue to break down barriers to an outstanding education.” In fact, the gift is all about supporting tuition for the neediest students (and yes we could debate that system as well):
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/02/kenneth-griffin-makes-largest-gift-in-harvard-college-history/
1
Apparently zero benefit for the City as a whole. As usual, negligible proceeds in the form of tax revenue (God forbid) from these billionaires. At least if taxes on the rest of us can be any indication. Ask any poor shlub homeowner in the five boroughs whose property taxes have gone up 40% in the past five years. And keeps rising!
8
@Edwin
If you think that property taxes are negligible, I would be happy to have you cover mine.
4
Actually they pay a ton of property taxes. And use little or nothing in the way of city services.
5
@GC True and not true.
The price for a view out the window of even a wintery brown Central Park admittedly is panoramic. Seems unfair that someone for only the cost of the trip to the top of the Empire State building gets to see the same thing.
1
We simply do not tax wealth enough in this country. When Reagan cut taxes he not only cut the top marginal rate from 70% to 50%. During his administration, he also collapsed the brackets from 16 to 5. This resulted in a a regressive tax system in which a person making a really nice 1980 salary of $90,000 was being taxed at the same or even higher tax rate, due to lower tax rates on investment income, as someone making $10,000,000. With minor respites during the Clinton and Obama administrations, that regressive formula has been the creed of every republican since Reagan. Want to know why we have so much national debt and so much individual wealth at the top? Look at a history of US Income Tax rates. FYI, there were still lots and lots of very rich people living in the US when we had a more progressive tax system.
41
This is a disgusting reflection of the gilded age period through which most Americans are now suffering. The fact that the cost of this apartment could pay the median rent of over 6,000 people in the most expensive city in the country is ridiculous. It is not illegal for one man to control so much wealth, just immoral that we have allowed such a society to persist.
61
@Matt. Name a moral (or amoral, for that matter) society that is more successful, given that you are factually incorrect; "most Americans are" Not "now suffering". Our society is the most successful for the greatest percentage of the total population of our society than any society on the planet now and as compared to any society in the history of this planet.
The cost or rent of your home or apartment could pay the median rent of probably many people in many places on this planet; so what?
So a few people have a staggering amount of money. That is not the cause of anyone's suffering.
4
@Full Name Your premise is wrong; your conclusion is obviously wrong. Wealth at any given time is a zero sum game. Consider a capitalist system in which wealth were distributed far more broadly and equally so that no one lived in poverty. Given the limited nature of wealth, One person having more MEANS someone else has less.
There are people who live in desperate poverty who really have no way of escaping it here in the putative wealthiest nation in the world. That is where your premise is wrong. A system that allows such an obscene accumulation of wealth IS the cause of suffering.
Capitalism has a number of positive aspects as an economic system. But it has serious flaws as well. If those flaws aren't addressed it means the capitalist system isn't benefiting humanity as it could. Capitalism would evolve to something else, some monopolistic endgame system, if its excesses weren't constantly redressed. We are clearly closer to that than we have been for about 100 years.
I'm OK with obscene wealth. After everyone else is secure in health, abode, and finances into old age. Until that happens, I not OK with it.
5
Photo of 212 Fifth. Why is the cello lying on the floor? And what is that hassock doing under the grand piano? Looks like a swivel chair behind it. Is that to allow greater reach on the keyboard with less effort? Can someone explain the decorating mores of the rich?
11
@KB in NYC, all I know about the decorating proclivities of the rich is that those uselessly oversized coffee table books are there only to keep the riff-raff's feet off the table. The last thing one wants is to find comfort in such snobbish ambiance.
10
Maybe a child takes cello lessons. Maybe the wife does. I wish more people tried to play musical instruments instead of blasting equally or more expensive sound systems into the street.
And I have a hassock. My grandmother who polished brass railings in bars and restaurants, among her other jobs, had a hassock. I used to up-end it and roll on it when I was a toddler.
Rich people should be taxed as they were when I was a child, at over 60 percent, but hassocks and cellos are civilized things.
3
At $3,100 a square foot, my penthouse apartment in downtown Bogota would be worth 270 billion Colombian pesos. I was offered a 10,000 acre cattle ranch in the eastern plains of Colombia for $100,000.00 U.S. Location.
5
Why would someone need or want something so expensive in which to live? Perhaps Warren Buffet could rub off on this guy. The fact that somebody would use their money this way instead of investing in helping our country and others is mind boggling. It makes no sense. It is jaw dropping selfishness and ego.
15
@jaamhaynes He helps out. He spent $15 M to fix the lakefront bike/pedestrian path here in Chicago. But still, that someone would spend that much $$ for a domicile is obscene.
1
While the high tech plutocrats luxuriate with their billions, we plebes are urged to live in 150 square foot tiny houses and eat insects to reduce our carbon footprint.
38
I'm just really moved that he gave so generously to a small struggling college up in Boston for scholarships no less. You know that plucky little institution with a meager endowment of 20 billion dollars.
Enjoyed the article. To me the view doesn't seem so great.
27
Donating money to elite educational institutions means supporting future generations of elitist graduates. I am by no means a one-percenter, but I have stopped sending money to the extremely wealthy university that I attended for that very reason. To be sure, I received an excellent education there, but there are other schools that have greater needs and are not in the business of promoting privileged class interests.
19
When looking at some of the high priced apartments on the US market I am frequently shocked at the low quality of workmanship and materials Americans are prepared to settle for.. Most glaringly are the standards for thermal and acoustical insulation in exterior and interior separations.Floor mounted water closets, passé in even simple German apartments are still run of the mill in high priced American housing. Besides stunning views, it would be interesting to hear what the developers of such properties are offering in terms of quality and sustainability.
26
@Ostinato
That "great room" gave me laugh. It's a big room, that's all, nothing great about it. When you see the pictures of these interiors you notice how spartan they are. Today's architects and designers are mentally unequipped to deal with anything more than simple planar surfaces and boxlike structures. Maybe they should learn how to draw. Even the exotic woods and marbles mentioned so breathlessly in the promotional literature are never fashioned into anything more than shiny slabs, though the technical capacity for truly imaginative fabrication exists now as never before.
There's not a single craftsman from 1900 who couldn't dance circles around these poseurs. Fortunately for them, the billionaire rubes who buy these trophies don't know or care.
11
Which is why de Blasio's plan to turn the Brooklyn Heights promenade into a 6-lane highway is so foul: Think about what the trucks careering by will do to the foundations and plasterwork of those 150-year-old irreplaceable, landmarked townhouses.
When they're condemned, de Blasio's developer friends will have a field day.
3
The only reason why Ken Griffith would agree to so much
publicity on his purchase is that the developer has some
kind of arrangement with him. The sale is clearly designed
to dupe other buyers into paying fantastic prices. Whether
it works or the developers hand their supertall towers
back to their investors remains to be seen.
BTW we New Yorkers do pay a hidden tax for these kind
of developments that are essentially empty building "
storing cash". Land prices are bid up based on the amount of
buildable square footage. So the astronomical land prices
paid for apartment development are passed on throughout
the city. The state and city should have long ago though about
new developments housing mostly New Yorkers and not
transient billionaires.
44
And often these buyers are exempt from ANY property taxes on these units for decades. Why? Beyond outrageous.
14
@Joe, these towers benefit all New Yorkers. The real estate and transfer taxes on such a transaction are considerable. You can build a ton of affordable housing units based on this single transation. There are 116 units in this tower, and they will bring enormous tax revenues to city coffers.
6
@Joan I know of no market rate NYC property that is "exempt from property taxes". There are certain market rate properties that have reduced property taxes for a few years, based on location, but not this property.
7
There has to be more going on below the surface with the Griffin deal. He has an angle that we are not privy to. It makes zero sense (or cents) that a person who makes a fabulous living by uber-successfully dealing with numbers on paper, would pay for a significant portion of the entire building project, say 20-25%, in order to acquire only a small portion if it, maybe 3-5% at most. It simply doesn't add up. Tax break? Promotional scheme? Under the table payoff to somebody? There is more to this story somehow.
40
I enjoyed this entertaining article, and I always read the Real Estate section for a combination of fantasy and escapism. But these apartments don't generate much fantasy for me. Granted I live in a two-story house in fly-over country, but are the views shown in the pictures really all that great? The only one that struck me as enviable is the first photo with the up-close view of Madison Square Park Tower. Otherwise, meh. Also, the staging of the "great room" (hate that phrase) at 212 Fifth Ave. does nothing and those windows -- don't get me started.
14
I know I don't have an expansive view of Central Park and the rest of the concrete jungle below, but I do have a view of the snow covered mountains and expansive sunset views of northern NM for under a million bucks.....and guess what, I have a small yard too for that price! I know this is like comparing apples and oranges and I know that Mr. Griffin does a lot of good with his money, but when it comes time to sell, I can't imagine there being too many buyers out there that would pay the price he did.
7
As a fellow New Mexican, I could not agree more. But to people living in concrete and steel cities, a home in the sky looking down on it all is the best that they can do for a view. But let us not forget the status factor of paying absurd prices for far more living space than one actually needs. It demonstrates to the world that the buyer has more money than he can usefully spend. To the super-rich, that has always mattered.
1
NYC offers the best of big city life. Cultural institutions, big city sports franchises, world class dining and shopping. The only thing we don’t have is golf and beaches. Not right here that is - you need to drive an hour or two for that and both are also world class.
If city life it what’s important to you the charms of NM are meaningless.
I can only conclude that people who purchase 24,000 SF apartments are really bored in that one can at most occupy about 24 SF of space when lying in bed for nearly 8 hours a day. But when your most pressing question is how many sofas you need to furnish 24,000 SF, it is hardly surprising.
7
I look at a picture of homeless people in Chicago huddled around man made fires and then read about the distinction between 200 and 100 million condos---is there anything wrong with an economic system that allows, even honors, this level of income inequality.
102
I still little wrong with an economic system that has created jobs for 100 straight months and can brag about record low unemployment. Including for all minorities.
You don't find that in Venezuela or anywhere else in South America. Or Central America. Or Africa. The results of our economic system are the envy of the world.
Which is why hordes of people from all those other countries are willing to risk their lives to reach what is truly the land of opportunity.
It's said, 'if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere'. It's also true that if you can't make it in the United States, you can't make it anywhere.
I admire Griffin for his success. And can only imagine how many jobs he created by the purchase of whatever place he bought. And how many jobs he's going to have to support to furnish and maintain it.
But I do feel sorry for him, too. My penthouse on the water in tropical Mexico has a far superior view than does his place. It's not as if Central Park surrounded by a bunch of buildings can compare with overlooking a tropical bay with leaping whales surrounded by jungle. And I didn't even have to pay half a million for my place.
As for the homeless, I do feel sorry for them. Some are just plain crazy. Some have just made an endless string of bad choices. And others have been encouraged to their fate by misguided government social programs.
But they are lucky, too. Because in Mexico, it's simple. If you don't work, you don't eat.
5
Homelessness is a complex problem that cities throw tons of dollars at already. To suggest that it would be solved if only there were no nine figure condos is very naive.
1
Wow. A view of Central Park. Imagine! Who wouldn't pay hundreds of millions?
Like countless other people, I've seen Central Park from the air a hundred times, flying in and out of New York on business or pleasure. It's pretty, but it's not worth paying a nickel for. I can walk past it, or through it, any time I want. Which is just about never.
Out my windows, I see trees. Grass. Deer. Squirrels. Chipmunks. The occasional coyote or raccoon. Red-tailed hawks, kestrels, pileated woodpeckers and cardinals. A neighbor whose face I recognize. For free.
Tall buildings can be a nice view, but a clear view of nature is nicer. Fortunately, the self-absorbed mostly haven't discovered that yet.
45
Stay strong 99%, I’m reading from a 400 sq ft apartment, enjoying a peanut butter & jelly sandwich for lunch.
140
@Hollis
Top that pbj off with a glass of milk and enjoy!!!
1
I'm reminded of the words of that great american philosopher Bud Fox when he asked "How many yachts can you water ski behind? How much is enough?"
28
@Richard Mclaughlin and I believe the answer was "It's not about enough...it's a Zero Sum Game." Pathetic, really.
@Richard Mclaughlin
“I’m not Gordon Gecko, I’m Bud Fox” ( or something like that).
Words to live by.
Mr. Chen...My Comment is under mportant, but I wish to express Gratitude for your Contribution to our understanding of property values in our Country. I am a long-retired Lutheran Pastor and Licensed Family Therapist, who, in the 60”s, served the oldest
Protestant Congregation in Downtown Toledo, Ohio. That Congregation is now over 175 years old. Salem Lutheran, now only 15 active members, is still active, serving Homeless in the
City. Your Article was a beautiful piece of work. My Thanks.
3
At CUNY, where I work, almost 15000 Adjunct ( non-tenured) faculty get paid as little as $3200 to teach a three-credit course. That means a professor teaching full-time makes $30 - $35000 a year.
That $239 million could effectively double their salary so they could make a living wage.
57