Billionaires' Row

May 1, 2023
A gimlet-eyed look at the mega-skyscrapers that have been rising along New York's Central Park. The story of capital in the 21st century, writes Wall Street Journal reporter Clarke, is one of concentration in the hands of fewer and fewer people. As ever, many such people thrive on conspicuous consumption, and they find it in places such as One57, a massive city within a city that rose high in the Manhattan sky through the economic power of Saudi Arabian financiers. Other "copycat" structures have risen nearby, while predecessors have come and gone. One built by an aspirational developer named Harry Macklowe was an exercise in "amenity-rich luxury," with a comfortable waiting lounge for chauffeurs, around-the-clock catering services, a huge indoor swimming pool, squash courts, and even a wine cellar where collectors could house their prized vintages. Interestingly, Clarke writes, the Billionaire's Row of her title, which runs along 57th Street, was once "a schlocky patchwork," the locus of theme restaurants such as the Hard Rock Caf� and the Motown Cafe. When those restaurants failed in the Great Recession, developers began to buy up comparatively inexpensive properties through financial mechanisms that skirted regulations via sources that "included everything from private equity and hedge funds to sovereign wealth funds and ultra-high-net-worth individuals." Some developers made fortunes, while others went broke; some outfoxed Donald Trump along the way. If most architecture critics hated the newly remade street, so, too, did many ordinary New Yorkers, for whom "the skyboxes for billionaires were simultaneously an object of fascination and loathing." Clarke notes that while New York has pale imitators in places like Austin and Miami, it is far from being the world center of superopulent, supersized buildings, lagging well behind any number of Asian cities and with no sign of catching up anytime soon. A revealing work of financial reporting in a time of staggering inequality.

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