Posted on 06/12/2005 2:48:42 PM PDT by Truthsayer20
Revealed: how New York's old money shuts its doors against the nouveau riche By James Langton in New York (Filed: 12/06/2005)
Even for a rock star used to playing before vast crowds, it was one of the most intimidating audiences of his career.
At stake was an apartment worth many millions of dollars at one of Manhattan's most exclusive addresses, and Sting was prepared to do anything to win the approval of his snobbish neighbours.
The exclusive San Remo apartment building On the orders of his estate agent, the singer took a limousine to the establishment tailor Brooks Brothers, on Fifth Avenue, and bought himself a suit. Only then did he present himself to the interview board at the prestigious 88 Central Park West.
Sting passed muster; he was one of the lucky ones. New York's notorious co-op boards - residential committees that guard the entry to Manhattan's most upmarket flats - have claimed the scalps of stars from Cher and Billy Joel to Diane Keaton and Mariah Carey.
Now, the author Stephen Gaines has set the city talking by lifting the lid on the rarefied world of Fifth Avenue, Park Avenue and Central Park West, and the lengths to which the stars will to go to win entry.
As The Sky's The Limit: Passion and Property in Manhattan, published last week, reveals, fame counts for little against the ranks of mainly white Anglo-Saxon Protestants (Wasps) manning the barricades of "old money" hoping to protect their privacy.
According to Gaines, who spent four years researching the book, co-ops have a list of undesirables - people who are single (who knows whom they might marry?), those in a "lunatic" or second marriage, rich and pretty divorcees, and stars trailed by the paparazzi who lower the social tone.
Gaines tells how one notable fashion designer hoping to move into 55 Central Park West did not tell the board that her husband was terminally ill because single women are less likely to be approved. Another designer, Bill Blass, had to promise in writing that he would not have overnight guests.
Many boards on the old money, eastern side of Central Park rebuff Jews and other ethnic minorities in ways that would be illegal at a golf club or private school. "This is the way it works," a broker, Alice May, told Gaines. "There is one Jewish person on the board, and that Jewish person is the one who vetoes all the other Jewish people."
Although federal law prohibits housing discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or familial status, co-op boards do not have to give reasons for turning down potential residents.
Co-ops are, in essence, private clubs, and the residents do not own particular flats but a share of the whole building. As a result, they have a big say over who can move in and, once they're in, who can throw parties or wear jogging clothes in the lobby (no one).
"Unless some big mouth on the board lets it leak, it's next to impossible to prove a civil rights violation," writes Gaines.
Barbra Streisand thought she had a buyer for her 17-room apartment on Central Park West when she struck a $10 million (£5.5 million) deal with the singer Mariah Carey.
The arrangement fell through, however, when Carey arrived for her co-op board interview in a dress revealing her navel and with three black bodyguards. After the inevitable rejection, Streisand was forced to sell her flat on the star-studded street - also favoured by the actor Robin Williams and Larry Ellison, the chief executive of Oracle, the software giant - for a modest $4 million.
Madonna, another famous reject, had wanted to live on the street even after making the mistake of posing nude for Playboy. Her efforts to make amends by arriving at her interview wearing black, teamed with pearls and a gold crucifix, were to no avail: the apartment in the San Remo apartment building would not be hers. "If we let her in," one board member told the New York Daily News, "we'd have to let everybody in."
That was 20 years ago. Today, the co-op boards can be even pickier. The Manhattan property market is so over-heated that the most modest flat is about $1..2 million. In recent weeks, estate agents have been complaining of a dearth of flats in the $15 million range.
Emboldened by the surge in demand, those lucky - and rich - enough to own property in the coveted buildings overlooking Central Park have become even more demanding.
Gaines reports that prospective buyers face a series of humiliations. For the privilege of paying up to $5,000 a month in maintenance charges, in addition to millions for the lease, they must disclose details of their bank accounts and savings to the co-op board.
One exclusive block on Park Avenue requires applicants to submit an essay explaining "why they aspire to live there," said Gaines. Often, deals are cash-only, to ward off those needing a mortgage.
Occasionally, unlikely candidates triumph. In 1999 the fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger managed to gain acceptance at 820 Fifth Avenue, the most coveted address in New York. The building had already rejected three billionaires, including Ronald Perelman, the chief executive of Revlon, fearing the publicity and noisy parties they would bring.
Hilfiger managed to prove to the board that he was an upstanding family man and a noted philanthropist. What's more, he waved a letter of recommendation from Leonard Lauder, the patriarch of the Estée Lauder company.
None the less, according to Gaines, the $12 million sale "was examined and deciphered like some sort of social Rosetta Stone." For many arbiters of social taste, the deal was evidence that the boards had reached a tipping point: money talked louder than breeding.
Evidence that the power is shifting comes in the sale of some of New York's most expensive new apartments. Stars bruised by the co-op boards and those who can't face the necessary grovelling, are moving into the Time Warner Center at the southern end of Central Park.
There, the 76th floor-penthouse, bought last year by the British banker David Martinez, runs to 12,500 sq ft and cost $45 million. There is no co-op board. All that counts is the colour of your money - the cheapest two-bedroom flat starts at $4 million.
The party of the "little man" seems to be well represented among the New York elite.
Ever seen The Aviator? Great film... it also has a wonderful depiction of this particular mindset... the scene where Hughes is dining with Hepburn's family.
I'm still trying to figure out if I'm "old money" or "nouveau rich".
I guess if you have to ask....
Why?
"We are all socialists here aren't we?" ...
You're "old money" if you inherited your wealth... "nouveau rich" if you had to work for it. Check out the Great Gatsby... this has been a long running battle.
Yup. One of the best lines of the film.
I've been meaning to rent that. Someone told me it didn't match the hype. But Hughes is fascinating. I wonder if he would have been let into Central Park West...
Also depends on where the family is originally from. If you inherited your money in South Dakota, you're not their type of people.
My money doesn't stay in my wallet long enough to enter adulthood, much less become old.
Gatsby is more complicated than that -- remember, Tom, Nick, Jay et al were from the Midwest. So, they were outsiders themselves.
badda bing!
However there has been an obvious shift in the last 15 years, to the extent that the old 3 generation rule has been changed. This has been primarily due to certain members of the nouveau rich accumulating enough wealth to more than match (and in many cases exceed) many of the Old Money crowd. Thus currently Oprah would gain entry into the Old Money crew (which was always a 100% WASP group), and other members of the new rich (for example Hedge fund manager Steve Cohen who have personal yearly incomes between 600-1 billion dollars) can gain entry anytime they please.
Thus I guess traditionally it was always about inherited wealth that had to have a lineage line of at least 3 generations affixed to it, and currently it has shunted to basically include the traditional Old money group PLUS any nouveau riche that has sufficient funds.
Actually there was a time when the traditional definition meant a connection to a royal bloodline of some sort, so it seems the definitions do change.
You can be old blood and old money (arguably the most prestigious position);
Old blood and new money (o.k.)
New blood and old money (by marriage - suspect)
New blood and new money (right out.)
Our family lost all our money in The Wah, but several branches battled back in commerce - thus Old Blood but New Money. In Atlanta, hardly anybody knows the difference re the source of the money, and only a very small cadre of old-blood natives cares.
"Here is a link to the political contributions made by residents of 88 Central Park West.
Link
The party of the "little man" seems to be well represented among the New York elite."
Good to have them bunched up so close together.
I guess if you have to ask....
Easy. Do you resent the people moving in with loads of money, and no Class?
That makes me "Old Money". Not MUCH of it, but still...haha.
Seriously, there are a lot of really vulgar people around who, for one reason or another (Fleecing widows in the dot.bomb bust, etc.) have an abundance of money, but that does not mean one would want to know them.
Possibly the best name on the list: Jules Demchick -- who, apparently, is neither a Dem nor a chick. He was one of the tiny minority of this list who contributed to President Bush.
It's more complicated than that -- there are intersections between old wasp money and old jewish money (yes, there is such a thing) in that world. For instance, a Guggenheim would have no problems getting into one of those apartments. There is also old Italian money, etc, However, there are places where even old money has trouble cracking the elite, such as Fisher Island, etc.
A good deal depends on how the "new money" is earned. Respectable professions like banking, medicine, or law will turn the family in a shorter time than entertainment (vide your Oprah example). Hoteliers and restaurateurs are doubtful. My grandmother would still be calling the Hiltons "nouveaux riches" (although only under her breath to close friends).
Her family was very poor when she was growing up, living in a shotgun house on a side street in Augusta, GA . . . but she was descended from the brother of a Signer and one of the first families of Charleston SC as well. No amount of poverty will erase the cachet of being from an old Charleston family (BTW the family fortune was lost when her grandmother's father and mother died in a yellow fever epidemic, and the estate was consumed caring for the minor children). She married well and started that side of the family back up to prosperity. Oddly enough, she was college educated and a bacteriologist at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta before she married.
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