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The New New York Housing Bubble: Park Avenue "Maids Quarters" Studio For $3.9 Million
To those who have already submitted their applications to launder their cash buy an apartment or better yet, have already wired the money to purchase any of the still to be built residences at 432 Park, the 84-story giant that is set to become the tallest residential building in the Western hemisphere, congratulations.
Although that is technically inappropriate: for full effect we would have to say "congratulations" in the buyers' native tongue, be it Russian, Mandarin, Spanish or Arabic, because it sure won't be English in the ongoing scramble to park trillions in cash away from a global banking system now hell bent on confiscating it, especially away from Europe's insolvent and massively levered banks as shown yesterday, and in the Cyprus template aftermath, the cleanest dirty shirt has once again emerged as midtown Manhattan real estate just as we said would happen last September.
However, to call the emerging, full-blown panic scramble to park cash sight unseen, with zero regard for asking price "a bubble", would a slap in the face of all calm, cool and collected bubbles everywhere. Because any time someone is willing to pay $95 million for a non-duplex one-floor apartment, $44.8 million for a 4-bedroom apartment, $10 million for a two-bedroom, or a paltry $3.9 million for a maid's quarters studio (no really), something far more profound is going on beneath the surface than a simple asset bubble.
The NYT explains:
Only 10 floors have been completed in what is intended to be the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere — a slender, 84-story tower on Park Avenue at 56th Street in Manhattan. But the top penthouse is already under contract for $95 million.
Other buyers have snapped up apartments on lower floors for prices that are almost as breathtaking. While their identities are not known, it is likely that many are the rootless superrich: Russian metals barons, Latin American tycoons, Arab sheiks and Asian billionaires.
Ultraluxury housing and construction is booming across Manhattan, which is now beginning to rival London in popularity with the world’s wealthy. The number of condominium buildings in the borough with apartments selling for more than $15 million has risen to 49, up from 33 in 2009, according to CityRealty.
In a sence, New York has joined the rest of the world's "wealth parking" capitals, where the only two profitable construction projects are those targeting the uber-wealthy or the mega poor. Middle class: sorry, you are out of luck
“There are only two markets, ultraluxury and subsidized housing,” said Rafael Viñoly, the architect who designed the tower on Park Avenue at 56th Street, which is called 432 Park.
The rush to build these towers underscores the gap between rich and poor in New York City, said James Parrott, chief economist for the Fiscal Policy Institute, a liberal research organization supported by unions. He said that median family income in the city had fallen 8 percent since 2008.
“Manhattan’s superluxury condo boom, along with rocketing foreclosures in Queens and record homelessness, present an unobstructed view of accelerating polarization in this recovery,” Mr. Parrott said
Recovery? Tell that to those countless middle-class New Yorkers (whose annual income as marginal as it may be in the City is what the rest of America can only dream of) for whom stagnant wages will mean an ever greater portion of income has to go to paying rent with little left for boosting the velocity of money.
Of course, for those close to the banking system's proximity to ZIRP, and the trillions in free reserve-based money (all of which is going into the stock market if not the economy) the current bubble is unlike anything seen before:
Izak Senbahar, the developer of 56 Leonard, a 60-story tower in TriBeCa where penthouses are going for more than $20 million, signed contracts with buyers for 70 percent of the 140 apartments in just 10 weeks.
“We were all surprised,” Mr. Senbahar said. “This was not what we expected. There’s a pent-up demand for condos with helicopter views.” A decade or two ago, luxury buildings were largely confined to Park and Fifth Avenues.
Today, they are rising all over Manhattan — from One57 and the Baccarat in Midtown Manhattan to 825 First Avenue on the East Side, 150 Charles Street in Greenwich Village and 30 Park Place downtown.
“It’s not that location is unimportant,” said Nancy Packes of Signature Marketing Services. “But it’s now all about bigness, lifestyle and views.”
But back to what is set to be the most recent residential crowning glory in the city: 432 Park.
In an interview, the developer of 432 Park, Harry B. Macklowe, said he and his partner, CIM Group, already had contracts for nearly $1 billion worth of apartments at the building. Total sales are expected to surpass $3 billion for a building that will cost about $1.25 billion to complete, he said.
The cheapest apartment in the building, a 351 square-foot studio, costs $1.59 million, according to the offering prospectus.
Of course, it is unclear what foreign money-laundering conglomerate baron would want to be seen in polite public having bought their in house butler a meager $1.6 million apartment. Luckily, there are maids' quarters studios in the same building for nearly $4 million, which we expect there will be a biddin war for.
“This is the building of the 21st century, the way the Empire State Building was the building of the 20th century,” Mr. Macklowe said.The penthouse has six bedrooms, seven bathrooms and a library. A sculptured bathtub sits in front of a window, offering IMAX-like views of the city. A buyer can also pick up a $3.9 million studio for the housekeeper and a private wine cellar for $300,000.
Visually:
To summarize the conditions of modern-ray Rome, a world of unprecedented wealth for some, where real estate has become a simple proxy for parking capital (at least until such time the administration reminds all foreign buyers you don't really own, you lease from the government, a government which may and will hike property taxes to any level it desires at a moment's notice) most of it lying unused, yet where living conditions for "everyone else" are at Great Depression levels:
- About half the buyers are foreigners, Mr. Macklowe said.
- As with many of these buildings, only about a quarter of the units will be occupied at any one time.
Surely, high fives are due to all 1%'ers, even if, on the other end of the social spectrum, it means this:
New York's Homelessness Worst Since The Great Depression
State and local governments nationwide have struggled to accommodate a homeless population that has changed in recent years - now including large numbers of families with young children. As the WSJ reports, more than 21,000 children - an unprecedented 1% of the city's youth - slept each night in a city shelter in January, an increase of 22% in the past year; as homeless families now spend more than a year in a shelter, on average, for the first time since 1987. New York City has seen one of the steepest increases in homeless families in the past decade, advocates said, growing 73% since 2002, and "is facing a homeless crisis worse than any time since the Great Depression."
Homeless advocates said the Obama administration has focused on more visible problems, such as those sleeping on the streets, taking resources away from families. The steep rise has reignited questions about whether New York's economic turnaround of the past two decades has helped the city's poorest residents as they note (despite today's Dow record highs), "the economy is nowhere near where it was."
The blame apparently lies at the cessation of 'entitlements' as the DHS adds, since the end - in Spring 2011 - of a state-funded program that subsidized rent for people leaving shelters; homeless families have gone up 35%; but they also added that the city was working to find employment for the homeless, "a long-term solution." Boston and Washington DC are also seeing homeless numbers surge.
But why end on a depressing note.
Instead, take a look at what those living at the top of the building (at least on those rare occasions they come to visit their "assets") and breathe the ultra clean air some 1271 feet above street level, will see as they do their best to avoid any interaction with a world mired ever deeper in a global recession... but only for others.
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Nice view of the Chemtrails.
nice view of chemtrail park
every apartment comes with facebook already *built in*!
Weezy, pack your bags. We're moving on up to a delux apartment in the sky
Flo never had it so good
If you're going to buy sight unseen be sur tp get the whole floor elsewise they'll stick you with a view of the Bronx.
It must be pretty fucking nice to sit around all day printing cash, bribing politicians, and paying $3.9 for a maid residence.
This is the dumb money coming in at the end of a bull market. Sold to you!
Well, it's either buy a $95 million apartment, or buy wildly overpriced stocks, or get 3% in T-Bonds, or leave the money in the bank where it will get confiscated.
Out of all those choices, the penthouse with unmatched views looks like the "smart money" buy to me.
It's the kind of place where I like to go up to the messiane floor at night, pull the alarm and yell, FIRE!!!!!!
also, the steel frame is guaranteed not to melt in the event of a fire.
I'll take things that go splat, for 500, Alex.
Trailer for the classic 1974 disaster film, 'The Towering Inferno'
Great line at the movie's end ... the building as a "monument to all the bullsh-t in the world"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsRnQQpklPM
sorry for the off topic but can anyone verify or share info on the HKMEX shut down tomorrow?
Talk to Mr Groundhog, he seems to be on top of all that kind o stuff.
"also, the steel frame is guaranteed not to melt in the event of a fire."
Or fall at the speed of gravity when there is a fire at the very top.
One of the towers actually fell a few tenths of a second faster than the speed of gravity. Beat that!
Oh, yeah, building 7.
"the speed of gravity"... so, what is the "speed of gravity"?
this is just proof that when your mom told you "you'll use math for a lot of things when you grow up," she was right.
well, maybe not your mom. or if she did, maybe you should have paid better attention to her. and to algebra and calculus.
won't the penthouse be above them?
Top six floors reserved for mechanical equipment..., and drone pads.
Designed by your friends at Google Translation Services, An affirmative action employer.
Top six floors reserved for mechanical equipment... so the maintenance crew gets the best view! Yay!
9500 square feet and can't seem to find any space to put a bedroom closet and bathroom.
The Oligarchs are winning, Glitchez!
3.9 million and the damn maid STILL won't do windows.
that's the tower that QE built - when i look at that view i ask myself this question
What The Fuck Is The Stock Market Thinking?
http://chartistfriendfrompittsburgh.blogspot.com/2013/05/what-fuck-is-stock-market-thinking_19.html
So that's where the Oligarchs are stashing their $$$ after Cyprus
Utah is planning a solution to the FEDs irresponsibility. Check it out.
Rep. Ken Ivory & Dan Griffiths: Creating A Financial Emergency Plan for StatesI'm only for replacing national governments with open source software not State or City governments. The FEDs are very much like an invading force that is attacking the United States of America. It is time to obsolescence it.
Stopped reading when they mention NGO's.
Never ever drive to utah unless you want to be caught up in their court system. The state cops pull over every out of state vehicle to engage them and look for something to ticket, or take them to jail for.
STAY FAR AWAY FROM UTAH.
Been there many times and never even saw a copper. STFU you asshole.
he mustof meant Jersey
You only get pulled over for driving while black in Jersey by the Troopers.
What!? They didn't take kindly to the choom wagon rolling through?
95 million for a what???? ……. WTF, just go buy an island for Christ safe. I just don’t get it and probably never will.
Seriously or a huge piece of property within 10,000 square miles of anywhere.
Tulips didn't have that much intrinsic value either.
It's a Keynesian beauty contest.
Don't buy what you love, buy what the next media-misinformed fool has been told is 'hot.'
I don't think the concept of a bubble matters anymore. This is hyperinflation at the ultra rich level: just get out of ANY fiat currency.
The ultra rich are buying anything that's nailed down. Or, in this case, what is expected in the future to be nailed down. Did you see the art auctions lately with pieces going at record prices?
This all speaks volumes.
Coming soon to a more-mundane neighborhood near you.
So you can feel like a god looking down on the ants.
But it worked so well for the Japanese in the 1980's, why not try again?
+100 %. The mangement could kiss my ass, a monthly maint fee of $17,800, fucking joke.
If you have $100 billion you need to put to work, $17 large a month is a popcorn fart.
This shit will stain...
When you can’t find any more change under the sofa cushions, use Alan Greenspan principles to inflate housing prices which dribble new property tax revenue streams to cover dried up G/L accounts that were raided thru theft.
Nice to see the work Obama has done for the stupid middle class who voted for him. Remember the 1% he so opposed?? Well, those are the only people who have done well under this clown act!
And so has been the case under every president since Wilson.
Anybody on welfare has done spectacularly well also.
It's people who work for a living that are getting fucked.
***Anybody on welfare has done spectacularly well also.***
I think you forgot the /sarc tag. Other wise you need to be re-educated!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1159677/Pictured-The-credit-crun...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/30/us-child-poverty-report-unicef_...
mhh , last time the tallest building wasnt so safe. Just sayin'
ya did they ever get the issue with the free fall collapse straightened out. Seems to be a local issue. Has only happened in NYC. Two planes three buildings.
Yeah, glad you asked. That got sorted out.
http://www.drjudywood.com/articles/dew/
The sad truth is that I am paying for all of it and I am not rich.
I am paying for it thru my .03% interest on my savings.
I am paying for it thru my higher energy bills and food costs.
I am paying for it in increased Taxes to pay the Debt that is being created to make all of those people Rich beyond belief.
I am paying for it by everyone trying to take away the CPI increases on my Social Security.
I am paying for it by the increase in my Health Care costs and lower coverage. As they need to reduce my coverage because the National Debt is too high. I may even pay for it with my life as with Obama care some procedures will not be available at certain older ages.
Yet, I am the least that can pay for it.
Krugman will tell you that it's for you're own good. Ben will tell you it's transitory. Draghi will tell you that you don't understand. Abe will just tell you to grab your ankles.
I do not even get to benefit from my Savings or my hard work thru the years do. It is all being taken away from me by Bernanke and given to the Uber Rick. So sad.
They are making Billions on my slow deterioration.
"Fuck you, pay me."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP_GOoBPKfQ
Obama will tell you to eat your damn peas.
Well, reducing or eliminating DHS benefits should help foment that social violence meme and hasten the cultural transformation Obomba and the little progressive's hold so dear. A few dead poor people? Toss them on the graves of the aborted babies of the poor. No room for the unproductive, the lower classes, the uneducated masses that Progressive policies created. Only bred to vote, when power is finally in the"right" hands. they will find out what gulag means and, never really knowing the name, they will learn of Stalin and his policies.
FORWARD SOVIET! FORWARD CHANGE! FORWARD STALIN!
http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_finley_a_guerilla_gardener_in_south_central...
if you ain't a gardener, you ain't gangsta.
word
NYC has got to be one of mankinds most ostentatious aberrations...
Upstate N.Y. is beautiful. The people are very nice.
Go pound sand/junksters
In soviet Russia, Bubble Pop YOU!
You've spent too long behind the Iron Curtain, comrade.
Bloomberg's city is now called Pyongyang-on-Hudson.
Welcome to Rent-Control. Hope your part of the super-elite otherwise enojoy your abject poverty housing.
If you pee from your 84th floor balcony, by the time it reaches the schmoes on the sidewalk, it's just a fine golden mist.
You could easily buy 4 castles in France for the same amount of money.
I would go at least for 10
@Xue
4 castles? take mine for only 555 eagles + onedomperrignon
its the only shirt dummies
damn dude. NFLX maks a comeback and all of a sudden everyone's got money again. That's how this all happened, right?
this seems less like a bubble and more like a bunch of billionaires playing brewsters billions before the big corzining.
If Silverstain buys it and heavily insures it... :shudders:
"Growth."
Serious question about that building...
The top six floors are for mechanical equipment? Is that correct?
What a waste...yah, I know that stuff has to go somewhere, but the top six floors?
Couldn't they work that stuff in somewhere else?
Water tanks work on gravity so they go at the top. Large air handling, electrical, etc., equipment will have to be brought in by helicopter after construction is complete. There isn't room on that retardedly small roof, so yeah, no, no, yeah...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oqgnKgwDsk
Ah... I guess that makes sense...
...but is that always the case? I mean will the top several floors of a residential skyscraper like this always be for "mechanical" stuff?
Makes me look forward to that big East coast tsunami.
From what I hear, recently sellers of even crap properties in NYC are getting bombarded with offers from speculators and people from China. An Asian acquaintance even told me that his brothers are sending him all their yen savings and telling him to buy Manhattan real estate with it before it inflates to nothing.
So basically Manhattan is turning into a status play for bad mannered mainland Chinese nuevo rich. Needless to say the way things are going, I see great things in America's future.
They trynna cat...
As I recall, the Japanese did this in the 1980's. I hope things work out well for them.
Anyone who has lived among Japanese and mainland Chinese knows that they are about as different as Germans and Africans. Probably more. I would have no problem living among Japanese. Mainland Chinese, on the other hand, would be--let's just say--difficult to adjust to.
HKMEX to cease trading tomorrow? Anyone have info on this?
^I too have read this...will settle in cash and Nathaniel Rothschild is Chairman of the Board, of the founding company, interestingly. (is there "rally" THAT little physical to go around??)
Maid's quarters, huh? To polish their shiny knobs.
Find solace in the fact tha that corner is really a shitty neighborhood for billionaires. It is 4 or 5 blocks from Central Park and the intersection of 57th and Park is usually crowded and noisy during peak hours.
That's called "networking" in NYC Billy-7.
I practice my craft either a little further north or a little further south. They will be close to Bloomingdale's, on the other hand, another of my favorite "haunts"...
I think these types are more likely to head towards Bergdorf's
great jumping platform provided you have a
proper parachute.
Euro-trash, Russians, Arabs and Chinese.
Bet only the maids are actual Americans.
So there you have it - Bernakeonimics (trickle down wealth effect), has yanks cleaning the toliets of the worlds Oligarchs.
My Chinese coworker told me that her Chinese maid/nanny farts in front of her and her husband while doing housework like it's completely normal. This is the kind of people we've got flocking over here now.
I suppose it will be called Biff Tanner Luxury Condos.
Total sales are expected to surpass $3 billion for a building that will cost about $1.25 billion to complete, he said.
All the silver bullion available in the world is worth about $17.8 billion. One slim skyscraper is worth 17% of all the silver bullion in the world.
Land value of Beijing alone is worth over $20 trillion. The Chinese can buy all the silver in the world 1125 times over with that land. Or 0.09% of that land can buy all the silver bullion in this world.
Real estate prices are in hyperinflation while silver and gold get relentlessly smashed.
You can't polish a turd.Concrete shithole.
Okay, I admit it, I am watching the new season of Million Dollar Listing New York on BRAVO TV. I love New York, this takes me around the prime areas and shows the apartments up for sale. The brokers are in heaven, Business has never been this good!
I suspect, and I think we know, that the Bernanke ocean of liquidity is bursting forth into the hands of the Wall-Streeters and Bankers. Them, along with old money investors flush with the Stock Bubble. The prices are out of control. The broker commissions are simply mind blowing. Last week a broker made 1/2 a million dollars for one pent house listing he sold inside a month. Marketing costs were 40K on his part, thus 460 thousand goes to his bottom line. Remeber that wage and debt slaves. There are winners in the Bernanke liquidity economy. Only thing is, most of you are not in the winners circle, in fact money printing may be devaluing your earned incomes.
Who was his broker? Hedge Fund Titan Buys Hamptons Property for $60 Million - NYTimes.com
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-16/tragic-trifecta-initial-claims-soar-housing-starts-plunge-cpi-below-expectations
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/the_housing_shell_game_20130503/
http://pages.citebite.com/v1i5c9f0h7akf
http://www.businessinsider.com/keith-jurow-us-housing-recovery-mirage-2013-4?page=1
Page 2 as to how C-S happens putting a good face on
the policies: "You buy our bubble," "Hand-It-Over."
Page 3 on purported Long Island Real Estate shadow inventory
vs. Alice in Wonderland banking and monetary policy.
3rd layer of monopoly:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/09/nyc-apartment-size-bloomberg-micro-apartments_n_1660396.html
(the 1st/2d's the Fed's carrying the shadow inventory, and,
the accomodative monetary policy, though
now it's buying the mortgage securities (not at market value.))
Profit boxes (value chain control) exists in all monopolized sectors
to one degree or another. It’s infinite in TBTF banking, it’s implicit in
market controlled insecticide-related fructose foundational GMO’s,
and, it’s actually deceptively statutory in ObamaCare.
http://pages.citebite.com/i1y4m1t7o7pxu
http://www.multiurl.com/ga/Poor_Process_Monopolistic_Structure_And_Value_Chain_Box
You think the carriers don't like ObamaCare?
http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/candleglance.html?aet%2Cci%2Cunh%2Cwlp
(5/19/2013 hovering around then near 52 week highs)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/10/14/793112/-Schumer-Leahy-Take-on-Insurance-Antitrust-Exemption-Video-Added
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2013/may/Private-insurers-Medicare-Advantage-plans-cost-Medicare-an-extra-%2434.1-billion-in-2012
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2013/april/obama-administration-intervenes-to-give-715-billion-to-overpaid-for-profit-medicare-
From the (naive supporter of this "reform" instead of real reform?) whistleblower himself:
http://wendellpotter.com/2013/03/gaming-obamacare-to-benefit-the-few/
http://wendellpotter.com/2013/04/industry-pushes-high-deductible-insurance-plans/
(pdf, note:)
http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2009/06/pdf/health_competitiveness.pdf
http://www.nomiprins.com/thoughts/2012/11/10/real-danger-of-obamacare-insurance-company-takeover-of-healt.html
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20130509/INFO/305099982/calif-exchange-granted-secrecy
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-013-2460-y/fulltext.html
HuffPuff? FailyKos? Don't peddle that shit here.
If there weren't any Wall Street, this could have never happened. Progress.
Don't think I would sleep well, living inside of a target...
Who's going to live there?
This building serves the function that bank accounts used to: a store of value, plus return on investment.
It's like when the Imperial Palace grounds in Tokyo were worth more than all of California.
Errrr ... bad example. I failed the brokers exam.
The elite on Wall Street know how to live!!
Where can I get an application for a maid's position ?
Ya, but would you really want to live in a 351 sq ft hovel, wear a slave uniform and name tag? Probably get paid $12 an hour, which wouldn't last long in NYC.
"Boston and Washington DC are also seeing homeless numbers surge."
I can think of some 500-odd mealy mouthed motherfuckers in W.D.C. that I'd like to see homeless. I'd like to see ol' NoBama in the same boat too.
I wonder if The Helicopter will hover around showering more presents upon those in the penthouse? A private Federal Reserve lap dance of sorts.
Why would you want the top floor pent-house when the machinery equipement is right above you, everytime someone takes the elevator up your going to feel like your under siege from the horrendous sound of lift motors activating .... all - day - long.
would drive me mad frankly.
The Machine Room should be BELLOW the full floor penthouse..... with a floor for offices between each (top and bottom) apartments, the elevators to the uppr floor should operate vita a pulley from the machine room bellow.
I was thinking the same thing. If the top available penthouse has over 8k sq feet, why would they need 6 floors= over 50,000 sq feet to house machinery when they could have put that well below -if not the bottom and fetch another few hundred million? Doesn't make sense..unless other nameless interests allready have it.
Maybe the lowest machine room is for the manufacture of "Silent Green."
Looks like they spent about 10 minutes on the architecture of the outside facade.
$95 Mil for a Penthouse and some mechanic works above you and has an even better view all day long.
Suckas.
ESB was finished on May Day, 1931, during the ... Great Depression!!!!
- Ned
{finished ahead of schedule and under budget, try that shit in NYC these days}
I hear there is going to be a large fountain with a statue of Ben Bernanke pissing on the poor in the lobby where you can throw pennies to wish for more QE. Since none of the residents bother to carry pennies, there will be a large barrel of them handy which are reclaimed from the fountain by the doorman each day. After all, no one wants the poor to get any ideas about keeping them.
..Or you can move to beautiful Flint Michigan and own a 3 bedroom house for only $3850. Credit cards accepted:
http://www.realtystore.com/foreclosure-property/3479-minerva-dr-flint-michigan-48504-resale-%28mls%29/65926400.htm
Or for the new middle class a two story for $75000:
http://www.realtystore.com/foreclosure-property/1344-w-maple-ave-flint-michigan-48507-resale-%28mls%29/71022626.htm
The incidence of rape in the zip code of the first property is nearly 4X the national average, but it's not nearly so bad when it comes to larceny. For that kind of bargain it might be worth risking the occasional buggering.
The apartment had been expensive, its studio living-room and single bedroom, kitchen and bathroom dovetailed into each other to minimise space and eliminate internal corridors. To his sister Alice Frosbisher, who lived with her publisher husband in a larger apartment three floor below, Laing had marked, 'The architect must have spent his formative years in a space capsule - I'm suprised the walls don't curve...'.
Laing signed a ninety-nine-year lease and moved into his one-thousandth share of the cliff face.
However reluctantly, he now had to accept something he had been trying to repress - that the previous six months had been a period of continuous bickering among his neighbours, of trivial disputes over the faulty elevators and air-conditioning, inexplicable electrical failures, noise, competition for parking space and, in short, that host of minor defects which the architects were supposed specifically to have designed out of these over-priced apartments. The underlying tensions among the residents were remarkably strong, damped down partly by the civilized tone of the building, and partly by the obvious need to make this huge apartment block a success.
'Perhaps a clan would be more exact', Talbot commented. 'The population of this apartment block is nowhere near as homogeneous as it looks at first sight. We'll soon be refusing to speak to anyone outside of our own enclave'.
Listening to the animated conversations around him, he was struck by the full extent of the antogonism being expressed, the hostility directed at the people who lived in other sections of the high rise. The malicious humour, the eagerness to believe any piece of gossip and any tall story about the shiftlessness of the lower-floor tenants, or the arrogance of the upper-floor tenants, had all the intensity of racial prejudice.
A new social type was being created by the apartment building, a cool, unemotional personality impervious to the psychological pressures of high-rise life, with minimal needs for privacy, who thrived like an advanced species of machine in the neutral atmosphere. This was the type of resident who was content to do nothing but sit in his over-priced apartment, watch television with the sound turned down, and wait for his neighbour to make a mistake.
By it's very efficiency , the high-rise took over the task of maintaining the social structure that supported them all. For the first time it removed the need to repress every kind of anti-social behaviour, and left them free to explore any deviant or wayward impulses.
In effect, the high-rise had already divided itself into the three classical social groups, it's lower, middle and upper classes. The 10th floor shopping mall formed a clear boundary between the lower nine floors, with their 'proletariat' of film technicians, air-hotesses and the like, and the middle section of the high-rise, which extended from the 10th floor to the swimming pool and restaurant deck on the 35th floor. This central two-thirds of the apartment building formed its middle class, made up of self-centred but basically docile members of the professions - the doctors and lawyers, accountants and tax specialists who worked, not fot themselves, but for the medical institutes and large corporations. Puritan and self-disciplined, they had all the cohesion of those eager to settle for second best.
Above them, on the top five floors of the high-rise, was its upper-class, the discreet oligarchy of minor tycoons and entrepreneurs, television actresses and careerist academics, with their high-speed elevators and superior services, their carpeted staircases. It was they who set the pace of the building. It was their complaints which were acted upon first, and it was they who subtly dominated life within the high-rise, deciding when the children could use the swimming-pools and roof garden, the menus in the restaurant and the high charges that kept out almost everyone but themselves. Above all, it was their subtle patronage that kept the middle ranks in line, this constantly dangling carrot of friendship and approval.
The thought of these exclusive residents, as high above him in their top-floor redoubts as any feudal lord above a serf, filled Wilder with a growing sense of impatience and resentment.......................
when Ballard was on, he was on:
http://www.jgballard.ca/criticism/highrise.html
You; I like you, Babe.
Thanks for the link. Awesome, makes me want to read the book...
Try "Hello America".
A century after America's financial collapse and the climactic upheavals of the 1990s, Wayne stows away on SS Apollo, bound for the New World on a voyage of rediscovery. He and the crew encounter hazards at every turn and ghosts from the past as they travel West. In Las Vegas, roaming bands of Mexican teenagers welcome them to the citadel of late 20th century glitter. Their charismatic leader - a William Burroughs look-alike addressed reverently as President Charles Manson - invites Wayne into hs cybernetic stronghold. But suddenly the erratic president takes fright at Wayne's alien presence and threatens to play deadly war games with an arsenal of leftover Titan warheads. Now it is not just the Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe holograms that are at risk...
I know the market says if you're early, you're wrong, but he was a damn fine writer.
Dear New_Meat,
Thanks for being cool and knowing your Ballard references.
We are now in the next five minutes and it hurts knowing the sage of Shepperton never got to see all these people ignoring his warning sign of 'Bends Ahead' as they push the accelerator to the floor.
Regards,
at least they now have a mechanism for destroying all that printed paper. Put it in overpriced real estate and then devalue the real estate
Whateve's, bring on moar Circus!
taxes on what?
Getting oh-so-closer to the dream.
If you are an American, and unaware of 2000AD you really should be aware of British satire. Pay your maid's son to read them, then grokk the themes, they're really rather clever. It's almost the best thing that Thatcherism spawned. If nothing else, find someone with access to Song of the Surfer for the best deconstruction of the death of 60's surfer chique / Beach Boys culture you've ever seen.
That grenade surprise, wonder if the TSA knows about it...
Will be interesting to see the owners try to visit WHEN the city goes in permanent lock-down.
Buying a house (if you're not one of the 1% hiding money) is a waste of time. You really never own it, you still have to pay the county 'rent' aka property tax, which invariably always goes up and never down...regardless of assessed value.
The big ruse is that it's an investment...what a joke. When you get to the point of selling you may end up with something or be able to say you reduced what you would have otherwise spent on rent, but you also assumed the responsibility for mowing / shoveling etc ad nausium for countless years, as well as the screwing from insurance companies etc.
Home ownership is a grand hoax....fuck you NAR
the wickedness of the wealthy who spend tens of millions on housing while 10s of thousands are homeless will be dealt with in wrath on judgment day....i would love to be a fly on the wall that day....
There is a lot of talk about the end of QE but no one seems to even question the continued use of ZIRP.....close to zero interest rates....as a means of stimulating the economy at the expense of savers and people on fixed incomes. B and his buddies never even bring up the possibility of raising interest rates...wonder why.