Michael Gross's new book, House of Outrageous Fortune: Fifteen Central Park West, The World's Most Powerful Address, is out today. So the chronicler of over-the-top real estate luxury has come up with a little quiz for you readers. The three people to e-mail tips@curbed.com with the most correct answers to our 11-question interrogation about the Limestone Jesus will get a free copy of his book. If you know this stuff, you probably deserve it. Send your responses by noon on Thursday. No cheating, please! For those who are interested, here are the answers.
1) Which investment legend bad-mouthed 15CPW after the developers refused to give him a discount? He wanted half off the price of a $45 million penthouse. Then an upstart swooped in and paid full ask. For a bonus point, name the upstart, too.
2) Which movie star got a discount for letting the developers reveal he'd bought a 14th-floor apartment in the front "house" section of the building for just over $13 million?
3) How many convicted felons live at 15 Central Park West?
4) Which reality TV personality found out her actor husband was cheating on her when a building staff member told her his wife was already upstairs… when it was really the other woman? Spoiler alert: She promptly divorced him.
5) 15 CPW's private lobby restaurant hosts special meals all year round, including "women's lunches" every two weeks with speakers on such subjects as yoga, art collecting, and surgery-free "facial rejuvenation." How much is the Mother's Day lunch there?
6) How many Goldman Sachs executives and alumni live at 15?
7) Who are Sting's duplex-owning next-door neighbors on the 16th and 17th floors of 15CPW's house building?
8) Which real estate mogul was barred from bidding for the 15CPW site while an old building, the Mayflower Hotel, still stood there? It so happens that the banned prospective bidder told the sellers, representatives of the Gouandris family, that their pricewhich had to be in excess of $300 million was crazy.
9) What price did the sellers end up getting from the Zeckendorfs?
10) How much money did the Zeckedorfs pay the last holdout tenant to vacate his apartment in the building that previously occupied the site and was razed to make way for 15?
11) What building did Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev spurn to buy an $88 million penthouse, said to be for his daughter, at 15CPW? That purchase, by the way, still holds the record for most expensive single-family residential property in New York City.
Here now, the answers.
· 15 Central Park West's Factoids, Stories & Scandals, Explained! [Curbed
· House of Outrageous Fortune: Fifteen Central Park West, The World's Most Powerful Address [Amazon]
· All 15 Central Park West coverage [Curbed]
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