Limestone Jesus (15 Central Park West)
Fifteen Central Park West is a condominium building at West 61st Street and Central Park West that was designed by Robert A. M. Stern and completed in 2008. It was the subject of a book, House of Outrageous Fortune: Fifteen Central Park West, the World’s Most Powerful Address (2014) by Michael Gross.
The limestone building was dubbed “Limestone Jesus” by the real estate blog Curbed NY on December 19, 2007. 15CPW has also been nicknamed “Hedgie Hive” (in Gross’s 2014 book) because of all the hedge fund executives who live there.
Wikipedia: 15 Central Park West
15 Central Park West is a condominium building located at the corner of West 61st Street and Central Park West in New York City. Construction started in 2005 and was completed in 2008, costing a total of $950 million. The building was designed by Robert A.M. Stern.
The building was constructed by developers Arthur and William Lie Zeckendorf of Zeckendorf Development, grandsons of real estate developer William Zeckendorf, in partnership with Goldman Sachs and Eyal Ofer’s Global Holdings Inc. Eyal Ofer, also owns the Altria Building, 18 Gramercy Park and a new luxury residential tower at 50 United Nations Plaza, which was announced in November 2012. 15 Central Park West is considered by some to be one of New York’s most prestigious residential addresses. The location, described as “the most expensive site in Manhattan,” (worth $401 million in 2004) comprises an entire, albeit small, city block on Central Park West, formerly occupied by the somewhat dilapidated Mayflower Hotel (a 1926 Neo-Renaissance building designed by the architect Emery Roth) and a vacant lot.
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15 Central Park West’s limestone facade uses material from “the same quarry that was a source for the Empire State Building”.
Curbed NY
On the Market: Blessed at 15 Central Park West
Wednesday, December 19, 2007, by Joey Arak
The Zeckendorfs tried their hardest to keep investors out of their Limestone Jesus, but you can’t hold a good flipper back forever.
Curbed NY
On Renting & Bargaining at 15 Central Park West
Friday, January 18, 2008, by Joey Arak
15 Union Square West be damned, it’s time to get back to the only 15 _____ _____ West that matters: the Upper West Side’s limestone Jesus.
New York (NY) Times—City Room
Big Deal | 15 Central Park West, Success Etched in Stone
By SARAH KERSHAW DECEMBER 17, 2010, 5:54 PM
When the developers set out to build 15 Central Park West, which has become something of a personality in its own right in a city obsessed with real estate, they were gambling that the rich and famous would embrace an aesthetic that evoked New York of the 1920s and 1930s.
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The Web site Curbed.com refers to 15 Central Park West, between 61st and 62nd Streets, as the “Limestone Jesus.” For any broker sweating it out in this market, a listing at 15 Central Park West is nothing short of a coup, and a sale can indeed be a savior.
Google Books
House of Outrageous Fortune:
Fifteen Central Park West, the World’s Most Powerful Address
By Michael Gross
New York, NY: Atria Books
2014
Pg. ?:
Fifteen Central Park West is more than an apartment building. It is the most outrageously successful, insanely expensive, titanically tycoon-stuffed real estate development of the twenty-first century. Nicknamed Limestone Jesus by the shelter porn merchants at the real estate blog Curbed, it represents the resurrection and the life of our era’s aristocracy of wealth.
Curbed NY
15 Central Park West’s Factoids, Stories & Scandals, Explained!
Thursday, March 13, 2014, by Hana R. Alberts
Our 11-question quiz, posted Tuesday, plumbed the depths of Curbed readers’ knowledge about the Limestone Jesus, The Building Also Known As 15 Central Park West.
Twitter
Matthew Bishop
@mattbish
“LIMESTONE JESUS”. My review of the new book about Manhattan’s swankiest apartment building http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21599328-what-manhattan-apartment-block-tells-us-about-american-economy-boom-view …
3:49 PM - 20 Mar 2014
Business Insider
What A Manhattan Apartment Block Tells Us About The American Economy
THE ECONOMIST
MAR. 21, 2014, 3:42 PM
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“Limestone Jesus” is the nickname of 15 Central Park West, Manhattan’s residential building of the moment, and not just because its 201 extraordinary apartments are clad in expensive rock.
“It represents the resurrection and the life of our era’s aristocracy of wealth,” writes Michael Gross in “House of Outrageous Fortune”, the “story of the property-lust-making building and the cohort that calls it their tower of power”.