While in NYC this week, we went to the talk of the dining scene, the cavernous Tao restaurant (complete with "skyboxes," not to mention a super-sized Buddha) in the Meatpacking District. That submarket is well named, because the beautiful people were packed into the 350-seat single dining room even though it was a rainy Tuesday night. We don't pretend to be a restaurant critic, but it tasted good to us, and of course the real spectacle transcended the food. But what a gamble they took: The dining room would look "empty" unless it had at least 150 folks in it.
The race of the "Super-talls" is on. Here we snapped CIM Group's 432 Park Avenue, a mid-block ultra-luxury, Rafael Vinoly-designed residence rapidly going up at 57th Street to 1,379 feet, which will make it by roof-line (i.e. not including spires) the tallest building in NY, 11 feet higher than the new One World Trade Center. 120 condos, the most expensive of which is $95M. The other big contender on the street (known now as Billionaire's Row) is Extell's 157 57th. It is losing. It is not only shorter, but its penthouse sold for only $88M. What would NY do without Russian oligarchs?
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