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Artist faked being a billionaire to photograph New York City’s best views

architecturaldigest.com

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Re: Artist faked being a billionaire to photograph New York City’s best views

#31

Post by paxys »

dionidium wrote: post #9
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #8

> They’re investments, not really meant for living in. They cast these huge shadows and block views—really change the skyline—just so they can stand empty. That is definitely one of the saddest parts for me. These billionaires (many of whom got their wealth in shady circumstances) are just using these condos to park their money. I may think NFTs are insane but at least when people with too much money park their wealt…

Counterpoint: these buildings are gorgeous and only enhance the city. Whenever I’m on 57th St I crane my neck to stare at them as I walk. Often, I’ll just stop for a while to look up in awe. They haven’t ruined anything. Moreover, even if you disagree about their beauty, so what? People should be free to build things — even things you don’t personally like!

While I can't say about these specific buildings, I do agree that complaining about skyscrapers in New York seems weird. In general given enough time every eyesore becomes an iconic part of the city.

Re: Artist faked being a billionaire to photograph New York City’s best views

#32

Post by busterarm »

dionidium wrote: post #9
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #8

> They’re investments, not really meant for living in. They cast these huge shadows and block views—really change the skyline—just so they can stand empty. That is definitely one of the saddest parts for me. These billionaires (many of whom got their wealth in shady circumstances) are just using these condos to park their money. I may think NFTs are insane but at least when people with too much money park their wealt…

Counterpoint: these buildings are gorgeous and only enhance the city. Whenever I’m on 57th St I crane my neck to stare at them as I walk. Often, I’ll just stop for a while to look up in awe. They haven’t ruined anything. Moreover, even if you disagree about their beauty, so what? People should be free to build things — even things you don’t personally like!

As someone who has lived on 57th street for most of their life, it's not all roses. 57th street used to be a vibrant street full of a variety of businesses. Back in the 70s & 80s when the 40s and 50s of Manhattan were filled with street prostitution (on the west side) and brothels (on the east side, and they're still there), 57th street used to be where you started to get respectable looking buildings and shops to fill them.

Now from end to end across Manhattan, most of 57th Street is becoming vacant in preparation for construction. The process is likely to take 20 or 30 years to complete, similar to what happened on 10th Avenue. There is more money to be made by letting buildings sit empty for years. 250 West 55th, at the cross street of 55th & 8th avenue, was an empty corner lot for 28 years while they waited for the rest of the buildings on the block to become vacant for teardown.

Some areas are especially derelict -- between 5th and 6th Avenue in particular. It's an absolute eyesore and source of daily construction noise and will likely be so for the rest of my natural life.

This has ruined my neighborhood.

Re: Artist faked being a billionaire to photograph New York City’s best views

#33

Post by dionidium »

HWR_14 wrote: post #17
dionidium wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: these buildings are gorgeous and only enhance the city. Whenever I’m on 57th St I crane my neck to stare at them as I walk. Often, I’ll just stop for a while to look up in awe. They haven’t ruined anything. Moreover, even if you disagree about their beauty, so what? People should be free to build things — even things you don’t personally like!

If you think that the buildings are ugly and damage the city, you'd be opposed to them. You like them so are not. As for "people should be free to build things", we decided over 100 years ago that wasn't the case. Not unrestrained by zoning laws and concern for the community.

> we decided over 100 years ago that wasn't the case.

That was an enormous mistake. It's the source of our housing shortage in high-demand areas and it's probably costing us literally trillions of dollars. [0]

> If you think that the buildings are ugly and damage the city, you'd be opposed to them. You like them so are not.

This is what you believe, not what I believe. In fact, I think people should be free to build buildings I think are ugly.

[0] https://ggwash.org/view/42946/zoning-the-hidden-trillion-dol...

Re: Artist faked being a billionaire to photograph New York City’s best views

#34

Post by heterodoxxed »

cheriot wrote: post #27
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #8

> They’re investments, not really meant for living in. They cast these huge shadows and block views—really change the skyline—just so they can stand empty. That is definitely one of the saddest parts for me. These billionaires (many of whom got their wealth in shady circumstances) are just using these condos to park their money. I may think NFTs are insane but at least when people with too much money park their wealt…

Well, if you want to ruin their investment then issue building permits for more of them. > They cast these huge shadows and block views Talk about first world problems. Expecting a city skyline to never change is ridiculous. The only problem is that so few people use these buildings. The best kind of density regulation requires _more_ density.

The insane height of these building is far beyond the argument for vertical density, though.

Re: Artist faked being a billionaire to photograph New York City’s best views

#35

Post by lanternfish »

oh_sigh wrote: post #20
HWR_14 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By your definition, I could say about Newton's Principa Mathematica "He put some words on paper, groundbreaking" Or Linus "He put some bits on disk, groundbreaking" If you don't think her book is interesting, that's fine. But treating the methodology of how she got access to take the pictures as her sole output is lazy.

What was her methodology? > To pass as a convincing buyer, Schmied enlisted an antiquarian friend in Budapest to serve as her “husband,” and invented a 21-month-old baby, a personal chef, and a personal assistant named "Coco." She also blew the entire allowance from her residency at Dumbo’s Triangle Arts Association on manicures, makeup and clothes. Oh, but right...literally none of that was necessary: >...Surprising…

They didn't formally initiate a credit check or validate net worth, but I guarantee none of those brokers would give me the time of day if I called in right now. The theater is there to avoid the credit checks; the fact that they didn't check just means her plan worked.

Re: Artist faked being a billionaire to photograph New York City’s best views

#36

Post by mc32 »

cheriot wrote: post #27
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #8

> They’re investments, not really meant for living in. They cast these huge shadows and block views—really change the skyline—just so they can stand empty. That is definitely one of the saddest parts for me. These billionaires (many of whom got their wealth in shady circumstances) are just using these condos to park their money. I may think NFTs are insane but at least when people with too much money park their wealt…

Well, if you want to ruin their investment then issue building permits for more of them. > They cast these huge shadows and block views Talk about first world problems. Expecting a city skyline to never change is ridiculous. The only problem is that so few people use these buildings. The best kind of density regulation requires _more_ density.

Not even. plenty of first-world cities expect skyline changes. This attitude toward change (anti-change) comes from SF and has migrated elsewhere. NYC was the antithesis to this attitude but apparently it's not immune to this line of thinking.

It's like they think mountains do not move. Rivers always run the same course. It's comical and tragic.

Re: Artist faked being a billionaire to photograph New York City’s best views

#37

Post by dionidium »

hippira wrote: post #11
dionidium wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: these buildings are gorgeous and only enhance the city. Whenever I’m on 57th St I crane my neck to stare at them as I walk. Often, I’ll just stop for a while to look up in awe. They haven’t ruined anything. Moreover, even if you disagree about their beauty, so what? People should be free to build things — even things you don’t personally like!

Well you are free to do things but not at the cost of pollutions.

Attempts to equate 1) zoning that prevents buildings one doesn't like; and 2) zoning that prevents sources of pollution is a fairly tired false equivocation.

Re: Artist faked being a billionaire to photograph New York City’s best views

#38

Post by HWR_14 »

dionidium wrote: post #33
HWR_14 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that the buildings are ugly and damage the city, you'd be opposed to them. You like them so are not. As for "people should be free to build things", we decided over 100 years ago that wasn't the case. Not unrestrained by zoning laws and concern for the community.

> we decided over 100 years ago that wasn't the case. That was an enormous mistake. It's the source of our housing shortage in high-demand areas and it's probably costing us literally trillions of dollars. [0] > If you think that the buildings are ugly and damage the city, you'd be opposed to them. You like them so are not. This is what you believe, not what I believe. In fact, I think people should be free to build…

Interesting take, considering the article we are talking about discusses how billionaires are hiding assets overseas (well, from overseas relative to us) in our housing. Don't you think that's driving up pricing.

Anyway, I disagree with your article's point of view. I don't think letting more people live in San Jose or NYC would unlock huge 10% improvements to GDP, and, even if it were, there's a value to being able to live in single family homes. If WFH is here to stay, then my suspicion is that NYC is going to continue suffering from its 2020 housing glut.

Re: Artist faked being a billionaire to photograph New York City’s best views

#39

Post by HWR_14 »

oh_sigh wrote: post #20
HWR_14 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By your definition, I could say about Newton's Principa Mathematica "He put some words on paper, groundbreaking" Or Linus "He put some bits on disk, groundbreaking" If you don't think her book is interesting, that's fine. But treating the methodology of how she got access to take the pictures as her sole output is lazy.

What was her methodology? > To pass as a convincing buyer, Schmied enlisted an antiquarian friend in Budapest to serve as her “husband,” and invented a 21-month-old baby, a personal chef, and a personal assistant named "Coco." She also blew the entire allowance from her residency at Dumbo’s Triangle Arts Association on manicures, makeup and clothes. Oh, but right...literally none of that was necessary: >...Surprising…

Why do I care about her methodology? The article is about the apartments she viewed. It includes details about how she viewed them, but you quoted the entirety of the article about that bit of backstory.

Re: Artist faked being a billionaire to photograph New York City’s best views

#40

Post by mburst »

chasedehan wrote: post #4

Wouldn’t these listings with pictures be available somewhere? This doesn’t sound too interesting to take pictures of homes listed for sale.

I thought the same thing, but I found it hard to find views of inside of the apartments I sampled from the article. A lot of the apartment websites just talked about the amenities. Some had a floor plan, but no pictures of what the inside actually looked like. For a $7mil+ condo I was expecting a little more, but I'm also not really the target audience of those condos either
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