What are New York City’s best apartment buildings? Before 1900, it was the Dakota and the Osborne; soon after came McKim, Mead & White’s 998 Fifth and the ultra-soigné 820 Fifth Avenue. The roaring twenties produced true luxury: 740 Park Avenue, the art deco–inspired River House, and Rosario Candela’s extraordinary 778 and 720 Park Avenue. Today, the city’s skyline sparkles with palatial new buildings, such as Robert A. M. Stern’s 15 Central Park West, Richard Meier’s glass-walled Perry Street towers, and 432 Park Avenue, New York’s tallest residential building.
Kirk Henckels and Anne Walker, real estate and architectural insiders, chronicle the fortunes and features of 15 outstanding apartment houses with a wealth of vintage and new photography and architectural plans, and show off select apartments as they look today, designed by top interior designers.
Praise
“Life at the Top may not be a 37-room duplex penthouse in a limestone Art Deco tower on Park Avenue, but it unlocks the doors of nineteen of the extravagant, extraordinary homes in New York and lets you put them on your coffee table. We can't all live Life at the Top, but now, thanks to Kirk Henckels, Anne Walker, and Michel Arnaud, we can do more than dream about it; we can actually share the fantasy.”Michael Gross, Avenue
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"A new book [explores] the city's unique relationship with luxury apartment buildings. . . . Thanks to floor plans and over 300 photographs, readers get a rare glance into some exclusive New York addresses."CNN.com
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