The billionaire's building.

The opening shots of Park Avenue: Money, Power and The American Dream show the famed avenue in all its moneyed glory: idling Mercedes, impeccably coiffed society women and stern limestone facades with white-gloved doormen stationed outside like sentries. It is a vision so lofty that it is almost otherworldly—can the vast majority of Americans even conjure this up as the apex of the American dream, let alone attain it?

It’s a question that director Alex Gibney revisits repeatedly in his documentary about the growing gulf between the rich and poor and how that gulf has been widened by the political manipulations of the country's wealthiest citizens.

The press release about the film, bashed by The Observer in a previous post, was indeed misleading, but only in what it represented the film to be about: the two Park Avenues. This is not a story about the low or lowly classes. Nor is it really a story about 740 Park, the Upper East Side, the South Bronx or even New York. Those things just happen to be convenient physical touchstones.

This is a story about the richest of the rich, as it were, the residents of 740 Park—a building that is home to more billionaires than any other building in New York—and how they have managed to claim a larger and larger share of the nation's wealth, or as Mr. Gibney puts it in his opening voice-over, how they have enjoyed "unprecedented prosperity from a system they increasingly control."

As Michael Gross, the author of 740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building, which Mr. Gibney bought the rights to, wrote us earlier this fall: "we're both more interested in the perps than the vics." (Mr. Gross also acted as an adviser on the film and is interviewed extensively alongside New Yorker scribe Jane Mayer, Yale professor Jacob Hacker and Bruce Bartlett, a historian and adviser to presidents Reagan and H.W. Bush, among others.)

Indeed, the documentary unfurls like a crime story, with a raft of damning evidence revealing the shameful acts committed by the masters of the universe in service of accumulating even vaster fortunes than they already have.

At least, it's a crime story as told by talking heads. This is not a human interest film—partially as a matter of necessity. None of the men at the film's center—the Koch brothers, Stephen Schwarzman, John Thain, Sen. Chuck Schumer or Paul Ryan consented to an interview. Their onscreen presence is limited to archived videos from dinners and conventions and voice-over explanations from experts. Nor did Mr. Gibney manage to get inside the famed building.

We do get a glimpse into the hallowed halls (or at least the lobby) of 740 Park thanks to a former doorman, who talks about witnessing an eerie shift in the children of the super-rich: as little kids they joke and share special high-fives with the staff, but between the ages of 12 and 15, they shut off completely, emulating their parents' cool reserve. Also, David Koch is incredibly cheap, giving the doormen who regularly loaded his Hamptons-bound cars with heavy bags a $50 check at the end of the year.

Alas, Mr. Gibney uses such anecdotes to buttress one of his flimsier arguments, backed by a study by UC Berkeley professor Paul Piff: that wealth destroys empathy. The question of why the super-rich behave the way they do, and why they feel the need to claim even greater quantities of wealth, is a complicated (and fascinating) question that demands more in-depth exploration. As such, it's one which the film should have either mentioned in passing or left alone. Certainly, wealth can and does breed entitlement, but as Mr. Gross says at one point, "some people are just dicks."

The film includes trips to food pantries in the South Bronx and Wisconsin, an interview with a young social worker speaking about how early opportunity or the lack thereof begins to shape a life and plenty of shots of embattled-looking impoverished Bronx residents, but this all feels like window dressing for the takedown at the heart of the film.

Mr. Gibney is clearly most interested in illustrating how the nation's wealthiest have rigged the game, not only claiming a disproportionate share of the nation's wealth via devices like the carried interest tax rate, but using that wealth to fund groups and candidates who have by and large succeeded in turning the dwindling middle class against the the less fortunate, unions and each other. The latter accomplishment is arguably the largest battle won by the one-percenters in the wake of the financial crisis. After all, the great recession began with anger at greedy financial titans and foolhardy hedge funders, but somehow shifted to rage at greedy teachers and foolhardy middle-class home buyers.

And while the outcome of the most recent election at least proves that money is a deciding factor, not the deciding factor in a presidential election, dulling Mr. Gibney's argument slightly, he makes a compelling case that inequality imperils democracy and that the victims of the inequality include not only those who find themselves in the rapidly expanding underclass, but the American dream itself.

kvelsey@observer.com

For a while, it seemed that all hope was lost, what with the disappearance of the Courtney Sale Ross mammoth at 740 Park, the Teddy Forstmann whopper at 2 East 70th Street and the $77.5 million Ritz-Carlton throne. But praise be, there's a new $50 million co-op apartment on the market.

The owners of a floor-through apartment at the hoity-toity 944 Fifth Avenue (the staff members actually wear white gloves, reports The New York Times, who first wrote about the listing), have listed their six-bedroom apartment. The apartment is located on a high floor above the tree line. The listing doesn't actually mention which high floor—how discreet!—but a little sleuthing reveals that the apartment is almost certainly on the eleventh floor.

The owner, Brown Harris Stevens broker  John Burger whispers to The Times, is a "private investor" who bought the place 14 years ago, but has only lived there for 12 because of a very extensive renovation by Thad Hayes that took two full years.

The place had beautiful bones, of course (70 feet fronting Central Park, "glorious light streaming in through 30 windows," and 4 exposures), but it needed some work to take it to the next level. Elite residences always do.

Now the home has "the finest finishes and luxurious appointments." Private elevator landing opening onto "a vast gallery with two coat closets and a powder room?" Check. A 27-foot living room and 23-foot dining room? Check. A master suite with fireplace, dressing room and granite master bath? Check.

Not that whoever might want to plunk down $50 million wouldn't want to do their own extensive renovation to make the 5,000-square-foot place even more exquisite. After all, once you move into the same building as Barbara Walters, you really have to up your game.

The apartment also comes with a separate two-bedroom guest apartment on the ground floor "with a private entrance on Fifth Avenue," for friends and relatives that you want to keep close, but not too close. A nice perk, but its very practicality (it even has a washer and dryer!) almost detracts from the near-blinding shine of this trophy.

kvelsey@observer.com

The listing went public yesterday, and the thirty room duplex has our mouths watering. Kathy Sloane of Brown Harris Stevens, the broker representing Ms. Sale Ross, takes full advantage of the building's pedigree in her listing.

"Located on 71st and Park Avenue, this building provides the highest level of living available in New York City and the world," the listing states. No mention of Michael Gross' eponymous biography of the building.

The home includes not one but two libraries, six terraces and seven wood burning fireplaces, according to the listing. Perhaps Ms. Sale Ross and Ms. Sloane were encouraged by the Fischbachs' recent sale in the building?

In this market, even with luxury real estate booming again, $60 million seems more than over the top. We're taking bets on how much the place actually sells for. We're going to say $42 million, and it will probably be another two years.

eknutsen@observer.com

After Michael Gross, who literally wrote the book on 740 Park, reported that Courtney Sale Ross' gargantuan duplex in that building had come off the market, The Observer called up listing broker Edward Lee Cave. Is the apartment, said to be asking as much as $75 million, still available? "It is," Mr. Cave said in his perfect half-Southern accent. But what about Mr. Gross' report? "Who's Michael Gross?" said the broker. "Do you have a client that would like to see it? Well, let me tell you, they can. And, may I tell you, it is like it always was: It is not 'on the market.' If you call Edward Lee Cave, and you are qualified, you can see the apartment."

So Ms. Ross' duplex, which was never officially on the market in the first place, is still available! But how much longer will it take to sell? "I think we sold Steinberg in a week, with a bidding war of three bidders," Mr. Cave said, referring to Saul Steinberg's sprawl at 740. "That, or very close to that, would have happened if the climate was different."

Reached via email, Mr. Gross said, "I understand now why my sources are so amused by all this."

A source told The Observer yesterday evening that the monogram-shirted, meticulous uptown broker Edward Lee Cave is quietly taking offers on one of the most monumental apartments in New York. It's Courtney Sale Ross' duplex at 740 Park Avenue, the only residential building in New York with its own 559-page biography. Ms. Ross, a Texas-bred education philanthropist, is Time Warner creator Steve Ross' widow.

Forget the Plaza duplex that Tommy Hilfiger put on the market for $50 million, and the $46.5 million Kress family's penthouse, and Brooke Astor's $46 million co-op, and the duplex that zinc magnate Bill Flaherty is listing for $43 million.

A source told The Observer yesterday evening that the monogram-shirted, meticulous uptown broker Edward Lee Cave is quietly taking offers on one of the most monumental apartments in New York. It's Courtney Sale Ross' duplex at 740 Park Avenue, the only residential building in New York with its own 559-page biography. Ms. Ross, a Texas-bred education philanthropist, is Time Warner creator Steve Ross' widow.

Reached through his office, Mr. Cave was willing to briefly discuss the duplex, though he repeatedly said it isn't openly on the market. "There will only be 10 people who can see the apartment. Because there will only be 10 people who are appropriate to see it," he said. Just 10? "If somebody very, very, very important calls me," he said, "I will run it by her."

What's happening here is called testing the waters--a phrase pronounced by the broker with his soft, careful Virginia accent--and it's the proper first step to sell proper Upper East Side trophies. (Remember that last year, cell phone billionaire George Lindemann’s daughter Sloan Barnett and her husband Roger began quietly asking $62 million for their 125-year-old neo-Georgian townhouse on East 69th Street.)

At 740 Park, Ms. Ross and her late husband created the duplex out of two apartments. One reportedly had 14 rooms; the other, 18 (14 rooms plus 18 rooms equals 32 rooms). One of the apartment's old owners told the writer Michael Gross that a dining room and kitchen were made into a children's room, a living room became a screening room, and a bedroom was "sueded."

Because the listing isn't official, is there a tag? The broker would only say, "It's going to be the most expensive apartment ever sold in New York." The reported price for the most expensive residential deal (Harry Macklowe's seventh-floor spread at The Plaza) is around $60 million. So will the duplex co-op sell for at least $60 million? "It's not going to be 'at least' $60 million," Mr. Cave offered. "It will be over $60 million."

Uptown brokers like to say that there will never be a glut of inventory at the ridiculously high end of the market, simply because they're dealing with people who would never have to downsize for financial reasons.

"Absolutely, positively not. Emphatically not," Mr. Cave said when asked whether financial trouble sparked the sale. "Her offices are downtown; her daughter is downtown."

Maybe Jay McInerney was right about that southward migration of poshness.

As I first reported late last month, he just bought two apartments, each over $30 million, for his two pretty daughters, Tamara and Yonina. Yesterday, the first daughter's duplex at the godly 740 Park Avenue closed for $32 million. And this morning, a deed filed in city records shows that the latter daughter and her husband closed on designer Vera Wang's old 14-room apartment at 778 Park. (Cutely, Ms. Wang left the building to move into her family's 740 Park apartment.)

The closing price was $33.6 million. There are no mortgage records filed for either deal, which suggests that Mr. Rennert not only spent $65,600,000 on his daughters' apartments last month, but he paid $65,600,000 in cash. Decadence is a lovely thing.

I wrote last month that the man who has an $185 million Hamptons compound and a few massive smelting plants in Peru and Missouri (plus, of course, a billion-dollar fortune from junk bonds and Hummer vehicles) had bought two $30 million-plus apartments for his two daughters.

This afternoon, the more spectacular of the deals was registered in public records, for all future ages to behold. Daughter Tamara Winn and her husband just closed on a $32 million duplex at 740 Park, the Bethlehem of uptown co-ops.

No mortgages have been filed yet, which suggests it could have been an all-cash deal: Mr. Rennert, you're a good dad.

UPDATE: Daughter #2 closes too.

A source said that the 17-room, seven-bedroom duplex penthouse at 1060 Fifth Avenue closed for $46 million, as The Observer had promised. The insane catch is that the buyers--hedge-fund star Scott Bommer and his wife, Donya, an ex-anchor for Good Day Philadelphia--will have to spend more money on actually combining the penthouse's two units into a real duplex.

"Putting in a staircase is not a big thing," the seller, Georgia Shreve, told me late last year. And when asked if $46 million was a lot to pay for an uncombined penthouse, she said: "Not really."

The listing brokers, Brown Harris Stevens managing directors John Burger, Fritzi Kallop and Mary Rutherfurd, must be having a good week.

Meanwhile, I reported yesterday that the Brooklyn-born Hummer billionaire Ira Rennert will buy one $35 million Park Avenue apartment for one daughter, and another duplex at 740 Park Avenue for a second daughter, paying about $32 million there.

According to a source, his daughter Tamara just passed the co-op board at super-posh 740 Park. Congratulations, ma'am.

But these deals raise this question: Can prices keep going like this? "It’s too expensive in Manhattan," Yale economist Robert Shiller told me last week. "There’s no reason why we can’t have a brand-new [Manhattan] somewhere. We just have to build it, plan it all out, a planned city, put it somewhere where land is really cheap, on the coast somewhere with a good location."