By Matt Chaban 10/19/11 11:15am

Love the Drake!

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's 432 Park Avenue! (WSJ)

Drake Tower Will Not Top Empire State Building, Still Tallest Apartment Tower Ever

In July, renderings of the most watched development site in the city leaked out. They were unofficial, the work of some avid architecture geeks, but it turns out the designs of the condo-tower planned for the Drake Hotel site were not that far off. The Journal gets the first official look at CIM, Harry Macklowe and Rafael Viñoly’s new project, and while it will not rise to 1,420 feet, as first expected, the 1,300-foot tower would surpass every apartment building in the city by a few hundred feet. Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/07/11 5:38pm

Tales of Retail

Two American corporate giants. (MacRumors)

Hip to Be Square: How Harry Macklowe and Steve Jobs Built the Iconic Apple Cube

It is a POPS done right.

The Apple Cube on Fifth Avenue managed to transform a windswept plaza at one of the busiest intersections in Manhattan into a destination known the world over—one that became a shrine to its creator when Steve Jobs passed away earlier this week. The Journal‘s Eliot Brown (an Observer alum!) talked with reclusive developer Harry Macklowe about how the cube came to be. Like all things Apple, it wasn’t his idea but Jobs’. Read More

By Matt Chaban 11:32am

Love the Drake!

10 Photos

That is tall.

Harry Macklowe, CIM and Viñoly Planning 1,420-Foot Toothpick Tower on Park Avenue?

For years now, the Drake Hotel site at the corner of 57th Street and Park Avenue has been one of the most closely watched developments in the city. A historic hotel was destroyed to make way for a mystery project that has grown all the more intriguing as it actually looks like it might get built. Mysterious California developer CIM teamed up with Harry Macklowe, the site’s former owner and fifth-act maestro, and now details are dribbling out that make for some jaw-dropping possibilities. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 8/16/11 6:48pm

Shindigger

Baldwin and Schumer.

Art and Auction in East Hampton

The swans in Town Pond paddled on serenely, unfazed by the crowds filing up James Lane toward Guild Hall. The birds, evidently, are accustomed to such revelry. The event, last Saturday, was a celebration of Richard Prince’s exhibition “Covering Pollock,” currently on display at the Hall’s gallery. The work, Mr. Prince’s latest, consists of black-and-white photographs of Jackson Pollock obscured by images of models, ’80s punk stars and various forms of old-school erotica. Inside, groups of curious viewers—some of them peering over their spectacles at the prints—made polite banter about the graphic images. Read More

By Laura Kusisto 6/07/11 9:00pm

Features

Mentor and prodege.

Unmasking Three Mismatched Heavies Who Won and Lost the Drake

In the early summer of 2008, Arthur G. Cohen rode the elevator to Harry Macklowe’s 21st-floor office in the G.M. Building wearing a black suit and bright pink dress shirt. Mr. Macklowe, sporting navy blue pinstripes and a multibillion-dollar real estate empire under siege, signed away his beloved Drake Hotel site to an enterprise called CMZ for $850 million.

CMZ is one of the more bizarre development teams ever assembled in the city, yet its existence has remained hidden until now from all but a handful of insiders. One-time top developer Mr. Cohen joined Washington lobbying czar Paul Manafort and Brad Zackson, a scrappy former righthand man to Fred Trump Sr., in a baffling boom-time enterprise. They looked at billions of dollars’ worth of properties such as the Drake, the Manhattan House, the Helmsley Hotel and two Bahamian islands—but with some of the world’s best real estate almost in their grasp, they never bought a single trophy property. Read More