Today the UK Sun touted the quadraplex $100 million penthouse towering 1428 feet into the Manhattan skyline two blocks away from Central Park on Billionaire’s Row. Marble adorns the bathroom and floor of One Above All Else. Actually Freedom Fries Tower downtown is taller than the Steinway Tower, so the four-story apartment should be renamed Second Above All.

In 1982 I had rented a top-floor studio on Mittelweg in Hamburg.

Like Second Above All the apsrtment had floor-to-ceiling windows. The solstice summer sun blared through the apartment. The only escape for the boreal light was the bathroom. The photos in the Sun’s article feature shots of living rooms without any curtains. Sunglasses are a must.

In 2017 I worked at a jewelry store next door to Steinway Tower. Meyer my boss and friend thought we would make a killing from the ultra-rich tenants, who own the apartments, but not the air rights. In my six months there I made no sells from the building, because no one lived there. Every day a several people came and went, They typically jumped into taxis and disappeared into the city’s wealth culture without ever stopping in our store stocked with high-end items. Billionaires shop retail. We were beneath them.

While sixty units have been sold, at night the lack of interior lights revealed the low occupancy rate. Most occupants come for a shopping trip a couple of times a year. There is no information about permanent owners.

Personally I don’t like skyscrapers. Somehow I get the urge to jump off them.
In 2001 I lived on the 23rd floor of a high-rise on Bangkok’s Chao Phyra River. Wang Kaeo lay across the water. Not a single skyscraper rose from the verdant green forest. My apartment had a balcony. I rarely stepped foot on it.

Another feature of the steinway Tower is its pronounced sway in a stiff wind. On the top of the tower includes an 800-short-ton (710-long-ton; 730 t) tuned mass damper. Without it the tower would swing in the wind like a loose sheet of rope from a gallows.

The Sun’s article is obviously paid advertisement.

None of it matters to me.

I can’t afford there and I try never to include the blight in my vision.

I like buildings low.

Preferably one story, which is impossible in New York.

So be it.