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Billionaires' Row is a set of ultra-luxury residential
skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ri ...
s, constructed or in development, that are arrayed roughly along the southern end of
Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...
in
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
,
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. Several of these buildings are in the supertall category, taller than , and are among the tallest buildings in the world. Since most of these pencil towers are on 57th Street, the term has been used to refer to the street itself as well.


Context

The area is notable for containing some of the most expensive residences in the world. The top two floors of One57 sold to Michael Dell for $100.47 million in 2015, setting a record for the most expensive apartment ever sold in New York. Another bi-level apartment in the building was bought by hedge fund manager Bill Ackman for $91.5 million. The top penthouse at 432 Park Avenue went to Saudi retail magnate Fawaz Al Hokair for $87.7 million, and hedge fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin is said to have bought four floors at
220 Central Park South 220 Central Park South is a residential skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, situated along Billionaires' Row on the south side of Central Park South between Broadway and Seventh Avenue. 220 Central Park South was designed by ...
for $238 million, breaking One57's record for the most expensive home sold in New York City and setting a new record for the most expensive home sold in the United States. Also at 220 CPS, several units were combined into a four-story mansion costing $250 million. These projects have generated controversy concerning the economic conditions and zoning policies that have encouraged these buildings, as well as the impact these towers will have on the surrounding neighborhoods and the shadows they will cast on Central Park. As of August 2021, an estimated 44% of units in seven buildings considered to be part of Billionaires' Row still hadn't been sold. One of the factors underlying the boom is foreign investment, often in the form of capital flight. Some of these buyers have poured money into high-end New York real estate for the purpose of
tax avoidance Tax avoidance is the legal usage of the tax regime in a single territory to one's own advantage to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. A tax shelter is one type of tax avoidance, and tax havens are jurisdi ...
,
money laundering Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdicti ...
, or to export wealth to jurisdictions where it is less easily seized. Many of the apartments are only sporadically occupied, functioning as pied-à-terres, or as real-estate based "
safe deposit box A safe deposit box, also known as a safety deposit box, is an individually secured container, usually held within a larger safe or bank vault. Safe deposit boxes are generally located in banks, post offices or other institutions. Safe deposit ...
es" for parking money. The ultra-luxury building boom in the area predates the term "Billionaire's Row".
Deutsche Bank Center Deutsche Bank Center (also One Columbus Circle and formerly Time Warner Center) is a mixed-use building on Columbus Circle in Manhattan, New York City. The building occupies the western side of Columbus Circle and straddles the border between ...
, built in 2003, is at the southwest corner of Central Park. A majority of its tenants bought their condos anonymously (through
shell companies A shell corporation is a company or corporation that exists only on paper and has no office and no employees, but may have a bank account or may hold passive investments or be the registered owner of assets, such as intellectual property, or ...
and
trusts A trust is a legal relationship in which the holder of a right gives it to another person or entity who must keep and use it solely for another's benefit. In the Anglo-American common law, the party who entrusts the right is known as the "sett ...
); at least 17 of these have been identified as billionaires. 15 Central Park West (CPW), two blocks north, contains units that have been purchased by billionaires Sara Blakely, Lloyd Blankfein,
Omid Kordestani Omid R. Kordestani ( fa, امید کردستانی; born 1963) is an Iranian-American businessman who was the Executive Chairman at Twitter from October 2015 to June 2020 and a board member of the company until October 2022. He was a Senior Vic ...
,
Daniel Loeb Daniel Seth Loeb (born December 18, 1961) is an American investor, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist. He is the founder and chief executive of Third Point, a New York-based hedge fund focused on event-driven, value-oriented investing with $ ...
,
Daniel Och Daniel Och (born 1961) is an American billionaire hedge fund manager, and philanthropist. He is the founder, chairman and former CEO of Och-Ziff Capital Management, a global hedge fund and alternative asset management firm. According to '' ...
, Eyal Ofer, Pan Shiyi,
Sandy Weill Sandy may refer to: People and fictional characters * Sandy (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Sandy (surname), a list of people * Sandy (singer), Brazilian singer and actress Sandy Leah Lima (born 1983) * (Sandy ...
,
Jerry Yang Jerry Chih-Yuan Yang (born November 6, 1968) is a Taiwanese-American billionaire computer programmer, internet entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. He is the co-founder and former CEO of Yahoo! Inc. As of February 2022, Yang has a net worth ...
, and Zhang Xin. Prior to the sale of the $100 million penthouse at One57, the record for an apartment in New York was $88 million paid by Dmitry Rybolovlev for a penthouse at 15 CPW. In 2016, the
United States Treasury Department The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and ...
announced it would start identifying and tracking the purchase of multi-million-dollar units, especially those paid for in cash or via shell companies, to cut down on the practice of money laundering. New laws in China restricting capital outflow have also been implemented, and lower oil prices have affected potential Middle Eastern buyers. Uncertainty over
Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 Greenwich Mean Time, GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 Central Eur ...
has also played a role. This has weakened the market for the highest-end units, with some declaring that the "Eight Digit Boom" on Billionaire's Row has ended. In the face of this soft market, at least one project in the area ( 1 Park Lane) has been put on hold.


Buildings

The first supertall building to be built in the area was One57, a apartment building between Sixth and Seventh Avenues that was completed in 2014. By then, several other even-taller skyscrapers were proposed or under construction along the stretch of 57th Street roughly corresponding to the southern edge of
Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...
. Due to the often record-breaking prices that have been set for the apartments in these buildings, the press dubbed this section of 57th Street "Billionaires' Row". The term has since been extended to other supertall luxury buildings facing southern Central Park not strictly on 57th Street. Projects (planned, under way, or complete) that have been listed as part of Billionaires' Row include:


References

{{Midtown North, Manhattan Neighborhoods in Manhattan Residential skyscrapers in Manhattan 57th Street (Manhattan) Upper class culture in New York City