Book Review: Billionaires’ Row

  |  
Jul 6, 2023

Katherine Clarke has a gift. She takes material that would otherwise be mundane and turns it into a compelling page-turner. 

Billionaires’ Row reads like a novel that you take on a beach vacation and can’t put down. It explains very simply the complex financing behind residential mega-towers and the crazy risks their developers take to get them built.  Plus, it’s packed with wonderful gossip about celebrities, hedge fund moguls, socialites, and plutocrats.   

Residential mega-towers are often simply explained as a place for the super-rich to park money, but Clarke details the history of the condominium in New York, which resulted from restrictive coop policies that limit many buyers, especially foreigners. 

My mother owned three real estate brokerages, I’ve read many books on the subject, and I was licensed at age nineteen, so the business is not new to me.  However, Billionaires’ Row is not just a book about business and numbers, it also brings to life the remarkable cast of characters that build the amazing towers we see from planes, bridges and afar.