New York Interiors

This has quickly become one of my favorite design books. I love New York. I love apartment living and its like a poem being able to glimpse into the interior of so many remarkable apartment residences. The Trump residence was simply ugly-beautiful that made me wretch and swoon alternately. Bill Blass has a most stately home and I have been keeping the book open to those pages for instant inspiration. This book is a little short on prose but I assume that's because of the parallel french and german texts. I consider that a plus! I took a chance when I got this. As a rule I preview all books from the library before I commit well earned dollars to permanent ownership. This time I just took the plunge and am I glad that I did! If you are inspired by America's answer to stylish interiors from London and Paris get this book. If you're struggling to make sense of all of the myriad design choices available to you in search of a personal style get this book. IF you love well photographed urban interiors each one as different from the other as Virginia is from Washington St get this book. I'm glad that I did!

This is a review of the 1997 hardcover edition with a view of the living room/studio in the SoHo loft of sculptress Michele Oka Doner on the dustcover. The 42 residences are shown in alphabetical order, divided into two categories, New York City and Outside of New York - not just the city but the state - which includes Jersey City, NJ, and Greenwich, CT. There is a wide range of personal style presented, from the wonderfully chic Parish-Hadley decorated Park Avenue apartment of socialite philanthropist Brooke Astor, to the 2nd Street tenement of Hells Angels leader Steve Bonge which is decorated with old hubcaps, a neo-lined coffin, and a vintage Texaco gas pump. The Ridiculous to the Sublime is represented by Donald Trump's Trump Tower apartment with back-lighted onyx slabs backing fountains of small geysers - yes, behind the living room sofa - and more indiscriminate uses of gold-leaf detailing that you could imagine, to The Sublime illustrated by Bill Blass' Sutton Place apartment with handsome architecture and each object carefully chosen with the greatest sophisticated masculine taste. The translated text is sometimes stilted as well as inaccurate, but the photos are generally of high quality. The over-all Euro feel of the design of the book is more directed to a desire in invoke a stylish effect instead of a book that is comfortable to read, however. Although many would undoubtedly find hearty nuggets of interesting inspiration, this book will probably appeal mostly to New Yorkers.

The forty-two profiled homes featured in this book have at least one thing in common, if only one thing: money. Paragraph-sized introductions relate very basic information about the owners and the homes, while straightforward but revealing photographs are followed-up with some light descriptions. With the flip of a few pages we go from a 60's psychedelic Fifth Avenue swing-pad to the gritty textures and castle-like feel of a converted factory on Long Island, and it is this type of glaring disparity throughout that is part of this book's strength but more of a weakness. It's as if the author wished to celebrate the Upper-class abodes in this part of the world, and while the work avoids the homogeny that others in this oeuvre have fallen prey to, one is left with a lingering, indelible question about the interior design of most of these homes: But why? The majority are utterly unlivable ranging from kitsch-heaven to blatant storage receptacles for ill-fitting (if expensive) works of art. Examples include Brooke Astor's Park Avenue duplex which has an `ungodly-rich-old-granny' flower suffocation theme going, replete with innumerable treasures of art and sculpture; or there's Donald Trump's revoltingly ostentatious gold-dripping suite overlooking Central Park; one Wall-street broker's penthouse has a bench inscribed in large lettering with grade school truisms such as "Killing is unavoidable but nothing to be proud of," amidst a dozen others. The novelty quickly wears thin. These people, millionaires all, some of them billionaires, have the money to transform almost anything they can conceive into physical reality, and it is quite underwhelming what many of them come up with, indicating a poverty of mind and spirit in many cases. They can afford a Basquiat or Manet but lack the eye of an artist to bestow a sense of proportion or dignity to a room, something not even the contracted architects and designers can give. Despite these reservations, there are several well-designed rooms in the mix, and a few gems. The best of the lot is Steve Mensch's windowless Manhattan home that has nature sprawling up brick in a large, central courtyard and a sense of guilt-free luxury and calm. For glimpses of a home like this, this book becomes an asset to any library. -Mark Stark

This is a wonderful book, showing the range of styles in New York city. It contains many large and magificent pictures, and it is an experience to look though it. Anyone who is interested in interior design would love this book!