Ah, Manhattan. Where real estate porn appears in all levels of newspaper and where it's perfectly fine to visit someone's home and immediately ask how much rent they pay/how much they spent on the apartment. This book provided a nice gossip-filled look into the market for high end apartments, a bit of history of the development of co-ops and their boards, and some descriptions of neat buildings. In particular, the description of the Ansonia Hotel provides an interesting backdrop for the hotel described in Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser. ( )