The New Kings of New York

The blood sport that is New York real estate is rife with billion-dollar feuds. There's a story behind every eye-popping apartment sale and audacious new development in New York City, and many of those stories involve the uber-wealthy behaving badly.


THE NEW KINGS OF NEW YORK: Renegades, Moguls, Gamblers and the Remaking of the World's Most Famous Skyline charts the extraordinary transformation of America's greatest city from a near-bankrupt urban combat zone into the land of Billionaires' Row and Hudson Yards--a luxury playground for the global 1 percent--and provides an inside look at the bombastic personalities behind the biggest real estate deals of this century.

The first two decades of the 21st century were a giddy, hyperbolic era of dizzying highs and deep, dark lows. The headlines told the story: the world's biggest (and most disastrous) real estate transaction, the largest private development in U.S. history, the largest condo conversion in the history of the world, a commercial real estate nuclear winter, a $200 million penthouse sale, the world's most expensive office skyscraper, the tallest condo ever built. And then there was the pandemic of 2020: 95 percent of Manhattan's office space sat empty, retail stores were boarded up, and restaurants went belly-up. Yet somehow, New York, and its world-famous real estate market, rose again.

Written by award-winning journalist Adam Piore and brought to you by the country's most authoritative real estate publication, The Real Deal, THE NEW KINGS OF NEW YORK offers a behind-the-scenes picture of what it's like to operate at the highest levels of the industry, and what it took to pull off skyline-transforming deals. Featuring never-before-reported accounts from the larger-than-life characters at the top of the real estate food chain, it's a tale of chutzpah, greed and city-defining vision.

“"To fully understand New York real estate, one must know the developers and financiers who power the industry. THE NEW KINGS OF NEW YORK is a captivating account of the characters who have reshaped the modern skyline through a combination of vision, chutzpah, and bare-knuckle tactics." --Eliot Brown, bestselling co-author of The Cult of We”

"The New Kings of New York" sheds new light on the byzantine intersection of politics and real estate in New York, through reporting on the backroom deals and high-wire acts that shaped the city. Just as the robber barons turned Fifth Avenue into Millionaires' Mile 140 years ago, their successors have taken up residence along Billionaires' Row, reinventing New York in their own image with lookalike glass towers, Diller Island, The Shed and the High Line. This book belongs alongside "Skyscraper Dreams" and "Working-Class New York" on the shelves of serious students of the city. --Charles Bagli, New York City's longest-serving real estate reporter and author of "Other People's Money"

"No one knows the minutia of New York real estate like the team at The Real Deal. In THE NEW KINGS OF NEW YORK, they step back and also take in the big picture of what Adam Piore calls New York's second Gilded Age, from the depths of the late 1970s to the Icarus-like defiance of all limits by developers in the oughts. Neither a slow wet kiss nor a spitball, it's a sweeping epic of cupidity and civic generosity, visionary brilliance and abject stupidity. Even if you can't afford a penthouse overlooking Central Park, you can still get a great view in these pages."--Michael Gross, New York Times bestselling author of 740 Park and House of Outrageous Fortune

"To fully understand New York real estate, one must know the developers and financiers who power the industry. THE NEW KINGS OF NEW YORK is a captivating account of the characters who have reshaped the modern skyline through a combination of vision, chutzpah, and bare-knuckle tactics." --Eliot Brown, bestselling co-author of The Cult of We

"It's not often one feels sympathy for the real estate moguls of New York, a ruthless, uber-competitive bunch of men whose buildings are essentially a public display of their own phallic imaginations. But in Adam Piore's masterful, detailed reporting and storytelling, their humanity and complexities come to life. The story of Kent Swig, woven throughout, roots out the bigger yarn of the city's changing skyline in a personal drama that will surely engender sympathy from the most cynical reader. It's rare for a book about real estate to read like a thriller - but this does. I read it in one sitting, and already, I can't wait for the sequel.--Vicky Ward, bestselling author of The Liar's Ball and Kushner, Inc.
"The New Kings of New York is a juicy deep dive into the moguls and monsters of Manhattan real estate. Only The Real Deal could tell a story like this with such authority (and get away with it.)" --Steven Gaines, bestselling author of The Sky's the Limit and Simply Halston

This item is eligible for simple returns within 30 days of delivery. Return shipping is the responsibility of the customer. See our returns policy for further details.