Diamonds are forever?

My building has a beautiful roof terrace. It's got amazing views of midtown (you can see the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building among many), the Queensboro Bridge, and of course the East River. In a future post sometime I will take some panoramic pictures of all this when it gets warmer out.

This post is about the view right across the street. 

I mean the building and the penthouse apartment building directly to the East. A very, VERY wealthy hedge fund manager lives there with his wife. They are avid Pop Art collectors. Supposedly when you visit their (11MM!) apartment, you get a catalogue of the art as if you're in a museum, LOL. 

Out on their massive terrace deck you cannot miss seeing one of his prized acquisitions, a giant Jeff Koons sculpture called "Diamond" (I would have called it "Emerald" myself). The wife got it for her 50th birthday to the tune of $2.3! I mean, this thing is "yuge" as Donald Trump would say. You can stand on my building's terrace and see it PLAIN AS DAY. It's so gaudy you kinda get a kick out of it. But a lot of people didn't when it was first installed. According to the NYPost, "Neighbors who live across the street complained that the light reflecting off it was burning like lasers through their windows, and workmen had to adjust the diamond's positioning, a source said." The work is part of a series, there is also a blue version somewhere. I like taking guests up to the roof and showing it to them, it makes for great conversation. And yes, I'm VERY glad it's not on my terrace.

You can read all about it here and here and here.

And here are a bunch of pictures culled from the web. That's my building across the street in the background. As the saying goes, "money can't buy taste." Ain't that the truth. 

My building in the background behind "Diamond"

The building across the street from mine...and a view of the penthouse terrace.

"Diamond" in the snow

Those are Pop Art flowers on the wall behind the sculpture