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Want to Be Lloyd Blankfein’s Maid to Order?

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Photo Illustration: Everett Bogue; Photos: Patrick McMullan, Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Many New Yorkers dream of living on Central Park West. Some of us would even basically whore ourselves in order to snag a place on the park. But it turns out, all we’d have to do is clean a toilet a couple of times a week! So says a Bloomberg News article today about the service apartments luxury buildings like 15 Central Park West are building to house “the help.” Maybe this is our way in! Sure, our apartments will be on a lower floor and have fewer amenities. But we can always catch the views while we’re dusting Sandy Weill’s penthouse and — hey, why not — availing ourselves of his giant bathtub. Plus, at our new haute address, we’ll get to mingle with fellow residents, like Sting and Trudie and Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein. At least we’ll see them when we’re handing them a tray of canapés.

Maybe 15 Central Park West isn’t actually even good enough for us. Maybe instead we’ll go over to the former Stanhope, now called 995 Fifth Avenue, where all the service apartments have all the high-end appliances, like Miele dishwashers, Viking microwave ovens, and Sub-Zero refrigerators. “They are stunning,” Harriet Weintraub, the publicist for the place, tells Bloomberg. “I’m telling you, if I could I would buy one myself.” Okay, publicist, we’ll take your word for it. Sign us up! But hang on. Isn’t there something kind of creepy and old-fashioned about your living situation being inextricably intertwined with your job, a situation that enables your boss to have constant access to you? Isn’t that kind of like one of the hallmarks of a class society? Is New York reverting back to feudalism? Oh — sorry. We’d flesh out our thoughts on this topic a little more, but we have to go. Our boss is texting us; he really wants his afternoon Fudgsicle. We wouldn’t want to get fired and have to move back to Queens!

Blankfein, Sting Are Maid’s New York Neighbors for $1 Million [Bloomberg]

Want to Be Lloyd Blankfein’s Maid to Order?