"The boards are getting so tough and picky," sighs real-estate lawyer Ted Kaplan, one of whose clients recently got the runaround at Olympic Tower before being accepted. "It's no longer just 'Show us your first $20 million.' "

One of the city's more fearsome condo boards is said to be that of Bristol Plaza, at 200 East 65th Street, where the developers, the Milstein family, still own the top two floors and a private elevator to take them there. One recent Bristol victim was shock jock Howard Stern, rejected when he tried to buy a $2.7 million apartment on the building's forty-third floor. The board was apparently concerned that the popularizer of "Butt Bongo" would disrupt the condo's "businesslike" ambience, according to a broker familiar with the deal. And so the building exercised its right of first refusal, she says.

Stern eventually found himself a home at a more celebrity-friendly condo -- the Millennium Tower, at Broadway and 67th Street, where his neighbors include the Lindas Fiorentino and Evangelista, Regis Philbin, and Elton John's former manager, John Reed. However, Stern paid the price for building a career on the sore backs of stutterers, dwarfs, and lesbian strippers: His penthouse cost a staggering (at least in 1998 terms) $7 million for what his broker describes as "raw space." He spent a few million more to make it habitable.

"The Millennium didn't want him, either," his broker states. "They're so disorganized, they couldn't figure how to keep him out."

Downtown, the only apartment that's proved hard to sell is JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette's North Moore Street loft. It was on the market for $2.4 million, a price brokers consider too high for the space, especially since equivalent apartments in the building are selling for a million less and Kennedy hadn't done much to put his stamp on the loft. "Anything that had a stitch of his personality was removed," explains one broker. "It was been on the market two to three months, and in this market two to three months is a long time." (It's currently said to be under contract.)

Indeed, if Kennedy were to return today, the surrounding neighborhood would already look a little different. With the possible exception of Times Square, no area of Manhattan is changing as rapidly as TriBeCa, and most if not all the new development is luxury condominiums.

If money is the narrative thread in the condo boom, fun seems to be the back story. Empty-nesters who once wouldn't have ventured below 59th Street without making sure their vaccinations were up to date are now spending gleefully for pied-à-terres in Chelsea and TriBeCa. The reason? Luxury lofts the size of airplane hangars. Young, hip neighbors whose presence confirms the fact that you're happening, too. And restaurants such as Nobu and Chanterelle, which mean you won't starve. So what if TriBeCa still has a supermarket shortage?

"What I find fascinating about TriBeCa is that it's a neighborhood that didn't exist very much ten years ago," Stribling's Richard Wallgren says. "It's exciting to walk down blocks where every building you see that isn't a luxury condo is going to be." Some longtime TriBeCa residents angrily complain that the neighborhood's been hijacked. Susan Bodo is an art dealer who's seen the neighborhood where her kids grew up change from a haven for Birkenstocked baby-boomers to a sort of Colonial Williamsburg for Wall Street hotshots. "I walked into Walkers, our local restaurant, the other day, and there were several tables of these thirtyish people," she says. "The girls all had streaked blonde hair and cell phones."

"The NASDAQ nouveaus don't have a lot of money in the bank but can pay high finance charges and a lot of maintenance," explains Clark Halstead, founder and managing partner of the Halstead Property Company. "So condos suit them fine."

The neighborhood is attracting a new kind of "artist" -- and one far better compensated than the average paint-stained wretch who inhabited the neighborhood in the old days. Billy Crystal and Martha Stewart's daughter Alexis have bought in the Ice House, a renovated luxury condo overlooking a not especially scenic traffic island on Ericsson Place. David Bowie and his wife, Iman; poor Eric Nederlander, who will probably forever be known as the husband Jessica Sklar left for Jerry Seinfeld; and Lachlan Murdoch purchased at 285 Lafayette Street, a former artist-loft building.

Others making the trek downtown include Lachlan's dad, Rupert, living la vida loca with his third wife, Wendy Deng, in the duplex penthouse at 141 Prince Street. Mariah Carey, smarting on the heels of a turndown when she tried to purchase Barbra Streisand's apartment at 320 Central Park West -- she showed up with bodyguards (not the sort of touch that goes over big at a haimish building like the Ardsley) and an exposed navel after she was warned to dress like she was on her way to a funeral -- is buying two floors at the Franklin Tower, an Art Deco beauty in TriBeCa where Ben Stiller will be a neighbor.

"She was refreshed by the freedom of condominium purchase" is how one broker who helped show the diva around 140 Franklin, another building she was considering, put it. At the moment, 140 Franklin boasts TriBeCa's most expensive condo, an $11 million penthouse with 29 mahogany-framed windows, eleven-foot ceilings, and a living room whose 200-by-50-foot dimensions would be suitable for just about anything from celebrating your dot-com's IPO with your worldwide staff and all your investors to Little League play.

"She arrives with a driver, two bodyguards, a business manager, an attorney, two brokers, and they all had cell phones," sniffs one broker. "She was on her cell phone the whole time. She never looked at the apartment."

In the diva's defense, there still isn't much to look at unless your taste runs to distressed brick, bare light bulbs, and exposed wiring. She's paying around $9 million and hiring Mario Buatta to decorate it.

By the way, when the building opens for business in the near future, don't expect to see doorman Anthony Perricone in an uptown monkey suit with gold braid and epaulets. "We're not going to be in a uniform like you can tell we're a doorman," he explains. "The people who live in this building don't want that flash."

Related:

• Archive: “Cover Story”
• Articles by Ralph Gardner Jr.
• Table of Contents: Apr 10, 2000 issue of New York | Subscribe!