![DESIGN FOR LIVING](https://cdn.magzter.com/1422886351/1714240605/articles/EovzrH_bv1714386178465/DESIGN-FOR-LIVING.jpg)
There are about a thousand real-estate developers in New York City. Nathan Berman is one of them, and he’s become rich doing it. But, he told me recently, “I never built a building from scratch, and never wanted to.” Instead, Berman, who is sixty-four, specializes in taking existing structures and converting them into apartments, a useful trick in a city that’s always starved for housing—and newly wary of the five-day-a week office routine. In 2017, he converted 443 Greenwich Street, a former warehouse and book bindery in Tribeca, built in 1883, into a luxury condo; among the celebrities who now own apartments there are Harry Styles and Jake Gyllenhaal. (The building was designed to be “paparazzi-proof,” so it features an underground parking area with a valet.) It’s not much of a feat, though, to redo an industrial space that has a rudimentary interior. Berman is more excited by the transformation of huge, obsolete office towers into warrens of one- and two-bedroom apartments. He compares the effort to extract as much residential rental space as possible out of such buildings to solving a Rubik’s Cube.
This story is from the May 06, 2024 edition of The New Yorker.
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This story is from the May 06, 2024 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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ANTIHERO
“The Boys,” on Prime Video.
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HOW THE WEST WAS LONG
“Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter 1.”
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WHEEL OF FORTUNE
Taffy Brodesser-Akner weighs the cost of generational wealth.
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TWICE-TOLD TALES
The seditious writers who unravel their own stories.
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CASTING A LINE
The hard-bitten genius of Norman Maclean.
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TEARDROPS ON MY GUITAR
Four years ago, when Ivan Cornejo was a junior in high school, he had a meeting with his family to announce that he was dropping out. His parents were alarmed, of course, but his older sister, Pamela, had a more sympathetic reaction, because she also happened to be his manager, and she knew that he wasn’t bluffing when he said that he had to focus on his career.
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THE HADAL ZONE
Arwen Rasmont waits hours at Keflavík International for his flight; they call it as he leaves the men’s room. He walks past the mirrored wall and is assaulted, as usual, by his dead father’s handsome image: high-arched nose, yellow hair.
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OPENING THEORY
Ivan is standing on his own in the corner while the men from the chess club move the chairs and tables around.
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THE LAST RAVE
Remembering a summer of estrangement.
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КАНО
I’ve dated all kinds of women in my life,” the man said, “but I have to say I’ve never seen one as ugly as you.”