Envy Apartment

Photo: Contributed Photo / Akashic Books Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Image 1 of 1 Stacey Lender Stacey Lender Photo: Contributed Photo / Akashic Books Excerpt from ‘City Mouse,’ by Stacey Lender Back to Gallery It was the bathroom that finally started us house hunting on the weekends up in Westchester. Sharon and Dave had just moved to Scarsdale from the city and I swear during brunch they slipped Aaron some suburban Kool-Aid with their day-old bagels. While the kids played on a giant plastic gym set in their cavernous empty living room , they proudly gave us a tour of their five-bedroom Colonial, closet by closet. Aaron seemed bored, as usual, but when we entered the en suite master bathroom , complete with double sinks and a rainfall shower, I heard him gasp. “A separate little room for the toilet!” he said, eyes glowing wide with bathroom envy. “You know,” Sharon said, “our builder is working on plans for the house next door.” “We’re not quite ready,” I replied. “But we can ta...

The iconic London landmark uses its public spaces to counterpoint the unbridled growth of London’s luxury private structures I recently found myself staring into a stranger’s living room, waiting for something beautiful to happen. I was standing on the 10th- floor viewing terrace of the Tate Modern’s new wing, a twisting ziggurat of perforated brick and mortar that rises above the museum’s home in the old Bankside Power Station . The terrace allows for 360-degree views of the building frenzy that has consumed much of London’s skyline. Cranes dip and dive in every direction; to the east, the Shard, an overwhelming ice pick of a skyscraper, dwarfs the Victorian roofs of the surrounding neighbourhood; to the west, the pregnant monolith of One Blackfriars, a 50-storey mixed-used building, looms over the Thames like an alien mothership. As is the case all over the city, many of its £4 million (Dh19 million) apartments will be scooped up as investments, only to stand empty. Idle butlers ...