Courtly entrance

Gramercy Square area has some really neat buildings...

Have always loved this fantasy world entrance to what is now a very expensive condo off the Park.
Years ago, it was rent controlled and their were battles between the tenants and the landlord all the time...

But that was a different era,--now Manhattan is becoming, alas, just a place for the rich and for those (usually older) people who have rent stabilized apartments, or some other kind of affordable housing which is specially subsidized..

One reason Manhattan has become so inflated in terms of real estate values is that it is seen as a safe investment by rich people from all over the world. This has always been true to some extent, and waves of people from different places have "bought into" Manhattan over many years ( after a low point in the late 1970's, when so many people left the City for the suburbs-- crime was soaring ( especially muggings), the subway had become a place of dread and horrific graffiti, and the Bronx was burning down ( mismanaged ridiculously by experts brought in from the Rand corporation.
The Rand approach was based on all sorts of assumptions that just did not fit well to the Bronx nor take into account enough of its variables).