New York

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The aesthetic cost of these billionaire beanstalks is never mentioned by Mayor Bloomberg, a Napoleon wannabe who has sold the city out to the richest bidder in a manner lots of very short and ugly people like himself tend to do. Despite having $31 billion, Bloomberg is still insecure as hell, the way he should be. (He obviously never got the girl when young, never wore a Marine uniform to make himself look less ugly, and never heard the cheers on a Saturday afternoon.) Tall and chunky curtains of glass do not for a graceful skyline make. And it’s mostly the Chinese who are buying. Central Park South will one day allow only the Chinese to enter, with Chinese coppers doing the policing. These horrid nouveaux riche have no idea about grace and beauty—bigger and taller is all they understand—and the Russians are right behind them, flipping penthouses whose windows do not open because of the violent winds that strike quicker than you can say “olighastly.”

Higher and higher is the order of the day, with a 1,550-footer going up soon, plus one on my very own Park Avenue with car-melter Rafael Viñoly putting up his own horror. Viñoly is to parked cars what Bomber Command was to Dresden, the concave shape of his buildings reflecting the rays and melting away of everything that stands in their way. At least we all now know what global warming is all about: ugly, concave, all-glass buildings. Why the relentless shift from beautiful masonry to ugly glass? That’s like asking why an ugly piece of filth such as Russell Brand is a celebrity. Bad taste, my dear readers.

Speaking of bad taste, what about the screeching from Israel, the Likudists in our midst in DC and here, and the towelheads in Saudi and the Gulf? They’re calling it a shift in balance of power just because Obama and Rouhani exchanged views and decided to talk about peace in Geneva next month. The towels have financed the slaughter in Syria, the Israelis have enslaved Palestine and are threatening to bomb Iran, and it’s Obama jawing rather than fighting with Iran that is the problem. It makes what developers have done to Noo Yawk look like Michelangelo’s job in the Sistine Chapel.