Hamptons Billionaires and Bold-Faced Names Complain New York Is Becoming Unlivable

Summer in the ultrawealthy Hamptons at the tip of New York’s Long Island is traditionally a time for the monied and glamorous to open their pocketbooks at high-profile fundraisers.

But this year, it’s also a time for the rich and powerful to grouse about the deteriorating quality of life in nearby New York City.

Chatter in the sumptuous town of Southampton last weekend as the super-rich gathered for the 65th annual gala-fundraiser for Stony Brook Southampton Hospital centered on the Big Apple’s declining livability, Bloomberg wrote Aug. 7.

The ritzy event brought out billionaires and bold-faced names in droves, including hedge fund titan John Paulson, Douglas Elliman Realty Executive Chairman Howard M. Lorber, real estate developer David Levison, supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis and former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.

Fiona Druckenmiller, the wife of billionaire and former hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller, was among those on the event’s leadership board. An auction raised an estimated $2 million for Southampton Hospital in nearby Stony Brook. 

But even amidst the clinking of glasses, with guests welcomed into an “immersive cocktail experience,” canapés and a “three-course farm-to-table seated dinner and passed desserts all accompanied by Wölffer Estate Vineyard wines,” chatter at the Aug. 5 event turned to what partygoers called the alarming decline of the city. 

Paulson, a titan of the financial world with a net worth of $3 billion, according to Forbes’ real-time billionaires tracker, calls the posh Upper East Side home — but he bemoaned the lack of law enforcement after a brazen shoplifter raided his local Duane Reade drug store on Fifth Avenue, Bloomberg wrote. 

“New York City is definitely deteriorating, the quality of life and the quality of services," Bloomberg, whose reporter attended the event, quoted Paulson as saying. The investor made an estimated $15 billion by short-selling subprime mortgages in 2007, before the financial crash known as The Great Recession.

Paulson, who is 67 years old, is among the ultra-elite who opted for Florida during the pandemic, purchasing a $110 million mansion in Palm Beach in 2021. 

New Yorkers, fed up with high state and city taxes, have been fleeing the state in droves ever since the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered the economy and sparked a rise in remote work.

Most people moving to Florida come from New York, the Census Bureau says. In 2021, 91,758 New Yorkers decamped permanently to the Sunshine State. 

But not all of New York’s elite are ready to leave the dazzling city. 

Lorber, the executive chairman of Douglas Elliman, the nation’s sixth-largest real estate company, was quoted as saying he had spoken to roughly two dozen ultrarich friends who are staying in their New York residences.

“Every one of them had a big apartment or a townhouse in New York — and not one of them sold,” Lorber said, adding that he predicts that “New York City is going to become the number-one second-home market in the world.”

New York City crime data for June 2023 shows year-on-year declines in murders, rape and robbery. At the same time, car and retail theft has soared by 77% over the past five years, including a 45% spike last year. 

Catsimatidis, who grew up in West Harlem, is worth $4 billion and owns the supermarket chains Gristedes and D’Agostino’s. He cautioned at the party that the city’s elite will rush out “if we don’t fix New York fast.” (Catsimatidis is an investor in The Messenger.)

Ross, who has a net worth of $600 million, told Bloomberg that “New York needs new management.”