Molson Hart

I take all of @PinkPoloShorts excellent points about "The Plaza" by Julie Satow. But to me the biggest lesson of the book is that when it comes to real estate investing, there are cities, and there are neighborhoods...and then there are "nano-neighborhoods", or "microclimates"...

...whatever the right name is—and the Plaza is in one of them, and it's perhaps the most valuable in the United States. There's something about the southeast corner of Central Park, extending south to 57th street, east to Park Avenue, and north to about where the Hermès store...

...is (natch!) that just gives it that something extra, and that something has been there for a long time, and whoever recognized that during periods of pessimism or indifference did very well. Sheldon Solow is obviously the GOAT of this microclimate. But to give the devil his...

...due, Donald Trump is not that far behind, and the Gucci store retail +Nike retail (ground lease?) he continues to own in this microclimate forms a huge part of his fortune. If Buffettian value investing is ultimately about making only 20 investments in your life, all in...

...companies with "the best" moats, then shouldn't the real estate version of Buffettian value investing compel you to look only in the best of the best microclimates? You might argue it's unrealistic, but shouldn't that be the aspiration...?

Here's the book: https://www.amazon.com/Plaza-Secret-Americas-Famous-Hotel/dp/1455566675/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3KGMI96WNBQJT&keywords=the+plaza+the+secret+life+of+america%27s+most+famous+hotel&qid=1561142637&s=books&sprefix=the+plaza%2Caps%2C136&sr=1-1 …

And now the question of the day: Can you think of any other real-estate microclimates in the United States that are in or near the same league as the Plaza District of NYC? I don't fixate on mere real-estate prices per se—it's more about the intangible, near-mystical greatness...

...of the area that seems to stand the test of real time, i.e. decades or even centuries. The nearest I can think of is Waikiki in Honolulu, which was a retreat for native Haiwaiian royalty as far back as the 1800s and is still the real-estate epicenter of of state.