Real estate tycoon Aby Rosen brands “The Bonfire of the Vanities” author Tom Wolfe as a “buffoon” in an upcoming interview.
Upper East Sider Wolfe opposed Rosen’s 2008 plan to develop 980 Madison Avenue, the low-rise home of Gagosian Gallery, into a Norman Foster tower.
“I still think he’s a buffoon,” Rosen quips in Surface magazine’s Power 100 issue.
“I don’t even think he’s a good writer, but I’m not a literary critic.”
Rosen — who says, “I’m a very strong person with a strong vision,” abandoned his tower plan — but adds, of Wolfe’s campaign, “He didn’t have much going on, so he picked his head up . . . and did one of these NIMBY — not in my backyard — type of things.”
In the issue, featuring Jeff Koons, Miuccia Prada and Ian Schrager, Rosen also trashes a rival building by Extell that will be New York’s tallest residential tower: “157 W. 57th St., that ugly monster, is an atrocity, in my opinion.” But “if you see the one that Harry Macklowe is building at 432 Park Avenue, it’s of equal size, but far more nimble and elegant and timeless.”