‘Bastion of the super-rich’: inside a New York billionaire’s private museum

It was Fleet Week in New York City, and something unusual was taking place on Billionaires’ Row. At 9 West 57th Street, an elegant black sloping skyscraper towering over the Plaza hotel and the half-dozen sailors congregated outside, 20 people were ushered into a small, glass-fronted gallery on the ground floor. A ferocious crimson Basquiat greeted them, along with a monochrome Kline and a serene Henry Moore – works collected by the building’s late owner, the real estate mogul Sheldon Solow.

The exhibition’s curator, Joseph Henry, silenced the excitable group. “You are the absolute first members of the public to come on a public tour,” he said, standing beneath an Alexander Calder mobile.

Under the watchful gaze of three sentinel security guards, Henry led the group on a swift, authoritative tour of the works he had brought together: a quartet of Cézannes, smudged in delicate blue and green; an angular mask carved