Concierge service can be the difference between a great apartment building and a perfect one.

New York City’s top luxury condos--like The Rushmore, Element, Avery, Sheffield57 and One Beacon Court--are calling in high-profile concierge services as regular features, providing residents with services that include complete move-in management, housekeeping, dog walking, restaurant and entertainment reservations, personal chef-finding, catering, personal shopping, travel bookings, tickets and more on a daily basis, at no extra charge. “We’ll help you pick out an engagement ring, then we’ll help you pick it out of the drain,” boasts the web site of Abigail Michaels, the New York City concierge service run by Abbie Newman and her partner Michael Fazio.

Condo residents at the Ritz-Carlton at 50 Central Park South and the Residences at Mandarin Oriental in the Time Warner Center are lucky enough to have use of the same concierge service that serves the attached hotels.

Different from a Doorman
How is a concierge service better than the garden-variety doorman? From restaurants to nightclubs, selective shops to art galleries, antique stores or the newest Broadway show, they can get you in. The real aces have access to the best nightlife in town, and velvet ropes fall before them. During the daylight hours they’re pros at arranging vacations, shopping, fitness, massage, hair styling, flowers, pet care, and anything else that requires a golden rolodex and a few phone calls.

Concierge anecdotes range from the request to have a deceased pet cat stuffed or locate a dog masseuse to the client who wanted the double-decker bus she had purchased shipped home to Dubai to the “seriously, why don’t you just do it yourself?” request of finding an engagement ring. However, New York City apartment building concierges are known for their confidentiality, so you won’t hear much dish about bizarre celeb requests, and most will draw the line at double-booking at popular restaurants, as this would jeopardize their relationships with the establishments, and in turn their reputations as door openers to their clients.