The straight-line distance between San Francisco on the west coast of the United States and New York on the east coast is more than 4,100 kilometers. Of course, if you drive on Interstate 80, it will take 4,600 kilometers and nearly two days.
Even if Mike's Boeing BBJ3 business jet flies at a cruising speed of 955 kilometers per hour, it will take a little more than five hours including take-off and landing time.
Mike's plane did not land at Kennedy Airport or LaGuardia Airport, but at Newark International Airport west of Manhattan. The main reason is that Mike has a manor in Princefield, and he usually lives in this manor when he is not living in his hometown of Baton Rouge.
This estate is far from Kennedy Airport or LaGuardia Airport east of Manhattan, so Old Mike rented a hangar at Newark Airport for a long time, and his planes usually take off and land at this airport.
Newark Airport is slightly farther from Fifth Avenue in Manhattan than LaGuardia Airport is from Fifth Avenue, but the road here is easier to travel. Just follow Interstate 78 and then pass through the Holland Tunnel that crosses the Hudson River to reach Manhattan Island directly.
Old Mike's Boeing BBJ3 business jet is much faster than the C17 transport plane, so when Yang Jing and his friends arrived at the private museum on Fifth Avenue from Newark Airport, they had lunch and waited for more than an hour before they finally received the treasures.
The two transport planes also landed at Newark Airport, and then the Alliance Patton's New York branch took over the escort of the treasures. But the leader was still the middle-aged man Nathan had instructed before.
Old Mike did not come along. Even though he was still relatively strong, the continuous flying had exhausted him quite a bit, so he did not come along. He needed to have a good rest at home.
But with Nathan following me, everything is not a problem.
This private museum, which Old Mike bought for $40 million 25 years ago, is located on East 95th Street, with the famous Museum Mile to the west.
The so-called Museum Mile actually refers to the famous Fifth Avenue located in the northern half of Central Park. Fifth Avenue is very long, but the section between 80th Street and 105th Street is called "Museum Mile" by New Yorkers because it is home to many famous museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, the Jewish Museum, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the National Academy Museum, as well as more than 100 national or private museums of various sizes.
Old Mike was commissioned by Yang Jing to buy antiques and artworks all over the world with the abundant funds of the Dragon Fund. As a result, he bought more and more antiques and artworks and finally had no place to put them, so the old man simply spent 40 million US dollars to buy a bankrupt private museum on Museum Avenue.
This is a four-story brick-red building located on the south side of East 95th Street. There is a wrought iron railing at the entrance and a closed wrought iron gate.
According to Nathan, the four-story building of this private museum has a total construction area of more than 4,000 square meters. If the owner of this private museum had not gone bankrupt at that time, it would not have been possible to buy this building at this location for 40 million.
This is true. Even in 1995, the price of a house in this location would not be less than $15,000 per square meter. And Mike was able to buy this building for $40 million, which is only about $10,000 per square meter. This is definitely a bargain.
Because this building was a museum before, after buying it, Old Mike only carried out some simple renovations and replaced the security facilities, and did not make any major changes to the building. Therefore, all the antique artworks that Old Mike purchased over the years are placed here.
The museum is specially protected by Dark Shield, so there is no need to worry about its security.
When Yang Jing walked into the museum, he was shocked by the dazzling array of antique artworks inside.
Yang Jing felt that the treasures he had found in the treasure trove were enough, but compared with the antique artworks that Old Mike had collected over the years, the quantity was still far behind.
There are thousands of antique artworks in the museum, most of which were collected by old Mike before the new century. Yang Jing remembered that old Mike once told him a figure, that is, the money he spent on purchasing these antique artworks over the years was as high as more than 2 billion US dollars. The museum has a total of more than 4,200 antique artworks, and the average purchase price of each antique artwork is about 500,000 US dollars.
Most of these antique artworks were purchased by Old Mike in the 1980s and early 1990s. The US dollar was quite valuable at that time, and the price of $500,000 was definitely not low.
Of course, among these antique artworks, there are oil paintings by top masters with a purchase price of tens of millions, and there are also sets of antique silver tableware with a purchase price of only tens of thousands of dollars. But whether it is oil paintings or those silver tableware, the price has increased several times now.
For example, if Old Mike spent $13 million to buy a Paul Cézanne painting titled "The Bath" at a European auction, if it were to be auctioned now, $100 million would only be the starting price!
Even the sets of silver tableware used by the British royal family during the Victorian era that he bought for tens of thousands of dollars are now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars!
My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It’s even more exciting later!
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