Rating: 
Summary: Tycoons Amuck -- A Fascinating, Sordid Story
Review: The Empire State Building has become once again, by heinous means, the tallest of buildings to grace the scraper laden skies of New York. Of course, it never had been eclipsed in the hearts of New Yorkers or Americans. The building will always be a classic. "It had the almost magical capacity to fill people with wonder and joy, even jaded Manhattanites long since deadened to the scale and brawn of the city." It has been hit by an airplane, back in 1945, an accidental strike that did comparatively minimal damage, but even if it were somehow to vanish, there are photos, brass paperweights, and even _King Kong_ to keep the talismanic building in our consciousness. It is a huge and spectacularly good looking building, erected by tycoons of huge ego. It was also owned and run by tycoons of huge ego, and their amazingly messy story is told in _Empire: A Tale of Obsession, Betrayal, and the Battle for an American Icon_ (Wiley) by Mitchell Pacelle. It has to be said that Pacelle does not make the financial ins and outs completely clear. Teams of lawyers couldn't do that, but it doesn't matter. Throughout the confusing story, what comes out clearest are the personalities, some deeply flawed, of the millionaires and billionaires clawing to get control of a status property. It is a shocking soap opera in many ways, and full of spicy gossip. Hideki Yokoi, a ruthless and unprincipled real estate baron, picked up the Empire State Building as part of a trophy hunting spree including French chateaux and English castles. He went to jail because of the deaths of people who burned in his hotel in Tokyo. His illegitimate daughter Kiiko Nakahara was his proxy buyer for a trophy hunting spree that included the building as well as various chateaux and castles. When his boom went bust, she insisted the Empire State Building had been his personal gift to her, creating a rift from her father and his other children. She formed a partnership with Donald Trump, with the idea that he could make the dated interiors of the building into upscale condominiums and offices for the elite. But the biggest part of acting like an owner of the building was Trump's increased ability to pester his nemesis, Leona Helmsley, who owned most of the lease to it. He called her "a disgrace to humanity," a "vicious, horrible woman," and a "living nightmare." Leona clearly deserved much of her reputation. She was foul-mouthed, constantly angry, and wildly intemperate in tongue-lashings to employees over minor infractions. She also got her licks in against Trump: "I wouldn't believe him if his tongue were notarized." This unsavory crew, scrambling for finance and status, and trashing friendships and family ties all along the way, make a hugely entertaining spectacle. It is sordid, but Pacelle is a business reporter for _The Wall Street Journal_, not a gossip columnist; one gets the idea that he himself is dismayed by the lack of business ethics which he has to report. The confusing story (at times even the participants cannot tell who owns the building) takes turns that would be forbidden in fiction and is intensely readable. You may still want to be a millionaire, but you wouldn't trade places with these disreputable characters for all the millions they have sifted through.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating tale of greed, passion, and hatred
Review: This book is a complex but riveting tale of how the Empire State Building inspires not just affection for a classic American icon, but incredible greed, hatred, and pretty much all of the seven deadly sins. This is also a peek behind the curtain of big time real estate, and a seriously unflattering portrait of most of its practitioners. Absolutely recommended for anyone who wants dirt on Leona Helmsley, or has a vague dislike for Donald Trump. None of these characters, especially the Japanese (both the Yokoi family and the Japanese bankers), comes off as particularly admirable. Very good.
Rating: 
Summary: An interesting story, but too long.
Review: This is indeed an interesting story, with a colorful cast (Donald Trump and Leona Helmsley among them) and some unexpected twists and turns. However, it's a story more suited to the scope of a VANITY FAIR or NEW YORKER article, and at over 300 pages it wears out its welcome. I was also curious about the history of the building from its construction on up to the beginning of Pachelle's main narrative, and sadly that history is only outlined fairly briefly. Not a bad book, but its length quickly exceeded my interest.
|
