Empire: A Tale of Obsession, Betrayal, and the Battle for an American Icon

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: 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.

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.

Rating:
Summary: Buildings Replace Paintings
Review: When Japan was enjoying the height of its economy members of their super rich went on buying sprees that will remain legendary for both their scope and their questionable judgment. For a time landmarks and trophy properties were being purchased by Japanese investors from the beaches of Hawaii to downtown Manhattan. There was a certain unease expressed by some in this country that too much was being sold to a handful of foreign investors. For those who followed most of these acquisitions the only aspect that was more spectacular than the absurd prices that were paid, was the speed with which the buildings were either abandoned in bankruptcy procedures, or sold back to American owners for a fraction of what had been paid a few short years earlier.

Rockefeller Center was a 1.4 billion dollar loss to creditors; Pebble Beach Golf Course was taken back by banks and resold for approximately 50 cents on the dollar. Beachfront hotels in Hawaii fell into disrepair as the economy in Japan crumbled when their stock market fell some 44 percent almost overnight, and has still come nowhere near to recovering. The other willingness to spend without any regard for value was on art, primarily that of the great impressionists. The market both simultaneously hit its high and began dying in the three days one Tokyo businessman paid almost 80 million for a Van Gough, and then set the all time record for a painting a day later when buying a Renoir for 82.5 million. Both paintings were repossessed by the auction houses that sold them for non-payment, so whether they truly set records is open to debate. Even the third highest amount paid for a painting, some 50+ million, again a Van Gough, which was bought by an Australian, was again repossessed for failure to pay, and eventually sold to The Getty Museum in California for a number rumored to be half what it brought at auction.

Until I read, "Empire", by Mitchell Pacelle I thought that the "enthusiasm" that drove these purchases had ended, not unlike the dot.com hysteria our markets created and then destroyed. However Mr. Yokoi was to carry through the 1990's the same financially unjustifiable buying that his countrymen had been destroyed by earlier. In the process he and two other family members spent time in jail, and ultimately his unusual family was left in the same devastated state as the financial assets he once held.

Placing a value on the baseball that was the 70th homerun ball is purely subjective. The same case can be made for art; a given piece is worth what a given individual will pay on a given day. Real estate, especially commercial real estate has very defined methodologies for determining value, for determining the return a buyer or buyers are willing to accept. Oversimplified, an entity that is buying a piece of real estate is buying the income that it is producing, and what it is reasonably expected to produce in a definable future. When an investor makes a purchase the return expected and the risk taken are key elements in any rational decision.

The focus of the book includes residential homes that were bought as well as The Empire State Building. Residential real estate is again defined primarily by what a willing and capable buyer will spend, and in the case of the buying this man did based only on pictures of homes that resided in countries he had never visited, suffice to say the deals were all questionable and many were marked by no thought at all.

The New York Landmark clearly was a textbook example of emotional behavior. The building itself and the land it sits on is own by one group of people. The right to "occupy" the entire building is owned by two people until the year 2076. The rent they pay the owners of the building would give Mr. Yokoi about a 2.5 percent return on his money, or about the same as a checking account. Had he bought Treasury Bills of The US, he could have made double that return with zero risk. The real mind bender comes when one reads that those who hold the lease until 2076, NEVER have an increase in the rent they must pay; it actually goes down for a significant portion of the lease! Take into account inflation or net present value of the value of money in decades to come, and the only real income is the psychic value an owner feels from owning the property. One of the two holders of that lease is none other than Leona Helmsley, a woman not known for her diplomacy and for playing well with others. The quotes attributed to her in this book would make a longshoreman blush.

None of the family members/friends that made these deals were competent to do so. I have or hold several real estate licenses, and not one of these people could have passed the state exam for New York, however they were negotiating on their own for The Empire State Building! As I mentioned, the destruction of this family is a major part of the tale. The travails include the Patriarch Mr. Yokoi spending almost 3 years in a Japanese Jail, his daughter spending a similar time either in a French Prison or confined to France, and her husband spent over 3 years in a US Prison. All of these incarcerations occurred while the battle for control of this building was taking place.

If my comments sound like a stretch, they are mild in comparison to what all of the details of this folly entailed. As you read this book, at some point you will be reminded of P.T. Barnum and his famous take on people, "there is one born every minute".