The Deals of the Century

Real Estate Weekly, Jan 5, 2000 by Lois Weiss

(The following is Part 1 of a two-pan series on the greatest New York City real estate deals of the 20th Century).

Real estate industry leaders say the development of the United Nations, Rockefeller Center and Lincoln Center complexes are among the most important deals for New York in the 21st Century. Coincidentally, all three were propelled by John D. Rockefeller.

Executives also picked the construction of the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, Trump Tower, the Grace Building and One Penn Plaza as being among the most significant single building developments.

Also considered as one of the most important deals of the 1900's was the development of the World Trade Center. Not only did that change a neighborhood, but it resulted in the creation of the Battery Park City complex on the landfill area that grew from the dumping of the Trade Center's excavated foundation.

Those interviewed took the task seriously, whether considering their own deals or those made by others, often asking for more time when they learned the nature of the questions.

"You can't pick just one," observed Samuel J. LeFrak, chairman of the LeFrak Organization, after realizing there were simple too many great deals to chose just one. "This city is so vibrant and so large that it's a country within itself," he noted.

In thinking about the deals that were "really important" for the city, Julien J. Studley, chairman of his eponymous national brokerage, chose the development of the United Nations, Rockefeller Center, and the World Trade Center, remarking "Every one had an institutional touch."

The assemblage of the land for the United Nations "was one of the most prestigious things for the city - and creative," agreed Alan Simon, president of Goodstein Realty Commercial.

Said Peggy Carnegie, a senior vice president of Simon Rudd Associates, "Getting the UN. I still think it's the most interesting thing that has happened to the city."

JM. Kaplan owned many of the buildings in that area of Turtle Bay through an entity known as East Manton Corp., recalled attorney Jesse Weiss, [this writer's father-in-law], who represented the ownership at the time.

William Zeckendorf bought those properties and others, assembling the blocks that later became the United Nations. But even in the 1940's, it was a sleazy neighborhood of slaughterhouses.

It was because of the associated stench, in fact, that the residential apartment buildings at nearby Tudor City do not have windows facing the United Nations, explained Studley. "That's why they built the [interior Tudor City] park."

Zeckendorf eventually convinced John D. Rockefeller to buy the land and provide it as a site for the fledgling United Nations.

"It was an imaginative use of the assemblage, and it was the combination of private well-being and public purpose," that made it a great transaction, said Daniel Rose, chairman of Rose Associates.

The development of the United Nations complex elevated New York City as a world capital, noted Studley. It also began its transformation into the Capital of the World.

Reading of the tale in Life magazine, Studley, then a young, immigrant diamond merchant, said to himself "I have to be in this business."

"I was in the real estate business within three months," he remembered.

LeFrak is also impressed by the creation of the United Nations. "That was a great deal," he said. "I happened to be born in that area, which is now 52nd Street. We at one time had a home, and it was bought to develop River House."

William West, the chairman of Charles H. Greenthal & Co., believes the development of Trump World Tower overlooking the United Nations will affect New York into the next century.

"What he pulled off is amazing," said West of Donald J. Trump, the developer of the 861-foot-tall residential tower that is still rising on First Avenue at 47th Street. "It affected the entire real estate community over there that used to be able to see the water. When one building goes up, it may affect one building. This has affected many buildings."

Not only will Trump World Tower create a new look for the skyline around the United Nations and Beekman Hill, but it may have prompted City Planning Commissioner Joseph Rose's proposed zoning resolution hat would limit the height of future development in New York City and strive to retain the contextual nature of certain neighborhoods.

But it is the city's visionaries that have not only altered neighborhoods, but moved them forward - in hindsight for the better. Just as the United Nations replaced the Slaughterhouses which had been built on farmland that replaced Turtle Bay after the turtles were all eaten, more pleasant neighborhoods have grown up in other portions of he city where there was previously farmland, racetracks or other small buildings.

After World War II, LeFrak developed the area in Brooklyn which had been the site of the Sheepshead Bay race tracks. "It was owned by the Astors, and was known as 'Mary's Dump,'" he chuckled, referring to Mary Astor. "My redevelopment of this abandoned race track, where they were farming broccoli and tomatoes, opened up the whole of the south end of Brooklyn, and opened up Staten Island for the Verazzano Bridge. It became Kings Bay and re-invented Brooklyn," he said.