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leading ladies: Melania Trump, Tomisue Hilbert, Louann Hilbert

      Principal's supporting cast: Rhona Graff (Trump)

      Principals' senior executives: Abraham Wallach (Trump), George Ross (Trump), Ngaire Cuneo (Hilbert), Rollin Dick (Hilbert), James Adams (Hilbert)

      Principal's advisor: Robert B. Horowitz (Trump)

      Principal's would-be broker: Rita Jenrette

      Principal's lenders: Lehman Brothers (Mark Walsh, Charles Schoenherr)

      Principals' opponents: Charles Cremens, Reed Oslan, JB Carlson (Hilbert), John Menard (Hilbert)

      Principals' competitors: Michael Fascitelli, Steven Roth, Samuel Zell (Trump)

      Principal's friend-turned-nemesis: Benjamin V. Lambert (Trump)

       The Macklowe Years

      Principal: Harry B. Macklowe

      Principal's leading lady: Linda Macklowe

      Principal's family members: William S. Macklowe (spouse Julie), Elizabeth Macklowe (Kent Swig)

      Principal's supporting cast: Liliana Coriasco

      Principal's lawyers: Robert Sorin, Joseph Forstadt, Jonathan L. Mechanic

      Principal's financial broker: Robert Horowitz

      General Motors Building sales brokers: Wayne Maggin, Benjamin Lambert, Roy March, Douglas Harmon

      Principal's lenders: Eric Schwartz, Robert Verrone, Andrew Bednar, Peter J. Briger, Steve Stuart, Roger Cozzi, Steven Mnuchin

      Principal's design team: Daniel Shannon

      Principal's chief rivals: Michael Fascitelli, Steven Roth, Sheldon Solow, and representing Solow: David Boies, Andrew Hayes, Steven M. Cherniak

      Principal's art dealer: Andrew Fabricant

      Principal's partners at Apple: Steve Jobs, George Blankenship; Peter Bohlin and Karl Backus (architects)

      Some of Principal's tenants: Joseph Perella, Leonard Lauder, Sanford Weill, Carl Icahn, Weil, Gotshal & Manges

      Sellers of Equity Office Properties (EOP) to Principal: Jonathan D. Gray, Anthony Myers

      Former owner of EOP: Samuel F. Zell

       The Zuckerman Years

      Principal: Mortimer Zuckerman

      Principal: The Safra family

      Principal: Zhang Xin

      Introduction

      Many people have asked me over the past three years what this book is about. For months I hesitated and stumbled when answering. I knew it was about a group of flamboyant real estate tycoons whose rise-and-fall stories spanned 150 years and whose connections to one another were entwined in their desire for a plot of land upon which stands a gleaming white marble tower, the most expensive office building in the United States: the General Motors (GM) Building.

      I knew that the first of the overreachers was Tammany Hall scoundrel William Magear “Boss” Tweed, whose lust for lucre meant he wound up bankrupt in jail. After him came Harry S. Black, America's most prolific builder in 1900. Black committed suicide in the house he used to own with his first wife, a woman he had foolishly betrayed and lost. Then there was the towering, talented William Zeckendorf, a man who expanded the importance of the job description developer, but who also died alone and bankrupt. There followed the urbane British Lord Max Rayne and his colorful, indefatigable female chief executive, Cecilia Benattar, the so-called “housewife tycoon” who brazenly battled New York's social and business elite, then disappeared as suddenly as she'd arrived. There was Disque D. Deane, a brutal man who, it was whispered, as good as killed his wife with cruelty. Next came David Simon, the mall heir; he was quickly followed by Stephen “Steve” C. Hilbert, the one-time insurance salesman from Indianapolis who helicoptered five miles to work each day – and married a woman who jumped, practically naked, out of a cake. His partner was Donald J. Trump, who needs no introduction. And then came Harry Macklowe, the most charismatic of these characters and perhaps the most tragic.

      Why do their stories matter? Why should anyone care about a group of rich guys competing for a very expensive building? What became both bewildering and absorbing as I researched this book were the extraordinary lengths to which these men went to achieve their goals.

      Dream chasing, it turns out, in the world of global real estate is a sordid pursuit.

      In these pages, lying, cheating, stealing, suing, and tax evasion are just humdrum ways of business. Friendships and alliances get made to be broken; a man's word is never his bond; partners routinely sue one another; wives are discarded and cheated on; but so too are bankers, colleagues, and brokers.

      The boorish behavior at the Liar's Ball, the party that the Real Estate Board of New York throws itself each year, had intrigued me when I attended the event. It also paled in comparison to the roughness I would unearth. And yet..

      Tempering the grotesque intemperance was the humanity, the vulnerability that these characters – for the most part – revealed.

      I realized as I combed through more than 200 interviews with my crowd of “rough riders” (as the New York real estate deal makers were once called – there was even a room in the Roosevelt Hotel where they negotiated over lunch) that my fascination with them lay as much in their insecurities as in their ambitions. And that one explained the other.

      And whatever faults these people share, these leaders of the dance at the Liar's Ball have at least danced.

      A friend of Harry Macklowe's long-suffering wife, Linda, put it this way: “This is not a normal world… None of these people are fuckin' normal. And, again, what is normal? They're all gifted in such a way that they are unique, disturbed individuals… And the level of disturbance is oftentimes about how successful they are.”

      Chapter 1

      Stealing the Spotlight

      I think that I've been able to lead and have a high enough profile where people say, “Hmmm, how would Harry Macklowe do this? He's my hero.”

– Harry Macklowe

      He spotted his chance the night the letters vanished.

      They were there, as usual, one dusky summer's evening in Manhattan, but the next morning they were gone. All of them. Their disappearance immediately spurred frantic, gossipy phone calls between the major real estate offices in New York City. Everyone knew the significance, but very few knew what had happened. There was speculative chatter about a “midnight raid,” even a “robbery.”

      Bizarrely, some of the garish letters began to show up on office walls around New York, where they still remain. Their proud owners were coy about how they had acquired their trophies. Was Donald J. Trump, the flame-haired, flamboyant developer, furious? No one dared ask him. All they knew was that the letters’ disappearance marked the end of his most cherished dream.

      For Harry Macklowe, it was the beginning of a metamorphosis.

■ ■ ■

      June 2003. As the sun rose over Manhattan, passers-by, commuters, tourists, and members of the audience assembled for CBS's morning show noticed that something was dramatically different about the 50-story, white marble edifice soaring above midtown known as the General Motors (GM) Building.

      In almost every other detail, the legendary and much-coveted trophy building looked as it had for years: the white, minimalistic tower with the small inset windows that gave tenants spectacular views of Central Park; there was the glass box of FAO Schwarz, the iconic toy store, on the southwest corner of the building's first floor. There was the plaza – that “problematic plaza,” as industry insiders and architects had always called it because no one had found a sensible, or profitable, use for it – stretching out to Fifth Avenue.

      But the building's most jarring detail: brass letters, each four feet tall, spelling out TRUMP – the ultimate vanity plate – was gone.

      For

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