My sister was briefly married to the grandson of a woman who emigrated to NYC from Israel, initially settled in Brooklyn and immediately set out to buy apartment buildings in Brooklyn that she filled with more emigrating relatives. She soon realized she could go bigger. When she died, she got a full half page of the paper-edition of the NYTimes for her obit. Her obit noted she had built the largest real estate empire that a woman had ever singlehandedly built and the only woman comparable to Peter's grandmother (who I never met) was Leona Helmsly, but the NYTimes obit writer carefully pointed out that Leona had married her real estate fortune while Peter's grandmother, an immigrant with almost no education, had. She owned many high rise apartments along Central Park South when she died.
And she was reputed to be one of the coldest, meanest, nastiest people one could ever meet. And this from her grandson who happily inherited millions from her.
A longwinded tale to suggest that being an asshole is a requirement for a New York real estate empire builder.
Peter's mom, who took over managing her mother's real estate empire, is someone I did meet. What a horror show she was. And. . . and. . . since Peter's mom ran a real estate empire that used to include a hotel at the corner of 59th & 5th, with a Christie's Auction House on the ground floor, my sis' former mother-in-law got a phone call from Ivana Trump, then freshly divorced from the Donald. This is a true story. Ivanna, in her thick accent, invited my sister's mother-in-law over to 'talk'. Ivanna. Turned out Ivanna wanted to buy the hotel at 59th and 5th because, as she put it to my sister's then-mother-in-law, she knew Donald wanted it and she wanted to beat him to it. Donald, btw, owns it today, well, as much as he actually owns anything: it now bears his last name. My sister's mother-in-law was not interested in selling then. Sis' mother-in-law barely ever spoke to me, hating the fact that I was allowed to stay in her family's real estate but she loved telling the Ivanna story so I heard it. Ivanna had her in her palatial apartment somewhere in Manhattan, asked to buy the hotel at 59th & 5th. When Ivanna was turned down, sis's mother-in-law began to leave but Ivanna called her back, still, of course, speaking with her thick accent and said "Dahlink, wait, I want to give you this valuable, high priced basket of cosmetics from my new cosmetic lines. I am sure you will be thrilled to have this!" Sis' mother-in-law took that basket and, if she is still alive, she is likely still telling the story for laughs. Sis' mother-in-law was very, very rich. She did not need a basket of cosmetic samples from anyone. Ivanna was so full of herself. Since we all knew this story, my family and I have often guffawed over Donald's divorce from Ivanna because they sounded so well matched to us. . . Now I remember, Donnie cheated on Ivanna with Marla. And, like the sands of time in the hourglass, there go the days of Donnie's unhappy, miserable life in gold leaf.
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