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

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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".

Similar to the way the untimely deaths of Elvis and Marilyn helped elevate their status from celebrity to icon, the World Trade Center in the aftermath of the terrorist attack of September 11 seems well on its way to attaining an iconographic stature it never had while it stood. Take a walk through mid-town this holiday season and survey the street-vendors' wares. Twin Tower memorabilia predominates in a way it hasn`t in the past, most notably in souvenir photographs of New York's skyline. Yet those towers, the tallest of the Manhattan skyline (and briefly the tallest in the world), never defined the skyline in the hearts and minds of New Yorkers (or the worldwide community) in the way the Empire State Building has over the past seventy years. The warmth of the Empire State Building's limestone facade, the grace of its tapered silhouette, the romance of its history (both real and imagined) combine to create an allure that the boxy glass and steel towers could not match.

That history is presented in "Empire, A Tale of Obsession, Betrayal, and the Battle for an American Icon," Mitchell Pacelle's biography of the world's most famous skyscraper, and the book skillfully delivers all that its long title promises. The framework is the decade-long battle waged in the Nineties for ownership and control of the building, but there are ample asides that chronicle its entire history. The cast of players include unscrupulous Japanese billionaire Hideki Yokoi, double-crossed by his daughter and son-in-law, Kiiko Nakahara and Jean-Paul Renoir, who claimed Yokoi gave Nakahara the building as a gift; real estate magnate Harry Helmsley and his partner Lawrence Wein and their heirs, Peter Malkin and the reviled Leona Helmsley, who hold a 114 year lease on the property; and Donald Trump, determined to break that lease.

This is a big story about a big building, a big family, big fortunes, big egos and big deals. There are occasions when the details of the deals become confusing (like a set of nesting Russian dolls there are holding companies within holding companies within still more holding companies), but by and large the book is a page turner. "Empire" reads like fiction, except that if it were fiction you'd probably never believe it. The Leona parts are a particularly sinful pleasure, but read it without guilt. This is a well-researched and documented account by a respected reporter of The Wall Street Journal.

Man, I loved this craaazy book. New Yorkers, I take my dusty Bubba Gump Seafood hat off to ya'll. EMPIRE was the greatest mix of ego,pathos, and unbridled greed I ever read. If the book had gone to an editor as fiction A lot of changes would have been suggested because the truth is stranger than fiction. I kept waiting for The Three Stooges to show up boinking heads and poking eyes as bumbling real estate salesmen. Wonderful.

I bought "Empire" with the mistaken idea it would be a history of the building: its conception, construction and history. There is some of that but the main thrust is the Art of the Deal: the chicanery, foolishness, cleverness and mind boggling intrigue of the fools, visionaries, and rascals who see the ownership of the Empire State Building as the jewel in their crown, the Nirvana of a real estate deal.

The Grand Old Lady is a bit worse for wear, only second tier desirability office rental space, lacking in security and a tad rat infested, but like a true Cleopatra, drives men mad with desire to own her.

Investigative journalist, Mitchell Pacelle, does a fine job unraveling the bizarre cast of characters who have tried to nail down ownership, particularly in the last dozen years. Hideki Yokoi, an elderly disgraced Japanese billionaire designated his illegitimate daughter Kiiko to be his emissary and agent in the huge purchase. Kiiko is either a dragon lady or a submissive flower of a daughter and wife to the mysterious James Bondian Jean-Paul Renoir, who is a great businessman, crook, or fall guy; take your pick. You could never make fictional characters out of these people; no one would believe you.

On the American front was real estate titan Lawrence Wien, who had a sweetheart 114-year lease on the building. I treasured Mr. Wien because, though very rich, he seemed---well, normal. Partners with Mr. Wien were Harry and the dreaded Leona Helmsley. Multiply everything by ten you have read regarding the Queen of Mean, and you have Leona as she appears in this book. Last but certainly not least, is Donald Trump, the one and only. Donald, who never had one thin dime of his own money invested in the takeover caused merry havoc for over ten years. I had to admire him for two reasons 1) he loathes Leona and never let an opportunity pass to rile and discomfit her, and 2) he structured such a deal, he might have ended up kingpin without a particle of risk on his part.

Mr. Pacelle does an excellent job of taking us through this maze of perfidity, and illustrates very well the spell cast by the wooing and winning the Empire State Building. Well researched and a good read. Recommended.

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.

I am an avid reader of the Wall Street Journal, and I've been reading articles by Mitch Pacelle for some time. Some of the most interesting articles have been about the Empire State Building. For me, the older story revolving around the origins of the building and the skyscraper wars is as interesting as the cut-throat battle between the big guys in real estate such as Donald Trump, Leona Helmsley and Peter Malkin. This book will not disappoint any serious nonfiction reader with the highest standards. I found the legal battles particularly engrossing as well as the relationship between the odd Renoir and the bizarre Yokoi.

very interesting account of how ego, greed and poor research affect real estate investments.

good historical account of how property values were overinflated and seasoned investors were only too happy to offload them to unsuspecting foreigners. [even though the media claimed america was loosing its landmarks.]

I couldn't put this book down until I found out who really owned the Empire State Building. The fighting, bickering, backstabbing amongst the rich is always something I enjoy reading. I really wanted to know why people were fighting for ownership of this building. The book does a real good job of detailing the court proceedings, and real estate lingo which sometimes made my eyes glaze over but I enjoyed the flow of the book of keeping the story moving from character to character and believe me, there are many of them here including Donald Trump, Leona Helmsley, Hideki Yokoi, and Peter Malkin. So this is what people do when they have too much time on their hands.

The publication date should give it away but with the climax of this book referring to the gleaming twin towers of the World Trade Centre and Donald Trump dreaming of a potential buyer for the subject, readers today will be left feeling empty having traced what could have been, an interesting saga over 300 pages.

Other than a useful insight into the construction of the Empire, its first decades of presence and the personalities of Yokoi, Helmsley, Malkin, Wein and Trump (mostly within the space of a couple of chapters), what remains is a messy and tedious multifaceted, intercontinental legal dispute, with many arms all leading whether separately or in toto, to little in the way of meaningful conclusion.

An early suggestion as to this American icon being stolen by a wily foreign foe builds to a crescendo of outrage that grabs the reader immediately, only to be forgotten thereafter.

It is this attempt to lead the reader (albeit with a comfortable writing style) so many times to no place at all, together with a conspicuous tendency towards repetition in the final chapters, that leaves the sensation; why did I bother? This story cannot merely be left with Trump holding a torn bag side by side with the heirs of a tattered Japanese business powerhouse. Trump in all respects is the story. Readers deserve to hear the end game.

An unfinished chronicle. Its legacy at least rests with the fact, that in detailing its story to mid 2001, scholars now possess a basis of personal interview upon which to complete this epoch of urban American history.

In typical New York fashion, the story of the Empire State Building, from inception to today is stranger than fiction. In his brilliant book, "Empire: A Tale of Obsession, Betrayal, and the Battle for an American Icon", Mitchell Pacelle reveals the intrigues, wheeling-dealing, and financial brawling that surrounds the greatest symbol of America's financial power. Sometimes the depths to which the players sank were as deep as the Empire State Building is high. There are many of the names that you would expect to be involved in this tale: Raskob, Smith, Helmsley, Trump, but there are plenty of surprises (which I won't give away).

Mr. Pacelle deserves a load of credit, not just for the research (which is impressive enough) but for the glitzy, brash, and engaging style with which he tells this fascinating story. Only in New York would a story like this happen, and only Mr. Pacelle has told it the way it should.

Rocco Dormarunno, author of THE FIVE POINTS