Title: The Autobiography of William Zeckendorf
Autobiography of the man who played a real monopoly and won the largest real estate empire in history
Author: William Zeckendorf with Edward McCreary
Date: March 17, 2025
A friend of mine here in the library who had also recommended the Theranos book, Bad Blood, suggested I’d like this book. So I borrowed it, having never heard the name Zeckendorf before, was curious to see what it was about.
Zeckendorf began his real estate career in New York City in the 1920’s. This book spans his 50 year career beginning with being a commercial real estate broker, then a commercial mortgage buyer to gain control of buildings, to developing developing and building high rises all the way to envisioning “Master Plan” cities across the U.S. He brought a in a young architect early on, one who became famous in his own right over the years, I. M. Pei as a partner.
The book goes into great detail on all kinds of transactions, and he established himself as the pinnacle of Corporate America from a networking and professional relationship perspective. As such, not only did he build some amazing high rises in NYC, but he led the charge to provide the land for the UN building in the 1950’s, he built up the south end of Manhattan to what we now know as Wall Street with many banks and brokerages headquartered there, built the first high rise in Denver and Montreal, and so forth.
He even worked with Howard Hughes and Twentieth Century fox Studios to acquire all the land for what is now Century City in Los Angeles. Really quite a life of wheeling and dealing, always looking for capital, biting off more than he can chew at times, and then scrambling to make a project work. Even if it meant selling prematurely due to lack of cash!
Intestinal fortitude, hustle, risk taking shines throughout the book. Unfortunately as with many firms growing more than their capital base allows, he hit the wall in the late 60’s when his firm, Webb and Knapp, ended up in bankruptcy. He apparently started over with his sons, even in the same offices, though the autobiography stops there, so not sure about the rest of the story.
Some interesting parallels to my story, including a much more lax legal environment in the 1960’s that didn’t make business failure a crime. My personal takeaway is respecting how he didn’t lick his wounds or feel sorry for himself, he just started over and got after it, much like he did throughout his 50 year business career. Sounds like a recipe for myself as well!BJ
