Since we had only twenty-five million dollars of our own money and fifty million promised from Metropolitan Life, we were twenty-five million short of our project cost estimates, but I gave the go-ahead signal. My observation has always been that after a certain key point you must move ahead as if a project were assured—in order to assure it—because if you wait around for all the pieces of the puzzle to fit before closing a deal, you can wait forever. Counting on our own abilities and the evident worth of the project to bring in the additional capital we needed, we let the first construction contracts.
Within two years we did get new capital, and I must give credit to my son for finding it and bringing it in. With Muir and other key tenants signed up, the project began to look a little more interesting to investors. I had been trying, with little success, to find secondary financing for the property. Then my son set up a twenty-five-million-dollar deal with Jock Cotton, the British financier who later backed the Pan Am Building in New York. Bill had visited Cotton in London to discuss the project with him. Cotton seemed interested, and Bill traveled on to Nassau, where he and Cotton drew up a memo of understanding contingent upon the Bank of England's approving this outflow of cash from Britain. On a hunch that something might just possibly go wrong, Bill also called on Kenneth Keith of the London merchant bank of Phillip, Hill, Higginson and Erlanger (now Hill Samuel) to tell him of the impending deal. When, as it developed, the Bank of England did turn down Cotton's application to export capital to Canada, Bill visited Henry Moore, chairman of Phillip, Hill, Higginson and Erlanger. Over lunch at the Savoy, Moore said he felt he could get a clearance for the export of money to Canada and was interested in joining with us on the project. Negotiations went on for many months. Jim Muir and Lazarus Phillips joined these talks, and the net result was that in 1960 a new company, Trizec Corp., jointly owned by Webb & Knapp (Canada) and a British investment group, took over the Montreal property, providing the new company with twenty-two million dollars in construction capital.
While the British negotiations were under way, I arranged a second mortgage at a walloping interest rate, because it would be far less costly to keep the project going, even at high interest rates, than to temporarily close it down. As soon as the new financing came in, we cleaned up this short-term loan, and I could devote myself to other opportunities and crises in other locales.
Montreal, like Denver before it, was never more than one bright aspect of a constantly shifting kaleidoscope. We had started investing throughout Canada in order to keep our twenty-five million dollars in new capital busy. By the end of 1959 we had the first of a series of regional shopping centers under construction in downtown London, Ontario. A second such shopping center, Brentwood, was under way in Vancouver, as was a four-hundred-acre industrial park. We had acquired control of a hyperactive company, Toronto Industrial Leaseholds, which had contracts for over a million square feet of industrial construction throughout Canada, and we were developing a combination industrial and housing development called Flemington Park in North York, Ontario. In all, we had made outlays of 11.5 million dollars on our various projects and expected to spend twenty-five million more the next year.
In the United States our urban-redevelopment projects in New York, Washington, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia were now in various stages of development. We were both buying and selling—and then leasing back—hotels around New York. We had acquired, very profitably, the great land holdings of the Godchaux Sugar Co. of Louisiana. In partnership with the Aluminum Company of America we had acquired 260 acres of land in Los Angeles from Spyros Skouras at Twentieth Century-Fox and were building Century City. Our Wall Street Manuever, before phasing out, would bring the U.S. Steel Corp. into New York real estate by their purchase of a great block of land downtown. It would also lead to bur pioneering in the upper Sixth Avenue area, locating a hotel and office buildings there, rivaling our previous work on Park Avenue.
With all these activities in hand, I got to Montreal no oftener than to our great project in Denver. Montreal, however, was at all times the greater and more intricate, and therefore more interesting, enterprise.
Much of the intricacy and interest of Montreal flowed from the curious, unwritten rules of coexistence between the French and English of Canada, and we soon learned how important these rules were.
Even before the Civil War, Zeckendorfs were coining money. The author's grandfather, William Zeckendorf, printed his own money for his flourishing mercantile business in the Arizona Territory. This enterprising pioneer became a member of both the Territorial and State legislatures and an aide-de camp to General Nelson Miles.
Arthur and Bertha (known as "Birdie") Zeckendorf, the author's parents.
A close and relaxed family, the author still remembers that his younger sister "won most of the battles" with him.
William Zeckendorf, Jr., and his sister Susan, the author's children. William, Jr., and Susan's husband, Ronald Nicholson, are now the author's partners in the General Property Corporation, a real estate firm which was formed after the collapse of Webb & Knapp.
Marion Zeckendorf, to whom this book is dedicated, at opening night at the Metropolitan Opera. She was to die tragically a few years later in an airplane crash.
William Zeckendorf in his unique igloo-shaped, teakwood office designed by I. M. Pei.
William Zeckendorf's penthouse offices at 383 Madison Avenue, New York. His private dining room is the circular structure atop the penthouse.
I. M. Pei, the talented and visionary architect who, along with the author, conceived and guided so many of the Webb & Knapp projects.
Mile High Center, Denver generated a whole new era of city planning in this western city.
The construction of Court House Square, Denver (above) was delayed for many reasons. One of which was the discovery of gold during the excavation. The Gulf Oil building (below) in Atlanta, Georgia (1949) is an example of the extraordinary vision of I.M. Pei.
Roosevelt Field Mall, Garden City, Long Island, New York (1956) brought suburban shopping into a new light
At the centennial celebration marking the founding of the original Zeckendorf store in Tucson, the Daily Citizen spoofs the Zeckendorf proclivity for buying huge tracts of land at the drop of a homburg hat. It was the author's grandfather, also William Zeckendorf, who established the store which was the foundation of the family fortunes.
The tracks of the Canadian National Railroad as they cut through central Montreal. This is the area that Zeckendorf redeveloped as Place Ville-Marie.
The aerial view is of the finished Place Ville-Marie.
Place Ville Marie; an impacting architectural statement in downtown Montreal, Canada.
Above is a typical scene of the Southwest section of Washington, D.C., before Webb & Knapp redevelopment. 76% of the dwellings were substandard: 44% without baths, 27% with outside toilets, 70% with no central heating and 20% without electricity. These blocks, renamed L'Enfant Plaza by Zeckendorf, were part of the former slum area and have now become one of the most desirable real estate sections of the nation's capital.
The traditional kiss on the cheek for the author after he was made a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor.
William Zeckendorf, his son and General Douglas MacArthur during the ceremony at which the General received an honorary degree from Long Island University. Zeckendorf was then the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University.
The three towers of the Society Hill project, Philadelphia, from across the Delaware River.
A pre-Revolutionary House in Philadelphia which was restored by Webb & Knapp during their Society Hill project.
The same house as it is today. The adjoining houses were also restored.
Society Hill town houses.
The author and his son stand on the porch of a replica of the original Zeckendorf store which was built as part of the celebration of the opening of Century City in California.
Century City, complete unto itself, on
the former 20th Century-Fox lot. The few remaining studios may be seen at lower right of picture.
At the top we see the financial district of New York City before Zeckendorf's famous Wall Street Maneuver. Below is the same view of Lower Manhattan, after the Wall Street Maneuver.
The author with Crown Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands who visited New York on the occasion of the celebration of the 350th anniversary of the discovery of the Hudson River.
Kips Bay Plaza in New York City, then a revolutionary concept of apartment dwellings involving glass walls from floor to ceiling. The open, uncluttered plaza is a basic design employed by Webb & Knapp.
Using pads of lined sheets of paper, Zeckendorf makes a rough (and usually final) draft of any deal. These four pages illustrate the bewildering sale, resale and re-resale of the same piece of property, involving many millions of dollars.
An architect's drawing of Zeckendorf's conception of an adequate approach to the United Nations buildings in New York. It involved the redesigning of two full city blocks east and west, and four full city blocks north and south. On the right is a diagram showing the plan adopted by New York City for an approach to the United Nations. It simply consisted of widening 47th Street. (See cross-hatching.)
A view of tenements which still front on the approach to the United Nations as a result of the plan finally adopted by the City of New York. It was the Rockefeller family and William Zeckendorf who finally brought the capital of the world to New York. Zeckendorf offered the East River acreage to the UN and the Rockefellers paid the minimal cost. The letter on the right reflects the high hopes and public spiritedness of the day.
WEBB & KNAPP EXECUTIVES
1954
Counter-clockwise the executives, after Zeckendorf, are Maurice Iserman, general counsel and v.p., a noted real-estate lawyer; Elliot H. Binzen, v.p. and strategist of commercial leasing; leoh Ming Pei (standing), designer; Robert W. Shepard, v.p. in charge of development; Herbert I. Silverson, v.p. in charge of industrial properties; Nicolas M. Salgo, executive v.p.; Arthur G. Rydstrom, senior v.p., presently in charge of western properties, mainly Denver; and Arthur J. Phelan, treasurer and v.p. Among executives not present on the above occasion are Thomas C. Grady, v.p., construction, John Price Bell, v.p., public relations, L. Peter Clow, v.p., management; Richard T. Flanagan, v.p.; Harry V. Lett, secretary and assistant treasurer.
University Gardens, Hyde Park, Chicago, Illinois is another example of a Webb & Knapp Title I development.
The beginning of the end: a last minute attempt of the author's to stop the fall of Webb & Knapp by auctioning off various properties.
An architect's conception of the Zeckendorf plan for two miles of the Staten Island waterfront, which also involves a containership port.
A floating dock and a small jet and private airport for New York's Hudson River. Yet another Zeckendorf project of today.
One of the author's latest projects is to convert Stewart Air Force Base into the fourth New York jetport. The Erie Railroad and the New York State Thruway both service the former base. The airfield and the equipment, of course, are already there.
▪ 15 ▪Maneuvers and Battles for Place Ville-Marie
WEBB & KNAPP brought a very youthful team to Canada. Cobb, as I mentioned, was only twenty-eight years old. Our town planner, Vincent Ponte, also a former student of Pei's, was little over thirty when I first met him in 1955. Arnold Gorman, resident architect on the project, and also from Pei's office, was in the same age bracket. Our Canadian architects, the now deservedly well-known firm of Affleck, Desbarats, Dimkaopoulos, Lebensold & Sise, consisted of five young men a few years out of school. At the time we came to Montreal this group shared offices over a pizza parlor near McGill University but were not organized as a company. Quinton Carlson, our construction supervisor, was a thirty-year-old engineer. Our Canadian contractor had placed another young engineer, Tom Phelan, in charge of their part of the operation. At Jim Muir's suggestion, we had taken on Leslie W. Haslett as executive vice-president in charge of our Montreal office. A very pleasant older man, Haslett was once a renowned cricket player for England and a member of the old-boy network. But the ramrod of the operation, and later also a vice-president, was David Owen, a young Canadian just out of law school. Working with him would be Fred Fleming to handle rentals, and serving as secretary, Jim Soden, a smart young lawyer from Lazarus Phillips' office.
I gave these young men all the work and responsibility they could handle, and more. All of them, drawing on their training at Webb & Knapp, later reached positions of national prominence in their industry. Such Webb & Knapp talent-seeding was not confined to Montreal. In every city where the company established a major presence, some of our alumni stayed to man posts at the top of their professions. However, the youthquake we instituted in stodgy old Montreal was an exceptional one.
Through the summer of 1955, although our talks with Gordon were still in the early stages, I was on the alert for possible partners who might joint with us in Montreal or in other ventures. We had been approached by management of the Società Immobiliare, the construction and investment company which has headquarters in Rome and is partly owned by the Vatican. They wanted to talk about mutual projects, including one in Rome. Pei, my son, and I flew over there, and Pei spent a month working on some preliminary sketches for parts of EUR, a great housing and commercial project on the outskirts of Rome.
At the time I was led to believe that we would be able to do great things in partnership with Immobiliare, and our understanding was that when they came to North America it would be in partnership with us. In effect, it turned out that they were playing a Machiavellian game and had been picking our brains before moving in as our direct competitors both in Washington and in Montreal. Immobiliare also lured away one of my key vice-presidents, Nicolas Salgo, a young Hungarian who could play their kind of game at least as well as they and who has since made a fortune in the field of assembling corporate conglomerates.
In view of the ownership and connections of Immobiliare, I was naively unprepared for this about-face. Later, however, we did get a certain grim satisfaction from the fact that, though they picked our brains, the charming gentlemen from Immobiliare did not make very good use of their own. They came to Montreal with backing from a Belgian bank and with the architect Pier Luigi Nervi, but their project, Place Victoria, was ill-conceived and quite costly. It did not effectively tie itself into the existing communications system of which our project was the hub. Instead of going up at one master stroke, Place Victoria was built slowly and piecemeal. At this writing only one of three originally proposed towers has been completed; and this one tower is not filled, despite discounted rents.
One good thing that came from our Italian visit, however, was that Vince Ponte, then in Europe on a Fulbright scholarship, happened to be seated at a café on the popular Via Veneto one afternoon admiring some of the beautiful passing scenery. When he spotted Pei also walking by, Ponte ran out to say hello, and wound up going to work for us in Montreal. A talented planner with a sure command of French, Ponte was soon well liked by officialdom in Montreal. He stayed there after our project was completed as site planner for a number of other projects. As co-developer, with Cobb, of our original master plan for Montreal, he possessed a depth of background and continuity from which the whole area profited.
However, the first employee of Webb & Knapp (Canada) was twenty-four-year-old David Owen, whom I met over the back fence of our estate in Greenwich, Connecticut. Sometime before we moved to Greenwich, Hans Tobeason had bought the Fruehauf estate, which adjoined ours. Toby and I became friends. David Owen, Toby's Canadian son-in-law, was a member of a well-established West Coast family. At the time our Canadian venture began, David had just graduated from Columbia Law School. We needed young Canadians of the right background, and I offered David a job. He took it, accepted responsibility fearlessly, and handled a variety of assignments with dispatch, sometimes too much dispatch. By 1958, when i
t came time to demolish some of the properties surrounding the "hole," we got a number of angry telephone calls; it turned out that our eager-beaver crews were illegally knocking down buildings we didn't even own yet, but this kind of schedule-pushing I can stand; it is the many delays that can sometimes plague a project which are painful.
For all my technically trained and talented young helpers, I was principal troubleshooter for Webb & Knapp and would not have it any other way. Financing and building a great project is a bit like building a road through mountain country; around every bend there is a surprise, and a great part of the excitement and interest in a development, aside from its conception, lies in the challenge of finding new ways around the many difficulties that crop up. In Montreal we had a fair sampling of every minor and major form of difficulty that a great project can encounter, some of which I shall now detail.
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