Page 64 - Midas Touch

opened in 1983, and getting to that point is quite a story. As is typical of
everything I do, I was so intent on getting it just right that I would
personally visit the quarry in Italy to find just the right slabs of Breccia
Pernice, a rare and very beautiful, but very irregular, marble. I would mark

off the slabs that I thought were the best with black tape. The rest would
be sold to someone else.

Trump Tower Saga: Part I
That took place much later in the story, when Trump Tower was already
under way. Getting it under way is another story. It took me close to three

years to get a response from the man who controlled the land I wanted to
buy. I didn’t write just one letter or make one phone call over the years,
but many of them. Later on, my tenacity would pay off, but it was a long
three years. Robert mentions the “leap of faith” required for entrepreneurs.
Mine wasn’t so much a leap, as just plain holding on.

I wanted to build Trump Tower on the site adjacent to Tiffany’s, and I had
to convince Tiffany’s to permit me to buy their air rights, their right to

build a skyscraper on top of their store, for $5 million. That would also
prevent anyone from tearing down Tiffany’s and putting up a tower that
could block my views.

Then there was the zoning variance I needed from the city. I had to know
whether I’d have the air rights first, and the man in charge, Walter Hoving,
was going on vacation for a month. He said he’d contact me when he
returned. I could get a lot of work done in that month, but not without

knowing if I had the air rights or not. Fortunately, Hoving liked my idea,
gave me his word and said his word was good. It was.

Yet another New York City zoning regulation required any developer to
have a minimum of 30 feet of open space behind any building. We’d have
to cut the rear yard out of the building we’d designed unless we could get a
small parcel of land adjacent to Tiffany’s. This piece of property was
owned by Leonard Kandell who had no interest in selling.

However, I found a clause in the paperwork for my Tiffany’s deal that
gave Tiffany’s an option to buy the Kandell property within a certain time
frame because it was adjacent to Tiffany’s. I then went back to Hoving at
Tiffany’s to ask him if I could buy his option on Kandell’s property as part