Word: fief
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...Private Fief. The Hirshhorn collection is by far the largest public bequest of art ever made by a single American. It opens next week, after three nights of inaugural ceremonies punctuated by a "recording of opening fanfare played over sound system at intervals in the lobby." From the turning of the sod to the tootling of the brass, the building has cost $16 million and provoked steady criticism from those who see it as a feat of egotism. (Not even Andrew Mellon, critics complain, insisted that his name should stay in the title of "his" nearby National Gallery.) The Hirshhorn...
Chicken Tax. Holder of a hereditary fief granted by Queen Elizabeth I in 1565, she kept her latter-day serfs in most agreeable thrall. "What was good enough for William the Conqueror is good enough for us!" was the grande dame's battle cry against the incursions of modernity. As a result of her efforts, the farmers and fisherman of Sark pay not a farthing of British income taxes; neither are they plagued by automobiles, transistor radios and unemployment...
...departments of Nièvre and Saône-et-Loire southeast of Paris, where he is already well known as mayor of the town of Château-Chinon, president of Nièvre's departmental council and "our Deputy" in the National Assembly. "This is his fief," said one peasant in the farming town of Montsauche (pop. 850). "Around here he is simply known as Fran...
Hoving is neither. His flair, intelligence and energy are plain to see, as is his fascination with plots and grand gestures. But his actions proclaim a man who thinks that the Met is a fief. When euphoric, Hoving will say that the museum belongs to all the people of New York - and mean it. When defensive, he adduces the strictly legal truth that it is a private corporation whose contents belong to the trustees and no one else - and means that too. Both and neither are right; in the end it is the public that pays for tax-deductible gifts...
...blood between the Colombos and Gallos went back to 1960, when Joey, along with his brothers Larry and Albert ("Kid Blast"), began a rebellion in the Brooklyn fief of the late Joseph Profaci. After a two-year war and at least nine murders, Joseph Colombo took over the Profaci organization. Again last year, the Gallos tried to move in on Colombo's gambling operations. They also opposed Colombo's Italian-American Civil Rights League. Before last summer's rally, Gallo's men moved through the Italian neighborhoods in Brooklyn ordering shopkeepers to remain open on Unity...