Word: wien
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...silvery 102-story shaft of the Empire State Building looms through the picture windows in the Manhattan offices of Real Estate Partners Lawrence A. Wien and Harry B. Helmsley. They gaze on it with a unique warmth: along with 3,000 other investors in a syndicate they formed four years ago, they have a 114-year lease on it. The tower is a fitting emblem of their domain, which last week made a major expansion. For an undisclosed sum, the partners bought the entire fiefdom of hotels and movie houses assembled over 47 years by J. (for Junius) Myer Schine...
...Schine holdings, worth an estimated $150 million, brought the value of Wien and Helmsley's coast-to-coast collection up close to $900 million, three times that of the spread controlled by William Zeckendorf at his apogee six years ago. Says Helmsley: "We know of no private investors whose holdings are larger than ours...
Shift in Tactics. Personable Lawyer Wien, 60, and shy Broker-Manager Helmsley, 56, pioneered the promotion of large-scale syndicates. Much of their property is held in common with about 10,000 other people, disarmingly described by Helmsley as "friends who go into these investments with us." The pals have included Wall Streeters John L. Loeb and Clifford W. Michel, and the syndicated holdings range from Manhattan's Plaza Hotel to properties in Los Angeles, Detroit, Buffalo, Dayton and Daytona Beach...
Conservatively built, the partners' realm has survived the general shake-out of real-estate syndicates since 1962. Some recent acquisitions, such as the 35-acre Bush waterfront terminal in Brooklyn, have been financed with only a few wealthy partners, and increasingly, Wien and Helmsley have been able to swing deals all by themselves. The Schine purchase, made without partners, brings them twelve hotels (including Miami's faded Roney Plaza and Los Angeles' first-class Ambassador), 62 theaters in the East and Midwest, and a community antenna-TV system in Massena...
Prosperity and its ties with the West have changed some of Alt Wien's customs. There are only half as many coffeehouses now (660) as there were in prewar Vienna. Many of the most famous along the Ringstrasse have been replaced by auto showrooms, from which a steady stream of new Volkswagens and Mercedes has helped boost passenger-car registrations 75% in the past five years. TV sets in use have tripled since 1960, and while bandy legged Willy Elmayer, the 80-year-old ex-cavalry officer who runs Vienna's most famous dancing school, still teaches...