William Zeckendorf Jr.

William Zeckendorf Jr. (October 31, 1929 – February 12, 2014) was an American real estate developer.

Son of William Zeckendorf Sr., he was the second of three generations of one of New York's great real estate dynasties.

While keeping a lower profile than his famously flamboyant father, Zeckendorf Jr. was highly successful in his own right.

Like his father, he became known for large-scale projects that transformed neighborhoods.

William Zeckendorf Jr. was born on October 31, 1929, in New York City, the son of Irma (née Levy) and William Zeckendorf.

One of the early "sliver" buildings, rising 35 stories on a narrow, 12,000 square foot site at the corner of West 79th Street, the Park Belvedere made creative use of air rights to increase the allowable height—a strategy that became a Zeckendorf trademark.

Hailed as a pioneer in opening up the Broadway corridor to residential development, Zeckendorf went on to build three more West Side condominiums, the Copley, Central Park Place, and the Alexandria.

Raised in Manhattan, he received his early education at the Collegiate School and graduated from the Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, in 1948.

He studied for two years at the University of Arizona in Tucson before enlisting in the U.S. Army.

He served as an intelligence officer during the Korean War.

His stepfather was music critic and music historian Irving Kolodin.

He had one sister, Susan Zeckendorf Nicholson.

Following his discharge from the army in 1953, Zeckendorf joined his father's company, Webb & Knapp, working alongside Zeckendorf Sr. on such high-profile developments as Century City in Los Angeles, Place Ville-Marie in Montreal, and L'Enfant Plaza in Washington, D.C. After Webb & Knapp went bankrupt in 1965, Zeckendorf Jr. restructured the company as General Property Corporation.

In the 1970s, Zeckendorf began buying undervalued hotels, renovating them, and then selling them at a profit.

For one hotel, Mayfair House, he persuaded Sirio Maccioni to open Le Cirque, which quickly became one of New York's top restaurants, cementing the restaurateur's reputation.

Zeckendorf's other hotel renovations of that era include the Hotel McAlpin, the Statler Hilton, and the Delmonico, where he brought in Christie's Auction House, leasing the English firm their first stateside location, and where and his wife Nancy lived for many years.

In 1972, he went out on his own, founding Zeckendorf Company and serving as president until he retired in 1992.

In the 1980s, the company emerged as one of New York City's most prominent developers of luxury hotels, upscale condominium apartments, office towers, and mixed-use projects.

In the 1980s, Zeckendorf turned from renovations to building major developments from the ground up.

Anxious to avoid the financial difficulties of his father, he spread the risk by recruiting multiple partners.

Zeckendorf's policy of bringing in multiple partners to reduce his risk failed to protect him from major losses after the real estate market downturn in the late 1980s.

In 1981, Zeckendorf began construction on a 35-story condominium building, The Columbia, at Broadway and West 96th Street in Manhattan, on a site that had been a community garden.

This was an unusual location for a residential project, as the area was marginal and most developers at the time hesitated to build more than a few blocks north of Lincoln Center.

Initial dissent from the community subsided when the condos went on sale, as most went to middle-class buyers including neighborhood residents, and not, as had been feared, to wealthy people intent on pushing out the locals.

The net effect, however, was to upgrade the neighborhood.

Zeckendorf told The New York Times, "The Columbia was pivotal because it stabilized the West Side. Until then, there had been an uncertainty about where the area was going ... The Columbia proved that there was a demand for quality construction."

Zeckendorf followed the success of The Columbia with the Park Belvedere, hiring the same architect, Frank Williams, to design the first luxury residential high-rise on Columbus Avenue.

The New York Times called Zeckendorf Jr. Manhattan's "most active real estate developer" in 1986.

At the time he was a partner in 20 projects worth well over $1bn.

Moving downtown, in 1987 Zeckendorf completed Zeckendorf Towers, named after his father.

A full-block, mixed-use development at the southeast corner of Union Square, it replaced a number of low-rise buildings that had fallen into disrepair.

Zeckendorf was credited with helping revitalize the Union Square area, launching an upsurge of development along Park Avenue South and in the nearby Flatiron District.

In 1989, Zeckendorf finished construction of Worldwide Plaza, on Eighth Avenue between West 49th and 50th Street.

His largest project in New York, the mixed-use commercial and residential development sits on a four-acre site formerly occupied by the old Madison Square Garden.

After leasing space in the 49-story office tower to blue-chip firms Cravath, Swain & Moore and Ogilvy & Mather, the complex was cited as another pioneering move by Zeckendorf, legitimizing Eighth Avenue as a corporate address.

Construction of Worldwide Plaza was documented in a Channel 4 / PBS mini-series and a companion book Skyscraper: The Making of a Building by Karl Sabbagh.

Zeckendorf's other major projects in New York include the Four Seasons hotel, designed by I. M. Pei and Frank Williams; the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Times Square; the Rihga Royal Hotel (now the Hotel London); and Citylights, the first condominium in Queens West, a 74-acre riverfront development in Long Island City.

In addition to his West Side apartment towers, Zeckendorf developed residential properties on the Upper East Side, in Midtown East, and in Battery Park City.

In all, these projects brought the city of New York more than 4,000 new condominium and rental apartments.

In a rare venture outside of New York, Zeckendorf served as the managing development partner for the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, a 3.1 million square foot complex on the Federal Triangle in Washington, D.C., completed in 1998.