New York

"Richard said, “We can go through this whole study if you want.” I was petrified but ready to spring into action. Unbeknownst to me, however, Equitable had sent down the senior-most guys from New York, not the grunts, to go through the plan. They were not about to wade through three-inch binders full of analysis. My books could have been the Dallas phone book. Nobody opened them or looked at them. I don’t remember if they even took them! Everyone just talked, and then it was over."

""The historical mistake of the Rothschilds was that they never had an American base; a base that we at Lazard have consolidated for more than forty years. Not that Lazard-Paris isn't doing well, far from it. But New York is the "sports center." If you want to be a champion, or even a semi-champion, New York is the ultimate arena. The rest of the world is just provincial in comparison," sums up Michel David-Weill."

"Their American base, their intact international network, as well as their two major specializations - foreign exchange and the financing of gold transfers - suddenly became major assets. While bonds collapsed and the franc quickly lost two-thirds of its pre-war value, London and New York fully benefited from the paralysis of the old European financial centers. Over the post-war years, these gentlemen from Lazard thus set up a magical New York-London-Paris triangle, governed by a top-tier team that made the firm a true hidden power. Governments would often call on them. The talent and genius of the partners during this delicate period was to always think big and international."

"be furiously active in New York, with the exception of Maurice who is in London. I recognise this final phase—everyone involved rushing around in chain meetings trying desperately to save the ship. It will go on right up to the last instant, with pleas to make just one more phone call to some crazily impossible benefactor, who could pluck the company out of its predicament. It never works. By that stage anyone not already on the scene is not interested."

"I had a dream the other night. I was a character in the movie *Planet of the Apes,* the original and still the best of the series. I was walking along a river. I wasn’t sure where I was. Crazy stuff was happening all around me. Then I looked up and saw the Statue of Liberty. I knew I was in New York, the center of everything, that place of endless possibilities, where the future really does live in your head and your hands. That image focused me. It motivated me. I knew it was time to take care of business, time to get busy writing this book."

"According to one long-standing acquaintance of Milken, his wife, Lori, had made him promise that on his vacation he would not work from 9 A.M. on; so Milken took his family to Hawaii, where he slept for a few hours in the late evening, rose at 1 or 2 A.M. and worked until 9 A.M.—by which time it was 2 P.M. in New York and most of the business day was over."

"The goal would be to convert 100 of these to minimarts and give a general facelift to all retail locations. The team wasted no time in getting into action. Then, in July, Peter Munk negotiated refinancing of Clark Oil, by raising $300 million selling first-mortgage notes through Drexel Burnham Lambert, a major New York financial house."

"Despite constant threats of bankruptcy, Dobbin kept finding new ways to expand the company, ways that demanded access to new sources of investment capital. His confidence and charm, plus a remarkable knack for grasping and assessing financial figures, helped him succeed where others would not even venture. On one occasion, he announced to a Sealand manager that he was off to New York in search of new financing. “But we're in a serious debt position,” the manager reminded him. “How are you going to convince anybody in New York to give us more money?” Dobbin grinned and replied, “A cat makes strange jumps when it’s cornered.” A few days later he returned with a new inflow of badly needed cash."

"Ruben, greatly impressed, later described that for the first time he saw a practical example of how poverty could be eradicated. At Ford’s factories, rationality in production was not just about the production itself, but it was a comprehensive concept that also included healthcare, education, housing for the workers. The purpose of it all was to produce as many vehicles as possible for a rapidly expanding market. After the successful visit, they headed back to New York, via Buffalo and Albany."

"Ole Kirk Kristiansen built houses and furniture for the farmers in the vicinity, and he had built up a quite reasonable business. But some years earlier, something had gone wrong in America. The stock market in New York had collapsed, and suddenly no one had money. Banks closed, companies closed, jobs disappeared, and millions of people lost their homes."

"He said he had figured out how I was able to pull off the hiring of Don Polec so deftly and he put it this way: “Taft, my parent company in Cincinnati, tells me, the manager, what I am going to do. The difference,” he said, “is you tell New York what you are going to do.” And that is pure Capcities."

"In 1978, Diane Keaton appeared at the Oscar ceremony to receive the award for Best Actress for Annie Hall by Woody Allen, wearing an Armani dress. Two years later, Richard Gere in American Gigolo wears only Armani clothes. Milan is then inaugurated as a fashion city, on par with Paris, London, and New York. "We were in the midst of recovery after the dark period of the Seventies," Armani tells me in an interview for this book. "They were optimistic years, carefree, which saw the fashion system established and the first appearance of words, objects, and habits that still today determine our daily lives." Among the objects that change their "intended use," there are precisely the protagonists of our story: glasses."

"When I first moved to New York, I thought that city was going to be my permanent home, but soon found I was never going to have geographical permanence. For the next thirty years I would be a nomad, my only constant the planes that connected New York and Los Angeles. While historically the command-and-control systems for networks were in New York, filmed and taped series were mostly produced in L.A. Equally important, Leonard was now seriously dating Marlo Thomas, and he wanted to be with her as much as possible."

"Before we let anyone in, I walked it alone, stopping at every viewpoint and marveling at what we had wrought. Whenever I’m out and about watching people crossing that bridge, a bridge that connects a little island to a big one, seeing them so happy-faced both coming and going, I know for certain it was worth all the storm and strife we went through to create this oasis from city life. Two million people came that first year, and many more millions since. Someday, a hundred or more years from now, if there still is a New York, if there’s still a United States that hasn’t been blown to bits by internal or external conflicts, people might wonder how this ever got built, and I hope they’ll marvel at it in the same way I do whenever I see something unique that wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for one person’s imagination and will (and yes, wealth). And, also… a little craziness."

"It was a shock surprise to the industry, this solid hit from nowhere, but it was emblematic of how we were changing how movies got made. Kevin McCormick, a young producer working for Robert Stigwood, saw Nik Cohn’s *New York* magazine article “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night” and bought it. That article became the loose basis for *Saturday Night Fever.* We heard about it, thought it was simply a great and original concept, and started to develop it—no stars, no pedigree, no package, no nothing—just a *good idea*."

"The trip was going as well as Heatley and Katherine had hoped and there was another new beginning when Katherine learned she was expecting their fourth child. They rented a large home outside London but, wanting to be in Maui for the birth of their new baby, they headed back to the United States. They went first to New York where, on 9 September 2001, the family went to the top of the World Trade Center, celebrating Sophie’s tenth birthday with a spectacular view of Manhattan and beyond. The following day they flew to Maui and on 11 September, like the rest of the world, they sat transfixed and disbelieving in front of their television watching the World Trade Center, on whose viewing platform they had stood just 48 hours earlier, collapse in terrifying explosions of rubble. Their fourth child, Josh, was born in Honolulu six weeks later."

"In 1979 Amancio Ortega gathered all his companies under the Inditex label. During the eighties, he took his stores to all regions of Spain and, before the end of the decade, he dared to compete in the fashion capital, setting up in Paris, and cross the Atlantic to open stores in New York. In the nineties, in line with the globalisation that was beginning, expansion turned into an explosion. Zara set foot in the most important European cities, the Far East, and several Latin American capitals."

"Early in the 20th century Cartier opened branches in London’s Bond Street and Fifth Avenue, New York. Alfred Cartier’s three sons respectively managed the Paris, London and New York houses, but after they died in the 1950s the business fragmented."

"As we passed a huge billboard advertising a Frank Sinatra show, Sol – who was to address an international conference of casino owners and managers but had given little thought to what he would say – exclaimed, “That’s it! That is what I am going to tell them. Las Vegas has lost the plot.” The offending billboard that we’d just passed had announced: “Frank Sinatra – direct from his triumphant performance in New York!” “No one should ever come to Las Vegas from somewhere else,” said Sol. “They should only go somewhere after they have been in Vegas. Vegas used to be first in everything. Entertainment, hotels, gambling; now they even advertise that they are not. This is the fucking kiss of death – and I’m going to tell them!” Which, of course, he did later that night – expletives and all."

"As was his way, Sol had again been overseas to “investigate”, taking Barry King and his sketchpad along. The pair had been particularly impressed by Chez Régine in Paris and New York, where Barry had sat with his pad under the table."

"Solomon Kerzner was born in Durban, South Africa, on 23 August 1935. He was, however, a citizen of the world. He had homes in London and the Chiltern Hills in the UK, the south of France, New York, Johannesburg and the Bahamas, as well as his beloved Leeukoppie estate in Hout Bay, Cape Town."

"Right now, everything feels far away, as he travels through the USA accompanied by his publicity man on a rather unplanned hunt for new business ideas. The journey has taken him from New York all the way down to New Orleans, then back up to Philadelphia and Washington, and finally across the continent heading towards California."

"We rebuilt the factory so we could make soft drinks, and I was told that I would be there for six months with an option to extend to a year. My job was to create a brand, set up the marketing operation and train a Russian to take over, but I ended up staying in Russia for ten years. I had planned to build the factory and go back to New York, but in Russia, as in life, things often do not go to plan."

"Once again, he proves to be a master of long-term strategy. Time works for him: the longer a Picasso or Matisse hangs as a loan in a prestigious museum in London or New York, the more valuable it becomes. He provides museums with the finest pieces as a loan for up to ten years; afterward, their value at least doubles the initial estimate. That is one of the secrets of the art trade: the paintings must "hang," the level of recognition determines the price."

"Firing myself as chef (or at least abandoning the notion that I might one day become a chef ) turned out to be one of the smartest business decisions I have ever made. My flight home from Rome was a scribble-fest. There were barely enough minutes within the eight-and-a-half hours for all the notes I was making on my time in Europe, and my plans for New York."

"But the problem in a place like New York or London is that there are always so many people who are doing better than you. My office didn’t have gleaming floor-to-ceiling windows or panoramic views of the Manhattan skyline. I couldn’t match the elegance of Chris Hohn’s offices in Mayfair, London’s hedge fund epicenter. My beautiful home on one of the Upper West Side’s loveliest streets lacked Bill Ackman’s leafy views of Central Park."

"For a long time, American couturiers and manufacturers had been trying to shake off the yoke of Paris. The world of cinema in Hollywood had its own designers who created a fashion more or less detached from ours. In New York, the gigantic clothing industry had established a plan to prevent the return of the “tyranny of Paris.” Millions of dollars had been spent to make Seventh Avenue the exclusive engine of fashion on the American continent. Haute Couture salons were being set up and recruiting Parisian models at great expense. This transfer of creation to the United States would have been a disaster not only for French Haute Couture but for the multitude of industries, craft activities, and services that follow in its wake."

"The nature of Gibbs’ involvement in Forestry Corp was similar to that of his role at Atlas, Freightways and Bendon. His style was markedly different to John Fernyhough’s, for example, who as chairman of Electricorp spent most of his working week in Wellington and operated as an executive chairman. Gibbs gave Kirkland clear direction and then limited his role to challenging, provoking and guiding — and then stepping back to allow the chief executive to do his job. After an initial burst in February and March 1986, he spent no more than two or three days a month on the task. Gibbs says he’s always been ‘very cunning at avoiding the time-consuming business of managing people or of getting sucked into detail’. As a result he was able to cover an extraordinary amount of ground in business and public service, while still retaining enough freedom to travel for as much as three months a year and to think of new schemes. When most of Gibbs’ counterparts could tell him what meeting they’d be attending in a year’s time, Gibbs worked hard to avoid commitments that denied him spontaneity. Wherever he was, in New York or Harare, Gibbs kept on top of his half-dozen work streams with a steady flow of handwritten fax messages, channelled through Jacquie Turner at the West Plaza office."