Palace Coup - Hardcover

Moss, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 038524973X ISBN 13: 9780385249737

Publisher: Doubleday, 1989

Synopsis

Traces the real estate and development deals by which the Helmsleys built their lucrative hotel empire and charts the charges of tax evasion and extortion faced by the Helmsleys

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Moss's devastating, bruising bio delivers paydirt as it follows a sinister trail of lawsuits, takeovers, big deals and shady doings by New York real estate tycoons Harry and Leona Helmsley. His souped-up prose can turn wickedly sly: "It seems that Leona had discovered the Fifth Avenue way of bargain shopping: don't pay sales taxes." A business reporter for Newsday , Moss makes Leona, 68, the villain of this cotton-to-cashmere tale of greed and thirst for power: the ambitious hatter's daughter from Brooklyn (born Lena Rosenthal) comes off as a tyrannical, ambushing manager, a gold-digger whose grab for ultimate control over the Helmsley empire may prove its undoing. Her reserved, workaholic hubby is seen as a hated landlord who spent a lifetime figuring out ways to pay as low wages and taxes as possible. And the posturing, litigious couple had a knack for "racking up enemies like bowling pins."
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Moss, an investigative reporter for New York Newsday , has managed to be fair and accurate in this well-researched biography, a hard task considering how the media has found it irresistible to mock this controversial business couple. The book also serves as a history of real estate and business in 20th-century New York, as it follows Harry Helmsley's progress from office boy to rent collector/manager to building owner, including an interest in the Empire State Building. In 1972, he married second wife Leona, who, as ads proclaimed, was the "Queen" who "stood guard" over their hotel chain, started with the opening of Helmsley Palace in 1980. This media hype was, perhaps, hubris: In 1988, the couple was called up on tax evasion charges and are currently awaiting trial. Recommended.
- Mary Ann Wasick, West Allis P.L., Wis.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 038524973X
• ISBN 13: 9780385249737
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 346