Start out small

Early in January 1926, a man named A.E. Lefcourt (born Abraham Elias Lefkowitz in England in 1876) assumed ownership of the Hotel Normandie on Broadway at 38th Street in New York City. He and his family moved to New York in 1882, settling in the legendarily hardscrabble Lower East Side.

While still a young man, Abe was working in the garment industry and soon bought out his employer and was running a wholesale business. But he moved into real estate, buying a 12-story building at age 34, and changing his name in an apparent effort to Americanize it.

He went on to build more structures in Manhattan. The area of the city now known as the Garment District was basically built around his properties, most notably the Lefcourt Building on 49th Street...the building that went on to house the offices of so many musical composers and publishers, now called the Brill Building.

He even founded a bank, Lefcourt Normandie National Bank, which was to become part of the JP Morgan Chase financial empire.

By the time the Depression hit following the 1929 Stock Market Crash, his net worth (said to be around $100 million) began to dwindle, as his company went into foreclosure, the buildings sold off, his kingdom in tatters. So great was the pressure on him that he died of a heart attack in 1932, at age 55, as creditors and lawyers piled on.

The day he took over the Normandie must have been a highlight of pride and accomplishment, because he could look back and see himself at age 9, shining shoes and selling newspapers out front of that very hotel, earning the first pennies that started his success.