p’^When Williams acquired the properties from their for- owner, he’d paid top dollar, knowing full well that I purchase price would represent only a fraction of his expenses. But his bean counters estimated his -range profits to be in the hundreds of millions, pos- piy over a billion dollars, way off the board like that, real value being in the airspace above the existing
ss.
j^Just six stories tall, they were a colossal waste of living space as they stood. Because the row of contiguous buildings included a corner lot, Man- zoning regulations allowed them to be torn down replaced with a single high-rise skyscraper that
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would dominate almost an entire square block and soar at least ninety-five stories above the city, surpassing in height the residential tower that Williams’s famous rival was raising opposite the United Nations … the very same competitor-slash-mogul who was always getting his picture on the front pages, and who had presold penthouse units in his building for upwards of ten million dollars apiece before so much as a single drop of concrete was mixed for its foundation.
At stake, therefore, was a staggering bundle and also the posterity Williams would finally achieve by owning the largest residential structure in New York City, ergo the country, ergo the world.
With the f’s crossed and the i’s dotted on his ownership papers, Williams had lost no time making lavish buyout offers to the residents of the buildings, about 75 percent of whom had happily taken the deal. A smaller group of tenants had waited for him to sweeten the pot, which he’d done by somewhat upping the dollar amount and in some cases tossing in the free relocation proviso.
It wasn’t long before the remaining holdouts cleared the premises-except for the Bognars, who refused to budge from the Mews to which they were sentimentally attached. The Bognars, who would not change their minds regardless of how much cash was shoved at them, be it over, under, or around the table. The Bognars, who, despite their advanced age, appeared to be in sufficiently good health to stay put in their apartment for years to come before finally giving up the ghost.
And years was longer than Williams intended to wait.
After having his last buyout offer snubbed, he’d instructed his attorneys to start eviction procedures against
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Bognars, but even the Legal Aid interns they got to ent them had possessed the savvy to call his bluff, rent-control laws were ironclad when it came to ting their current lease and giving them a renewal once it lapsed. Moreover, as sitting tenants, they by the same legislation entitled to renew indefi- ay.
Blown out of the courtroom, catching heat from uor-citizen advocacy groups that had salivated over chance to make the Bognars a cause celebre, Wil- in desperation got in touch with certain admittedly operators about providing what might be called illegal recourse. He was thinking that these opera- -who had their hands in the construction industry ; many others around town, controlling the unions, suppliers, plumbing and electrical companies, name it, from behind the scenes-might be able to |