The Real Deal New York

From the January issue: Bestselling novels are written about fictional family titans in turmoil, but few rival the real-life story of the Goldmans, one of New York’s richest real estate clans. Patriarch Sol was the spunky son of a Brooklyn grocer. He bought his first properties at age 16, scooping up foreclosures by offering $500 cash per building. “He’d go to the bank and lie because he was too young to get a mortgage. He got most of the money from going around the neighborhood, getting $50 from this one and $50 from that one. That’s how he started,” his daughter Jane Goldman told The Real Deal. Goldman’s strategies worked: By the time he died in 1987 at age 70, he had amassed New York’s largest private real estate empire, more than 600 properties valued at $1 billion. At one point, his trophies included the Chrysler Building, the Stanhope Hotel and many buildings in Midtown.