The Real Deal New York

From the April issue: Don’t call Sheldon H. Solow litigious. He just might sue you. The silver-haired, 79-year-old mogul built a $2 billion real estate fortune from scratch and now ranks 239th on the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans (he’s tied with Jerry Speyer and Harry Macklowe, among others). He won approval last month to transform the skyline of the East River with a $4 billion project on New York City’s largest privately owned tract of undeveloped land. And he owns one of the most coveted office towers in the city, at 9 West 57th Street — not to mention some of the finest art collections in the city. But real estate insiders, normally a chatty bunch, would rather recite the dictionary backwards than discuss the scrappy builder from Queens.