From the archives: A cabbie’s climb to buy 11 Madison

From the small electronics store he owned many years ago on the western side of Madison Square Park, Russian immigrant Tamir Sapir could look up and see the 30-story art deco building at 11 Madison Avenue. It would have never occurred to him that one day he would buy the building for $675 million.

The 2.2 million-square-foot office tower, an icon of the Midtown South skyline, was home to Credit Suisse First Boston, and existed in what must have seemed like a far away and rarified world for the former cab driver. That was before Sapir, a 55-year-old with a strong accent, got involved in Manhattan real estate a dozen years ago. Read the full story from the March 2004 issue here.