William Zeckendorf

WILLIAM ZECKENDORF, President of Webb & Knapp, is a two-fisted fighter in the struggle for survival between the high-taxed old cities and the low-taxed and ever-spreading suburbs. In a recent talk before The Economic Club of Detroit he reminded the chief beneficiaries of the automotive industry — the automobile manufacturers and representatives of the oil industry — that they have done little to solve the problem which they have foisted on every American community: the question of where to park the millions of cars. As an investor in every type of real estate — downtown, peripheral, and rural — this is what Zeckendorf himself would do.

In every metropolitan area of the United States a struggle for survival is going on today between the high-taxed old cities and the low-taxed suburban communities, ‘’the bedroom towns,” whence come the city workers. WILLIAM ZECKENDORF, the dynamic President of Webb & Knapp, real-estate developers, is one who believes that the cores of our old cities can and should be revived — not by artificial respiration but by more enterprise within the city itself and by more coöperation from those commuters who make their living in it.

“What is the idea of financing these baled buildings?” asks WILLIAM ZECKENDORF. “These buildings that look like everything that teas ever built before. Why perpetuate such monstrosities?” Mr. Zeckendorf, who is the President of Webb & Knapp, one of the leading real-estate developers in the country, with headquarters in New York, raised these questions and then went on to give his provocative answer in a talk he made (without notes) before the faculty and students of the Harvard University School of Design. Thanks to a tape recording, the Atlantic is able to preserve a very shrewd piece of American philosophy.

Although he was born in Paris, Illinois, and his grandparents hailed from Arizona, New York claimed WlLLlAM ZECKEXDORF at the age of two, and in the driving force of his maturity he has had much to contribute to the rejuvenation of that city. Now in his forty-sixth year, he is the President of Webb & Knapp, real-estate developers, who invest and finance for their own account and who have put new life into old property in many metropolitan areas across the country. This article is an enlargement of a talk which Mr. Zeckendorf gave before the Harvard School of Design.