A few months ago, Tony was asked to give a presentation on the life of Albert M. Greenfield, a famous Philadelphia businessman. The presentation was given at a meeting of the Sons of Utah Pioneers at our local church. Tony prepared for this presentation in such an amazing way. He researched online and at the Free Library of Philadelphia. He remembered an article in Philadelphia Magazine years ago and went and found the article in the archives. He even went to Greenfield's offices and met Greenfield's grandson.
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| Barbara Greenfield and Tony, 2010 |
A few years previously, Tony and I had met Barbara Greenfield, Albert Greenfield's daughter-in-law. That was also at a Sons of Utah Pioneers activity. She owned the property where my great-great-great-grandfather had spoken as a missionary. That opened the door for
the man who then owned the property to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and he later became a presiding bishop. Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith both visited that property at different times, so it is part of the history of the Church in Philadelphia. Barbara was so gracious to let us visit and see this special place. She and Tony hit it off as Tony had known her husband earlier.
Tony's presentation was wonderful! He comes to life as he tells stories and everyone was fascinated. He showed a portion of a film at the beginning which you can learn more about at
http://www.mrphiladelphiathefilm.com.
Below is Tony's written presentation as well as a few clips of him speaking. What a wonderful night!
Mr. Philadelphia
A Brief Story of Albert
M. Greenfield
Anthony M. Rombola
March 21, 2014
My introduction to Albert M.
Greenfield came innocently enough in June of 1976. Gerald R. Ford was
President. Frank Lazarro Rizzo was Mayor
of Philadelphia and the bicentennial was getting in full swing with events
leading up to the big festivities on the fourth of July with Queen
Elizabeth. One evening I was in The Gold
Bug/Inn of the Raven, a bar and restaurant up the road in Springhouse with my
buddy Larry Gessler. It was a nice place
with lots of blond wood, good food and drink, great servers and customers. They also had a little section with a table
and some books and magazines. One of the
mags was a May 1976 issue of Philadelphia Magazine. I
always liked Philly Mag and loved the well written articles if you could follow
them amongst the endless and prolific ads.
One article caught my eye. Once There Was Greenfield. I recognized the name because of the
ubiquitous green background and white Albert
M. Greenfield Sale or Rent signs all over the town then. Sale signs on retail, commercial and
residential properties almost everywhere in the city. The author, Dan Rottenberg, told a compelling
story that I never forgot. I read the
whole long article right there at the table all alone with my drink. Larry would look in on me every now and then
and just shake his head. I love a good
story.
I have remembered a good bit of the Greenfield
saga since then. Whenever business
matters and companies collapsed, frequent Government debacles, development
deals went wrong or proceeded off target I would think, “If only Greenfield
were still around”. When I see the
outlying parishes and schools of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia I still smile to
think of the portly Jewish man and the large Irish Cardinal who made them
happen so long ago.
It all came back to me suddenly in
2010 when my Beloved wanted to go to somewhere in Chester County to some
obscure little building to see a plaque unveiling. I did not ask. We brought the GPS. The building in Glenmore, PA was, in 1830, The
West Nantmeal Seminary. It was visited
by Joseph Smith himself.
There was a lady with a large brimmed
white hat and when the ceremony was finished we all went back to her real
colonial home for refreshments. Her name
was Barbara Greenfield. I asked any
relation to Albert? And she said
yes! Her late husband was Albert M.
Greenfield, Jr. and the great Albert M. Greenfield her father-in-law. I told her all the stories I remembered about
her father-in-law and she told me a few others.
I saw the autographed pictures of both Herbert Hoover and Franklin D.
Roosevelt. It was a fascinating
day. I also met Brother Kruman and it is
because of that day and those two meetings that I am here tonight. Also I found out that both Joseph Smith and
Hiram Smith slept in her home.
On August 4, 1887 Avrum Moishe
Grunfeld was born in southern Ukraine.
The Grunfelds and, for that matter, all Russian Jews were forbidden to
live in cities and it was only in the city that one could find a good job. In
1892 Avrum’s father, Jacob, left for New
York City where he went to work in a factory.
The path to the USA from Eastern Europe went through Ireland (where the
Titanic would be built some time later). Ireland was broken into four
“provinces” called Greenfields. Four
years later the family followed. They
lived in New York City for six months until one Friday in the fall of 1896 Jacob
Grunfeld got a letter from one of his old friends from the factory telling him
about a great job in Philadelphia. Jacob
would not travel on Saturday, but he took the train to Philadelphia on Sunday
to check out the job. Two weeks later he
wrote to his wife, Esther, telling her to sell whatever she could and ship the
rest to Philadelphia, their new home.
Avrum – now Albert Monroe Greenfield – was nine years old.
Philadelphia
was a very structured society, very hierarchal, governed by proper
Philadelphians whose heritage dated back to Colonial Philadelphia. The foundation of Philadelphia’s prosperity
was the industrial economy established in the 19th century. By the 20th century Philadelphia
was known as The Workshop of The World. Philadelphia was less of an immigration city
than other cities in the country. So
much so that Lincoln Steffens, the noted muckraker, said Philadelphia was, “the
most American city in America.” He also
called Philadelphia “corrupt and contented”.
In that regard, not much has changed.
You will see
throughout this story that all of Greenfield’s life was spent as an outsider. This
proved to be an asset more than a hindrance. His first home was in South
Philadelphia. South Philly was where the
immigrants without money went. It is not an accident that the city’s trash
went to South Philly. The stadiums and a
lot of heavy industry went there also.
Being from South Philly was not a good thing to the power elite. In addition, the Grunfelds/Greenfields were
Russian Jews. There has always been a social
pecking order in the Jewish community and the European Jews looked down on the
Russian and Eastern European Jews. The
determination of social status in the Jewish community was philanthropy. Successful Russian Jews, symbolized by Mr.
Greenfield, rose to influential positions in the city’s business
community. Eventually Mr. Greenfield
moved to Germantown, Wynnefield in West Philadelphia whose then majestic homes
were inhabited by wealthy and influential Jews.
From there he, along with other wealthy and influential Jews migrated to
Overbrook. Finally Albert M. Greenfield
moved to Sugarloaf his estate in Chestnut Hill, bastion of the WASPs.
The Grunfeld family settled in South
Philadelphia and Jacob, Albert’s father, soon opened a grocery and furniture
store in his home near 6th & Spruce. Later Albert would attend Central High School
when it was still very prestigious. There were two top public schools in the
city. Boys attended Central High and girls
attended Girls High. Both would only
accept the very top students in the city and attendance there opened doors to
colleges and business and ultimately to very good jobs. They both declined to irrelevance in the
1970’s. Albert decided to quit school
when he was 15 and took a job as a clerk and errand boy in the law office of
John J. McDevitt, Jr. who later became a judge and J. Quincy Hunsiker, a
leading real estate lawyer. It was here
that Albert first saw the possibilities of real estate and made his first
contacts in the field. Two of McDevitt’s
clients - Finberg, a Russian Jew, and D.E. Simon, a German Jew – were the
biggest Jewish realtors in Philadelphia and both took a liking to the bright
young lad and the industrious way he wrote out deeds and mortgages in long
hand.
It was through
them that Albert met Louis H. Cahan, and it was in Cahan’s building at 218 S. 4th
Street that Albert M. Greenfield first opened his real estate business probably
in May of 1904. He was 16 years
old. Within 2 years he would own, among
other things, the house where his parents lived (like a good Jewish boy);
within 7 years he would be making $60,000.00 annually; within 12 years he would
be worth about $15 million; within 25 years his company would be the largest
real estate concern in the United States; within 50 years there would be
virtually no endeavor in Philadelphia that he did not somehow influence.
His initial
capital was $500 borrowed from his mother (like a smart Jewish boy) and $500
borrowed from his older brother William.
But contacts were more valuable than capital. These he got from his
landlord, Cahan the printer. Although he
took no money from Cahan, Albert gave Cahan a partnership in his real estate
company figuring – correctly – that Cahan would thus be motivated to steer his
printing customers to Albert when they had real estate business to
transact. Finberg and Simon gave some of
their business to Albert to help him get started. But he didn’t need much help as word spread
quickly that young Greenfield was somehow able to move property that other
realtors could not. His success was due
partly to his persuasive personality and his instinctive sense of timing in
dealing with people and partly because he knew – or gave the impression of
knowing – so much that was important.
But his main asset was simply the fact that Albert, unlike others, did
his homework.
Many realtors knew nothing about the
properties they were given to buy or sell.
Albert would immediately launch a thorough investigation of the
neighborhood in which the property was located.
He reasoned that people buy real estate based on their expectations of
what the property will be worth five years later and the best way to determine
that is to look at the condition of the stores and businesses in the
neighborhood. Property values would rise
if they are prospering. He would scour
the neighborhood interviewing merchants and come up with so many examples of
business prosperity that no potential buyer could argue with him. If a business was failing, he studied that
too, to see why. He did not discuss the
failures but if a potential customer asked he had a ready answer. “What about Jacobson’s Shoe Store? Nobody ever goes in there.” To which Mr.
Greenfield would reply, “That’s true.
But have you seen the shoes he stocks there? It isn’t the neighborhoods fault that he is
doing badly.” He had an answer, a true
answer, for everything and thus it was hard to turn him down.
Many opportunities came around and
Mr. Greenfield capitalized on them because he was a visionary and an
outsider. For example in 1907 the Market
Street Elevated opened and Greenfield thought that where rapid transit goes,
new development follows and he began buying up lots in West Philadelphia. When the biggest realtors in town were ready
to move into West Philadelphia it was logical for them to come to Greenfield
and he assembled a huge $2.5 million dollar parcel for them along 52nd
Street. His 2½ % commission was
$62,500.00 He was 19 years old. He did
the same thing the next year for another realtor and over the next four years
branched out into Logan and the Northeast selling millions of dollars of
property there.
Over the years this would be
duplicated time and again. As I said
Greenfield was a visionary. He saw the
potential and what was going to happen in the future. They say a chess player is always thinking
three moves ahead. Greenfield thought
ten years ahead. As an immigrant
Russian Jew he would always be an outsider.
Even though he had absolutely no accent and spoke like a cultured,
educated Philadelphian he was an outsider.
The advantages of that were he was not locked into a patrician,
historical way of thinking but had the brains, experience and vision to see
things from outside the system. Once
Greenfield said that he would always be an outsider but perhaps his
grandchildren would finally be considered Philadelphians. He married the daughter of a wealthy German
Jew and when a son was born he wanted to name him Albert but naming a son after
your self was considered awful by the German Jews so he named him Gordon. They had three daughters and with the next
son he just said the heck with them and named him Albert M. Greenfield,
Jr. Within 2 years he was divorced.
For Greenfield, as with so many other
American businessmen, the hard earned success of the pre-World War I era
snowballed in the Roaring Twenties with rampant speculation. He was now doing about $125 million dollars
in real estate a year. His activity and
contribution to the Republican Party earned him a seat on the Philadelphia
Common Council, the predecessor of City Council and this gave him access to
city business. In 1917 he started
handling real estate transactions for the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Co. In 1916 he sold a string of movie theaters he
owned for $2 million. In 1920 he
negotiated his first downtown sale that of the Metropolitan Opera House at
Broad & Poplar for $655,000. In 1921 he bought the Colonade Hotel at 15th
& Chestnut and replaced it with the 20 story Greenfield Building. He was beginning to change the face of
Philadelphia.
In the early 20’s with his
father-in-law Sol Kraus, Greenfield had bought control of 27 building and loan
associations with total assets of $35 million, thus enhancing his value as a
realtor by giving himself control over the financing of his real estate.
The rise of all those building and
loan associations and mortgage companies was fed by Philadelphian’s insatiable
appetites for homes of their own. At the
time Philadelphia had more single family homes than New York and Boston
combined and more than 50% were owner occupied.
In 1925 there were 3,400 building and loan companies in Philadelphia out
of 4,500 in the entire state. Inevitably
some of these were mismanaged. And when 17 b&l’s were seized by the state
for being insolvent in 1925, Greenfield was appointed receiver and asked to
reorganize them. There were inherent
conflicts just as there were conflicts in a realtor acting as a banker in the
first place. Everyone knew that
Greenfield could get the job done whereas someone with no conflicting
involvements might not. To be sure, he
did successfully reorganize the b&l’s under his control.
He then moved into commercial banking
buying a small West Philadelphia bank, moving it downtown and naming it Bankers
Trust Company. At that time there were
128 banks in Philadelphia and Greenfield bought out 9 of them over the next 5
years.
His biggest jewel was Bankers
Securities Corporation which he formed in 1928 by raising $12 million from
1,628 investors. It ultimately became
the parent of virtually all Greenfield’s concerns. Five months after it’s creation Bankers
Securities took $10.5 million and bought control of Lit Brothers Department
Stores. Six weeks later Bankers Securities sold Lit’s to City Stores Company
for $12.8 million, a quick $2.3 million dollar profit and drove the price of
the stock up to $156 a share, up from the initial price of $60 seven months
earlier. It also enabled Bankers
Securities to raise an additional $19 million in a second public offering.
Needless to say the Philadelphia
Protestant establishment did not look upon Greenfield kindly, but with
alarm. The trouble with Greenfield was
not that he was evil, he was incalculable.
Greenfield was far more brilliant and imaginative than they would ever
be. He was also more brazen. They saw him as a threat. Because he took so much more risk than most,
when the stock market crash came he seemed more vulnerable than most.
In July of
1930 the Bank of Philadelphia & Trust Co showed signs of going under.
Greenfield moved in and bought the ailing bank and the nine branches reopened
as Bankers Trust Company. Greenfield
would later claim the city’s leading bankers had urged him to buy the Bank of
Philadelphia and they claimed it was his idea.
Nevertheless he did not purchase the bank until he was assured by the
city’s two leading bankers that they would extend loans to Bankers trust “upon
good and sufficient collateral”. The
collateral was largely real estate mortgages held by Greenfield’s banks.
Unfortunately,
in buying up weak banks and thus averting the public disaster of a bank failure
Greenfield deluded not only the public but himself. Real estate mortgages which had been such
good collateral in the 20’s were worthless in the Depression as home owners
lost their jobs and home payments ceased.
In the ten years after 1926, 144,000 of the 500,000 homes in
Philadelphia were auctioned off by the sheriff and 99% of those sales were
against mortgages not taxes. During this
period 1,600 of the city’s 3,400 building & loan associations were wiped
out.
Nevertheless,
on August 1, 1930 Bankers Trust paid a nice bonus to its 322 employees.
The rude
awakening was just around the corner.
For once, Greenfield could not transfer the public’s confidence in him
to a property he had acquired. Instead,
the public’s doubt about the stability of the Bank of Philadelphia was now
transferred to its new owner, Greenfield’s Bankers Trust.
The run on the
bank began in September and true to their word the Protestants backed
Greenfield to the tune of $7 million. By
mid-December it became clear that it was not enough. They demanded that mortgage assets be
replaced with cash and on December 19th Greenfield agreed and went
to Washington to talk to his old friend, President Hoover. Greenfield was treasurer of his campaigns and
had seconded his nomination at the convention in 1928.
While he was
away there was a night time meeting on the Main Line in Merion. The host of the evening was William Purves
Gest, chairman of the Fidelity-Philadelphia Trust Company. The rest were the most powerful bankers in
Philadelphia. Edward Hopkinson, Jr., partner in Drexel & Company, whose great-great-great
grandfather had been friends with Benjamin Franklin and his great- great
grandfather had signed the Declaration of Independence and his great
grandfather had written “Hail, Columbia”.
E.T. Stotesbury, senior of the Drexel Partners had been a drummer boy in
the Civil War. Joseph Wayne, Jr., president
of Philadelphia National Bank, largest in the city. C. Stevenson Newhall president of the
Pennsylvania Company, Stacy B, Lloyd, President of PSFS, the oldest mutual
savings bank in the USA.
The problem
these men faced was Bankers Trust Company, the tenth largest bank in
Philadelphia. The bankers knew that if
Bankers Trust were to close it would cause a run on all their banks. Finally someone said it was a matter of trust, a matter of character. There was nothing anyone could put a finger
on. Greenfield made them
uncomfortable. He was an immigrant and a
Jew, yes, but he did not operate according to Philadelphia tradition, did not
look back longingly at the golden age of Benjamin Franklin or the steel age of
William McKinley. He sought to change Philadelphia to turn it into a
New York or a Chicago. He had come too
far, too fast from too little. The laws
of economics caught up with him. It would be painful for the men in that room
but it was painful for their ancestors with William Penn aboard the Welcome,
and with Washington at Valley Forge.
They could stand to suffer also for the cause of sound business principles.
So they let
Bankers Trust fail. At age 43 Albert M. Greenfield would be ruined – or so they
thought.
Oh, that home
Albert M. Greenfield lived in in West Philadelphia? It had been William Purves Gest’s childhood
home.
Over the next
five years, after the two Philadelphia Banks got their $7 million within 30
days of the closing, depositors were paid off at 59 cents on the dollar which
suggests it never should have been closed in the first place. A small, secret group of powerful men had the
power of life and death over banks. 50
smaller banks failed in Philadelphia until Roosevelt’s bank moratorium in
1933. The same thing happened in
NYC. Only two large banks failed. Both owned by Jews.
Since Bankers
Securities owned City Stores, Greenfield became a retailing magnate also. City Stores owned department stores in 19
states eventually. Lit Brothers,
Snellenbergs, Maison Blanche in New Orleans, Bonwit Teller, Franklin Simon, W.
& J. Sloane and B. Lowenstein’s in Memphis.
The Depression offered new opportunities. As property owners defaulted on mortgages and
bonds Greenfield picked them up, often
for 5 cents on the dollar. When he
acquired enough of the bonds in a particular building he’d then demand that the
building’s management be turned over to his real estate company. In this way he acquired the Ben Franklin
Hotel, The Bellvue-Stratford Hotel, Atlantic City’s Steel Pier and various Center
City office and loft buildings.
He emerged
from the Depression a sadder but wiser man aware of his own limitations, perhaps
for the first time.
He switched political
parties for Franklin Roosevelt not for political expediency but because he
truly believed in reform. Greenfield saw
that society was in trouble. As he had
done with Hoover he served as a Treasurer for Franklin Roosevelt’s campaigns
and was a frequent visitor to the White House.
He was not afraid to ask for a favor even though he mostly provided
favors and money. His oldest son joined
the Marines and was on a helicopter landing on a ship on its way to Korea when
the Admiral said over the loudspeaker, “Sgt. Greenfield report to me”. He did and the Admiral said, “No war for you. You’re heading back. Who do you know?” His father had called his friend Harry S
Truman. Albert M. Greenfield would not
have his son in a shooting war.
At Sugarloaf
in Chestnut Hill, now owned by Chestnut Hill College, are pictures showing
Greenfield and his third wife, Bunny, with guests including Senator John F.
Kennedy, LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, Richard M. Nixon, Martin Luther King, Jr. and
other luminaries. He truly believed in
advancing society.
In the 40’s
and 50’s Philadelphia was ripe for massive redevelopment. All cities were scarred by the
railroads. Tracks and stations were
above ground wasting huge swaths of land and they were filthy. The Depression and 2nd World War
ceased any rebuilding and maintenance of infrastructure and just plain
improvements. The optimism at the end of
the war and the need for millions of jobs and housing for the returning troops
forced development. Greenfields vision,
power, connections and brains changed Philadelphia yet again.
Among his
contacts was the legendary John B. Kelly, father of Princess Grace of Monaco, Olympic
champion, head of the Democratic Party in Philadelphia and very successful
builder. (By the way, long after his
death Kelly was the direct cause of the Watergate Affair which toppled Richard
M. Nixon. But you all knew that anyway.)
Greenfield liked and respected Kelly because, like Greenfield, he was an
outsider, being Irish Catholic, but became wildly successful anyway. Greenfield admired the Catholics because they
too were shut out of society.
In 1918 Dennis
Dougherty became Archbishop of Philadelphia and was elevated to Cardinal. Dennis Cardinal Dougherty was a big man and
powerful in the church, the second most influential after Cardinal Spellman of
New York. By his brains, wit and sheer
force of his personality he got things done.
Greenfield was impressed with Dougherty and they became fast
friends. Greenfield was named exclusive
real estate agent for the Archdiocese and on many Sundays they would go out in Greenfield’s
car or Dougherty’s chauffeur-driven limo, since Archbishops in Philadelphia are
forbidden to drive, to find properties for all the schools that needed to be
built and future churches, hospitals and cemeteries. Greenfield also became Dougherty’s personal
financial advisor. They were both begrudgingly admired by the business
community, which was a triumph considering they were Jew and Catholic. The Cardinal was a frequent dinner guest at
Greenfield’s home, where his Catholic servants would invariably genuflect and
kiss the Cardinal’s ring, to the wonder of Greenfield’s five children. Greenfield cemented this relationship by
contributing heavily to Catholic charities and to Catholic schools like
Villanova, St. Joe’s and St. Mary’s Home for Children in Ambler; the organ at
St. Charles Seminary was a gift from Greenfield. Dougherty arranged for the Pope
to confer upon Greenfield the title of Commander of the Order of Pius IX in
1929; he was the first American Jew to receive the honor. Greenfield’s children were amused at the title
and by the costume he wore to receive it and started saying, “Hello Pope
Albert” as a greeting.
There is no
doubt that Greenfield was sincere in his fondness for Catholicism. He often spoke of his high regard for
Catholics and their school system. “If I
weren’t a Jew, I would be a Catholic” he once remarked. Catholic visitors to
his office were always impressed by a large photo of St. Peter’s Cathedral that
hung just outside Greenfield’s door. And
if Jewish visitors expressed dismay at finding the picture there, Greenfield
would take them by the arm with a sly wink and point out that in one obscure
corner of the photo, imperceptible at first glance, could be seen the figure of
a man relieving himself against a wall.
Greenfield was
also sensitive to virtually all forms of prejudice. He was instrumental in the start of Albert
Einstein Hospitals because Jewish doctors could not work in many hospitals
because of “quotas”, Abington Memorial Hospital
did not grant privileges until the 1950’s.
When he became head of Einstein the first thing he did was appoint a
Catholic as Chair. When he suggested a
certain person to be on the Board he received backlash because the person was a
woman. He chastised the Board and not
that day but soon after a woman was appointed to the board.
Greenfield was
instrumental in President Truman’s appointment of William Hastie as a federal
judge, the first black federal judge. He
came to Philadelphia and could not find a place to live as no one would sell
him a home. Greenfield persuaded his
brother to sell Judge Hastie his house.
Once when Greenfield and his third wife, Bunny, were dining out there
was a black woman sitting near them alone and being ignored by the wait
staff. She was in tears and Greenfield
asked what was wrong and she told them they will not wait on her and how she
had been there before the Greenfields and they were eating and she did not even
have water. Greenfield called the
waitress over and politely told her to take the lady’s order. She had her meal. When he was Chairman of The Philadelphia
Rapid Transit Co. they started hiring their first blacks. His hotels were the first to rent rooms to
blacks. The Bellvue-Stratford offered
their convention facilities to the Urban League.
The newspaper
business in Philadelphia was cut throat to say the least. There were two morning papers and at least
three evening papers. In the morning
there was the Democrat Philadelphia Record, owned by J. David Stern a friend of
Greenfield and the Republican Philadelphia Inquirer. In 1936 Moses Annenberg purchased the
Inquirer. Moe was tough as nails and had
a fluid morality which was what you needed to be a successful newspaper owner. He also owned The Racing Forum which gave him
entrée into gambling. Big time. Not only did he usually win he absolutely
hated losing. He was a veteran of the
Chicago Newspaper wars where five or six people were killed. He was also a dyed in the wool Republican. When he came to Philly he took steps to
monopolize distribution and intimidate news dealers, as he had done in Chicago.
Greenfield and
Annenberg had a pleasant lunch one day and Moe said, “I like you Al but you are
financing Dave Stern. I’ve got to
destroy you to destroy Dave Stern.”
Within a week there was an 8 column headline saying that Greenfield
withdrew $300,000.00 from Bankers Trust just before the collapse of the bank. The game is hardball. The article failed to mention it was the
routine renewal of an old note.
Greenfield retaliated by buying
newspaper ads and radio time (he also owned WFIL, through Lit Brothers) to
reply. “Moses Hitler Annenberg was like
a dog who had returned to its vomit.”
It went back and forth but ultimately
each sued the other for libel but the suits were withdrawn in 1939 with the signing
of mutual public apologies. In 1940
Annenberg pleaded guilty to income tax evasion and went to the Federal
Penitentiary. Not only did Greenfield
quietly help to put him in jail. He
later was influential in getting him out.
Greenfield was
Richardson Dilworth’s choice to head the City Planning Commission when Dilworth
became Mayor in 1956, a role in which Greenfield laid the groundwork for Edmund
Bacon’s vision of a restored Society Hill.
The Chairmanship required Greenfield to resign from his real estate
company, since it would be a clear conflict for a realtor to have an inside
track on the city’s prospective land purchases.
Countless other conflicts still remained through Greenfield’s other
business dealings, but it was
counter-productive to regulate Albert M. Greenfield. Nobody knew the city as well and no one could
get things done as he could. He
developed Society Hill and Washington Square East and laid the plans for
rebuilding Penn Center and University City.
The four goals Dilworth gave to the Commission. Most major cities were going through
renewal. New York, etc. were bulldozing
huge swaths and acres upon acres of land but Philadelphia alone, under
Greenfield, took a more surgical approach.
All the buildings that were being razed around Independence Square had
businesses in them. Care was taken to relocate
the businesses and preserve the jobs.
Redevelopment was planned to start at the city center and branch out
instead of little pockets of development with no grand plan.
Today Philadelphia
has the third largest residential downtown.
88,000 people live there and 40% of those walk to work. It is thriving. The infrastructure, vision,
future preservation and planning were all there and still are there but you
need a Greenfield. It is difficult
because, politics, development and real estate are all contact sports in
Philadelphia. As Lincoln Steffens said
over a hundred years ago, corrupt and contented.
Greenfield
used to say that progress is a centrifugal force. Whatever Greenfield did was a
virtuoso performance, for example there was a federal rule that halted
development. Greenfield picked up the
phone called the White House and poof!
Obstacle removed.
Albert M.
Greenfield was a man who got things done.
He was unashamedly a booster of Philadelphia when boosterism was and
still is frowned upon.
He was called the last angry man.
He would get mad and pick up a phone, write a letter and/or do something
about what made him angry!
In the end,
his body racked by cancer he died at Sugarloaf in January of 1967. Bankers Securities, Bankers Trust, City
Stores, etc. are no more. Albert M.
Greenfield Real Estate is still there but not at all as powerful as before
because the empire was in Albert M. Greenfield’s head and contacts and charisma. The Stotesbury’s, Czar Alexander, Hitler and
Moe Annenberg had, in one way or another each tried to destroy Greenfield. He outlasted them all. He had not merely endured, but he had
triumphed.
In his own
words Albert M. Greenfield said, “I see unlimited opportunity and tremendous
promise.” We need a Greenfield today.
