The Great Salesman

New York City lost a major landmark —a gregarious, white-maned, 70-year-old supersalesman, one of the last of the P. T. Barnum era—Joseph Paul Day. Auctioneer Day had sold more real estate in & around New York City than any other single human being in the memory of man. As far back as 1935 his transactions were totted up to $1.5 billion. And years before he died last week in Manhattan's Flower Hospital, he had become a millionaire—and a legend.

The Legend. Joe Day was Manhattan-born of English-Irish parents. His father, who had a...