With a rare talent for expanding now and financing later, Manhattan's aggressive William Zeckendorf, 56, long ago made himself master of one of the nation's most grandiose real estate empires. The catch was that Zeckendorf's Webb & Knapp, Inc. was always barely one gasp ahead of its creditors: by last year the company was staggering under some $100 million in short-term debt, found itself so short of ready cash that Zeckendorf was obliged to swallow his pride and abandon cherished plans to build a $60 million Manhattan luxury hotel named after himself (TIME, Aug. 1, 1960). Last week,...
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