Background
Zeckendorf was born on June 30, 1905 in Paris, Illinois, the son of Arthur Zeckendorf, a merchant, and Byrd Rosenfield. In 1908 the family moved to Cedarhurst, Long Island, where Arthur went into the shoe business.
Zeckendorf was born on June 30, 1905 in Paris, Illinois, the son of Arthur Zeckendorf, a merchant, and Byrd Rosenfield. In 1908 the family moved to Cedarhurst, Long Island, where Arthur went into the shoe business.
In 1917 Zeckendorf's family moved into Manhattan, and William entered the New York City public school system. When he was sixteen years old, he passed the regents exam and was allowed to graduate early from high school. He attended New York University from 1922 to 1925 before dropping out during his junior year.
Zeckendorf didn't graduate from the university, instead, he went to work for his uncle, Samuel Borchard, a real estate agent. This job marked the beginning of Zeckendorf's long career in real estate. In his first year in the business, he established himself as a hardworking property manager. He attracted the attention of Leonard S. Gans, who ran a real estate brokerage firm, and in 1926 Gans hired him to run the firm's new property management division. By 1928, Zeckendorf had worked his way up to become a full-fledged broker and had closed his first deal. In 1930, after he successfully brokered the sale of a $3 million site on the West Side, he was made a partner of Leonard S. Gans. Eight years later, he left the firm to become vice-president of Webb and Knapp, a real estate concern that owned and managed a portfolio of properties. Under Zeckendorf's influence, Webb and Knapp began to expand dramatically. For example, in 1942 he was able to persuade Vincent Astor to retain Webb and Knapp to manage his huge portfolio of properties. Then, in 1945, Zeckendorf began his best-known real estate deal. Starting with the purchase of a large plot from the Swift meatpacking company, he assembled control of a huge stretch of land along the East River north of Forty-second Street. Almost immediately thereafter, he learned that the city was desperately seeking a site suitable for the headquarters of the United Nations (UN). He sold the riverfront tract, realizing a handsome profit for Webb and Knapp. In 1947, Zeckendorf was named president of Webb and Knapp. Zeckendorf became widely known as a shrewd and perceptive real estate trader, and also as an ambitious and creative developer. While the UN deal was perhaps his most famous deal, it was by no means his only major one. Under his leadership, Webb and Knapp took on numerous high-profile clients, including Gimbels, Montgomery Ward, Time, Inc. , the Guaranty Trust Company, and Macy's. The firm was involved in several large-scale developments, including many Title 1 urban redevelopment projects. It took part in the development of Century City in Los Angeles, Mile High City in Denver, L'Enfant Plaza in Washington, D. C. , Kips Bay Plaza in New York City, and Place Ville-Marie in Montreal. Many of New York City's most famous office buildings and hotels were owned or managed by Webb and Knapp at one time or another, including the Chrysler Building. Some of Zeckendorf's most ambitious projects for New York City never came to fruition. One of these was the original plan for the UN site, where he had planned to build office space, apartment buildings, an opera house, a hotel, a convention hall, a marina, and a helicopter pad. He had also proposed a huge mixed-use development on the West Side with a rooftop airport, and at one time he announced plans to build an office tower atop Grand Central Terminal. In 1949, Zeckendorf hired I. M. Pei, who was then an assistant professor of architecture at Harvard, as Webb and Knapp's in-house architect. Then, in 1952, he created a new unit of the company that would act as general contractor for all of the company's projects. Now, with divisions that handled real estate brokerage, architectural design, construction contracting, and building management, Webb and Knapp had become a full-service, integrated real estate services firm. The firm's net worth reportedly grew to $75 million by 1957 from a prewar level of under $1 million. Zeckendorf bought a house in Greenwich, Connecticut, built up his wine cellar to 20, 000 bottles, and provided financial backing for dozens of Broadway shows. He donated more than $1 million to Long Island University, where he served as chairman of the Board of Trustees for many years. This era of prosperity would prove to be Webb and Knapp's zenith, and Zeckendorf's as well. In 1962, when Webb and Knapp was dangerously overextended, construction delays and cost overruns caused a serious deterioration of the firm's financial position. Despite a series of contractions and spin-offs, the company was unable to satisfy its creditors and was forced into bankruptcy in 1965, with assets of only $21 million and debts of $80 million. The bankruptcy trustee filed suit against Zeckendorf to recover some of the assets he had withdrawn from the company as it floundered. Earlier, Zeckendorf had cosigned some of the Webb and Knapp notes, so he was forced to file for personal bankruptcy protection in 1968. This marked the end of Zeckendorf's career as a high-flying real estate developer and turnaround specialist. After emerging from bankruptcy, Zeckendorf continued to be active in the real estate world, serving as a consultant and adviser to General Property Corporation, a new real estate firm started by his son, William Zeckendorf, Jr. Zeckendorf died of a stroke in New York City.
On September 20, 1928, Zeckendorf married Irma Levy. They had two children before getting divorced in 1934. On December 10, 1940, he married for a second time, to Marion Griffin. On March 5, 1968, his wife, Marion, died in a plane crash. He married Alice Bache on December 21, 1972, but this union was short-lived, and by 1975 he had gotten a divorce and married a fourth time, to Louise Malcolm; they had no children.