Nationality United States Occupation Real estate developer Name Abraham Lefcourt | Ethnicity Jewish Spouse(s) Irma Viola Castleberg | |
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Full Name Abraham Elias Lefkowitz Born 1877 Birmingham, England Children Mildred Audrey Lefcourt
Alan Elias Lefcourt (deceased) Died 1932, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States | ||
Abraham E. Lefcourt (1877–1932), better known as A.E. Lefcourt, was a prominent real estate developer in New York City in the 1920s. All but forgotten today, in his lifetime Lefcourt was known as one of the city's most prolific developers of Art Deco buildings. Describing Lefcourt in a 1930 newspaper article, The New York Times said, "No other individual or building organization has constructed in its own behalf as many buildings as are in the Lefcourt Group."
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Early life
Lefcourts was born Abraham Elias Lefkowitz March 27, 1876 to Russian-Jewish immigrants in Birmingham, England. His family immigrated to New York's Lower East Side in 1882 where Lefcourt grew-up in a predominantly Jewish and poor community.
Career
Lefcourt began his career as a newsboy and bootblack. He became a prominent figure in the New York garment industry when he assumed control of his employer's wholesale business. His forays into real-estate began in 1910 with a 12-story loft on West 25th Street. He built many more structures in the area, heralding the beginnings of the new Garment Center.
An entrepreneur, Lefcourt had numerous other business interests, including founding Lefcourt Normandie National Bank, which eventually became a part of JP Morgan Chase.
Notwithstanding his success and a net worth reported to have been as much as $100 million in 1928, Lefcourt's empire began to unravel during the Depression, with his company going into foreclosure and his buildings being auctioned off. In 1932, with creditors pursuing him and others accusing him of fraud, Lefcourt suffered a heart attack in his Savoy-Plaza Hotel apartment and died at the age of 55.
Personal life
He married Irma Viola Castleberg (1885–1949). The couple began using the surname Lefcourt around 1900 but did not officially adopt the name until 1909. The Lefcourts had two children: Mildred Audrey, born in 1908, and Alan Elias, born in 1913. Lefcourt constructed the Brill Building in part as a memorial to his son Alan Elias who died of anemia in February 1930. Lefcourt himself died in November 1932 at the Savoy Hotel, leaving an estate of only $2,500. Mrs. Lefcourt died in 1949 at Nantucket, MA; she was at the time of her death listed as a resident of the Savoy-Plaza Hotel.
Buildings
Among Lefcourt's more notable real estate development projects: