Risk, Ruin & Riches: Inside the World of Big Time Real Estate

Business writer Powell is highly readable and at times exciting as he describes the development of high-rise office towers, spectacular retailing malls, atrium hotels and waterfront marketplaces the often enormously complex real-estate projects involving billions of dollars that in a generation have changed the financial systems, big-city politics and physical profile of America. The conception and birth of New York's IBM building, the Atlanta Hyatt-Regency, Boston's Hancock Tower, Pennzoil Place in Houston and dozens more are detailed vividly. Powell offers stories of personal triumph and heartbreak: the Reichmann brothers, Toronto financiers who reputedly make 730,000 per day; the feuding Bronfmans; Texas developer Gerald Hines, who ""changed the way architects work''; architect Philip Johnson, who changed the way business structures look; hotel owners Harry and Leona Helmsley, who make a game of it all; Donald Trump, now on a roll; and William Zeckendorf, who as top dog in New York gambled and lost. (September 9)