Eccentric Millionaire Dead At 85

Eccentric multimillionaire Abe Hirschfeld, an immigrant who quietly lived the American dream until his increasingly bizarre behavior led him into politics, publishing and prison, died Tuesday. He was 85.

Hirschfeld, who made his fortune building parking lots and health clubs after immigrating from Israel, died at Mount Sinai Hospital of cardiac arrest after suffering from cancer, his family said.

The self-made magnate amassed a real estate empire, earning a reputation among his colleagues as a bit off-center. Time magazine listed him among the 20th century's top builders and business titans, beneath the headline "Crazy and in Charge."

He attempted to purchase the New York Post in 1993, setting off a staff revolt that produced a Post front-page headline asking "WHO IS THIS NUT?"

He ran unsuccessfully for New York lieutenant governor, Manhattan borough president, state comptroller and U.S. Senate - the latter against Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2000 and Charles Schumer in 2004.

Hirschfeld also spent 22 months in prison for plotting to kill a business partner and got out just months before his 83rd birthday.

"I'm crazy, maybe," Hirschfeld said in a February 2001 jailhouse interview.

He was born in Turnow, Poland, but his family moved to what is now Israel in 1935. He later moved to the United States with his wife, Zipora, and their two children.

"Who could have foretold that an obscure Jewish boy in a remote town in southern Poland would eventually become a wealthy and influential New York real estate tycoon?" Hirschfeld asked in his self-published 1986 autobiography, "An Accidental Wedding."

For decades, Hirschfeld quietly earned his millions and stayed out of the headlines.

Change came in 1986 with his unsuccessful, self-financed campaign for lieutenant governor. Three years later, he won a term as commissioner in Miami Beach.

In 1993, Hirschfeld ran the financially failing New York Post for 16 tumultuous days while trying to buy it.

The staff so despised him that it produced an entire issue trashing him, including a Page 1 picture of Post founder Alexander Hamilton shedding a tear. That edition of the paper, he later crowed, was "a collector's item."

He later founded his own paper, Open Air, which folded after five months.

In 1998, he made headlines again - this time, nationally - when he offered Paula Jones a million dollars if she would drop her lawsuit against President Clinton. That offer wound up spawning a lawsuit of its own before winding up in the history file as another peculiar chapter in the Hirschfeld saga.

In June 2000, Hirschfeld was convicted of looking for a hit man to murder his longtime business partner, and two months later, he was hit with a $1 million tax evasion fine.

In a statement Tuesday, his son, Elie Hirschfeld, said of his father: "His vision and generous spirit were inspirational to all who knew him well, and I will miss his vibrant presence and his unbridled passion for life."

In addition to his son, Hirschfeld is survived by his wife and a daughter.

By Larry McShane