TAILOR TO LANDLORD.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20450, 3 July 1928, Page 11

TAILOR TO LANDLORD.

A ROMANCE OF INDUSTRY. An immigrant tailor who stitched his way out of Grand street into a 15-roomed apartment at No. 1165 Park avenue, was the guest of honour at a testimonial dinner in the Hotel Commodore, attended by city officials,Judges, and others prominent in the official business (says the New York World). The little shop at No. 274 Grand street, which the tailor opened with his savings of 50 dollars 22 years ago, still carries his name over the door, but it is not his any moire. He turned it over to his two helpers in 1909, when he started out to buy up sites in what is now called the garment district. To-day Abraham Bricken, immigrant boy, from : Kiev, Russia, who came to the United States at the age of 22 with a needle ' and a ■ spool of thread in his pocket, can look down from a handsomely appointed office in one of his skyscrapers upon 50,000,000 dollars’ worth of steel and concrete that have been raised by his initiative. His latest achievement, the Transportation Building, at Barclay street and Broadway, is the third tallest office building in the world. Mr Bricken’s first job as helper to a tailor in Grand street paid him six dollars a week. From this meagre sum in three months he managed to save 50 collars, with which he opened his own shop. Fourteen '’ears later he amassed 20,000, dollars. Then he left tailoring for real estate. It was Mr Bricken who built tne first skyscraper in the Borough Hall section of Brooklyn. He paid 1,300,000 dollars for a site at Court and Bemsen streets. Its value has doubled since the purchase. Then, anticipating the trend of the garment industry _in Broadway in Manhattan, he began building in the East Thirties. His company, the Bricken Construction Companv, is today the largest individual owner of buildings in the garment centre.