“Any person that achieves things and accomplishes things is a little crazy,” Abe once told a reporter in thickly accented English. “Perfectly sane people you only find in an insane asylum.”

Study Abe Hirschfeld’s checkered career and dive bomb self destruction at any length and you’ll realize this is exactly how Donald Trump should’ve ended up. That is, if Trump spoke broken English, drank vodka for breakfast, and snorted LSD. Y’know like every other Boomer, including , gentle reader , yours truly.

        As one of Hirschfeld’s occasional pub mates and his tenant for a dozen years or so, I can report he was not just a man you loved or hated, he was a man you loved and hated , often on the same day. Y’know much like our beloved leader in DC–n’est-ce pas?

          When he briefly owned the New York Post staffers described Hirschfeld to Time Magazine as “a nut, a racist, a deplorable landlord, a hostage taker, a sociopath and an anti-Semite.” This last allegation was a bit over the line given that Hirschfeld was a Polish Jew who lost his family in the holocaust.  Previously, Time had listed him under “Crazy and In Charge” as “one of the most influential business geniuses of the century.” But unlike the other two, Abe never tired of repeating the “Crazy” part.

In New York’s ultimate roller coaster ride Hirschfeld was the master of self promotion and inflated net worth. How much he was really worth may never be known. But never mind. He arrived in New York barely able to speak English at the age of 31 with a 5^th grade education and was soon building parking garages and buying real estate; on credit!  In truth he was the embodiment of hard work, never say die spirit and an immigrant’s unflinching belief in America as the Land of Opportunity. And, by the way, his outrageous sense of humor and bullet proof ego taught and inspired a guy who became president  

The world also knew Abe for giving a million dollars to Bill Clinton

for his Paula Jones legal expenses, for buying the New York Post newspaper with no capital outlay, and for running for the New York Senate a couple of years ago while out on bail from Sing Sing.

My apartment building was a big, rambling prewar structure about six blocks from the United Nations. A few blocks west was a duplicate building owned by Abe’s long-time business partner Stephen Stahl. In a twist that sounds straight out of Bleak House, Steve and Abe had signed a tontine : whoever survived the other would own both buildings outright, no questions asked. And this is where the plot thickens. The two had a falling out, Abe needed money as usual. And Abe being Abe, the solution most obvious was to hire a hit man. Whether Abe intended to have Steve done in is conjecture. What Abe knew, however, was that Steve had a very bad heart and upon hearing the news of the plot would probably get overexcited and die. Which happened. Unfortunately for Abe, he had a personality quirk that had haunted his career . He was incapable of keeping his big mouth shut. By the time Steve keeled over, everybody including every bartender in the city and tourists from everywhere knew the story. And because of that   Abe went on trial for criminal conspiracy and with the aid of eye witness testimony—including that of  his loving daughter–drew a stretch of three years in Sing-Sing

          Aside from being spectators in this hugely entertaining soap opera, tenants of his buildings suddenly found themselves with two landlords: Abe and the City of New York. The City’s bills for rent were boring and legal sounding. Abe’s were heartfelt notes—many of them personally written in long hand —pleading for our rent money.  These missives, which ignored syntax and spelling, included transcripts of his trials and instructions on how to form protests groups to rally for his freedom in front of City Hall.

          But just as things were going not so well for Abe , things got worse. While in prison Abe wrote a hundred thousand dollar check to  his cell mate—a highly credited hit man —to rub out the judge who’d sent him up and the daughter who’d testified against him.  The hit man, apparently not an organized business type, managed to leave the check and Abe’s memo in the day room. It was noticed. Hundred thousand dollar checks usually are, even outside prison . The New York tabloids had a field day.  Abe was up on charges again. 

Most men at the age of 83 with this horrendous media coverage, recently released from prison  for reasons of ill health, plus charges pending of plotting murder(s), might think about retirement.   However , as Abe saw it, his high visibility and name recognition made it the perfect time to run against Chuck Schumer for Senator of New York.  The funny thing is , his commercials were a lot funnier and made more sense than most of Chuck’s imbecilic efforts. But that’s an opinion. As is this: thanks Abe for the example of sheer gall, the never quit attitude and for reminding us just how comedic this holiday on earth can be.