White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1938-01-14
Light, ofNewNrk
By L. [. STEVENSON

III wasn't SO long ago tAat Dell
jamin Winter. rather short and
pudgy and wearing wrinkled clothes
and scuffed shoes, was worth ST.
100000. His real estate firm had
holdings with an estimated value of
$60,O0O.000. Four hundred million
dollars had passed through his
hands. Known as the man who
transformed Fifth avenue" he
paid w. K. Vanderbilt $4,000, 900 for
his graystone chateau; Vincent AS
tor, $2,700,000 for the famous Astor
mansion at Sixty-fifth street; Arthur
Curtiss James, $4,OO0,000 for an
apartment house at 988 Fifth ave.
nue.. When Winter bought, the
Wreckers came. Mansions on which
millions had been expended were
RACED ruthlessly and new structures
took their places. 1t has been said
of Winter that he knows Fifth
avenue as a man knows his back
yard or a guide knows the trails of
the woods. To deal in millions was
not at all difficult for him-he mere
ly forgot the ciphers.
Winter reached the peak of his
fortune little more than a quarter
of century after he had come
to this country as an immigrant boy
from Poland with a cash capital of
two worn 81 bills. In the old coun-
try, his family had had money and
he had attended art school. When
relatives asked his occupation, he
replied, Painter" So he was
promptly apprenticed to a house
painter. Having learned that trade,
he became contractor and from
contractor graduated into the real
estate business. Atlfirst, his opera
tions were modest. He bought and
sold uptown and gradually worked
into the west side. Then came Fifth
avenue. BY that time, he had es-
tablished his credit. He didn't need
capital, merely credit and mort
cages. In addition, he had to know
where to sell at profit. Thus, the
millions.
How the former immigrant boy
acquired the Astor mansion is an
Illustration of Winter shreWdness.
The property was not for sale. Astor
didn't need the money. That didn't
discourage Winter. He put up the
argument that mansions belonged
to the gay ZOOS. That difficulties in
obtaining and maintaining a staff
of servants were increasing con.
stantly. That parties were no long
er held in homes but in hotels. Astor
paid no attention. Then Winter
showed him that as he occupied the
mansion only about 80 days a year,
it cost him $4,000 night to sleep
there. Aston sold.
Benjamin Winter, fifty-six years
old, his hair thinning, his shoes and
suits more shabby than 10 years
ago, now lives in a rented Riverside
drive apartment. His daughter, a
Hunter college student, works in a
department store Saturdays to earn
So week. Recently, Winter went
into bankruptcy court. His debts
were $8,500,000. His assets, those
ciphers he had disregarded in the
past. Freed from the insistence of
creditors, he believes he can come
back. More millions, he holds, are
to be made in the further de-
velopment of the midtown section
of New York.
Speaking of millions, there were
those three youths who tried to gain
admission to the Paramount theater
without paying the price. They
climbed lamppost, got onto the
marquee and opened window. One
crawled through and presumably
saw the show. The second one
upset and broke $3.50 vase. The
noise brought ushers on the run. He
escaped by taking an l8-foot leap to