The tallest building in the world was sold last week for the highest price ever paid for a single structure. For $65 million, Chicago Financier Henry Crown sold the 102-story Empire State Building, a flop when it was built in the Depression but a moneymaker now, to a syndicate headed by a personable Manhattan lawyer and real estate wheeler-dealer, Lawrence Wien, 56.
The transaction was as complex as keen-eyed tax lawyers could make it. As soon as his Empire State Building Associates takes title to the property next December 27, Wien (rhymes with keen) will sell...