Life at the Dakota (30 page)

But the most grisly moment of all came at a February meeting when one of the incumbent board muttered, “Wait until you see what we've got in the little black book!” The meeting went into a complete uproar.

The tenants had been aware, in a vague, uneasy way, of the existence of a little black book kept at the front desk that recorded the hours of departure and arrival of Dakota tenants. It also recorded with whom, and of which sex, each Dakotan had entered and left, as well as names, descriptions, destinations and arrival and departure times of all guests to the building. The little black book had been instituted as a security measure, but whose idea it was originally is unclear. The black book had always seemed like a form of snooping, a certain invasion of privacy. Now, however, with the Revolution in full swing, it was clear that it could be used as an instrument of exposure, embarrassment and blackmail. Mr. Greenfield and his board appeared to control the book, and this now threatened everybody. It guaranteed that the Dakota's Palace Revolution, like all revolutions in history, would not end on a note of logic, practicality or common sense. It would end in chaos.

The show-down meeting, the final confrontation between the Greenfield board and Ross's Young Turks, was scheduled for March 15, 1971, in the dining room of the Olcott Hotel at 27 West Seventy-second Street at three o'clock in the afternoon. A court stenographer was hired
to record the proceedings, so crucial did they seem, so high ran the tensions, though the presence of the stenographer greatly displeased Mr. Greenfield. Four hours later, there was still a great deal of unfinished business, but the meeting had to disperse because the Olcott had rented the room for another function from seven o'clock on. The impatiently waiting bar mitzvah group must have wondered what in the world the commotion among the well-dressed group of Dakotans was all about, with its periodic shouts of “Gestapo!” “S.S. tactics!” and other epithets.

During the course of the meeting both sides of the dispute accused the other of having “sinister” motives for wanting “power.” At times the proceedings became so incoherent that, in her 127-page transcript of the meeting, the court stenographer could only helplessly record, “Voices … a voice … voices … voices.” And she was at a loss to find stenographic symbols to convey the boos, the hisses, the catcalls, Bronx cheers, the shouts and the stamping of feet. But the meeting had not gone on for long before it was quite clear that the old regime was over, that the Wilbur Ross group of insurgents had won, that what Gordon Greenfield still refers to in military terms as the “coup” and the “take-over” was complete. Out of some 50,000 shareholder votes, the revolutionaries had gathered between 46,000 and 47,000.

Toward the end of the March 15 meeting, Mr. Greenfield made a long speech, admitting his defeat and submitting his resignation, but the court reporter's transcript can only partly convey the depth of his emotion, the voice that cracked and faltered several times, the fact that at moments he seemed close to tears. He said in part:

“I grew up in the Dakota … I worked very hard … long hours with many headaches, many trials and tribulations at some considerable expense, personal expense, for a long, long time … I am not the kind of individual who is patient enough to explain myself. I operate businesses, and I have a career which indicates that I know how to operate businesses successfully … I have no apologies to make for the job that has been done. I did it in the best way I could according to my life. However, I have one big complaint about it and that is the manner in which this situation was handled. I am not going to indulge in personalities and I could be critical of Mr. Ross. I am not going to be. And I could be critical of another individual in this meeting, but I am not going to take your time and bore you with what has been going on. This
Byzantine, this lethal type of politicking, and this character assassination of me because of problems in the building. You are not going to [have] … any improvement in the quality of life in this building that is material, unless you have the money. You haven't had the money to do it … It was sheer folly to think about refinancing at nine-and-a-half percent interest on the mortgage. It was a ridiculous thought to try to do it. I have some doubts that Mr. Ross can accomplish this plan today …

“My wife and I have been very hurt. We think we have been badly treated. Not by the community of the Dakota, but by the way this political campaign was launched. No excuse for it. Totally unnecessary. Now I have said it and I think you owe me an apology. I have served you. I have been honorable with it. I have been fair with you. Mrs. Scott is looking at me. She doesn't think I have been fair because we had a disagreement.”

With that, Ruth Ford Scott interjected tartly, “Don't bring personalities into this. I am looking at you because you are speaking.”

Greenfield continued, “What I did was in the best interest of the building and not to be harmful … I have been criticized and there are people in the building that don't like me as a result of what I have done, I thought, in the interest of all the tenant owners. I have never personally thought of myself first. I have never had special services … I am straitlaced on finance matters. I cross every T and dot every I. And I see that everything is accounted for and that is the stewardship that I have given you. I am not going to try to prejudice you … but I think that you are making a mistake to elect this slate because I don't think you entirely realize the outside attention … you are going to get. I think you may get something that you don't think you are getting in that … You should decide in this meeting largely whether or not that kind of atmosphere is the kind of atmosphere that should be brought to the board. People can create that kind of atmosphere. Take control of what? Take control who have nothing, not a dime in it.
*
So
important to take control of it maybe for ulterior purposes. I don't know what they are … I am being booed. I withdraw the thought.

“In any event, I believe it is a serious mistake to the building. And I am very unhappy … I just feel it is not good and handled very badly. And you could have gotten some kind of compromise situation. I want to retire with nothing to do with it. Thank you very much.”

Much later Wilbur Ross said, “We felt that the board had been in power too long. Gordon got sensitive. What I'll never understand is why Gordon wanted that job so badly. Long before that March meeting he must have known that he was bound to lose. From the signatures that we began to gather on the various petitions we submitted to him, it was obvious that the vast majority of the shareholders wanted a change. But he wouldn't step down gracefully. He seemed to want a
High Noon
shoot-out.”

The new board that came in in 1971 was able to accomplish several of its objectives. A new mortgage was negotiated, at a higher interest rate, thereby increasing each tenant's tax-deductible share of maintenance from 30 percent to about 50 percent. The new board also had a certain amount of success in getting the building's taxes reduced, based on its landmark status—though the tax break was less than had been hoped. Most important, as far as the incoming board was concerned, was the rule that for the eleven seats on the board there had to be at least sixteen or seventeen candidates, and that no board member could serve for longer than three consecutive years at a time. This, it was felt, was not only more democratic; it would also ensure a new supply of blood and talent every three years and prevent the board from becoming the self-perpetuating body it had seemed to be in the Greenfield era.

When it was all over, Gordon Greenfield seemed to withdraw into himself. He rarely spoke to anyone he encountered in the building, and, in terms of the Dakota at least, he became almost reclusive. When tempers began to cool, a number of people felt sad about this, and a little guilty. No one, after all, really felt that Gordon was a bad person—a Captain Queeg or Bligh, a Richard Nixon or a Hitler. That had just been anger talking about what seemed Gordon Greenfield's “insensitivity” to the building's moods and needs at the time, and what seemed his “landlord methods.” But it was clear that he was deeply hurt by the whole episode. “I really
lost all interest in the building at that point,” he says. “It took us seven or eight years to sell the apartment, but we finally did in nineteen seventy-eight, and we moved out.” Robert and Eileen Carlson, who had been Greenfield's staunchest backers, also moved out.

Today, Wilbur Ross hopes that Gordon Greenfield has at least in part forgiven him. “After years of not speaking,” he says, “Gordon suddenly approached me at Chatham, on the Cape, where he then had a house, and told me he was thinking of selling his house. He asked me if I'd be interested in buying it.”

But Gordon Greenfield still feels bitter and betrayed by the events of the winter of 1970–71 and still speaks vociferously on the subject. “The first thing that happened when it was all over was that Larry Ellman started parking his 300D Mercedes in the driveway,” he says. “Afterward, they were incredibly nasty at the board meetings—they'd hoot and jeer and boo and laugh when any of the old directors tried to say anything. They talked about ‘communication' and they talked about ‘love.' Their platform contained more promises than Jimmy Carter's. They had schemes for a restaurant in the basement, a squash court and all sorts of other sportsy things. They drew up elaborate plans for penthouses on the eighth and ninth floors. Paul Segal became sort of their house architect—he drives around town on a motorcycle. They planted trees in the courtyard, and the trees all died for lack of sunshine. They wasted money—money went down the drain. I could have gotten them a new mortgage at a lower rate, but they wouldn't wait. They took all their equity and now have a debt bigger than ever. The minute they took over, everybody's maintenance began going up. My maintenance went from eight hundred a month to seventeen hundred a month in the eight years the new regime ran the building. Freddie Victoria had placed some pieces of antique furniture in the hallways, and they threw them out. Jo Mielziner had hung some beautiful sketches of his set designs in the hallways, and the minute he died they threw them all out. I admit I had little patience with them. They didn't hire me for a love-in. I remember when I was a kid something that my father said to me. He'd just hired an ex-congressman to work for him, and Father asked me what I thought of him. I said he seemed like a nice fella. My father said, ‘Nice fella, hell! We didn't hire him for breeding purposes!' You've
got to be tough to run something like the Dakota, and I
was
tough. It's a jungle out there, and I happened to understand it. As for the rule that nobody can serve on the board for more than three years at a time, they call that
democracy.
Maybe it is, but with a turnover every three years how do you develop any
experience
on a board like that?”

Mr. Greenfield has a point, and it could be argued that a building cannot be run as though it were a village, a state or a nation. Because of the proximity of neighbor to neighbor, and the intensity of feelings about privacy that this closeness engenders, the fact that, no matter how thick the ceilings and walls, sounds can still be heard from next door and above and below—constant restive reminders that one is not quite alone (or not alone
enough
)—a big apartment house is best run by a benevolent dictator, like a ship at sea, where the captain has the final say on any matter. Perhaps even a co-op needs a “landlord,” a benevolent despot to oversee things. That was the way the Clarks had run things. Mr. Greenfield apparently feels this way.

“Nobody gave me any credit for keeping maintenance in line,” he says. “Nobody gave me credit for the things I had to do as president that were unpleasant. I had to handle all the complaints. Actresses who consider themselves big stars—Ruth Ford, Betty Bacall—are the biggest complainers about the littlest things. One time someone set fire to a car in the alley. I went out to see about it, and a drunk knocked me down. Jack Lemmon was making a movie out in the street, and there were all sorts of complaints about lights and noise—it was some sort of chase scene. I went out and spoke to a policement about it. He said, ‘I'm not a cop, I'm an actor. I'm in the movie.' Paramount paid the Dakota a thousand dollars a day to do
Rosemary's Baby.
I could have gotten them more.”

It may be ascribed to bitterness, but Gordon Greenfield believes that “After the Revolution, the quality of the building changed. If they're not careful, the building could turn into a collection of second-rate show-biz types and restauranteurs. There are few people of real substance in the building anymore. It suddenly became ‘mod,' a cult building for people indulging in atmosphere. It became a parody of itself. It became camp. It became Andy Warhol. Socially, it represented a kind of New York demimonde. It threw open its arms to the
gay community. And everybody in the building got into deals with one another, buying and dividing and selling off apartments—like slumlords.”

At the close of fiscal 1977, Dakota, Inc. was $20,000 in the red. An employee of Douglas Elliman-Gibbons & Ives, the real estate firm that manages the building, says, “All they do now is complain about how the maintenance costs keep going up. But what can they do? Their payroll is $275,000 a year. The taxes were $66,000 a year, and now they're $300,000. The building went co-op in 1961, but by 1973 there were still a few old rent-control tenants from World War Two who wouldn't vacate their apartments, or buy them, even though they were owned by other people. People with high incomes want high-maintenance costs for tax reasons, but after a few years of paying high maintenance they forget about that. Traditionally, a co-op with high maintenance has low prices for apartments, but from 1972 until just a year or so ago, you couldn't
give
those apartments away. Now the prices of apartments have shot through the ceiling. In my opinion, the old board knew what it was doing. Gordon Greenfield was a pleasure to work with.… Then these new people surfaced … They went out and borrowed $300,000. This was most unwise. It was bad business practice, in my opinion. They should have just increased the maintenance to balance the budget. Of course some people have ulterior motives when it comes to maintenances costs—wanting to keep it low if they happen to be planning to sell, for instance.