Skip to Main Content (Press Enter)
Great Fortune by Daniel Okrent
Add Great Fortune to bookshelf
Add to Bookshelf

Great Fortune

Best Seller
Great Fortune by Daniel Okrent
Paperback $24.00
Nov 30, 2004 | ISBN 9780142001776

Buy from Other Retailers:

See All Formats (1) +
  • $24.00

    Nov 30, 2004 | ISBN 9780142001776

    Buy from Other Retailers:

  • Nov 30, 2004 | ISBN 9781101666906

    Buy from Other Retailers:

Product Details

Praise

A great book. Nuanced, clever and rollicking, itÆs nonfiction as a work of art. (The New York Observer)

Altogether stirring and vivid and enjoyable. (The New Yorker)

Puckish good humor and elegant prose. (The Wall Street Journal)

Delightful and exhaustive (but never exhausting)à the dazzling, complex story of how New YorkÆs acropolis came to be. (The Smithsonian)

Awards

New York Times Notable Book WINNER

Table Of Contents

A Note to the Reader

Prologue: May 21, 1928 and September 30, 1939

  1. The Heart of This Great City

  2. A Commonplace Person

  3. These Properties Will Be Greatly Increased in Value

  4. I Chose the Latter Course

  5. Architecture Never Lies

  6. Tears of Joy to a Small Business Man

  7. I Like Having a Lot of People Against Me

  8. A Genius

  9. A Hundred Lawsuits

  10. Let Owen Young Do It

  11. Who Designed Rockefeller Center?

  12. Wondering Where I’m Going to Get the Money

  13. Our Architects Deserve to Remain in Chains

  14. Desperate for Business

  15. Give ‘Em Something Better

  16. Ruthlessness Was Just Another Word for Good Business

  17. All the Finns in Helsingfors

  18. What Do You Paint, When You Paint on a Wall?

  19. I Was Not Interested in Sitting and Listening

  20. Visitors Give Him Dollars

  21. The Snake Changing Its Skin

  22. The Kingdom of the World

  23. The Demand is Almost Unbelievable

Epilogue: 1948-2003

Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Illustration Credits
Index

Looking for More Great Reads?
21 Books You’ve Been Meaning to Read
Back to Top