Abe Hirschfeld

1919 - 2005

Eccentric millionaire makes last headline: Dead at 85

Former Miami Beach Commissioner Abe Hirschfeld, who made a fortune building parking garages and never shied away from the media, died at 85 in New York.

BY DAVID OVALLE, ELINOR J. BRECHER AND CASEY WOODS
dovalle@herald.com

Abe Hirschfeld, a one-time Miami Beach city commissioner and admitted publicity hound, a real estate mogul who favored cheap ties, and a hated – and briefly tenured – boss of The New York Post, died Tuesday of cardiac arrest in New York. He was 85.

The eccentric millionaire's life was partly a Horatio Alger story: Polish-born, his family emigrated to what today is Israel. Hirschfeld eventually immigrated to the United States, where he earned a fortune building parking garages as well as health clubs.

But his final two decades entered the realm of the bizarre – he went to prison for plotting a business partner's murder – the tragically comic, and the often amusing.

"Abe was a rogue and a knave but he was a delightful one," said Seymour Gelber, who defeated Hirschfeld for Miami Beach mayor in 1991.

"He wasn't much for service and he didn't tend to his business as public officer, because it was just a platform for him to tell his off-color jokes and to enjoy himself."

Abraham Jacob Hirschfeld was born in Tarnow, Poland, in 1919. As the Nazis came to power in Germany, his parents moved the family to British-controlled Palestine.

Hirschfeld served in the Haganah – a militia that became the Israeli military – married his girlfriend, Zipora, in 1944 and opened a pots-and-pans factory.

This, he claimed in his autobiography An Accidental Wedding, July 4, led him to become "the metals king of Israel following the [1948] War of Independence."

The couple had two children and moved to Canada in 1952. A year later, they moved to New York, where Hirschfeld went into the steel business. He began buying real estate and building garages.

Hirschfeld served two terms on the Tri-State Regional Planning Commission and ran – as a Democrat, a Republican and an independent – for the U.S. Senate, New York lieutenant governor and Manhattan borough president.

He lost all three races.

He tried his hand producing plays, and one Broadway production, The Prince of Central Park, opened in 1989. It flopped.

IN MIAMI BEACH

Hirschfeld moved from New York to Miami Beach in the late 1980s. He was elected to the Miami Beach City Commission for one two-year term. He also bought the Konover Hotel on Collins Avenue and renamed it the Castle.

As a Beach commissioner, his record included a proposal to legalize cocaine and marijuana, and proudly spitting on then-Herald reporter Bonnie Weston in 1990 to show his opinion of the newspaper's coverage of him.

As the Castle was being auctioned – it had been closed because of building violations – Weston arrived and began interviewing people.

There were no bids on the hotel – but Hirschfeld did spit on Weston twice.

"Nothing made me happier than spitting," Hirschfeld said at a news conference he called to talk about the incident. "The way it was done I was very happy about."

On Tuesday, Weston noted she still gets asked about the episode about once a year: "It seemed somewhat extraordinary. It wasn't anything that I expected to happen."

Hirschfeld's notoriety doomed his Miami Beach political career – he lost to Gelber in the 1991 mayor's race. But T-shirts adorned with his face became kitsch collectibles at one South Beach gay club.

"I never understood what his motivations were. I know he wanted publicity and he made sure he got it," said former Commissioner Stanley Arkin, who served alongside Hirschfeld.

Hirschfeld eventually moved back to New York.

He loved to point out that he was listed in Time magazine as one of the "most influential business geniuses of the century."

He also was listed alongside eccentrics Howard Hughes and J. Paul Getty.

In 1993, he tried to buy The New York Post and ran it for 16 days. He wanted to publish an elaborate plan for peace in the Middle East, as well as his wife's poetry. All that prompted this famous headline from his own staff:

WHO IS THIS NUT? The staff also produced a front page depicting Alexander Hamilton, the paper's founder, with a tear running down his face.

Incredibly, Hirschfeld called The Herald's Weston to offer her a job at The Post. "By the time he left Miami Beach, he thought we were friends," she chuckled.

PAULA JONES SCANDAL

By 1998, Hirschfeld was in the news again, this time for offering Paula Jones $1 million to drop her sexual harassment suit against President Bill Clinton.

Hirschfeld and Jones paraded before the media, arm in arm. She kissed him on the cheek. He handed her a symbolic check. She called him "a wonderful person."

He later withdrew his offer. She sued and lost.

That same year, Hirschfeld was arrested on charges of planning a $150,000 hit on a business partner.

Two years later, he was sent to jail for 22 months. He said he befriended serial killer David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz and taught inmates to play cards.

Never one to let iron bars keep him from the headlines, he said from jail in 2001: "I'm crazy, maybe."

Hirschfeld's last public appearance in South Florida came in January 2003. He wanted to promote his peace plan for the Middle East.

Hirschfeld is survived by his wife, Zipora, his son Elie and his daughter Rachel. A memorial service is set for today at Riverside Memorial Chapel in New York.