The dream complete

William Randolph Hearst bought the New York Morning Journal in 1895 with his rich Mama's money after running the San Francisco Examiner for a number of years to pay off a gambling debt he owed his daddy (1). The man was a little eccentric - think Citizine Kane, which was based on him - but he was a good, if ruthless, business man. He often hired complete staffs of other newspapers in order to get the best journalists in the city working for his name. He basically invented "yellow journalism" - exagerated, unreliable and sensationalized news - although the term itself comes from a comic he ran called the Yellow Kid, which spawed comics as we know them today (the notion of comics themselves was idea Hearst stole from Pulitzer, publisher and editor of the New York World).

in 1927, Hearst errected the building you see at the bottom of the tower, the pedastol, as the base for what was to be the home of all 12 of his magazine. It was finished in 1928 and the 6-story pedastol was eventually supposed to hold an enormous tower. However, the stock market crashed and Hearst found his pockets empty - he had many of his publications repo-ed - so the tower was never constructed.

However, about 80 years later, the Hearst Corporation has decided to follow their creator's dream and build the tower - which is the first certified Green Building in NYC (although I hear they don't recycle). Most of the interior of the original structure has been gutted and although I haven't seen it, all the press I've read praises the new palace over and over again. When filled, the tower will house all 20 Hearst magazine titles and other corporate offices as well.



(1) Wikipedia - just the debt part though, I knew the rest

to end it all, some pigeons. darn things.