{"id":2649,"date":"2007-08-21T09:42:34","date_gmt":"2007-08-21T17:42:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2007\/08\/what_frighted_with_false_fire.html"},"modified":"2007-08-21T09:42:34","modified_gmt":"2007-08-21T17:42:34","slug":"what_frighted_w","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/08\/what_frighted_w.html","title":{"rendered":"What, Frighted With False Fire?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As city officials stumble upon even more impressive ways to waste money (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/boroughs\/bronx\/2007\/08\/21\/2007-08-21_a_courthouse_or_a_lighthouse.html\">a $114,762 electricity bill for a building not even open<\/a>, for example*), one of the better Leona Helmsley anecdotes is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/08\/21\/nyregion\/21helmsley.html?ex=1345348800&#038;en=5385902c44e3360e&#038;ei=5090&#038;partner=rssuserland&#038;emc=rss\">resurrected<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>In 235 counts in state and federal indictments, the Helmsleys were accused of using money from their hotel and real estate empires to buy a $1 million marble dance floor above a swimming pool, a $210,000 mahogany card table and $500,000 worth of jade objets d&#8217;art. Mrs. Helmsley was also charged with defrauding Helmsley stockholders by receiving $83,333 a month in secret consulting fees.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Helmsley, then 80 and suffering deficiencies in reasoning and memory, was found mentally unfit to stand trial. As Mrs. Helmsley was tried, a series of prosecution witnesses described a spiteful, extravagant, foul-mouthed woman who terrified her underlings. In the most celebrated line of testimony, a former Helmsley housekeeper testified that Mrs. Helmsley had once told her, &#8220;Only the little people pay taxes.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>*They must not have gotten to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/reporting\/2007\/08\/20\/070820fa_fact_owen\">David Owens&#8217; piece in last week&#8217;s New Yorker<\/a> that refutes the argument for security lighting; maybe it&#8217;s still sitting next to the leaky toilet?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As city officials stumble upon even more impressive ways to waste money (a $114,762 electricity bill for a building not even open, for example*), one of the better Leona Helmsley anecdotes is resurrected: In 235 counts in state and federal indictments, the Helmsleys were accused of using money from their hotel and real estate empires [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,24,67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thats_an_outrage","category-the_bronx","category-things_that_make_you_go_oy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}