{"id":605,"date":"2006-01-11T09:59:11","date_gmt":"2006-01-11T17:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2006\/01\/like_the_son_of_a_mill_worker_but_better.html"},"modified":"2006-01-11T09:59:11","modified_gmt":"2006-01-11T17:59:11","slug":"like_the_son_of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/01\/like_the_son_of.html","title":{"rendered":"Like “The Son Of A Mill Worker,” But Better!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The city is abuzz over news that a one-time cabby Tamir “Tom” Sapir is buying the $40 million Duke-Semans Mansion on Fifth Avenue<\/a>. Today the Post investigates his amazing ascent from rags to riches<\/a>:<\/p>\n

After moving to Israel himself for awhile, Sapir decided to take his chances at fortune in America, originally landing in a small, close-knit Jewish community in Louisville, Ky.<\/p>\n

His first job was driving a bus for senior citizens.<\/p>\n

There was a special perk in it for the young, Russian-speaking immigrant.<\/p>\n

“While I was driving, they taught me how to speak English,” Sapir said.<\/p>\n

He picked up odd jobs where he could to beef up his income, collecting garbage and even hauling around a pal’s hammers and nails when needed.<\/p>\n

Ten months later, with some savings in his pocket, he moved his family to New York City.<\/p>\n

While Sapir’s first home with Russian-born wife Bella was their 108th Street apartment, his second home became a city cab.<\/p>\n

“I drudged from early morning until late at night, sleeping nights at airports to be in when the first planeload of passengers arrived — actually, they would awake me by tugging at my clothes, ‘Wake up, man!'” the tycoon recalled in a recently published interview of his early days as a struggling driver.<\/p>\n

But within six months, he said, he had made enough to buy a coveted cab medallion — and eventually began pulling in $300 to $400 a day.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If I’m not mistaken, medallions are pretty expensive*. And is it just me or are there some big CV gaps between owning a fledgling electronics store and becoming a billionaire real estate mogul? You be the judge:<\/p>\n

He wound up using his medallion as collateral on a $10,000 bank loan to become partners in an electronics store on Broadway near Madison Square Park.<\/p>\n

The move was dicey, but it paid off.<\/p>\n

Realizing that he had a potential gold mine in technology-starved Russian tourists, immigrants and visiting government big shots, Sapir lured them to the store by the hundreds daily.<\/p>\n

He then took the money to gain a hand in oil contracts in Russia, and from there began investing in Manhattan real estate. His first purchase was a condo at 5 E. 22nd St. in 1985 — just around the corner from his shop — for $324,500.<\/p>\n

He went on to acquire properties everywhere from Madison Avenue, Park Place and Fifth Avenue.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Oil contracts.” What a country!<\/p>\n

*See more about the economics of the medallion system at “Villain or Bogeyman? New York’s Taxi Medallion System”<\/a>, which notes that cabbies took in on an average of $64 a day in 1986; medallions seem to have cost about $100,000 then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The city is abuzz over news that a one-time cabby Tamir “Tom” Sapir is buying the $40 million Duke-Semans Mansion on Fifth Avenue. Today the Post investigates his amazing ascent from rags to riches: After moving to Israel himself for awhile, Sapir decided to take his chances at fortune in America, originally landing in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-i_dont_get_it"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605","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=605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}