Manhattan Realtor

One thing metropolitan realtor JAMES D. LANDAUER '23 has not built is a castle in the air. Instead of the grandiose thinking to which men in his business are often addicted, he has down-to-earth ideas about real estate and the general economy.

He is a relaxed doer. Every conversation with him, during business or social hours, is a dialogue.

Landauer headed the combine that built New York's 59-story Pan Am Building, the world's largest commercial office building. He is chairman of his own firm of real estate consultants, James D. Landauer Associates, Inc. But he took a year's leave of absence in 1962 to head Grand Central Building, Inc., at the request of a personal friend and empire builder, the dying Erwin Wolfson who had begun the project.

In addition to the problems of erecting and leasing the structure, Landauer had to make many detailed decisions: "such things as what kind of music would be played in the lobby, the size of the heliport (the landing area on the roof), and the logistics of moving people into the building."

His New York company has been consultants for CBS Television City in Hollywood and an alternate site for the New York Stock Exchange.

Landauer had a year at Harvard Law School and then went directly into the real estate business in New York. He worked for three prominent firms before establishing his own in 1946. Except for the war years, 1942 to 1945, he has been continually in real estate.

He left the Air Corps a Lieutenant Colonel, having volunteered and won the Legion of Merit for "unusual professional ability, sound judgment, and competent leadership" in organizing and administering the San Antonio Cadet Center.

His name, with the title of director or trustee, studs the boards of many business and social institutions. Real estate organizations - local, national, and international - have repeatedly elected him to office. He was Chairman of the New York Real Estate Board, and as a director of the International Real Estate Federation, he has been a delegate to their various congresses in Madrid, Paris, and Salzburg.

But responsibilities to the profession have never preempted the time he has given to the College and Hanover friends. Recipient this year of an Alumni Award, he is past president of the Alumni Council and is serving on the Bicentennial Executive Committee. He founded the Board of Overseers of the Hanover Inn and has been a charter member since 1951.

A lover of the outdoors, he always walks to work. But this fondness is more evident when he's at his Pineo Hill retreat near the College. He has taught two generations of Hanover kids to play tennis and is a great fisherman. He also helped instigate the summer softball tournament which brings about 300 boys from nearby camps to the campus.

He is perhaps mellowed by his more than forty years in real estate, but his ideas, if conservative, are timely and he articulates sound advice:

"There's plenty of money," he advises mortgage seekers, "but you'll have to pay for it."

And regarding huge deficit financing, he says: "Our greatest concern is the domestic economy. There's no substitute for being able to pay your own way."

To paraphrase his recent Alumni Council citation: Landauer has always stood a head above his contemporaries — from being a towering center on the Big Green basketball team to building and renting towering centers in the Big City.