While looking for temporary quarters to house the company, Mr. Frederick M. Hilton, the present head of William A. White & Sons, offered me the space in Boreel Building that had just been vacated by the German American Fire Insurance Company. Mr. Hilton told me that the Boreel heirs were receiving a return of less than 3 per cent. on the tax value of their property, and were facing a substantial diminution of even this small income now that these insurance offices had been thrown upon their hands. I said to him: “Why not inquire whether these heirs will sell the property for $2,000,000?” He was amazed when he found that out of an expected rental of $15,000 a year there might evolve a sale of the entire property. I immediately communicated this fact to Grant who authorized me to purchase the property without consulting the Executive Committee, and said that both Olcott and he would each take one third and I could take one third, if the Executive Committee failed to ratify it. We secured the property for $2,050,000. Mr. Prescott Hall Butler represented the heirs in this transaction and when I handed him the check for $50,000, which was paid on account of the contract, he told me that he intended to deposit it with a trust company until the deal was completed. I said why not with us, which he agreed to do, so that we thus owned the property without having parted with the possession of a single dollar. The fact that we were both a real estate operating company and a trust company enabled us to repeat this kind of operation frequently. When Mr. Black of the Fuller Construction Company heard of our purchase, he immediately bought our contract, and gave us a profit of 10 per cent., so that we secured temporary quarters and made $205,000 without losing the use of any of our funds. Other large transactions followed in rapid succession. Among the most interesting of these was the collecting of the plots that constitute the present site of the Broad Exchange Building, directly opposite the Stock Exchange; the purchase of the Knox Building at the corner of Fortieth Street and Fifth Avenue; and my joining in the purchase of the Plaza Hotel, by means of a brief telephone conversation, for $3,000,000.