Lefcourt-Newark Building

Art by: Chris Hytha

Story by: Mark Houser

For a brief moment, this Newark highrise was a bauble in the empire of Abraham Lefcourt, a bombastic real estate titan who slapped his name on Midtown skyscrapers long before the world ever heard of Donald Trump.

Born Abraham Lefkowitz, Lefcourt came to the Lower East Side with his Russian Jewish family in 1882. He made money in garment wholesaling, then put it into commercial lofts and offices. Through shrewd deals and luck, Lefcourt built a Manhattan skyscraper portfolio worth $125 million, and started boasting he would put up the world’s tallest one next. But the death in 1930 of his 17 - year - old son—two months before this highrise opened—sent Lefcourt reeling, and the stock market collapse wiped him out. He died of a heart attack two years later.

Another immigrant, Frank Grad, designed Lefcourt’s handsome Newark tower with its elegant details and opulent black marble and bronze entrances. Grad’s two sons joined him in the business, which steadily grew into New Jersey’s biggest architectural firm.

The tower, known for most of its existence as the Raymond Commerce Building, was vacant for nearly two decades before 2006, when it reopened as a luxury apartment complex. As its namesake knew, real estate can be unpredictable.