How I Built an Empire and Gave It Away by Joseph J Zilber

How I Built an Empire and Gave It Away by Joseph J Zilber

Joseph Zilber saw remarkable changes during his lifetime. Born in Milwaukee in 1917, he grew up behind the family grocery store in a tightknit Milwaukee neighbourhood, which was the center of his universe. Here, he learned his core values from his humble and hardworking parents Jewish immigrants from Russia. While still in grade school, he was hawking newspapers on the street corner and spending his hardearned profits on expanding his knowledge about the world and his city. As his world expanded, so did Joe’s vision of what he wanted to accomplish. He graduated from Marquette University Law School with honors and served in the United States Army in World War II. As the end of the war neared, he realised that millions of veterans would need a place to live when they returned home. To meet this pressing need he began building houses, hundreds of them, creating entire neighbourhoods in the Milwaukee area. The American Dream was in full bloom and Joe was in the prime of his life. He expanded his real estate activities to include office buildings, nursing homes, fitness salons, college dormitories, Florida condos, and Las Vegas hotels. You name it, he built it a heating plant in the Arctic Circle, no problem, a circular church designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (some problems), and 15 fake missile silos in a North Dakota farm field, made to fool the Russian satellites as they passed overhead. Joe’s strong moral compass led him to buy and destroy serial killer Jeffery Dahmer’s devices of madness, run massive newspaper ads after 9/11 telling the terrorists they would never win and saying to people young and old, by action and by deed that “I care about you and your future."" As he approached his ninth decade, he looked into the future. With Vera, his wife of 61 years, they decided to give away their fortune to help rebuild their hometown and restore the American Dream to its most disadvantaged. They established the Zilber Family Foundation, which funded college scholarships, contributed to a new law school at Marquette University, and created a Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. To revive Milwaukee’s inner city, Zilber formed the Zilber Neighborhood Initiative, giving future generations a shot at reaching their full potential. In this insightful and entertaining book, Joe Zilber tells of his joys and heartaches, his hits and misses, the wisdom he gained along the way and the satisfaction he experienced by helping others to have a chance to succeed.

“My family and I, particularly my father, knew, worked with, and admired Joe ZilberJoe’s contributions to Milwaukee were many and his focus on development of moderatepriced highvalue housing and improving Milwaukee’s neighborhoods remain as lasting legacies. The Zilber name has become iconic with ideas and initiatives for the betterment of Milwaukee and our country.” Herb Kohl, Senator, Wisconsin

Kurt Chandler has worked as a newspaper reporter, magazine editor and author. He has written for Milwaukee Magazine, Salon.com, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and The New York Times, among others. An awardwinning writer, he is the author of Shaving Lessons: A Memoir of Father and Son, and Passages of Pride: Lesbian and Gay Youth Come of Age. Chandler lives with his wife in the Milwaukee area.

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9781626000407
ISBN 10	1626000409
Titel	How I Built an Empire and Gave It Away
Autor	Joseph J Zilber
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Verlag	Marquette University Press
Erscheinungsjahr	2013-10-30
Seitenanzahl	248
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.
Hinweis	Nicht verfügbar