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Article: Jay Pritzker.(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- January 30, 1999
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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THE story goes that in 1957 Jay Pritzker was in a hotel coffee-shop called Fat Eddie's at a Los Angeles airport, and waiting for a flight. Mr Pritzker learnt that the hotel was for sale. How he came by this information depends on who tells the story. It may be that he was chatting to a waitress about Eddie and his extravagant eating habits, and the waitress said that, with the hotel up for sale, she was worried about her future.
Mr Pritzker was a friendly man, so that tale has plausibility. But it may have been simply that he had tried to book into the hotel, discovered it was full and for sale and scented a bargain. The hotel's owner, Hyatt von Dehn, was ...