"He is unbelievably tenacious and unbelievably long-viewed," he said. "Guys like Alvin get less headlines than the guys on transaction steroids."

Dworman pointed out that he has had his failures as well. He lost a bundle in the 1956 hurricane season in Florida, where he had bought thousands of acres with his brothers. He owned 50 percent
of a bank that failed and another scheme to make aluminum boats at a factory died when his model literally sank on its maiden voyage

"I've had plenty of pressure -- it wasn't all a party. I've been through the ball park. Everyone respects that, I think."

 

Dworman has not slowed down. In the Bronx, he is building 1,000 houses, and in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, he is partnering on a 39-story tower. He compared his Cathedral Hill project with his
most luxurious project to date, on 80th Street at Madison Avenue on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Dworman lives in the top two floors of that building in a unit worth an estimated $23 million.

 

"We're going to make a fabulous piece of architecture, very sculptural and and very expensive,"
he said. "I don't look at the bottom line in terms of dollars, but I look at new horizons. What is this deal going to do for my scope. Is it going to make me happy when I do it? Am I going to get
excited when it comes out of the ground? That is the way I think about it."

San Francisco Business Times
By: J.K. Dineen

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