Abraham Hirschfeld

Abraham Jacob Hirschfeld was born in Turnow, Poland, and moved to Palestine in the early 1930's. Most of his extended family, he said later, stayed behind and died in the Holocaust. He said that he had worked in factories as a youngster and that his gift for business ventures began in adolescence at a job watering orange trees. He bought a donkey, devised a quicker method and charged more money. In 1943 he married Zipora Teicher, another eastern European immigrant, and they had two children. In the 1950's the family came to the United States, and Mr. Hirschfeld began buying commercial real estate, finding a niche developing parking garages. He claimed to have pioneered the semi-enclosed garage, saying his "open-air garage" was a successful innovation because it was cheaper to build and maintain and because "cars don't catch cold." He owned the Vertical Club on the Upper East Side, one of the early luxury health clubs in the city, was co-owner of the Hotel Pennsylvania and had interests in the Crowne Plaza Hotel at Times Square and residential properties throughout Manhattan. In 1993, he took over ownership of The New York Post for about two weeks, firing its editor, Pete Hamill, and infuriating the staff. Besides his wife and his son Elie., he is survived by a daughter, Rachel Hirschfeld of Manhattan, and a brother, Menashe Hirschfeld of Montreal, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.