Planting fields
All the camellias Standard oil’s money could buy
Snobetta’s grandfather was one of the NorthShore gold coast set
What did he do to get rich
Oh he built a better mousetrap
Well, to have a barock-rococo gatehouse and gilded ceilings he must have sold quite a few of them
Actually, the window mullions were gilded on the OUTSIDE…
He’s credited with having the first banking business that had a reverse sinking fund for debentures and dealt internationally with Gurney’s, Warburg’s and the Paris Rothschilds.
Truth is he was kind of a Gatsby figure…sold laudanum door to door in Columbus Ohio, when that became illegal, the gentle housewives of the Buckeye state switched to soaking their pall malls in paregoric -- prohibition came in just in time and he realized largely with his collection of backyard stills to supply speaks in the entire midwest – rumor had it that the only meal Al Capone really relished was his spaghetti Carbonara that he made with prosciutto brought in by his boat from an actual police station Genoa along with a fine selection of Chiantis and Prosecchis – after Roosevelt killed that business, he went into real estate and invested in politicians, mostly in this area
Respectable at last?
Well, I would hate to mention the long list of people he had beaten up.
He went through the garbage of more politicos than I would care to mention.
For antiques – ventured Reed
No, for blackmail.
Think of a major public works project that had never been built and you’ll likely find some nabob’s girlfriend’s lingerie on the end of his hook.
You’ve heard of that Gold Coast parkway? You mean the one we we on earlier?
Well, it was originally as straight as draughtsman’s line.
Until?
Until the state supervisor of roads was invited over to his palazzo and wined and dined and brought into their rarefied set, so that a certain lady’s walled garden didn’t find itself in the middle of an off ramp.
And what about that bridge to Connecticut?
It went right through his backyard. Probably they did that knowing that it was now unbuildable. The land for the approach road was carefully parcelled into thin slices in case it ever actually was used for access. Trouble was, it was sold to a developer in Europe, so that anyone trying to get it through eminent domain will be up against the WTO.