Of George Huntington Hartford II, remembered today in the New York Times as the heir to the A & P empire, who lost an estimated $80 million of his $90 million fortune over his lifetime, who described himself as “Horatio Alger in reverse,” who built one of New York’s most oddly distinguished buildings at Columbus Circle, who reportedly tried to get his mother to adopt his first ex-wife, whose fourth ex-wife was arrested for tying up his teenage secretary and shaving her head, who once missed a newspaper deadline because he could not park his yacht, who created an institute inspired by his belief that penmanship was a key to personality, who detested William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams and Abstract Expressionism, who failed to stage a successful adaptation he wrote of “Jane Eyre,” who lost his salary job by attending the Harvard-Yale football game, who attempted and failed to create a resort island in the Bahamas with chariot races, who tried to Europeanize Central Park and twice crashed a supply ship during World War II, once because he “mistook feet for fathoms.”
He was 97 years old, and leaves a legacy that now includes one of the most remarkable obituaries ever published by the Gray Lady. Read it if you have the time.
UPDATE: Vanity Fair did a more extensive profile on Hartford in 2004. Read it here.
