He’s overseeing the redesign of the Community Synagogue, a rectitudinous 1848 edifice on the relentlessly tacky Indian-food block of East 6th Street, to make it into the permanent home for the Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre (which was founded 90 years ago and has been performing at borrowed venues for the past three decades). And in 1978, it broke an earlier price barrier as the location of the first Manhattan apartment to sell for more than $1 million-to Antenor Patino, the Bolivian tin dealer.įinally, Daniel Libeskind has found a New York project that David Childs and Larry Silverstein can’t get in the way of. Back then, his grand address was known as being the most liberal white-glove building on Fifth, under its then–board president, Laurance Rockefeller.

He lived in the building once before, in the late seventies, when he first owned the New York Post (and long before he started Fox News). Rupert Murdoch’s record-breaking, front-page-of-the- Times, $44 million purchase of the Rockefeller penthouse at 834 Fifth Avenue is, as it turns out, something of a homecoming for the media baron. “Deutsch is making an average salary, and in terms of his own clients, one or two of them advertise, and it goes directly through CNBC.” But Bob Meyers, CNBC senior VP of prime-time programming, responds, “Categorically false, full stop.” And a Deutsch rep concurs. Since his show debuted in early 2004, he’s been running it like his own cable-access program, says a source close to the host: wrangling advertisers from his client list and sometimes using his own money to up the budget “beyond what is willing to pay.” The source adds, “He’s not in this for the money, that’s for sure, and he’ll do anything to make it a success.” Deutsch sold his agency to Interpublic for $265 million in 2000, though he still runs it. But sources say the adman’s rise at CNBC may have as much to do with his synergistic skills as with his ability to get a good interview out of Jenna Jameson.

As a TV personality, Deutsch has certainly exceeded expectations. A synergistic strategy for success at CNBC?ĬNBC recently replaced John McEnroe’s disastrous nightly talk show with buff ad guru Donny Deutsch’s somewhat more popular one, The Big Idea.

The Germanic Hero by Brian Murdoch