Meet the real estate rebels who DEFIED developers and refused to move
Courtesy of the Institute for Justice (www.ij.org) ; Jack E. Boucher / Library of Congress Like Carl the cantankerous widower in the Disney Pixar movie Up, we're telling the stories of the most stubborn real estate owners of all time. They resisted every attempt by powerful developers to drive them out, steadfastly staying put while neighbouring properties were razed to the ground proving that, sometimes, the little guy wins. Read on to discover real estate holdouts who defied developers against all the odds... Irving Underhill / Wikimedia Commons [Public domain] To fulfil its ambition to become the largest department store on the planet, Macy's was forced to build around a five-storey structure on Manhattan's Herald Square. After discovering Macy's was buying up the entire block, rival retailer Siegal-Cooper acquired a plot on the corner of Broadway and 34th Street in 1900 and erected the five-floor building on the site in 1903 to thwart the plans. Ajay Suresh / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY 2.0] Siegal-Cooper had constructed the world's biggest department store on Sixth Avenue in 1896 and was prepared to play dirty to keep the coveted title. Siegal-Cooper was also trying to force Macy's to relinquish its Sixth Avenue and 14th Street locations...