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Melvyn Kaufman collects photographs of Marilyn Monroe, refuses to wear neckties, chain-smokes unfiltered Camels and hates being called a developer.
The man -- who, with his brother Robert, has erected and owns seven prominent Manhattan office towers -- insists he's a builder. Developers, he maintains, are the ego-driven real estate giants who have a hand in many projects at once, always looking ahead to tomorrow's deal.
"No one is so damn wonderful as some of these developers think they are to build all these buildings at once," says the 62-year-old Mr. Kaufman, glaring across a futuristic glass-top desk.
Many real estate executives pass Mr. Kaufman's distinction off as pure self-aggrandizement; years can go by between his building projects.
"I don't appreciate the difference. The Kaufmans don't own a construction company," says Robert Durst, a true fan of the Kaufman buildings and one of those people Mr. Kaufman has dubbed "builder."
Semantics aside, Mr. Kaufman is probably worthy of any label he gives himself. A flamboyant and hot-tempered man, he gets so involved in the design and construction of his buildings that his architects and engineers often go home with headaches. But his buildings are certainly among the city's most playful and fun to visit.
Right now his firm, named after his father, William Kaufman, is completing a building downtown at 17 State St. that he grandly claims is "the culmination of 20th-century design." With its ultramodern semicircular shape, smooth and shiny glass skin and state-of-the-art hardware, 17 State St. is stunning. But its high construction cost requires that it get the highest rents downtown -- an extraordinarily risky...