A. Alfred Taubman | Mall innovator, 91
A. Alfred Taubman, 91, a self-made Michigan billionaire whose philanthropy and business success - including weaving the enclosed shopping mall into American culture - was clouded by a criminal conviction late in his career died of a heart attack April 17.
A. Alfred Taubman, 91, a self-made Michigan billionaire whose philanthropy and business success - including weaving the enclosed shopping mall into American culture - was clouded by a criminal conviction late in his career died of a heart attack April 17.
His rearrangement of how people shop - parking lot in front, several stores in one place close to home - transformed retail.
Born Jan. 31, 1924, in Pontiac, Mich., to German Jewish immigrants, Mr. Taubman worked at a department store after school.
He was a freshman at the University of Michigan when he left to serve in World War II.
Recognizing the booming postwar growth of the middle class, particularly in the Motor City, he launched his first real estate development company in 1950.
He eventually served as chairman of Sotheby's Holdings Inc., parent of Sotheby's art auction house, from 1983 to 2000, and ended up entangled in a price-fixing scheme. He was convicted in 2001 of conspiring with a former chairman of Christie's International to fix the commissions the auction giants charged.
He was fined $7.5 million and spent about a year in a low-security prison but insisted he was innocent. - AP