The new student arrived at Penn’s Wharton business school in 1966, driving a Ford convertible and sporting a mop of blond hair as outsized as his ambitions. A junior transfer from Fordham University in the Bronx, the young man was an outsider on the Ivy League campus in Philadelphia, with few friends. But that did not temper his swagger. When a professor asked students in his small class why they had chosen to study real estate, the new student stood up. “I’m going to be the king of New York real estate.” The professor peered over his tortoiseshell glasses and...