Standing on the 21st floor of the World Trade Center, Bernard and Harold Manekin marveled at the skyline they helped craft over the past five decades.
Looking out past Harborplace, the two brothers who started a small real estate firm in the halcyon days of post-World War II saw much to reflect on. After all, there is little of downtown that does not bear a Manekin mark.
From the 33-acre Charles Center that was the genesis of Baltimore's renaissance in the early 1960s to the Lord Baltimore Hotel to Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the Manekins -- 82-year-old Bernard and 79-year-old Harold -- have either developed, owned or influenced virtually every significant downtown building project of the past 50 years.
At Charles Center, for instance, the Manekins were involved in leasing, managing or planning four of the five office towers constructed there. Most notably, Manekin Corp. leased One Charles Center, the 23-story speculative office building that sparked redevelopment there.
"It gives me great satisfaction to see the tangible evidence of what we've been involved in these past 50 years," said Manekin Corp. Chairman Bernard Manekin, whose firm is celebrating its golden anniversary this year. "But of all the achievements and successes, the greatest to me is the growth and meaningfulness of the 150 people of this company."
Even the 30-story World Trade Center owes its existence partly to the Manekins, who voluntarily scrapped a potentially lucrative leasing and management contract rather than start a fight that could have held up construction on the skyscraper.
"They have made an outstanding mark in center city development over the past 35 years," said Walter Sondheim, the 87-year-old senior adviser to the Greater Baltimore Committee and counsel to mayors, governors and business leaders.
At least part of the Manekins' success can be chalked up to longevity: No commercial real estate firm in the city, save for Colliers Pinkard, has been in business longer.
And with the exception of Rouse Co., the publicly traded, $4.8 billion real estate firm founded by Bernard's law school classmate James W. Rouse, no company has built more commercial space downtown.
Its city monuments are many: the 25-story, onyx-skinned office tower known as Charles Center South at 36 S. Charles St.; the 12-story One Center Plaza building it rehabilitated in 1982; and, most recently, a 25-story skyscraper at 120 E. Baltimore St. that Manekin completed in 1989.
