Rich and Reclusive on Spring Street

Back in 1987, when U.S. 1 Newspaper was still a monthly and everyone on staff was also on the delivery team, my  route was downtown Princeton. I tried to deliver to Princeton Newport Partners at 33 Witherspoon, on the corner of Witherspoon and Spring Street. Later Spring Street would be publicly notorious in the scandal of Lyle and Eric Menendez, owners of Chuck’s Spring Street cafe. But the 33 Spring Street building would be quietly notorious as an address associated with Princeton Newport Partners, raided by the feds in 1987 for its possible involvement in the Michael Milken junk bond case. (The charges were later dropped, as explained by my boss Richard K. Rein in his column last week.)

But when I arrived at the Princeton Newport Partners office I didn’t know about the investigation. All I knew was that no one at that office wanted to talk to me. And for later visits the office was closed.

Venture capitalists, private investors, investment bankers — all are notoriously close mouthed, none more so than Andrew Shechtel. He apparently still has an office at 33 Witherspoon and is now listed as the third richest man in New Jersey. As reported by NJ Biz, and also by Zachary R. Mider in Bloomberg News,  Shechtel put $9.7 billion into two trusts . . .some of it going to camps for Jewish youth, most of it to a Forrestal Village-based foundation dedicated to research into Huntington’s disease.

Rein explains more, in his column this week. .

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