The Lou Gladstein Story

1963

Written 08/ 2012* 835 Words

By Howard Yasgar

The first question is, who the hell is Lou Gladstein?

The second question is why would anyone write about him?

Well, I first met Lou in 1963

He was a businessman; sort of an entrepreneur and he was probably what you would call a wheeler/dealer.

I learned that Lou made most of his living selling used cars, and I also learned that some of those cars he sold were stolen.

Lou was an extraordinary person.

Lou was also my friend and he was the best man at my wedding. That was until he conned me.

I should have been mad at Lou for what he did to me, and I was at the time.

But I’m not mad now.

In 1963, I was 23 years old and had just resigned from my business relationship with Abe Zion, and Southern New England Automotive Rebuilders.

Abe and Lou had been good mentors to me; they were probably two of the smartest people I had ever met.

The last business that I had with Abe Zion was running a small used car lot in Stamford Connecticut.

My mother said that I had learned more from Lou Gladstein and Abe Zion than I could have learned in any Ivy League university.

But here I was at age 23, and I was getting burned out. I felt that needed to do something that was less stressful.

So, I started looking for surplus deals in the New Haven Connecticut area, and when I found a good deal, I would drive to Canal Street in Manhattan and find a buyer.

At the time Canal Street was a Mecca for New Yorks young engineers.

At lunch time, all the engineers would leave their offices and walk along Canal Street looking to buy all kinds of crazy mechanical gizmos and electronic things that they would take back to their offices and fool around with.

I would drive into New York every Wednesday, using the Connecticut Turnpike.

One of the last things I did With Abe Zion was run a small used car lot on West Main Street in Stamford Connecticut.

One Wednesday morning, on my way to New York, I turned off at the West Street exit of the turnpike to drive my old car lot in Stamford Connecticut.

I was curious as to what, if anything was going on there, and who possibly was using my old office, and who was running the car lot.

It had been six months since I was last there, and I was curious.

The first thing I saw was that the lot was loaded with cars, so I pulled in to see who was running the place.

My old office was a small wooden building on West Main Street and the door was open.

When I stepped inside, all the original old, scratched furniture was still there.

Sitting behind the desk was a jovial-looking fellow. He stood up and said, yes sir, how can I help you? He must have thought I wanted to buy a car.

The guy had a big smile on his face, and that’s how I met Lou Gladstein.

Lou was about 5 foot 8 inches tall, and he was about 15 years older than me.

He now had faded red hair and I could see his once freckled complexion, that his

age was now starting to blur.

The belly button on his not too clean shirt was popping open.

I told him my name, and said that I had once leased the same auto wrecking yard.

Lou said he already knew all about me, from one of the owners of Milford Auto Wrecking, who had leased me the Stamford yard.

Lou said he had also heard a lot about me from Abe Zion and Lou said he was happy to finally meet me.

Lou, it appeared, was one of the friendliest, and jovial guys I had ever met, and he shook my hand like he really meant it.

Lou said friends called him “Red”.

Then Lou started to talk to me about my relationship with Abe Zion, and he knew all about everyone I had ever been involved with. Lou said they were all a bunch of crooks.

It was impossible not to like Lou.

We talked and talked until he looked at his watch, and saw it was lunch time.

Lou said, come with me to the restaurant down the street, we can eat for nothing.

Eat for nothing I asked? Yes Lou said, I invested money to help the guy get started in business, and now he feeds me for free.

After a moment of silence, Lou added, that’s the only way I can get my money back out of the deal is by eating there.

After lunch we went back to the office and we talked and talked.

I saw that there was a pay telephone on the wall in the office, and as it was getting late I wanted to call home to let my fiancée know I would be home late.

. Lou, he said matter-of-factly, when you make your call, pull the string on the phone and all your money will come back.

I looked at the phone, and there sure was a string hanging out of it.

I put in my money, waited until I heard a dinging noise, and pulled the string.

All my money came back. I then made my call.

Lou said he had a friend with a phone key that had taught him how to rig the phone.

We then both agreed to look into doing something together.

Lou suggested we start going to various auctions, and buying items that we thought we could sell. I thought that was a good idea, and it was the start of our relationship.

Read the following stories involving Lou Gladstein

#21 The band of 40 thieves.

#58 The flight to Bolivia story

#73 The Haitian bombing story

#75 The Haitian railroad story

#86 The Japanese ambassador story

#88 The Johnny Boy and the bananas story

#118 The Miami junk yard story

#151 The restaurant story

#158 The Stamford telephone story

#161 The stolen cars story