Grant Segall | Celveland.com
Glickman, 86, died Thursday, March 28, at the Cleveland Clinic after several years of complications from kidney disease.
“He could be a demanding, tough businessman, yet he was everyone’s favorite landlord,” said lawyer Jerry Gold, a long-time friend and tenant of Glickman at the Leader Building. “If someone was behind in rent, he’d say, ‘Well, try to catch up.’ He picked up checks everywhere.”
With other investors, Glickman built shopping strips around the country, bought the Leader and Huntington buildings, owned leasehold rights for Terminal Tower, built the parking garage at the Minneapolis airport and joined many other ventures.
He was reserved and independent. He chaired Ohio’s Democrats for Reagan in 1984, supported the first George Bush’s presidential victory and met privately with them in D.C. He backed both Dick Celeste and James Rhodes, Ohio governors from opposite parties.
Glickman chaired several businesses and the Cuyahoga County Port Authority. At his first port meeting, he opposed plans for businesses to use port property and insisted that a resolution to buy two staff cars specify the model as Pontiac 6000.
He had a kidney transplant at the Cleveland Clinic in 2002. With his late wife, the former Barbara “Babs” Schulman, he gave many millions of dollars to the Clinic for what became its Children’s Dialysis Center, Glickman Tower and Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute. U.S. News and World Report has ranked the institute best of its kind in the U.S.
He also supported Glickman-Miller Hall for urban studies at Cleveland State University, the Glickman Family Violence Center in Tel Aviv, Israel and other causes, including Jewish and Catholic ones.
“He was warm, wonderful, gracious, generous of spirit, and open-hearted,” said Dr. Eric Klein, who runs the Glickman Institute.
Glickman was raised in Cleveland Heights and entered the University of Minneapolis at age 14. During World War II, he joined the Army Air Corps Intelligence Service, saw combat in North Africa and served in Italy.
After the war, he used the G.I. Bill to borrow money at low rates and invest in small strip centers around the country. His holdings grew fast.
He built the Park apartments, now Reserve Square, at Chester and E. 12th St. With Howard Marks, he formed Glickman-Marks Management and helped rock stars such as Kiss and Diana Ross with investments. He had an office in Manhattan and helped turn the island’s famous Palladium dance hall into a disco.
He chaired University National Bank of Chicago, American Steel and Pump of New York, Computer Research of Pittsburgh and the for-profit Medical Arts Hospital of Houston, which he’d built. He chaired the executive committees of Franklin Corp. and Andal Corp. He was a director of several businesses in Israel.
Some efforts failed. In the early 1960s, he couldn’t start a National Basketball Association team in Cleveland, depsite a commitment from Ohio State University star Jerry Lucas. In the late 1960s, he visited Hugh Hefner’s mansion in Chicago and brought home franchise rights for Playboy at the Park apartments, but Cleveland leaders quashed the project. He chaired the audit committee of Bear Stearns, a Wall Street giant that fell.
Glickman was persistent, though. In the early 1980s, thwarted in taking over Cleveland’s Union Commerce Bank, he helped Huntington National Bank gain control.
In 1986, Mayor George Voinovich put him on the Cuyahoga County Port Authority. In 1984-85, he was foreman of the Cuyahoga County grand jury. In 2004, he served on the U.S. Olympic Committee.
He was a trustee of Cleveland State, John Carroll University, Mount Sinai Hospital, Montefiore Home and more. He was a distinguished fellow of the Cleveland Clinic and joined the board of visitors at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. He supported the Catholic diocese and Notre Dame College.
Glickman lived in Shaker Heights, then Lyndhurst, and vacationed for years in Palm Beach. His family said he liked to play gin and usually won. He belonged to Beechmont Country Club, the Union Club and several clubs in other cities.
Confined to a wheelchair the past few years, he still traveled with family to Greece two years ago and Alaska last year.
Carl David Glickman
1926-2013
Survivors: Children, Lindsay of Ridgefield, Conn., David of Chagrin Falls and Robert of Orange; and five grandchildren.
Funeral: 1 p.m. Sunday, March 31, at Suburban Temple Kol Ami, 22401 Chagrin Blvd., Beachwood.
Contributions: Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute, Desk Q-10, Cleveland Clinic, 9500 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, OH 44195.