Joseph Grella:  

I started life as a star quarterback but hen something happened, juvenile onset of MS. Then I focused myself on skiing hoping to get on the junior Olympic team in gs and downhill then I wiped out in downhill training and had to wait another year before I could get another try out but by then I was a drug addict and my job was to buy heroin in Harlem and sell it on long island. After a few years and a few arrests I realized this was not the way to wealth and happiness so I went to work in a tennis club owned by a wealthy shopping center developer. After a year or two he gave me the opportunity of my life when he asked if I would like to work in real estate selecting sites for his new venture which was to open 24 Wendy¿s Hamburger Restaurants on Long Island and Manhattan. Then I met a girl who managed a whorehouse at 211 e 51st street and we became a team in love and life. Did I mention that her mother and father lived on Park Ave and he was an international realtor? It was as if fate had stepped into my life and granted all of my wishes. When we married in 1979 there were 3 conditions that I had to agree to, sort of like a pre-nup; 1- convert to Judaism 2-don't screw other women and 3- don't shoot heroin. At first it was like life was going my way. We were married at the Plaza Hotel under a hupi with a rabbi and I had to break a glass. With my Jewish boss and family and my Italian Christian family and my mafia friends Mike and Richie looking on ¿I felt like I was on top of the world. Little did I know that before the year was out Wendy¿s would be history, my wife would be pregnant and we would move to Philadelphia. When we came home from our honeymoon in London and Paris my position with Wendy¿s was coming to an end and as Paul sold his interests I stayed with him to build an 80,000sf shopping center. E 51st Street had to close and Mike was pushing for me to get my wife to open another house which he would finance. So I found a brownstone at 239 E 61st Street which made a great location, Muhammed Ali and Bill Cosby were neighbors, and within hours of signing the lease I had 10 beds delivered. Before we had turned 1 trick the FBI was visiting. My wife had worked for the bureau getting evidence on various people she worked for over the years and now they wanted her to get info on our investor. After that chilling visit we went on a vacation to Jackson Hole and when we got back we found out she was pregnant with our 1st child. While I was thinking about what kind of Mercedes to get she was thinking about getting out of the life altogether. A few weeks after finding out we packed the little we had and moved back to our Great Neck apartment. There we hunkered down while watching her mustang get repossessed and then my 4 wheel drive golden eagle and we prayed our ¿investor¿ was not looking for us to pay him back. I was travelling every week to Philadelphia providing supervisory management for my father-in-law¿s industrial building then when he sold the property to Allen Pullman I was part of the deal. Until the baby was born we could not relocate so every morning I took the train to NY to meet Allen then we would take the metroliner to Philadelphia. After 6 months of this commute in April 1980 I moved my wife and 3 month old son to a fabulous apartment across the street from the steps made famous by ROCKY! Over the next 3 years Philadelphia would provide unbelievable highs, significant lows and life would again bring me to the top of the world and then slam ...Expand for more