FISHER, James B.

About twenty years ago James B. Fisher was a young man whose job it was to abstract and examine real estate records in the Register's office of Kings County. But as he was searching, from day to day, in the midst of dusty deeds and obliterated documents there evolved in him a vision of Greater Brooklyn, a vision that made him want to go out and do things and share in the up-building of a great city. Young men, less courageous and virile, might wince and keep their noses buried in the technical records and wait weekly for the slender pay envelopes. But young Fisher did go out "on his own hook," with the result that today he is one of the most prominent realtors in Brooklyn, occupying the whole of an exquisite and artistic edifice at 160 Remsen Street.

Though successful and widely-esteemed, Fisher essentially remains the dynamic, ambitious, striving and broadly-democratic man that he was when as a poor youth he was dreaming of an opulent career. The greater maturity of judgment, which came with years, and the greater stability of outlook merely rounded out a portrait of a successful American, which he is.

His first real estate office was located at 242 Broadway, on the Williamsburgh Bridge Plaza. The flow of home-seekers from the East Side of Manhattan to Williamsburgh and the subsequent movement from all points of Manhattan to Park Slope and Flatbush gave him ample opportunity for a general expansion of his efforts.

This led successively to the opening of his Flatbush office, the merging of the Williamsburgh and Flatbush offices into one central office on Montague Street, and finally the founding of the present permanent home of his active and manifold organization. For a year and half Fisher was engaged in the housing of shipyard workers for the U.S. Shipping Board, during the war.

Fisher is former president, and member of the Executive Board, of the Real Estate Board, director and member of the Executive committee of the Chamber of Commerce, director of the Flatbush Chamber of Commerce and the Midwood Trust Company, director of several real estate holding companies, director of the Y.M.C.A., director of the Presbyterian Home for the Aged, Mason, member of the Rotary Club, Williamsburgh Luncheon Club, Crescent Club, Union League Club, and member of the National Association of Real Estate Boards and the New York Real Estate Board.

His recreations consist in automobiling, the theater and travel. He is married and lives at 910 Ocean Avenue.

FLEISCHER, Charles

Despite his innate modesty, which would bar the mentioning of his record, Charles Fleischer remains one of the prominent figures of long standing in the real estate development of Brooklyn. In his own unassuming but forceful way he has built practically every known type of dwelling in the various parts of this boro and particularly in Eastern Parkway, Bay Ridge and Flatbush.

For over twenty years Fleischer has had an active part in the boro's growth. A keen observer and a lucid thinker, he saw many of his dreams come true, not only with respect to his own projects, but with regard to the general development of Brooklyn.

Fleischer has always been an enthusiast about the immense possibilities which lay dormant in this boro, and he foresaw a brilliant future ahead. So, even now, despite the feverish growth of the last few years, he still sees ample room for further expansion, which will be regulated merely by the law of supply and demand, he explained.

Fleischer came to the United States from Austria where he was born on Jan. 27, 1874. He was a youth of seventeen when he came across, and, once here, immediately started to make his own living. A couple of years after his arrival he drifted to Brooklyn, where he has remained ever since.

Few men can compare with him in his versatility in matters bearing directly or indirectly on real estate. Few have had the variety as well as the volume of practical experience that came to be his lot. Few are as firmly entrenched in the history of local growth.

Fleischer is a member of the Kings County Builders' Association, of the Brooklyn Jewish Center, the Real Estate Club of the Jewish Federation of Charities, and of the Federation itself.

His recreations consist in walking, motoring, the theatre and music.

He is married, and with his wife and two children lives at 1289 Union Street.