The Queen is dead. Leona Helmsley, the real-estate magnate and hotelier dubbed the Queen of Mean, died of heart failure today at her home in Greenwich, Connecticut. She was 87. She was famously convicted on tax-evasion charges in 1989, after a trial in which a former maid testified that Helmsley had told her that "only the little people pay taxes." In October 1988, before that trial started, Jeanie Kasindorf profiled Leona and Harry Helmsley — spouses, business partners, co-indictees — for New York, finding a couple whose lives centered around making every dollar they could.

Leona and Harry: Money and Love [NYM, PDF]
Leona Helmsley Is Dead at 87 [City Room/NYT]