The Wall Street Journal this morning lays out the stakes for Harry and Billy Macklowe. Bottom line, they owe billions to Deutsche Bank and hedge fund Fortress Investment. They used the billions to finance the epic $7 billion purchase of seven Manhattan office buildings one year ago this month.

Now, the bills are due something awful and the Macklowes may face the disappearance of much of their hard-won empire:

Mr. Macklowe's loss would earn him a page in the history of great real estate debacles. It will be bigger than the $2 billion loss Mitsubishi Estate Co. took when it walked away from its stake in New York's Rockefeller Center in the mid-1990s. And it will be swifter than the 1992 bankruptcy of London's Canary Wharf that led to the eventual dissolution of development giant Olympia & York.