James Thomas Lee (October 2, 1877 – January 3, 1968)[1] was an American lawyer, banker, and real estate investor.

In two years, he had joined Delta Kappa Epsilon and was working as a law clerk earning $6-a-week.

In 1901, he graduated from City College and then enrolled in a master's program at Columbia University in political science and economics.

[1] By 1908, Lee and his partner, Charles R. Fleischmann, built the 12-story Peter Stuyvesant apartments at the corner of 98th and Riverside Drive, designed by William L.

[6] His wife died unexpectedly, at age 63, at their daughter Marion's home in Hewlett Bay Park in February 1943.

[26][4] After a funeral at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer in Manhattan, he was buried alongside his parents at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, NY.

Through his daughter Janet, he was the grandfather of three girls, First Lady of the United States Jacqueline Lee Bouvier (1929–1994), the wife of John F. Kennedy,[27] and Aristotle Onassis;[28] Caroline Lee Bouvier (1933–2019), the wife of Michael Temple Canfield, Prince Stanisław Albrecht Radziwiłł,[29] Herbert Ross; and Janet Jennings Auchincloss (1945–1985), who married Lewis Polk Rutherfurd.