Joseph Balaz: From fleeing communist Czechoslovakia as a student to working for global celebrities in New York

Joseph Balaz is president of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary
Association, which brings together the leading Czech organisations in New
York. But Balaz’s main activity is running a successful construction firm
that brings him into contact with global celebrities and the cream of
Manhattan society. Not bad for a student from Prague’s Žižkov who
escaped from communist Czechoslovakia with little more than the clothes on
his back. The man born Josef Baláž spoke to me at the splendid Bohemian
National Hall, the completion of whose renovation he personally oversaw.