Macklowe Properties’s $4 billion sale of four Midtown Manhattan office towers, including the 2-million-square-foot General Motors trophy tower at a record-shattering price of $2.8 billion -- the most ever paid for a single office building -- brings an apparent end to nearly 18 months of high-stakes drama that extended from the corporate boardrooms of powerful Manhattan law firms and financial lenders, to the family room of one of the city's storied building owners.