HENRY SWIECA VIVIDLY REMEMBERS THE FIRST TIME HE met Glenn Dubin, his partner in Highbridge Capital Management, the New York City hedge fund firm. It was in 1960 in a Bennett Park sandbox at West 183rd Street and Fort Washington Avenue in the northernmost reaches of Manhattan.

"We shared peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches," recalls the 47-year-old Swieca, with a grin. Dubin, also 47, just laughs, saying, "His memory is much better than mine."

The two grew up in Washington Heights, a working-class neighborhood in the shadow of the George Washington Bridge. All through their school years, they remained fast friends. Swieca attended a private school on the Upper West Side -- the Franklin School (now merged with the Dwight School) -- on a scholarship, whileDubin starred in football and wrestling at John F. Kennedy High School in Riverdale in the Bronx. But the friends, who lived just five blocks apart, would often spend hours on the phone in the evenings, with Dubin, the jokester, invariably cracking...