Papers 36.7 ie, tluorenes, which have attracted recent attention '. The existing methods for preparation of fluorenes are long and tedious and usually provide low overall yields"'"''. The starting diarylh ydroxyacetic acid esters 6 were obtained from the reaction ofsuitable aryl Grignard or aryllithium reagents 4 with an alkyl at-ortoarylacetate 5 in yields ranging from 53 to 9t)%.