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New Columnists, More Opinions, Now!

If you hadn’t already noticed, The Commercial Observer late last night added seven new columnists to its already formidable roster of real estate thought leaders.

Indeed, along with veteran prognosticators Robert Knakal, Sam Chandan, Richard Persichetti and Robert Sammons (back from a short hiatus), we’re now happy to welcome David Greene, Christopher Havens, Barry LePatner, Kenneth McCarthy, J.D. Parker, Joshua Siegelman and Scott Spector. Find web-exclusive columns along the right rail of our website every week. Read More

Reader's Poll

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Power 100 Reader’s Poll Results

Over the course of five days last week, thousands of you voted in our first annual Power 100 Reader’s Poll. In the end, however, the balance of power swung like a pendulum with every new tweet and social media update posted by real estate professionals committed to seeing their colleagues reach the top.

As it turns out, no company or individual has mastered the ability of self-promotion and branding quite like The Trump Organization, which snagged 8 percent of the vote in part through a dedicated social media campaign and an old-fashioned word-of-mouth strategy. Mr. Trump, the father-in-law of Jared Kushner, the owner of The Commercial Observer, has proven once again that the medium is the message.

Below, the full results of our first-ever Power 100 Reader’s Poll. Check back tomorrow for the official Power 100 list. Read More

In Memoriam

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Roger Ebert Succumbs to Cancer at Age 70

In honor of the late, great, Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert, who died this morning at the age of 70 following a decade-long bout with dueling cancers of the thyroid and salivary gland, we momentarily break from the news of real estate to offer readers this, our favorite of his wonderful essays about living in Chicago as a writer, alongside Mike Royko, Studs Terkel and others. Read More

Holiday Galas

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14th Annual Empire Ball

14th Annual Empire Ball Pix

Nearly a thousand real estate professionals and executives crowded the convention floor of the Grand Hyatt Hotel Dec. 12 for the 14th annual Empire Ball, which this year raised a whopping $1.2 million for cure-focused Diabetes research.

Beside fundraising for DiabetesResearch.org, a research facility at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine where proceeds Read More

Holiday Galas

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Cooper-Horowitz 48th Annual Holiday Party

Cooper-Horowitz 48th Annual Holiday Party Pix

More than 900 prominent borrowers and lenders sampled former pro basketball legend Michael Jordan’s juiciest steaks at Cooper-Horowitz’ 48th annual holiday party Dec. 12 at, where else, Michael Jordan’s Steakhouse in Grand Central terminal.

Names no less impressive than Howard Lutnick of BGC Partners and Leslie Himmel of Himmel + Meringoff Properties mingled with brokers Read More

Holiday Galas

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National Jewish Health: A Winter’s Evening

National Jewish Health: A Winter’s Evening Pix

More than 700 guests continued National Jewish Health’s 43-year tradition of support from New York’s real estate and construction industries’ leaders with a holiday event Dec. 8 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel that, this year, raised more than $1.5 million.

All of the funds raised during a special silent auction at the event were earmarked Read More

Holiday Galas

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2012 Fried Frank Real Estate Holiday Party

2012 Fried Frank Holiday Party Pix

Once again proving itself as the undisputed commercial real estate industry’s must-attend event of the holiday season, Fried Frank’s annual soiree Dec. 4 at Cipriani 42nd Street drew more than 1,100 movers, shakers and brokers.

Machers including CBRE’s Mary Ann Tighe, Silverstein Properties’ Larry Silverstein and Tishman Speyer’s Rob Speyer tried their best at small Read More

Holiday Galas

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Newmark Grubb Knight Frank ICSC Party

Newmark Grubb Knight Frank ICSC Pix

Nearly 500 guests, many of them heavily coveted retail tenants, swarmed lower Manhattan hotspot Beauty & Essex, for Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s annual International Council of Shopping Center party, perhaps the one and only soiree that every broker, owner and tenant truly wanted to sneak into during the retail organization’s two-day convention.

Executives from the Read More

Holiday Galas

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National Executive Service Corps. Gala

National Executive Service Corps. Gala Pix

Don Peebles, owner of The Peebles Corporation, the country’s largest African American real estate development company, was honored Nov. 15 at the Yale Club by the National Executive Service Corps for his business achievements and his efforts to help nonprofit communities and the people they serve.

Mr. Peebles, who was honored alongside Marv Berenblum, the Read More

Women in Real Estate

Credit: Daniel Hertzberg

Notes from a Mancave: One Executive’s Encounter With a Fortune 500 Deadbeat

Last week, The Commercial Observer spoke to nearly one hundred prominent women in commercial real estate, most of whom were happy to report that industry complaints about mistreatment or outright sexual harassment are now few and far between, compared to five years ago, yes, but especially in comparison to 20 years ago, when fewer than half as many women in New York held top executive positions in the industry.

But the problems created by such disparities still persist, as evidenced by myriad anecdotes relayed to Commercial Observer reporters during interviews last week. Below, one executive’s sordid tale of a negotiation in the early ’00s with a well-known financial services company honcho and her well-behaved male boss on the eve of the Great Recession.

Names and details have been redacted to protect the innocent. Read More

2012 Owners Magazine

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Mortimer Zuckerman

The 2012 Owners Inquisition

It all began with a simple premise: If you could ask the city’s biggest, most powerful commercial real estate owners 15 questions, what would they be, and what would that list look like?

Sure, it would include market predictions and boilerplate real estate stuff, like views on Midtown South’s dramatic uptick in popularity and its Read More

E-Newsletter

Don’t Forget to Sign Up for CO Now!

Why not sign up for CO Now, our daily e-newsletter? After all, more than 4,000 of your friends, colleagues and competitors are already getting a competitive edge thanks to The Commercial Observer’s curated selection of real estate news, delivered each day at 8 a.m. Better still, all we need is an email address—and nothing more. Sign up after the jump.
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E-Newsletter

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Don’t Forget to Sign Up for CO Now!

Why not sign up for CO Now, our daily e-newsletter? After all, more than 4,000 of your friends, colleagues and competitors are already getting a competitive edge thanks to The Commercial Observer’s curated selection of real estate news, delivered each day at 8 a.m. Better still, all we need is an email address—and nothing more. Read More