So we already know that the most powerful (business)woman in the city, Mary Ann Tighe, works in real estate. What about the city’s most powerful homosexuals, both female and male? That was the subject of the latest issue of The Observer, “New York’s New Power Gays,” and a good many of those on the list work in our beloved industry, including, arguably, our city’s No. 1 gay, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.
She signs off on all the ULURPs; has oversight of the budget and agencies like DOT and City Planning; and she is good pals with a lot of the city’s biggest builders, so we’re going to claim her as one of our own.
Real estate has not always been the most gay-friendly of fields, but that hasn’t kept many gay New Yorkers from making their ways there. Also on our list are:
8: Marc Jacobs, fashion designer (he owns half of Bleecker Street)
10: Robby Browne, Corcoran senior vice president
17 and 18: Andrew Kirtzman and Seth Weissman, developers of Fire Island Pines
24: A. Laurence Kaiser IV, founder of brokerage Key Ventures
27: John Stryker, president of the Arcus Foundation (the philanthropist is also a practicing architect)
33: Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance, the city’s biggest BID
34: Don Capoccia, BFC Partners (the Edge, Toren) managing principal
As if there were any question that real estate is finally coming around, even the Empire State Building got in on the Pride act this weekend, lighting up in a rainbow of colors, as captured by Think Progress in the picture above.
