A stack of Brooklyn Dodgers hats, next to shirts bearing the legend “One Hanson Place” and tied with gold ribbon, were on hand for the guests. “One Hanson Place” is the new name for the building, now that Mr. Johnson and his business partners have begun selling off apartments in the 34-story office building they purchased for $71 million in May 2005. Prices in the 189-unit condominium range from $350,000 to $3.5 million.

To call the Williamsburgh Savings Bank building iconic is hardly to the point. It is possibly the only skyline landmark in the borough, besides the Brooklyn Bridge; a great tower dominating south Brooklyn’s busiest intersection at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.

It’s largely as a visual point of reference that Brooklynites know the building, unless they happen to frequent one of the many dentists’ offices in the building. (Some, in fact, will remain there.)

But for the most part, the building is being redeveloped into expensive condominiums, one of which Mr. Johnson himself, looking businesslike in a navy blue suit with an orange tie and a color-coordinated dress shirt, told the assembled group he planned to buy.

“I know that I have always been looking for a place to have an office and an apartment,” Mr. Johnson said. “Then I can walk to New Jersey Nets games!”

“Brooklyn Nets!” shouted Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who was standing nearby.

“Sorry—Brooklyn Nets,” Mr. Johnson said.

Their reference to the extremely controversial plan to develop a vast swath of acreage a few blocks away, centered upon an arena for the New Jersey Nets basketball team, only served to give an edge to the otherwise smooth proceedings: One Hanson Place was not, itself, without controversies.

A few hours before Mr. Johnson’s presentation, the activist group ACORN sent out a press release announcing their plans to picket the grand-opening party for the building, to be held minutes later downstairs in the grand bank lobby, which ultimately will become a Borders Bookstore.

As guests listened to smooth jazz and ate and drank cocktails in the vast, vaulted stone-and-marble bank lobby, a group of about 30 picketers formed outside, wearing little paper pins depicting skunks, slashed through with a black line.

“Sweetheart deals stink!” they shouted as they picketed. “Housing for the Needy, Not for the Greedy!” And: “Come Down, Magic! Come Down Now!”

The group was angry that there was no plan to include a component of affordable housing in the redeveloped condominiums, which will include Viking appliances and views as far out into the ocean and over the city as far as the eye can see.

Mr. Johnson did not appear to be coming down. But earlier in the evening he did address the growing controversy that had built after his investment group took over one of Brooklyn’s most beloved landmarks and turned it into condominiums well out of the price range of most of the building’s lifelong admirers.

“Every time we go in, we always look to see how we can make affordable housing work,” Mr. Johnson had said. “But I have people that I have to answer to, and in this situation it just didn’t work out.”

The picketing outside was enough to prompt his partner to hold a 45-minute meeting with Bertha Lewis, the head of the New York chapter of ACORN, to talk things out.

“[We] have an ongoing dialogue to address their concerns,” Mr. Johnson’s business partner, Bobby Turner, told a small group of reporters.

But later, Ms. Lewis was less than enthusiastic about the meeting.

“Less than nothing,” she told a reporter from the picket line outside. “That’s what they gave us.”

The group had wanted Mr. Johnson and his partners to guarantee they could transform a nearby parking lot into affordable units for neighborhood people. They didn’t get their guarantee.

Ever since Mr. Johnson and his partners bought the building, politicians, brokers and bloggers have been buzzing over the conversion of Brooklyn’s tallest building.

Built in 1927-9, the Byzantine-inspired Art Deco tower, with its four-face clock and gold dome, has been a treasured landmark to generations of Brooklynites.

And so the massive conversion is not about just getting a bookseller into a former bank; it’s also about bringing affluent buyers to the neighborhood.

Developers routinely attract criticism for not providing affordable housing, but Mr. Johnson and his partners are especially vulnerable. “In addition to meeting its investment objectives,” reads the fund’s mission statement, “the partnership expects to provide and foster economic opportunities for the under-served residents of the urban neighborhoods in which it invests.”

“The Canyon Johnson Urban Fund is the largest private-equity fund solely focused on urban revitalization,” said Mr. Turner. For Mr. Turner, the Williamsburgh Savings Bank building encompassed the “three D’s” needed for a successful project: diversity, density and demand.

“We have a mandate to make money,” said Mr. Turner. “We manage money on behalf of many New Yorkers. But we have committed—when we can—to foster opportunity for the residents in the community that we are investing in.”

“We clearly believe that this is a resegregation of downtown Brooklyn,” said Ms. Lewis. “And not just in terms of race, but in terms of class.”

“Any time you see—as with the Williamsburgh Savings Bank building, or any of these developments—a big huge sign that reads ‘luxury condos,’ that sign is really saying ‘keep out,’” she said.

And Ms. Lewis does not buy the argument that there couldn’t be any affordable units.

“They can say that they cannot crunch the numbers and make it work,” said Ms. Lewis. “You can decide that out of 200 units, you’re going to have 50 [affordable units]. You figure out programs to subsidize those, and you make it work.”

“You make a decision,” said Ms. Lewis. “And once you make that decision that you are going to have an affordable component, you work backwards. You make the investment in affordability.”

“With great respect to ACORN, not every deal can provide affordable housing,” said Mr. Turner. Mr. Turner offered a suggestion for those “being antagonistic and picketing” the building: “Be proactive, rather than reactive.”

Indeed, Mr. Johnson’s investment fund typically provides many affordable-housing units, according to Mr. Turner, but it still has a fiduciary responsibility to its investors—which include the New York City Pension Fund. In the past five years, Mr. Johnson’s fund has provided capital to build about 6,500 residential units. Of those, 85 percent are affordable, according to Mr. Turner.

Development partners the Dermot Company agreed with Mr. Turner’s assessment.

“We spent time to see if we could make the economics work,” said Andrew MacArthur, principal of the Dermot Company. “Economically, it wasn’t viable.”

“I suppose when you are in development in New York City, you expect that you are going to receive some criticism from somebody,” said Mr. MacArthur. “The issue of affordable housing is a very serious issue in New York City. In all of our other projects, we’ve had an affordable component to our projects.”

But not this one.

“They need to understand that there is a crisis in affordable housing,” said City Councilmember Letitia James. “Downtown Brooklyn is becoming very monolithic and resegregated.”

Ms. James also had harsh words for the Borough President, a supporter of the building’s conversion (as well as the Atlantic Yards project).

“Marty Markowitz came out and supported the ACORN plan [for affordable housing],” said Ms. James. “Why would he go out and support a project that doesn’t have affordable housing? Shame on him.”

“I’d love to see affordable housing at that location,” said Mr. Markowitz, who mentioned the parking lot nearby, which the fund also owns, that has been discussed as a possible location for it. “Everyone at Borough Hall is willing to work with the developer if they are willing to make that commitment.”

“The Williamsburgh Bank building will always be Brooklyn’s landmark building,” said Mr. Markowitz. “It will instantly—between its commercial and residential—become a hub of Brooklyn in a new use.”

So who are these wealthier buyers coming to Brooklyn’s new hub, anyway?

“Our demographic is going to be so open,” said Adam Pacelli, a vice president of the Corcoran Group, whose firm is marketing the building. “I think we are going to have as many baby boomers and empty-nesters—maybe more than we are going to have thirtysomethings.”

On June 8, a few days before the launch party, Mr. Pacelli provided an enthusiastic tour though the storied building: from the underground bank vault to the observation deck—which offers sweeping views over the city, and out to New Jersey.

“Basically, the majority of new development tends to have this modern, flashy appeal,” said Mr. Pacelli. “It’s fad-driven. They have to create this urgency and buzz about it, to get people in.”

“Everyone has such an interaction with this building,” said Mr. Pacelli. “Everyone is so curious to see what the new life will be.”

On an overcast Thursday afternoon, workers moved quickly through the 10th floor, preparing a sample unit for the June 13 launch party. Inside the corner apartment the white paint on the doors was still wet; the built-in Viking appliances were not yet installed. The future Corcoran sales office is located on the same floor down the hall. There were still no desks, computers or brokers; however, a striped gray rug was recently installed.

“Oh yeah, look at the rug, dude,” said Mr. Pacelli, heading into the future sales office. “Hot!”

Scanning the new sales office, and gazing over the borough from the large windows, Mr. Pacelli said that after about two years, he’s more than ready to move on to the selling aspect of his job. Soon his tours through the nooks and crannies of the 512-foot-high building—with stops in the former bank president’s office and mechanical room to look at the elevator gears—will be reserved for potential condo buyers. “I love it—don’t get me wrong—but it’s been a long time coming,” he added.

Initially, there will be 132 units released, located on floors nine though 19. Mr. Pacelli emphasized that even the lowest residential units will tower over much of the comparatively low-lying brownstones and retail shops nearby (the future Frank Gehry–designed “Miss Brooklyn” tower notwithstanding). “Where other new developments finish,” he said, “we begin.” By September, Mr. Pacelli expects to launch the higher-priced units that start on the 23rd floor.

And it’s high up above Brooklyn that Mr. Markowitz—the borough’s single greatest cheerleader—desires to live. But he can’t.

“If I was able to afford to live there, I wouldn’t be facing Manhattan, I’d be facing Brooklyn—so I would look over my borough,” said Mr. Markowitz. “In fact, I wouldn’t mind if the developers would consider having an official residence for the Brooklyn Borough President.”

“They didn’t offer,” joked Mr. Markowitz. “And I didn’t ask.”

Stephon to Net Perry Street Condo?

For New York Knicks players, a good way to get over this woeful season could be to treat oneself to something nice—say a $6.95 million apartment in the Richard Meier–designed towers on Perry Street.

Knicks point guard Stephon Marbury recently checked out such a pricey pad, according to a source with knowledge of the listing.

The 3,692-square-foot apartment includes floor-to-ceiling windows, providing superb city and Hudson River views. The full-service building also features a 24-hour doorman, concierge and state-of-the-art fitness room.

The Perry Street towers have been a celebrity outpost ever since they hit the market several years back—attracting notables like Calvin Klein, Martha Stewart and Vincent Gallo. But the building has never been popular with sports superstars.

As of now, there’s no word on whether the Brooklyn native is ready to relocate to the West Village’s glass-and-steel fishbowl. Through a spokesperson, Mr. Marbury declined to comment on his real-estate interests.

Warburg Realty’s senior managing director, Richard Steinberg, and his colleague Sarah Fiszel have the listing.

Art and the Deal

When hedge-fund manager Daniel Loeb’s deal to buy a $45 million penthouse at 15 Central Park West closes, he’ll best Rupert Murdoch’s record-setting $44 million purchase at 834 Fifth Avenue.

But the deal left him with the Bank Street townhouse he’d purchased only six months earlier for $11.2 million. He tried to do something ambitious on Bank Street, too, marketing the West Village house for $18.95 million earlier this year.

He’ll fall far short of the 69 percent markup he initially hoped for: The 44-foot-wide townhouse recently sold for a rather more modest $12 million, according to deed-transfer records.

Back in April 2005, the four-story townhouse—located on a quaint West Village block—seemed ideal for Mr. Loeb, his wife, Margaret Munzer, and their family.

Devoted patrons of the arts, the couple bought the house from fellow art collector John Stewart—not the Daily Show guy, but a collector, who made the house home to a prized art collection including over 30 works by Russian artist Ilya Kabakov

Some renovations were needed, but the townhouse already offered more than 12,000 square feet of living—or exhibition—space.

Soon, Mr. Loeb will have ample room in the 39th-floor perch above Central Park to showcase his contemporary collection. The family’s lavish spread at 15 C.P.W.—which is to be completed next spring—measures over 10,000 square feet. Inside the full-floor apartment, there are eight bedrooms, 10 bathrooms and about 800 square feet of terrace space.

Brokers Paula Del Nunzio and Guida De Carvalhosa, of Brown Harris Stevens, had the Bank Street listing. Ms. Del Nunzio declined to comment. Mr. Loeb did not return calls seeking comment.

Macklowes Move East

Lately, Macklowe Properties has been making headlines with extensive plans for midtown Manhattan: The company is reportedly developing a hotel and condominium on East 53rd Street, and they’re demolishing the Drake Hotel on East 56th Street and building a luxury condominium in its place.

But the Macklowe family apparently has designs on the bucolic Hamptons, too.

Recently, Billy Macklowe, the company president and son of real-estate mogul Harry—purchased a 10.2-acre tract of land in Sagaponack for $8.1 million, according to deed-transfer records.

Unfortunately, Mr. Macklowe is unwilling to discuss how he plans to utilize the Daniels Lane property. Through a spokesperson, the developer declined to comment.

Met: June 1989

Engaged: Feb. 27, 2003

Projected Wedding Date: Spring 2004

Ocean-to-ocean emotion! Jodi Kaplan, 36, a sexily gap-toothed Upper West Side filmmaker, has found bicoastal bliss with Aaron Lipman, 32, a resident of Beverly Hills, Calif., and a partner in Entertainment Earth, a collectible-toy company. "He just shines," said Ms. Kaplan, whose work has been shown at Lincoln Center. "He's full of a lot of light."

They were under a tree in Pasadena when Mr. Lipman-bearded, blue-eyed, broad-shouldered-plopped to one knee and blurted the magic words while proffering a gold-and-platinum Malcom Betts diamond ring from Barneys. Ms. Kaplan was still wearing the chunky velvet scarf she'd donned in chilly New York.

They first met under that same tree 14 years earlier, when Mr. Lipman was an undergraduate at Cal Tech with Ms. Kaplan's two younger brothers (she studied at Smith). "They never mentioned much about her. Then, when I met her, I was surprised two guys like them could have such a good-looking sister," Mr. Lipman said. Years of cordial pleasantries followed. Mr. Lipman went to Harvard to get a Ph.D. in computer engineering, but got "burned out from burning microchips." So he got a job writing jokes for a short-lived Game Show Network program called Burt Luddin's Love Buffet -think The Newlywed Game meets Murphy Brown . Meanwhile, Ms. Kaplan went to Columbia's film school and began making movies of people dancing underwater or on trampolines, while also cultivating a business representing dance troupes. She told friends she was entering a nesting mode and was beginning to research Internet dating sites.

Then, just in time, Mr. Lipman re-entered the picture. Ms. Kaplan was stopping in L.A. to visit friends on her way back from dance-troupe business in Australia and needed a place to crash. After much prodding, she warily contacted her brothers' old college acquaintance. "We clicked on the phone," she said. After she arrived at his house, they stayed up talking until 4 a.m. "I really liked her," Mr. Lipman said. "After she left, I thought, You know, jeez, she's really terrific. It'd be nice if I could meet someone like that here. " When Ms. Kaplan returned west for a wedding in the spring, she asked him to be her date, borrowed his inflatable mattress again, then cannily vamoosed solo to San Luis Obispo to visit a friend. Men love it when you disappear, right, girls? "When she was gone, I really felt on the inside that being with her was the right thing to do, and when she came back, that was it," he said.

Their wedding will be modest, and they're not sure yet which coast will play host. But Ms. Kaplan- gasp! -has decided to ditch her Manhattan pad and move to Los Angeles with her two kitties, Beaux Beaux and Esmerelda. Mr. Lipman isn't entirely psyched about the feline company. "He says if he'd found my profile online and it said I liked cats, he would've ruled me out," Ms. Kaplan said. But with typical "California mellow," he's shrugging off this issue for the big character picture. "She's just not as laid-back as everyone else," he said. "She always has very definite notions, and everyone in L.A. is just like, 'Um, O.K.'"

Adam Pacelli and Rita Parikh

Met: February 1998

Engaged: May 30, 2002

Projected Wedding Date: Nov. 28, 2003

The pop group Five was shooting a video for its song "When the Lights Go Out" in a Brooklyn bowling alley. Rita Parikh was the production manager. Adam Pacelli was the art director. "She walked in and was wearing these tight leather pants, and she was just the cutest thing ever," said Mr. Pacelli, who is 32, "bald by choice" and rather dapper himself. "I saw her and knew almost right away that I wanted to marry her …. I think she thought I was gay."

"I did not think he was gay," said Ms. Parikh, a slight, black-haired beauty of 28 with Indian heritage and degrees from Yale and Duke. "But, you know, he was an art director, he was well-dressed, he was from Brooklyn-he was all these things that I didn't imagine for myself. Quite frankly, I'd always imagined myself with an Indian husband." She has 49 cousins, all of whom have married within their culture. So although she began hanging out with Mr. Pacelli a lot after the video wrapped-finding him "charismatic" and "lovable"-she kept him tightly shut in the "just friends" compartment of her brain.

"Every six months or so," she said, "I would wake up and think to myself, Oh my God! I can't be spending this much time with someone! I'll never find an Indian husband! "

Time passed. Mr. Pacelli valiantly hung in there. She began calling him "Jads," a loving nickname that roughly translates to "Fatty" in Hindi. (He calls her "Dobie," or "Idiot Girl.") The two jettisoned their "creative" careers and started playing golf. He became a real-estate agent for Corcoran in Park Slope; she founded Nexserver, an Internet company. "And then one day I woke up and realized that I was so lucky to have him in my life, and I had to start cherishing that," Ms. Parikh said. "I practically proposed to him then. I told him, 'Look, I'm sorry I've been so difficult, but I know now that you're it.' My friends always say that Adam basically sat on my couch for a couple of years, waiting for me to come to my senses."

Now that couch is in a large Park Slope two-bedroom, accompanied by lots of furniture made by Mr. Pacelli (an amateur carpenter who majored in philosophy at SUNY Albany) and crammed closets. "I have twice as many shoes as she has," he said. "She's very low-maintenance." Over dinner one night at Geido, a local sushi place, he announced that he'd made an appointment for the following day to have her sized for a ring at Paul Stuart in Soho-a thick platinum band with one large sapphire. "He got all flustered, and I was like, 'What, are you proposing ?'" Ms. Parikh said.

"Her ability to grasp abstract concepts is much greater than mine," Mr. Pacelli said.

Recently, her family threw them a large engagement party in Ohio, where Ms. Parikh grew up, with an 11-course vegetarian feast and lots of traditional Indian folk dancing. The wedding itself will be a more intimate affair, at the Riviera Maya in Mexico. The bride will have her hands painted with henna and wear a white-and-crimson sari. The groom is planning a "custom hybrid Western-Indian outfit" made of blood-red and camel-colored raw silk. He's very excited about it.

Maureen Langan and Peter McDermott

Met: June 1996

Engaged: March 1, 2003

Projected Wedding Date: Sept. 28, 2003

Maureen Langan, a stand-up comic, is marrying Peter McDermott, a civil engineer-and all we can say, baby, is that those Seinfelds better watch their back! "I'm very to the point, and he's very detail-oriented," Ms. Langan said, fortifying herself with a large glass of Red Bull before a set at the Duplex in the West Village. "It makes me want to shoot myself." Her graying "lover," as she calls him, was sitting nearby with a tolerant smile. "I tell her she can dump all over me if it'll get laughs," he said.

Mr. McDermott is 44. Ms. Langan, who is featured in national commercials for Estroven, a hormone-balancing pill, doesn't want her age printed: "Say I'm 112," she said. They live in an east midtown one-bedroom and hail from New Jersey-Yonkers and Lake Hiawatha, respectively. "Where there is no lake," she said.

The russet-haired, raspy-voiced Ms. Langan used to cover entertainment and satirize world news for Bloomberg Media. Fabio was a regular guest ("He wanted me," she said), as was her Irish-born mother, whom she used to refer to as "the immigrant." This brand of humor didn't jibe with the Bloomberg Mayoral campaign, so Ms. Langan took herself and her genital-mutilation jokes to the stand-up circuit full time. No hard feelings: The Mayor is invited to their wedding, at the Lake Valhalla Club in Montville, N.J. "There really is a lake there," she said.

Likewise at Spring Lake, N.J., where the couple first met at a bar. "He shoved his way to me through a crowd," Ms. Langan said. "I just saw this big happy red face. He looked like a grounded person, and I liked that. I just couldn't take the rage and the freaks anymore, you know?" We hear you, sister!

On their first date, Mr. McDermott blurted that he didn't go out with "pretty" women. "I go, 'Well, why don't you just let me order some Alpo and we'll pay the bill and go,'" Ms. Langan recalled. "I was in zero-tolerance mode. You know when you're young, you let guys off the hook if they say something rude? Well, I'd just gotten to the point where I was like, 'No, he really does mean it, so I'm going to move on.'"

Her suitor felt misunderstood. "I thought she had a great look," he said. Mr. McDermott spent the rest of the summer trying to win back her favor, once sending her a dozen red roses and then calling to tell her that it'd cost him $90. "After a while, I'd see him on the beach and I'd say 'hi,' and he'd say, 'No Maureen, I can't talk to you. I need to cultivate new friendships,'" Ms. Langan said. "That would make me laugh. I liked how secure he was with the fact that I was rejecting him."

So one evening, she vroomed by his house on her red Suzuki motorcycle and rode off with him into the New Jersey fog.

He proposed on a boardwalk near that same shore. The punchline was a platinum ring containing a round diamond flanked by two baguettes-two carats total. Her response: "Yeah? Well, I don't see someone in front of me on his knee ."

Then the lady-clown cried.