Katie Holmes and Mayor Michael Bloomberg at The New York Observer's 25th anniversary party.

Last Thursday evening at New York’s perch of power dining, the Four Seasons Restaurant, billionaires could be found clinking glasses with politicians, actors could be seen rubbing shoulders with news correspondents, and throngs of notable wordsmiths quaffed copious amounts of liquor at The New York Observer’s 25th anniversary soiree.

“I think this is the best collection of New Yorkers I’ve seen in 20 years!” effused Ronald Perelman, who leered lustily at our highball glass.

“Can I ask you one question?” he continued. “Where’s the bar?”

It’s thataway, just behind Katie Couric, we assured the business tycoon. Or if he preferred, he could hit the bar on the other side of the restaurant’s famous pool room, where Harvey Weinstein had posted up and Spike Lee, who declined to take off his puffy coat, had helped himself to the generous spread of gourmet goodies before chatting up Katie Holmes and Donald Trump.

(Sadly, Shindigger caught only the tail end of that conversation. Mr. Lee saying to Mr. Trump: “Well, that’s one thing we can agree on.”)

Observer editors past and present—Peter Kaplan, Elizabeth Spiers and Ken Kurson—circled the room, while publisher Jared Kushner greeted guests with wife Ivanka Trump at the door. And from the worlds of business, politics, entertainment, fashion and beyond, the stars just kept pouring in. Even Mayor Michael Bloomberg was impressed with the turnout. “The Observer does throw a hell of a party,” he said in his opening remarks, before dubbing attendee Cory Booker “the handsomest mayor in America—west of the Hudson River.”

Here came Terry McDonell and Danny Strong and Jay McInerney and Audrey Gelman and Larry Gagosian and Ray Kelly and Joel Klein and George Pataki and Eric Schmidt and Kevin Ryan and—oh my!—Rupert Murdoch.

We just had to talk to Rupert Murdoch

“Mr. Murdoch? Mr. Murdoch?” Shindigger beckoned.

“What?” said the cantankerous billionaire, walking right on by with wife Wendi Murdoch.

“Can we ask you a few questions, sir?”

“No!” barked Mr. Murdoch, before making a dramatic swat in our direction. Shindigger agilely ducked for safety, silently chuckling at the news baron’s aversion to the press.

In no time at all, we found friendlier prey. “Someone from The Observer already observed me,” said Broadway favorite Christine Baranski, who was chatting with fashion consultant Fern Mallis under the floral protection of one of the poolside trees.

“New York is just the coolest city, and I love the fact that this paper really makes New York seem cool,” Ms. Baranski said. “The Observer touches on the sophistication and fun of the city. I just like the tone of it.”

Just then, we re-encountered Mr. Perelman, who had been paired with a cocktail, and who had his own take on The Observer. “The only bad moment I ever had was when they wrote a story about a little synagogue,” Mr. Perelman said, referring to Chloé Malle’s prickly 2010 article about the billionaire’s lavish private synagogue.

“I wish they didn’t, but they did, so that’s the end of it,” he said. “I still love The Observer, even besides that.”

Very gracious, we thought, bumping then into Observer alum George Gurley, with whom we had pre-gamed earlier in the evening at Jean and Martin Shafiroff’s glitzy Saint Patrick’s Day cocktail party. The suavely fuddled Mr. Gurley made the perfect VIP-fixer for Shindigger when PR maven Peggy Siegal was hand-holding elsewhere.

“He does Shindigger, he’s trustworthy,” Mr. Gurley assured José “Pepe” Fanjul, the president of Fanjul Corp. and Florida Crystals Corporation.

“I think this is the best event!” exclaimed Mr. Fanjul’s Carolina Herrera-clad wife, Emilia Fanjul.

We danced past the couple then to catch up with model Hilary Rhoda, who was getting a kick out of the bash.

“Oh, it’s a great party!” she said, holding a plate of Christian Albin’s Italian gourmet cibo. “I love the room, it’s gorgeous. I love the band. Obviously getting into the food situation.”

Ms. Rhoda, also dressed in a Carolina Herrera creation, had just returned from the runways of Paris, where she had walked for Céline. “Now I’m back and on photo shoots,” she said.

Photorealistic artist Chuck Close was also taking advantage of the buffet.

“I love The Observer almost in spite of myself,” he said. “At first it was a guilty pleasure, and then one day they endorsed Mitt Romney. I almost canceled my subscription. What were they thinking?”

What brought you back onboard, we wondered?

“When I go to Europe and can’t read you, I get really upset,” he confessed. “It went from being a guilty pleasure to a real pleasure.”

A cocktail later, we found ourselves yelling: “Ms. Herrera, we saw you at the School of American Ballet’s Winter Ball, and you were dancing!”

Shindigger had never witnessed her quite so zippy.

“Yes, I know. I’m South American,” Carolina Herrera retorted sassily.

Cuchi-Cuchi!

Back to the bar we traipsed.

“Do you have a white wine or champagne?” Padma Lakshmi pressed a barman.

“Rosé or brut?” he asked.

“Brut,” the foodie stated assuredly.

Ms. Lakshmi wanted to know our thoughts about her Blossom Ball. “Did you have fun?” she asked.

“We did, “Shindigger said.

“I’m glad!” she said. And then the Maison Martin Margiela-wearing TV host told us about the previous day, which she had spent in Albany: “I was recognized by the State Senate. Every State senator was there, because it’s budget time,” she dished, lowering her voice to a serious, husky tone. Though she lost us at “budget.”

When the band was replaced by DJ Chelsea Leyland’s turntables, things had officially strayed, and Shindigger was impressed (and a tad disappointed) that not a single sloshed attendee plummeted into the white marble pool. Cases in point: when perpetually grabby Four Seasons proprietor Julian Niccolini began frisking two attractive slabs of meat, offering to shower them with pricey pours of Bordeaux. Or when Gawker founder Nick Denton resorted to flirting with a pride of hungry tech lionesses, having already refused to be photographed with Mr. Murdoch because “it’s too obvious.”

Shindigger sidled up to the bar for last call with Ashleigh Banfield of CNN and Fox News’s Kimberly Guilfoyle.

“We’re together,” Ms. Banfield joked about their warring media outlets. “I’ve known her for eight years. We use to work at Court TV together.”

“Did you see Rupert Murdoch? He didn’t want to talk to us,” we bemoaned.

“Because I work at CNN, he didn’t want to talk to me, either,” said Ms. Banfield.

“No, he’s great! God bless him!” Ms. Guilfoyle cut in, right on cue.

As Rihanna’s “Diamonds” thundered over the speakers, Ms. Banfield revealed that she had gotten a smooch from the Newark mayor.

“We had a Cory Booker sandwich,” swooned Ms. Guilfoyle.

As things were wrapping up, at least one guest took on a reflective air. Mr. Close told us that he was overwhelmed by the turnout and notable faces. “I’ll make sure to be at the 50th anniversary,” he promised. “I’ll be 98.”

Shindigger likes a man who can forecast that far ahead—or, for that matter, with any type of math skills.

Here’s to the next 25 years!

Jared Kushner, Katie Holmes and Mike Bloomberg (PMc)

- The intimidatingly assiduous Peggy Siegal greets people at the door; thanks us for coming to celebrate party with The New York Observer. "We are The New York Observer!" We cry. She doesn't even pause. "Well, it's great to see you anyway."

-Terry McDonell: I've always loved the Observer, I have great respect for Peter Kaplan. The coverage of everything I was interested in New York in the past 25 years was reflected in The Observer at the highest level.

- Ray Kelly recalls the last time he was at the Four Seasons. "[We] feel like you never leave," we tell the Police Commissioner. His reply: "A lot of people feel that way."

- Spike Lee keeps on puffy coat all evening, talks to Katie Holmes, Donald Trump. Catch tail end of his conversation with Mr. Trump: "Well, that's one thing we agree on."

- Mayor Bloomberg gets onstage, proceeds to riff about slipping Harvey Weinstein a script (Bloomie on Bloomie), Cory Booker ("The handsomest mayor West of the Hudson") and The Observer ("It's OK when you needle somebody else, but not me.")

- Michael Shannon confounds half the party with his celebrity status. "What famous person is that?" we are asked more than several times. We finally after give up and refer them to Boardwalk Empire after several of our "the Future General Zod" joke receives blank stares.

- Nick Denton refuses to take photo with Rupert Murdoch because it's "too obvious."

-Chuck Close: I love the Observer almost in spite of myself. At first it was a guilty pleasure. When I go to Europe and can't read you, I get really upset.

- Mayor Cory Booker meets Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s press secretary/Girls actress Audrey Gelman. Mr. Booker finds a way to bring the conversation back around to Star Trek.

- Game Change’s Emmy-winning screenwriter Danny Strong still getting recognized for his years on the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But he's a good sport, and challenges fanboy to name the one episode of the hit show that was nominated for an Emmy. (Answer: "Hush.")

-Former editor Peter Kaplan begs off with the excuse that he is trying to wean himself off of anti-anxiety medication.

-Ronald Perelman: I love the publication! I think everybody here is great. I think this is the best collection of New Yorkers I've seen in 20 years!

- Jay McInerney inquires about the after-party; never shows up.

The Four Seasons Restaurant, 99 East 52nd Street, (212) 754-9494, 6:30-9:30pm, by invitation only.

Hill, West and Goldstein, the architects you never knew you knew. (Peter Letre)

The sun was setting over New York harbor, and behind it, the coast of New Jersey. From the 17th floor of 11 Broadway, through the not-floor-to-ceiling, turn-of-the-last-century office windows, the Statue of Liberty was plainly visible. She appeared to be waving through the late-summer haze. Milling about and sipping champagne were some of the city’s biggest developers and their employees, names emblazoned upon apartment towers from this end of Manhattan to the other and beyond.

Silverstein, Ratner, Extell, Elad, Milstein, Glenwood, Trump. All the big firms were there, along with many other machers and dealmakers. It could have been a convention of The No Nonsense Apartment Builders Association of the Greater Five Boroughs. Instead it was the third anniversary party for Goldstein, Hill & West and the unveiling of their new downtown offices.

The foyer is painted a slick graphite gray, with a globular chandelier overhead, but beyond that, the designer pretense fades away. There are no amoebic benches, no plywood bookcases, no 3D printer for producing models of unusually torqued and cantilevered buildings. Little hangs on the walls besides drafting templates and zoning handbooks. It is this simplicity of design, aesthetic and attitude that draws the city’s biggest developers to the firm.

“I like them, they’re good guys, they’re rational, they understand the business” Extell founder Gary Barnett told The Observer recently. “They know how to get a project done, the know it has to make sense. You can’t just build any crazy old thing.”

Slideshow: The Works of Goldstein, Hill & West >>

It typically takes decades for an architect to reach any level of success, let alone work with the biggest names in New York City real estate. So how has an upstart firm managed to storm the city in just three years?

The designers have been doing it for decades, actually, albeit in the shadow of another architect who received the most of credit while Alan Goldstein, Stephen Hill and David West did the work. Before New York knew Richard Meier and Jean Nouvel, Frank Gehry and Christian de Portzemparc, Neil DeNari and Bjark Ingels, Herzog & de Meuron, the condo king was Costas Kondylis.

Born in Greece and trained in Switzerland, Mr. Kondylis came to New York four decades ago, and in that span of time he developed the pre-eminent residential architecture firm in the city. His most famous client is Donald Trump, for whom he designed one of his most recognizable buildings, the black obelisk looming over the U.N. known as Trump World Tower. For more than a decade it was the city’s tallest apartment building, and one of its most sought-after. Derek Jeter was among those calling it home. But The Trump World Tower, designed with Mr, Hill, is just one of the more than 70 projects Costas Kondylis & Partners created in New York in 21 years.

Map:The World of Goldstein, Hill & West >>

Nearly half of those are now Goldstein, Hill & West’s, or at least the partners lay claim to them, since they did the work while Mr. Kondylis was, they say, gallivanting around the globe. When his three partners decided to dissolve the old firm and start their own, it fell to them, not Mr. Kondylis, to finish the buildings, along with another 40 or so new projects they had since accumulated.
Not since McKim, Mead & White were at the height of their prewar powers have three architects played such a remarkable role in reshaping the city’s architectural landscape. The only thing more remarkable is how unremarkable many of these buildings are.

“We work with very conservative clients sometimes,” Stephen Hill said during a recent interview in a bright conference room inside the firm’s offices. “They want a building that works, a building they know they can sell. Those designer buildings are good for some people, but not everyone. We create buildings for everyone.”

“It’s not all about style,” David West concurred, “and I think there’s been a lot of that lately. It’s a trap. This shouldn’t all be about the ego of the creator.”

In a field with no shortage of egotism—call it the edifice complex—these three architects may be the least vainglorious guys in the business. They could even be called subservient, though proudly so, eagerly doing the work developers demand of them, rather than making demands of their clients. This is not haute couture but a custom-made suit from a reasonable tailor in some second-story Madison Avenue hole-in-the-wall. The buyer gets exactly what they want, no muss, no fuss, no commotion. It looks good, but it won’t turn any heads.

Indeed, you probably walk by at least one of Goldstein Hill & West’s buildings a week without even realizing it. Maybe a dozen, if you live uptown.

When the partners decided to split off from their mentor three years ago, there was some serious anxiety about whether they could keep the business afloat. For years, Mr. Kondylis had been chasing outsize projects, with limited return, in places like Shanghai and Dubai. “He had a real desire to make himself internationally famous,” Mr. Hill said. “It wasn’t sustainable. It became apparent the firm wasn’t going to survive.” (Mr. Kondylis did not return requests for comment.)

The partners bridled at the fact that their ongoing work in New York was essentially subsidizing a jet-setting lifestyle for the man whose name was on the front door. When Lehman Brothers collapsed, the real estate industry went into free-fall. No sector was harder hit than architecture, which lost more jobs in the U.S. than any other in 2009, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. All in all, it was not a great time to start an architecture firm.

“We knew a percentage of our clients would stick with us and give us new work,” Mr. Hill said. “When word got around, 100 percent of our clients are with us.” On a summer day three years ago, the three partners informed Mr. Kondylis of their decision to leave. When the separation was completed in August, they packed up and moved into a space a few floors down in the same building, at an engineering firm they had worked with previously.

“We came into work on Monday almost as though nothing had changed,” Mr. Goldstein said.

In many ways, it hasn’t.

Arrayed behind the three partners in the conference room were two dozen poster boards printed with the firm’s latest projects, a fantasy skyline of glass, steel and brick that was taking shape quickly on the streets outside. That they have so much work while the real estate industry has barely recovered is astounding, but when you are the most amicable—and affordable—firm in town, the surprise begins to fade. It is the speed, the intelligence and the reliability that the city’s biggest builders have long relied on these three men for.

“They try to sense your needs,” Larry Silverstein said. “They are very cooperative, they are very helpful, and their participation is full.” Translation: they are not obstinate or ostentatious, like the starchitects who have come to dominate the city over the past decade, if less in actuality than in perception and press clips. (Mr. Meier, a New Yorker, has three buildings. Mr. Gehry and Mr. Nouvel each have two. Messrs. Herzog & de Meuron have one.) Even Mr. Silverstein has fallen under the spell, hiring Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Fumihiko Maki, all Pritzker Prize winners, to design his three World Trade Center office buildings along Greenwich Street.

Mr. Silverstein’s work is typical of what many developers have turned to these three architects for over the decades. He hired Mr. West back in his Kondylis & Partners days to design Riverwalk, a pair of 40-story brick rental towers on 42nd Street and 12th Avenue that opened in 1999. In an out of the way location, but with impressive views of the river and the West Side all the same, Mr. Goldstein came up with two stout crescents, offset just so to maximize visibility. Mr. Silverstein was ready to finish the project on the other half of the block when tragedy struck at what would become Ground Zero and he did not return the to the project until 2006.

In the meantime, glass was in while masonry, a mainstay in New York though little changed since the pyramids, was out. This was thanks in large part to Richard Meier’s sleek Perry Street lofts that opened in the Village in 2001. Mr. West was not enthralled with the style, but like all his partners, he was happy to oblige. “We are all susceptible to fashion,” he admitted. “Glass buildings may not be the most efficient or appropriate in New York, but we design what our clients want and what the market demands.”

The result is two 60-story towers, at once slender and gigantic, containing more than 2,000 apartments stretching across more than 1.2 million square feet. Mr. Silverstein was never going to rebuild the Twin Towers, so this is as close as New York will get.

Mr. Silverstein admits that with the few remaining parcels he controls in the area, he might turn to a flashier firm for his future projects, but he is also content to work with Goldstein Hill & West again. “They will shape it with you, and they will shape it for you, and they are very flexible,” he said. “With these guys, you always know what you’re gonna get, and you always get exactly what you want.”

In the world of New York City development, that can be an important thing. This is the most expensive city in the nation in which to build by a wide margin—many developers peg the price at twice what it would cost to build in Minneapolis, Tuscon, even Philly or Boston—because of land values and construction costs, be it materials or union contracts. The wonkier your building is, the more it is going to cost, and unless you think buyers will pay a considerable premium for some Pritzker poo, it is probably not worth it.

That is why from Riverside South to the Apthorp to the Plaza Hotel, up and down First, Second, Third avenues, Tribeca, both Villages, Brooklyn, even Jamaica, Queens, Goldstein Hill & West is there.

Many developers approach the firm even before they are ready to build or even buy a property. “David West is an architect, but he’s also probably the best zoning attorney in the city, one of the two or three best,” one developer who has called on the firm multiple times said. Mr. West analyzes every angle, every facet, every possible shape of a site in order to determine the biggest possible building that can rise on it. This can create a sense of gigantism, of bursting at the seams, but at 40 stories, in the home of the Empire State Building, who really notices?

“The truth is, many of these forms are not that flexible because there are so many constraints,” Mr. West said of building regulations and construction constraints—the more complex a building, the skilled the labor, the more it costs.

“Some architects have these randomized openings and windows, because it looks cool on the outside,” Mr. Goldstein pointed out. “You know what? You live inside the building.”

“Irrespective of style, there are certain things every building has to have,” Mr. Hill added. “Underneath it all, it's the same basic structure there, and that's what they rely on us for. Otherwise it's just a show piece.”

After Mr. West sets the parameters for the buildings, it falls to Messrs. Goldstein and Hill to design the skin and conceive of the interior layouts that encase Mr. West’s bounteous boxes. They are expert at arranging kitchens to make a galley feel like a chefs. A soffet here or a dropped living room there suddenly makes a home feel twice as big. "Even the right tread size for an emergency stair can make all the difference in a building, Mr. Goldstein said. “Five feet every fight, over the course of 40 stories, that can really add up."

"It’s like the recipe to McDonald’s special sauce," he added.

“It’s a special instinct,” Mr. Hill said. “We’ve been doing this long enough, we just know what works.”
The deferential approach may lead to plenty of commissions, but the awards, the press, the plaudits are less forthcoming. When The Observer mentioned the firm to one of the city’s mid-career hotshot designers, he responded, “Who?” We explained the Kondylis connection. “Oh, those guys. That stuff is just the worst.” In a word, boring.

But their clients do not see it that way. “Most architects, frankly, are assholes,” one developer said. “They couldn’t make your life more difficult. That is why we work with Goldstein Hill & West whenever we can.”

Even developers who have worked both sides of the field, like Mr. Silverstein or Izak Senbahar, president of Alexico Group, appreciate the Goldstein, Hill & West approach. Mr. Senbahar employed Richard Meier to build a third Perry Street-style tower at 165 Charles Street and hired French designer Jacque Grange for the Mark Hotel. But more often than not, he has worked with Mr. West on his residential buildings, including the Grand Beekman, the Elektra and the Laurel.

"They're a developer's architect, as we call them," Mr. Senbahar said. "They understand it's difficult to building in Manhattan, there are serious money concerns and they are very proactive." Mr. Senbahar even tapped the firm to help Herzog & de Meuron make their ambitious 57-story Tribeca tower work.

It is perhaps the perfect revenge for designers who have been ignored by the public that they are now playing savior to the starchitects, called in by developers to fix their long-suffering projects.

At 200 Chambers, Lord Norman Foster grew weary of pressure from the community board, so Mr. Hill was brought in to finish the condo for the Resnick family. Should Bruce Ratner decide to ditch modular construction at Atlantic Yards, SHoP will still design the façade, but the interiors will be Goldstein, Hill & West’s. That is already the case at Herzog & de Meuron’s 56 Leonard Street.

And in perhaps the firm’s greatest coup, the city’s biggest and grandest, apartment tower (for the moment), One57, is also a Goldstein, Hill & West production, according to two separate sources. French Pritzker Prize winner Christian de Portzamparc had been working on the building, but like so many other developers, Mr. Barnett turned the designs over to Mr. Hill to make them work.

When Kondylis & Partners dissolved, Mr. Barnett, and more specifically his bankers, were anxious about leaving Extell’s biggest project to date in the hands of an untested firm, no matter how experienced the partners. Mr. de Portzamparc was brought back on to reconceptualize the 1,005-foot tower, and he has gotten all the credit ever since. When asked about the switch, Mr. Hill said he still sees his design, its familiar bends and curves. “I feel like Christian put his skin over the building that we formed and shaped,” Mr. Hill said.

Mr. Barnett bristled at the assertion. “They were doing some work on it for a time, and we decided to go in a different direction,” he said. “Everything—the layouts, the plans—is different. That is an ugly thing for anybody to have said. It is untrue.”

Still, it would not be the first—or probably the last—time Goldstein, Hill & West is brought on to pinch hit. “These are very expensive projects; they have to work,” Mr. Goldstein said. “Star architects, it’s not for the style. It’s merely a name—it’s marketing.” Well, it works, as One57 just sold that $90 million apartment, and more may be on the way.

Still, New York is a big city, with millions of people, but only so many billionaires to house. “I think we’re starting to get away from that,” Mr. Goldstein said of the starchitect craze.

“A couple of the developers have told me,” Mr. Hill interjected, “if I just pronounced my name Stefan, maybe changed my last name to something French or added an ‘e’ onto the end, we would get all the work in the world.”

mchaban@observer.com

Trump vs. Huffington: The battle extends beyond the twittersphere. (DJDM / WENN.com)

Donald Trump takes his feuds very seriously. He told the New York Post that his enmity toward Arianna Huffington is so intense that he raised the rent on an apartment that Ms. Huffington was eying last year specifically to keep her out.

The two flaxen-haired powerhouses have butted heads in the past: Mr. Trump took issue with the coverage about him on Ms. Huffington's eponymous blog. Their skirmishes did not, however, dissuade Ms. Huffington from checking out Mr. Trump's (similarly eponymous) building at 502 Park Avenue.

Mr. Trump said that Ms. Huffington wanted to lease an apartment in the building right after inking the AOL deal last year.  "We didn’t make it easy for her; in fact, we raised rent to $100,000 a month especially for her," Mr. Trump told the Post. "The price wasn’t in her favor, nor did I care, because I didn’t want her in the building. She balked at the price.”

Mr. Trump said he was displeased with how he was written about in the Huffington Post, elaborating: "She is bad news. Only AOL, being so stupid, would have paid money to buy her site. AOL was even dumber than her husband. The trash they write about me is not reporting, there are so many inaccuracies about me on her site. I won’t hold back when I respond about her to my 1.4 million Twitter followers.”

Will they still be screaming next summer? (Getty)

It may not rock anymore, but the Cyclone will still roll with history when it reopens next summer.

Zamperla—the Italian amusement operator both celebrated and criticized on the boardwalk for bringing new rides and crowds to Coney Island but also trying to push out long-time favorites—recently began work on rebuilding the Cyclone. While the beloved coaster will be safer and get much-needed repairs, it will also give a smoother ride than before, another sign of the strip's lost grit and the sacrifice of the coaster's signature shakes.

At least the historic coaster cars will remain.

Zamperla had been looking for a new operator for the ride and expected them to replace the classic cars with new ones. This had angered some coaster enthusiasts, but the Post reports that the Cyclone will keep its old cars, refurbished like the rest of the ride. Though the ride itself is a landmark and any changed must be reviewed by the city, the cars are not protected.

In other surprising news, Donald Trump is among those interested in operating the coaster, with the possibility to add concessions and other rides to the property surrounding the Cyclone. Maybe he can recast the coaster in gold. (Mr. Trump is the father-in-law of Observer publisher Jared Kushner.)

Correction: Donald Trump had bid for right to operate the Cyclone, but he was passed over for Zamperla when the Italian firm was selected last year to be the new coaster operator. It will be at least another 14 years before he has a shot at the ride. The Observer regrets the error.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Freshly tanned from a recent visit to Mexico, where he was overseeing a new project, the slicked-back scion grew steadily more enthusiastic as he discussed 40 Wall Street, an office tower that, with its rising and falling tenant roster, has contributed to the Trump Organization executive vice president’s growing reputation as a competent steward of the family name, a reliable fixer and successful dealmaker in his own right.

Donald Trump Jr. (photo credit: Hannah Mattix)

“When I took over the building, there was a lull in the market,” recalled Mr. Trump, who said the address remains one of his well-known father’s favorite properties. “By the time we fixed everything up and got it going, there was a high. It was certainly a unique experience. My focus had been on residential development as well as some resort hotel development, so to learn that part of the business and to spend time with that part of the business was fascinating to me. So I got involved and made it a big part of my day-to-day life.”

Indeed, 40 Wall Street had languished in the Trump portfolio since the mid-’90s, when family paterfamilias Donald Trump purchased the building from Kinson Properties, a Hong Kong-based company. Back then, internal discussions raged on whether to convert the office tower into residential property or to keep it as offices, according to insiders. The senior Trump eventually settled on keeping it as an office tower, and nearly 20 years after that decision, 40 Wall Street’s fortunes fell on his oldest son, who until then had never managed an office building.

(Disclaimer: Mr. Trump is the brother-in-law of Observer Media Group owner Jared Kushner.)

The junior Trump had spent much of his career overseeing a stretch of luxury developments along the West Side rail yards. He then jumped from project to project, working on construction of Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago and handling Trump licensing deals across the world.

But managing an office building as storied as 40 Wall Street, until recently known among tenant brokers as a difficult place to do business in part because of at least one Trump executive’s heavy involvement with leasing at the address, was entirely new to Mr. Trump.  

Now faced with his first-ever office-building management assignment, Mr. Trump made a strategic play to woo brokers, who, perhaps more than anyone else, had the leverage to sell 40 Wall Street to potential office tenants. “I look at the brokerage world as your unpaid sales force until they perform,” he said. “What I wanted to do was befriend those people, get to know the players.”

He reached out to Jeffrey Lichtenberg, an executive vice president at Cushman & Wakefield who had worked with the Trump Organization in the past. Mr. Lichtenberg and his team were eventually brought on as the exclusive leasing agents for 40 Wall Street, and from there, they courted other big brokerage firms to rouse up business.

“What we did was, instead of having one big party, we had a series of lunches with each firm,” said Mr. Lichtenberg. The message, brokers on both sides of the table said, was simple: 40 Wall Street was open for business. It wanted to work with brokers and it wanted new tenants.

“Because Don was cooperative and helpful to me and then we were cooperative to the brokers, the brokers realized that the best place for them to bring a tenant to get a deal done was 40 Wall,” added Mr. Lichtenberg. “Don helped turn around the image of the building.”

What also helped spur leasing activity was Mr. Trump’s willingness to sweeten the deal by offering incentive packages. He also kept a simple pledge: if a broker brings in business to 40 Wall Street, he would make honoring that broker’s commission a top priority.

“If I tell them I am going to do something, I am going to do it,” said Mr. Trump. “If I tell them that they’re going to get their commission check on this moment, they are going to get it on or before this moment,” he added, hitting the table with an index finger for emphasis.

That pledge worked. Jones Lang LaSalle broker Dan Suozzi, who had lunch with Mr. Lichtenberg and his team at Bobby Van’s during that recruitment period, estimates he has brought four tenants to 40 Wall Street in the past two and a half years, the most recent being John Carris Investments for roughly 13,000 square feet. (Former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine was rumored to be subleasing space from John Carris.)

“Don Jr. was a pleasure to work with and he does the right thing and is very personable,” said Mr. Suozzi. “It makes a difference when you’re bringing a tenant through the building.”

Once they had the ears of intrigued brokers, Mr. Trump and his team focused on redefining 40 Wall Street’s image as a financial services asset. “With the Wall Street address 10 years ago, it was all financial industry,” said Mr. Trump. “Today, in the digital age, the street location is less critical.”

Mr. Trump also honed in on what his family’s building could offer that his competitors couldn’t. He targeted a crowd that didn’t fit the traditional mold of a Wall Street tenant, selling them on 40 Wall Street’s “impeccable” management services and attractive deal incentives. The Trump Organization has a “fungible” balance sheet that enabled it to offer value propositions, he added.

Wall Street address aside, 40 Wall Street had the charm of a Midtown South building with Midtown South amenities. It had recently renovated tons of turn-key space, and it had a Duane Reade megastore, the first of its kind that, with its sushi bar and a hair salon, could give the average customer a new ’do with her bottle of Kaopectate.

“With the Condé [Nast] deal and with everything that is going on downtown, I think it’s an opportunity for buildings to have boutique space they can do something with and offer that value proposition to tenants that are going to be the guys who are going to feed off those megadeals,” said Mr. Trump.

The offer worked. Midtown mainstays like the Harry Fox Agency and Duane Reade committed to the building for substantial office space, each with square footages in the five figures. Wiedlinger Associates and Leslie E. Robertson Associates also moved into the building.

“I had never done a deal with the Trumps in my 18-year career,” said Greg Taubin, a senior managing director at Studley who represented the Harry Fox Agency in its 47,144-square-foot sublease on the fifth floor. “You would always hear different things about having to deal with the organization, but those days are over. The reason is because of Donny Jr. getting involved and making decisions.”

Now faced with tenable vacancies in the base of the building, nearing a total of 100,000 square feet, Mr. Trump is enjoying his time at 40 Wall Street while also working on the development of Trump International Golf Links in Scotland.

“What makes my job interesting is that on any given day I can work on something that’s totally different,” he said. “It keeps things very interesting and fluid.”

drosen@observer.com

Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani called him the “dean of damage control.” His public relations firm, Rubenstein Associates, once simultaneously represented both Leona Helmsley and Donald Trump.

So it’s no exaggeration to say that nothing of importance happens in New York City without somehow involving Howard J. Rubenstein.

Howard Rubenstein. (Illustration by Joao Maio Pinto)

A REBNY member since “forever,” in his words, Mr. Rubenstein, the city’s ultimate spin doctor, has been honored with this year’s “Harry B. Helmsley Distinguished New Yorker” award for his contributions to the civic welfare and the real estate community.

“I’ve been involved with the real estate community for over 40 years,” said Mr. Rubenstein. “I’ve enjoyed it immensely. They’ve built the city that allowed me to do so much in my career. Harry Helmsley was one of my very first accounts.”

Mr. Rubenstein, 79, grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, the son of a police reporter for the New York Herald Tribune. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pennsylvania and then came back to Brooklyn. In 1954, with not much money in the bank and working at his parent’s kitchen table, Mr. Rubenstein started the public relations firm that’s spilled oceans of printer’s ink, negotiated hundreds of thousands of scandals and tenaciously stood by New York City even in the worst of times.

“It all started very modestly with $100 in the bank and an idea,” he said. Menorah Home and Hospital for the Aged and Infirm was his first client. “I wrote speeches and they wanted to see if they could get them in the papers,” he said. “I called my father and he called everyone he knew.”

His clients started getting into the newspapers and his reputation grew. The idea, said Mr. Rubenstein was not just to promote a single client, but to put that client—be it person or development—in the context of the city. “I had a vision to tie any one building to a vision of New York,” he said. “It wasn’t one building, it was a conglomeration of different factors, economic, social.”

While Rubenstein Associates was still a fledgling enterprise, and before Mr. Rubinstein took on clients like Rupert Murdoch and the New York Yankees, developers Helmsley and Lewis Rudin helped him build the business. “One of the people who helped me the most was Lew Rudin. He was one of my first accounts. I was so interested in politics and real estate, we just hit it off.” It was with Rudin that he helped start the Association for a Better New York, a civic group founded in 1972 to address some of the city’s social ills.

“We had a commercial property owners association and we were just jawboning, telling landlords not to raise their rents too precipitously for fear of bringing in rent control,” he said.

At the same time the city was going in a downward spiral, said Mr. Rubenstein. “We decided someone had to do something about it, so we changed the name to the Association for a Better New York. Our point was that in good times and in bad times this city had strength like no where else in the country.” It was a time when crime, municipal union strikes and budget woes were ruining the quality of life in the city and making it the butt of a few late-night talk-show jokes. “Johnny Carson used to make fun of us and we picketed him,” he said.

When trash and litter around Manhattan’s business districts started to pile up, the great PR man hit on an idea that some of the city’s real estate titans take to the streets to fix the problem personally. “We took brooms to the sidewalk and we started to sweep,” he said. “You can just picture Harry Helmsley, Lew Rudin and Robert Tishman out there sweeping. They’re all very rich and they’re sweeping. We got a lot of press for that.”

Today, Rubenstein Associates has over 200 employees in New York and over 400 clients—you’ve heard of most of them. Two of his sons started their own firm under the Rubenstein Associates umbrella.

“Most real estate people have a view of the future,” said Mr. Rubenstein, who serves on the executive board of REBNY. “They are projecting strength despite the downturn in the economy. They never give up. They’re always talking positively. They look at New York and their investments in a long-range view.”

That’s why he said he was honored to receive such an accolade from REBNY. “My family and I were so pleased with this award. I never sought it and don’t own any real estate, but I’m extremely grateful to receive it,” he said.

Not every day, however, does a requirement as straightforward as Dentsu McGarryBowen’s uncork such an elaborate and interconnected series of transactions as it did at the Starrett-Lehigh Building.

A longtime tenant in the 2.3-million-square-foot building and one of the property’s largest users, the advertising firm needed to expand. But there was a small problem: Despite its size, the building—an artsy, far West Side location popular among creative tenants—had virtually no available space.

Starrett-Lehigh Building. (Courtesy Property Shark)

Dentsu McGarryBowen occupied more than 100,000 square feet in the building with several years left on its lease, but it couldn’t imagine relocating elsewhere or subleasing the space.

“This building is exactly their style,” said David Hollander, an executive with CBRE who, along with colleague Sacha Zarba, represented Dentsu McGarryBowen in the transaction. “They didn’t want to be in a more conventional location. They couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.”

Mr. Hollander poked around and soon found an opportunity. The Harry Fox Agency, a tenant on the fifth floor, was looking to relocate and shed its 50,000 square feet—exactly the amount of space Dentsu McGarryBowen was hoping to accumulate. Adding to the luster of the potential deal, Mr. Hollander had been in conversations with the building’s landlord, RXR Realty, which was willing to cancel the Harry Fox lease so that it could sign one directly with Dentsu, an arrangement that offered advantages for the tenant.

But what seemed at first glance like a perfect swap turned into anything but.

Harry Fox, a musical licensing agent, subleased the space from apparel giant Tommy Hilfiger, an even bigger tenant than Dentsu McGarryBowen at Starrett-Lehigh, and the company had the right of first refusal to take space back for its own use. As it turned out, Tommy Hilfiger, too, was looking to expand just as Dentsu McGarryBowen was.

Mr. Hollander now had a problem on his hands: He had to convince Tommy Hilfiger to back off. At the same time, Harry Fox had to find a new home, no easy task in a tightening Manhattan office market.

“The transaction became like a series of dominoes getting knocked over,” said Greg Taubin, an executive at Studley who represented Harry Fox. “Once the transaction got going, every component triggered consequences for the other.”

Mr. Hollander needed leverage, and he quickly found a way to get it.

The Harry Fox offices were on the Starrett-Lehigh Building’s fifth floor and it wasn’t the only space there that Tommy Hilfiger had subleased.

Department store Lord & Taylor also occupied approximately 21,000 square feet of sublease space from Tommy Hilfiger and was negotiating to lease it back to the company. Dentsu McGarry Bowen stepped in. It would take the 21,000 square feet for higher rents than Tommy Hilfiger was willing to pay.

If the situation was turning into a game of poker, Mr. Hollander was bluffing. In reality, the Lord & Taylor space wasn’t good for Dentsu because the expiration came more than three years before the company’s lease for its existing space on floors 10 and 11 expires in 2024. When renewal time came for the expansion space, Mr. Hollander knew that the landlord would have a huge advantage negotiating an extension because Dentsu would be a captive tenant, with the bulk of its space upstairs.

In the meantime, Matthew Astrachan, an executive with Jones Lang LaSalle who represents Tommy Hilfiger, was busy trying to facilitate a solution. He was convinced Tommy Hilfiger didn’t need the Harry Fox space. It could seize the Lord & Taylor space at a more affordable price and retain nearly 20,000 square feet it was preparing to sublease on the building’s 17th floor. Mr. Astrachan said Tommy Hilfiger initially wanted to shed the 17th floor space because it sat outside the company’s primary envelope of offices on the fourth, fifth and sixth floors. Whether through Mr. Astrachan’s urging or its own reflection,

Tommy Hilfiger eventually realized that the 17th floor was actually ideal. Part of the reason the company needed expansion room was to use a portion of space to construct and test retail showrooms that it could then deploy in its stores.

“It was fine to have that up on the 17th floor because it was a separate operation they were doing that was different from the use they had in the rest of their space, which is all offices,” Mr. Astrachan said. “Once we figured that out, it uncorked the deal.”

Mr. Astrachan drew up a deal for Tommy Hilfiger to sublease 21,000 square feet of space back from Lord & Taylor, and Mr. Hollander and Mr.

Zarba arranged a 50,000-square-foot direct lease with RXR Realty for Harry Fox.

Then everything hit one last nerve-jarring speed bump.

The deal that Mr. Taubin was arranging downtown for Harry Fox collapsed. It was early November, two months into a fevered tangle of dealmaking. That elusive window in which everyone’s interests had finally aligned was closing. Mr. Taubin, however, had smartly arranged a backup plan at the Donald Trump-owned office building 40 Wall Street.

“After our first deal fell apart, we literally drew up a deal at 40 Wall Street in a week,” Mr. Taubin said. “The Trump Organization was incredibly accommodating. They really wanted us as a tenant in their property.”

Harry Fox ended up signing a 37,000-square-foot deal for 40 Wall Street’s entire sixth floor. Although the space is smaller than the office it leases at the Starrett-Lehigh Building, Mr. Taubin said the firm is able to house the same number of employees because its offices will be tailored to the company’s real estate needs.

“The space at Starrett Lehigh was great for HFA five years ago, but through a new build-out, we’re getting tremendous efficiency now,” Mr. Taubin said.

On the Thursday before Christmas, both Tommy Hilfiger and Dentsu inked expansion deals. Tommy Hilfiger will occupy approximately 350,000 square feet, and Dentsu will take roughly 170,000 feet.

“This was seriously the most complicated deal I personally have handled,” Mr. Hollander said. “Every deal has its posturing, but in the end, it worked because we all cooperated and worked together.”
dgeiger@observer.com