By Bryan Joiner 6/19/12 3:00pm

Amazin' Greats

From left to right: Keith Hernandez, Edgardo Alfonzo, David Wright, Hank McGraw, Mark McGraw, Cleon Jones, Darryl Strawberry, Jerry Koosman and Tom Seaver. (Photo: Andrew F. Johnston)

We Did Not Not Cry at the 50th Anniversary Mets All-time Team Presentation

The Mets conflict The Observer. We want to love them, but they are forever out of reach, the real provenance of the beaten-down souls in blue and orange we joined Sunday night at the 92nd Street Y to unveil the Mets’ all-time team, position by position, for their 50th anniversary.

Mets fans do not radiate positivity, so our guard was up . These weren’t just fans. They were distinguished members of a social club from Flushing’s ash heaps, who aren’t going to smile for just anything. This team had two no-hitters in a week and sat a surprising three games above .500, yet were clearly on down-low gloom alert. They had gotten swept that very afternoon. But they still believe, and that is why they were here, to watch the presentation that will also air Thursday on SNY. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 1/17/12 10:30am

Commercial Observer

Bernard Resnick, Sheldon Silver and Steven Spinola, circa 1996.

Reeling in the Years With the Real Estate Board of New York: In their own words, brokers and owners tell the tale of REBNY’s past half century

Since it started with a roll call of 27 members in 1896 with the goal of “facilitating transactions in real estate,” the Real Estate Board of New York has indisputably been the city’s most influential real estate organization, with its annual gala being to brokers what the Vanity Fair Oscar party is for Hollywood: If you’re there, it means you’re somebody.

Sure, some may lovingly write it off as a veritable men’s club (men are thought to outnumber women five to one), chide it as “The Liar’s Ball” (each year is a broker’s best year, no matter how wretched the marketplace) and speak ill of the food (nearly everyone avoids the chicken and filet mignon).

But the REBNY gala is as essential to a real estate person’s reputation and status as the buildings and bricks he works with. A dozen of the city’s most legendary players spoke to The Commercial Observer about the blurry nights and boom years that helped make the event what it is today.
Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/11/11 1:00pm

Week In Review

A handful of developers are competing to redevelop the so-called "Iron Triangle." (The NYC Economic Development Corporation)

Related and the Wilpons Team Up for Willets Point Pitch

While some people are hoping—futilely, perhaps—for a high-tech college at Willets Point, the official R.F.P. is also cranking along, with application filed this past week. Crain’s now has word of a handful of the developers competing to redevelop the Iron Triangle, and one looks to be a hit, if it weren’t already facing a few strikes.

The Related Companies has teamed up with Sterling Equities, which is controlled by Mets owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, to submit a proposal to redevelop the 12.75 acres included in the project’s first phase, the sources said. Silverstein Properties, which is building three towers at the World Trade Center site, also threw its hat into the ring. None of the firms would comment. A source said Sterling had teamed up on bids with more than one firm. Read More

By Thornton McEnery 9/01/11 2:31pm

Poor Mr. Met

The saga of ineptitude in Queens continues apace

David Einhorn Experiences an Inevitable Mets Meltdown First Hand

Any Mets fan can tell you that things just have a way of ending ugly around the franchise. Whether they be a family day at the ballpark (see: former closer Francisco Rodriguez attacking his girlfriend’s father in the family lounge after a game), to epic collapses on the field (see: 2007, 2008), to careers that looked bright (see: too many to mention in parenthetics), it just seems like the team and the organization behind it can snap defeat from the jaws of victory at any time.

This feeling has pervaded the franchise and its fan base for almost a quarter of a century and the mystery behind its cause has been philosophically chocked up to the ineffable, existential pain of being the “other baseball team” in town.

But in a conference call today with David Einhorn, the wunderkind billionaire hedge fund manager of Greenlight Capital, some light was potentially shed on a more concrete cause of what ails “The Amazins.” After a very public courtship and semi-public negotiations that seemed all but wrapped up, Mr. Einhorn announced this morning that he had broken off negotiations with Mets ownership after being unpleasantly “surprised” by the behavior of Fred Wilpon and company during the final days and weeks over what seemed to him like a done deal. Read More

By The Editors 2/09/11 1:25am

Editorial

Leave the Wilpons Alone

The campaign to demonize the Wilpon family continues. To read some press reports, particularly in the New York Post, you’d think that Fred Wilpon, his son, Jeff, and their business partner, Saul Katz, were plotting with Mr. Madoff to steal the retirement savings of working people and the endowments of charitable organizations.

This is, of Read More

By John Koblin 3/10/09 11:27pm

The Anti-Shea. Great.

This weekend, I made my way out to the Willets Point–Shea Stadium stop on the No. 7 train, and for the first time with my own eyes, I saw that my beloved blue dump was gone. The only things left of Shea, the home of the Mets for 45 years, were some mounds of ash, Read More