By Matt Chaban 3/28/12 5:22pm

Manhattan Transfers

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Empire State of Mind. (Streeteasy)

Nick Sprayregen, David to Columbia’s Goliath, Tucks Away $7.65 M. UES Condo

Nick Sprayregen made his fortune, and his name, on the West Side of Manhattan, where his family’s Tuck-It-Away storage empire was based. It was a humble business until Columbia University decided it wanted to expand its campus into Mr. Sprayregen’s backyard, at which point he became one of the staunchest opponents of the university’s plan, and a media darling because of it.

Still, Mr. Sprayregen has long called the Upper East Side home, where he has just as great a propensity for turning a strong real estate deal. Three years ago, Mr. Sprayregen bought the Newhouse’s duplex on East 76th Street for 40 percent off. Now, the self-storage kingpin has sold his home around the corner for twice what he paid a decade ago. Read More

By Tom Acitelli 9/05/08 1:14pm

Support for Columbia’s West Harlem Expansion

"Any neighborhood in Manhattan that is home to several warehouses including ‘Tuck-It-Away self storage’ definitely deserves to be called ‘blighted.’ This guy is a selfish joke. How inconsiderate Columbia must be to pay him millions of dollars for dilapadated warehouses and replace them with state of the art medical facilities, schools and dormitories. Shame on Read More

By Eliot Brown 7/22/08 9:52pm

Zero Hour in West Harlem

For more than three years, Nicholas Sprayregen has kept his word to Columbia University.

The largest private landowner in the footprint of the university’s planned 17-acre West Harlem expansion, he has vowed time and again to fight the university’s attempts to oust him, so long as the school threatens the use Read More

By Eliot Brown 7/15/08 8:35pm

More Columbia News: Court Denies State Appeal in FOIL Case

The major landowner fighting Columbia University’s expansion, Nick Sprayregen, today came out victorious over the state’s Empire State Development Corporation today in an appellate court ruling on a case involving the Freedom of Information Law.

The case concerned the release of documents and correspondences between the state and its contractor AKRF, mostly surrounding the Read More

By Matthew Schuerman 12/13/07 9:49pm

Columbia ‘Interested’ in Sprayregen Swap

Nick Sprayregen, one of the last property owners resisting Columbia’s expansion into West Harlem, has rarely had nice words to say about the university. But today, following a 50-minute meeting, it sounded like he had found new friends—or, more accurately, potential business partners.

“The subject of the conversation moved to my swap idea, and Read More