Mr. Speyer’s father, Jerry Speyer, served as board chair from 1986 to 1988. His grandfather, Robert Tishman, was board chair from 1972 to 1975. That record of service to one of the city’s most creative and dynamic industries speaks volumes about the family’s commitment to the city and its people.

It seems like ages ago, but there was a time when Mr. Speyer had a notion that he would break with the family tradition by becoming, of all things, a newspaper reporter. We’re delighted to note that he tried his hand at The New York Observer, where he showed all the energy and enthusiasm that he has since brought to the city’s real estate industry.

It wasn’t long before Mr. Speyer left us for bigger, although perhaps not better, things. Since joining the family business in 1995, Mr. Speyer has been a top-flight executive as well as an engaged civic patriot. His quiet work on behalf of a variety of public policy initiatives and private philanthropies mark him as one of the city’s most outstanding young people.

We’re happy to count him as one of our alumni, and we’re delighted that he is following his the footsteps of his elders.

“I work on a lot of the same issues,” said Ms. Pinsky, who married Economic Development Corporation head Seth Pinsky last summer. “The thing about the real estate industry, it’s very civic minded. Many owners are family businesses and there’s this strong tradition in the industry of wanting projects and policies that are best not just for the industry’s own interests, but for the entire city.

Angela Pinsky. (Photo by Kiki Conway)

Landlords know that their success and the health of their investments depend on the health of the city as a whole.”

Ms. Pinsky joined the mayor’s office during the heady first years of the Bloomberg administration, a period of sweeping vision, and bore witness firsthand to how real estate could provide government with the levers for urban change.

Starting as then-Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff’s chief of staff, one of the first projects she worked on was the rezoning of the Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighborhoods in Brooklyn, a process that would eventually allow a wave of residential development to sprout in the area. The neighborhood’s potential wasn’t as easy to see then. Ms. Pinsky lived in Williamsburg at the time, near the waterfront, an area that was a forlorn stretch of derelict-looking industrial buildings.

“If you didn’t get dinner by 6:00 you weren’t going to eat that night,” Ms. Pinsky said. “It’s hard to believe looking at the neighborhood today, but there weren’t grocery stores or restaurants back then.”

The area was already gaining momentum as a place for artists and hipsters and for its proximity to Manhattan. The rezoning, though, kicked that transformation into high gear and made the neighborhood the magnet for living, culture and nightlife that it is today. The project was just one of many seeds of revitalization that the administration sought to plant around the city, a bold agenda that galvanized Mrs. Pinsky’s view of real estate as a tonic that could cure the city’s ills.

“I worked on the Olympic bid and PlaNYC,” Ms. Pinsky said. “There was the feeling that you were never doing enough.”

Mayor Bloomberg arranged the office in City Hall as a large bullpen with everyone sitting at open workstations. His was, and still is, at the center of the room. Ms. Pinsky sat near the periphery, but the layout avoided isolation and permitted everyone in the room to feel within the fold of the office’s work.

“You could hear what the mayor was talking about on the phone and you always had an awareness of what was going on,” Ms. Pinsky said. “There were no silos. That was one of the great things about the administration—it was transparent.”

She remembers Mayor Bloomberg as having a photographic memory and a talent with data. “Numbers are part of his body,” Ms. Pinsky said. “But he was also very instinctual. The mayor would do the research and then trust his gut.”

Mr. Doctoroff, who left city government in 2007 to become the chief executive of Mayor Bloomberg’s financial information company, Bloomberg LP, was more analytical. “Dan wanted analyses down to the penny and he would ask you little details to see if you knew about a project inside and out,” Ms. Pinsky said.

Ms. Pinsky grew close with Mr. Doctoroff. She said he still checks in on her. “I had a very strong attachment to Dan,” Ms. Pinsky said. “I was young and had a lot to learn. I was timid. Working in that situation makes you learn about decision-making. I grew up a lot in that role. Dan still calls all of us. He’s very protective.”

Mrs. Pinsky stayed on when Mr. Doctoroff left, maintaining her position as a chief staffer for Bob Lieber, a former Lehman Brothers executive who was hired as Mr. Doctoroff’s successor in the role of deputy mayor of economic development. Mr. Lieber was less of a visionary than Mr. Doctoroff, according to Ms. Pinsky, but had a clear talent for negotiating deals, skills that Ms. Pinsky would also soon come to appreciate.

One of the first issues they handled together was what to do with Off Track Betting. The parlors were oozing red ink, Ms. Pinsky said, largely because the city and state took money out of its total revenue rather than its profits. “OTB expenses were rising and there was nothing to compensate it for that,” Ms. Pinsky said.

Mr. Lieber helped devise a solution in which the city and state would share a cut of OTB’s profits only, an approach that would pad its bottom line. He worked hard to align various interests in the state that would permit the idea to be implemented. But the negotiations bogged down and eventually he retreated, arranging a deal that would allow the state to take control of the organization. A year later, it was shuttered.

Mr. Lieber’s efforts had paid off in one sense; the city was no longer on the hook for OTB’s $500 million of pension and other liabilities. Still, it was demoralizing to see how such a common-sense solution could meet defeat when OTB’s inevitable demise had been so widely predicted.

By the spring of 2010, with the economy and government-spurred developed in slow gear due to the recession, Ms. Pinsky was ready for change. Mr. Lieber had left office to return to the private sector, taking a job at C3 Capital Partners. She soon got her own chance to switch over as well. “Mike Slattery, an executive at REBNY, called me in,” Ms. Pinsky said. “I wasn’t expecting it but they had an opening.”

For REBNY, Ms. Pinsky was a hugely attractive hire, as she had not only valuable connections in city government, but also a close feel for how it works. Having staff with Ms. Pinsky’s skill set and experience has been essential for the city’s real estate industry, whose health depends not just on economic winds but as much on the burdens and restrictions that government places on it too.

In recent months Ms. Pinsky has been working on a range of issues. Taxes on carried interest, an investment structure typically employed by hedge funds but also by some real estate partnerships, will likely be raised from the current capital gains rate. Ms. Pinsky and other lobbyists hope to segregate real estate from the issue, which has been focused at increasing taxes specifically for investment funds.

The outcome of their efforts could have a profound effect on how ownership structures are arranged in the real estate business. Closer to home, the City Council is grappling with whether to pass living-wage legislation, a regulation hotly opposed by the city’s real estate industry. The requirement primarily affects retail tenants, forcing them to pay higher wages to employees in buildings that receive city subsidies or incentives.

The issue is what brought down a bid by the Related Companies to redevelop the Kingsbridge Armory in 2009, when Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz backed instituting requirements that would have forced Related’s tenants in the project to pay the higher wage rate.

“Related couldn’t build under that requirement,” Ms. Pinsky said. “Retailers aren’t going to go to a building if they can get space across the street that’s cheaper. And developers know that and they’re not going to build if they can’t be as competitive.”

Ms. Pinsky, née Sung, got married to Seth Pinsky last summer. At least on the surface, the marriage seems like a well-suited match. Mr. Pinsky is the head of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, the pseudo government agency that the mayor’s office uses as one of its primary arms of economic development. Mrs. Pinsky said that she and her husband are actually quite different. “It really was a case of opposites attracting,” Mrs. Pinsky said. “I like dance music, he listens to nothing but classical. I’m very social and he tends to be more introverted.”

While Mrs. Pinsky would have preferred a getaway like Hawaii for their honeymoon, Mr. Pinsky chose the Sudan and then Egypt. Mr. Pinsky prefers exotic, out-of-the-way destinations that sometimes verge on risky. He was days away from visiting North Korea before the government there canceled his papers permitting entry. He went to Iran earlier in their relationship without Mrs. Pinsky.

“We had a safe word,” Mrs. Pinsky remembers. “Waffles. If he got captured and said that, I knew to send the U.S. government.”

The travel, especially in former Soviet countries, an area that fascinates Mr. Pinsky, has afforded her a perspective on infrastructure here.

“You can compare what they have in other cities and see where it has gone right and wrong and, also, what we do that is right and wrong,” Mrs. Pinsky said. “I still want to go to Hawaii.”

DGeiger@Observer.com

But in a ritual repeated more or less each year, the archbishop of the New York archdiocese’s 2.37 million Catholics and one of the Vatican’s most forceful spokesmen in the United States during the 1980s, was summarily ignored by a brokerage community far more interested in making deals than in hearing the Gospel.

Whether it was Mayor Bloomberg or Mayor Giuliani or a litany of governors going back to Nelson Rockefeller, guests of the annual gala have routinely been humbled at the New York Hilton’s Grand Ballroom, a cavernous space so stuffed each January with tuxedoed men and a smattering of elegantly dressed real estate women as to intimidate even the most confident of speakers. The collective chatter is fierce and formidable, and it swells to a deafening volume, with each broker hyping his or her year in deals with disingenuous aplomb.

“It almost doesn’t matter who the speakers are, because I’ve never seen—as much as I love my colleagues—a ruder group of people than at this banquet,” said Peter Hauspurg, chairman and chief executive of Eastern Consolidated and a 30-year veteran of the gala.

Affectionately referred to by seasoned vets as “The Liars Ball” for the rosy real estate projections offered up by attendees, this year’s affair, the 116th in the board’s storied existence, will boast more of the same, with brokers coughing up $1,000 per seat to schmooze, stir up new business and drink. Indeed, most confirm, they didn’t ante up for a $10,000 table simply to nosh on rubber chicken.

“It’s kind of the best and the worst of New York,” said Cherrie Nanninga, a chief operating officer at CBRE and a gala vet. “It’s the best in that it gets everybody together and it’s a real community. And it’s the worst in that … there’s no decorum whatsoever.”

The evening does start with some decorum, at least. Just before the gala commences, the REBNY Foundation holds its annual cocktail party inside the hotel’s Mercury Room, where the biggest builders and brokers in the real estate game convene for a civilized, invitation-only gathering. “That really has the top dogs in the industry, so it becomes a very clubby room,” said Mr. Hauspurg.

But then the action moves to the Grand Ballroom, where the male-dominated scene—“Like a bookie room with booze,” quipped real estate maven Barbara Corcoran—turns to the tried-and-true act of handing business cards. “It’s an active time, and a million cards are given out that night,” said Larry Silverstein, chief executive of Silverstein Properties. “Everyone walks in with stacks of cards to give out. Halfway through the evening the cards are all gone, and you say, ‘Holy shit, what happened?!’”

Armed with their stacks of cards, brokers use the gala’s program to see where in the sea of formalwear their intended prey can be found. “There’s 1,100 people and everybody has their book where everyone is seated, and people just kind of take that book and start going and visiting [people],” said Mr. Hauspurg.

The evening also has its share of overeager, albeit univited brokers desparate to break in and who, price be damned, try to sneak into the party without paying the hefty fee.

“It’s all vendors who want to crash,” said one up-and-coming broker, who has attended the gala and, in fact, snuck a few of his friends in on several occasions. “I would say the worst vendors are the ones who sell office furniture.” Crashing the parties has become less of an issue, assured some REBNY members. “There’s always guys waiting outside to sneak in and all kinds of stuff,” added Mr. Silverstein, who was chairman of the Real Estate Board of New York from 1983 to 1985. “But I think today that is rare, I assume.”

And when they’re not hunting down business, gala attendees are on the lookout for free wine, a surefire commodity in an event that features a cash bar and plenty of thirsty guests. “Wine is sort of entering the consciousness to the industry as a whole,” said Mary Ann Tighe, REBNY chairwoman and a tristate chief executive at CBRE. “In the early years of my career, the word passing [was], “Go to the Port Authority table, they have the wine.’”

In the late ’90s, to be sure, the Port Authority’s table was favorably situated in the main floor of the gala. Throw in the two million-plus square feet in vacant space the agency was looking to rent out at the time and its copious amounts of wine, and the Port Authority’s table became a popular destination for brokers thirsty for business and a free glass of tipple, several veteran brokers recalled.

“I subsequently came to realize that this was part of the Port Authority staff’s cleverness,” added Ms. Tighe. “They understood that everybody would come to see them if they had wine at their table.”

“I don’t think it was good wine,” said Ms. Nanninga, who sat at the table during her time as deputy chief financial officer and director of real estate for the Port Authority. The wine, she said, helped not in securing business, but in meeting new brokers. “The brokerage community was very, very important to us, because we were trying to establish that … you could do business with the Port Authority,” added Ms. Nanninga.

Over the years, the industry’s biggest players—and biggest oenophiles—would bring in cases of their own fine wine to the gala. Unlike the Port Authority, however, this powerful group, which has included Vornado Realty Trust chief executive Mike Fascitelli and Newmark Knight Frank’s Neil Goldmacher, was hardly as generous. “It’s always just for their table,” said one developer. “I’ve had some of it. It’s excellent.”

Mr. Goldmacher and Mr. Fascitelli did not return calls requesting comment.

When the clock strikes 10, and brokers and developers are on the hunt for the next big party (or an empty cab), another group of industry veterans has typically splintered off to the 21 Club, where wine, once again, becomes a central talking point among real estate professionals. Cassidy Turley’s Richard Bernstein and Mark Boisi, along with colleagues Robert Billingsley and Jim Fredericks, have for the past two decades used the lounge area at 21 Club to decompress with a good bottle of red wine, like Colgin Cellars or Bryant Family Vineyard’s cabernet sauvignon.

“When we come through the doors of the 21 Club and they take one look at me and the rest of my crew, they start salivating, because they know we’re going to be cracking open the wine and going pretty deep,” said Mr. Boisi.

For those looking to amp things up a notch, brokers have historically ventured to the after-parties thrown inside the Hilton by the Title Insurance Company. “It’s drinking and shooting the bull and the Title people wanting to make sure that they are in your face so that the next time you are doing a deal you are calling them up,” said one real estate figure.

The parties have also been known for being risqué in the past, according to several brokers who pointed to the ’80s as a particularly decadent era for the REBNY gala. “I’ve been to REBNY parties where the assumption of even myself or some of the women that I work with being there, we were automatically thought of being part of the prostitution crowd,” said a longtime female real estate professional, who believes prostitues were frequenting the event. “It’s not just the REBNY gala, it’s an across-the-board-thing.

“Of course you still hear about the parties and the extravagant entertaining that goes on, but it’s not on the scale that it used to be,” she added. “Maybe because of the lack of money.”

Others, however, denied the event was ever as louche as others purported it to be. “Are there beautiful people there? Yes, but I have yet to see anything more than hand-holding,” said another real estate figure.

While the evening as a whole remains like, as one real estate professional put it, “a continual bar mitzvah” for those who have been attending the affair since the Kennedy presidency, at least one young broker failed to see the silver lining of such a pricy night out.

“The whole party sucks,” the broker sniffed. “It’s $10,000 for a table and a cash bar.”

drosen@observer.com

While there are many wonderful trade organizations out there, one of the best, and one of the most beneficial and productive for my firm and I has been the Real Estate Board of New York.

Robert Knakal.

This week, REBNY is celebrating its 116th Annual Banquet, so I thought it appropriate to recognize the tremendous work that the board does on behalf of our industry. It also goes without saying that the personal success achieved by Paul Massey and myself, and the success of Massey Knakal, would not be close to what it has been without our involvement in REBNY. The hundreds of solid relationships we have forged, and the knowledge we have obtained through our active participation in the organization, have been priceless.

Our involvement in the Real Estate Board of New York began right from the start of our careers. In 1984, Paul and I began reading all of the trade publications and it became apparent that REBNY held a prominent position within the industry. We immediately became members and, shortly thereafter, noticed that REBNY had a Sales Brokers Committee. Regular attendance at the committee lunches and events followed, leading to wonderful and lasting relationships with other committee members. As time has gone on, Paul and I have made other rewarding relationships with our fellow sales brokers through involvement with this committee.

Over the years, I’ve become active in several other REBNY committees. I have also served on the Board of Governors since 2000 and on the Executive Committee since 2004. This involvement has afforded me the opportunity to witness, firsthand, the incredible amount of work that the board does on behalf of our industry.

We are very fortunate to have Steven Spinola serving as REBNY’s president. Steve’s background in city government made him an excellent candidate for the position in 1986, when he left the Ed Koch administration to join REBNY. Since then, Steve has been a leader in our industry from a number of perspectives. He is a thought-leader and has an uncanny ability to shepherd industry leaders, sometimes with disparate perspectives, to emerge with a unified voice. Add to this his dexterity with respect to city and state legislative leaders and we have an unparalleled captain steering REBNY’s ship.

To be sure, Steve is backed up by a highly competent staff with a diverse array of skill sets. Their collective knowledge of issues impacting New York City’s real estate industry is unsurpassed.

In addition to having a tremendous executive staff, REBNY is also lucky to have über-broker Mary Ann Tighe of CB Richard Ellis as its chairwoman. Mary Ann has brought her energy, dedication and multiple talents to the board and has done an inspiring job leading the organization since her appointment in 2010.

The efforts of all of these people have been focused on one thing: making the industry better for each of its participants.

Clearly, I personally owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the Real Estate Board of New York for all it has done for me and for my firm. I encourage any of you who are not REBNY members to consider joining and becoming active. It will be one of the best moves you could make to enhance your real estate career.

Rknakal@masseyknakal.com

Robert Knakal is the chairman and founding partner of Massey Knakal Realty Services and in his career has brokered the sale of more than 1,175 properties, having a market value in excess of $7.8 billion.

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.

Bernard Resnick, Sheldon Silver and Steven Spinola, 1996.

The 1950s and 1960s: “The Liar’s Ball” is coined

When the 1950s arrived, the board had expanded enough to stock a banquet hall with men in tuxedos and cigars. Some of today’s most venerable REBNY members attended those balls when they were still wet behind their ears.

Burton Resnick (chairman and chief executive officer, Jack Resnick & Sons, chairman emeritus of REBNY): I remember I was with my father and at that time you [could] cut the air because everybody was smoking cigars and everybody was doing deals. I’d like to have a dollar for every deal that wasn’t done.
Fifty years ago, 75 years ago, it was primarily brokers … but the owners were already there. The brokers were the leadership. I think the owners started being leaders in the last 40 years. They were always there, and I think it was only a matter of who smoked the longest cigar.

Larry Silverstein (president and chief executive officer, Silverstein Properties, former REBNY chairman): I think I started going to these REBNY balls I would say in the late ’50s. I remember missing one. There was one hell of a huge snowstorm—I think it was 1961 or 1962—massive snowstorm, and there was such a terrible night.

Stephen Siegel (chairman global brokerage, CBRE): It was fascinating to be surrounded by people like Leona and Harry Helmsley and Aaron Gural, and some of the legends of our business. Years later I also coined the phrase “The Liar’s Ball,” because no matter how terrible the market was, everybody had their best year ever: “Oh, my god, what a year I had! I would never have imagined in this economy!” So I used to get a kick out of that.

Jerry Speyer (chairman and co-chief executive officer, Tishman Speyer): The people who spoke were then the chairpersons and the people who were engaged in the city, like the mayor and the luminaries who represented the city infrastructure.

The one thing that was consistent was that it was extremely hard for anybody to get the attention of the people attending. It wasn’t until Bernie Mendik became chairman when he got up and made a noise to quiet down, like “Shhhh!”—you know, the kind of sound when you’re trying to calm a child down—and it worked like a charm. He was the first person to really get control of the room.

What was it like in the 1960s? It was probably more formal. People were behaved a little better. They were rowdy in their own ways—Harry Helmsley used to have a party after the Real Estate Board dinner, to which a relatively small group of people were invited. It was a lot of fun. He was a wonderful host.

1970s: Oil Prices Soar and Reciting the Declaration of Independence

The 1970s proved to be a financially challenging decade for REBNY and the real estate industry. Middle East “oil shocks” sent heating oil prices soaring, affecting several buildings. The city and the industry were faced with other financial perils, including a near-bankruptcy for the city and stubborn stagflation.

Peter DiCapua (chief operating officer of ATCO Properties & Management Inc.): If I recall, everything was about inflation and I think we were all concerned about was whether the assets of specifically the commercial real estate industry were going to keep up with inflation. And I think the mood was everybody had their own opinion about that. It’s a diverse group, I tend to be on the optimist’s side. I always say, “We’ll do OK …” Other people like to say the glass is half empty and it’s draining. I don’t think the mood was totally negative. I think it was balanced but concerned.

Mr. Speyer: Real estate’s problems started in 1972, and they got worse as the city’s problems got worse. At that point the real estate markets went down radically, and stagflation was definitely having a big affect on the Real Estate Board dinners.

People felt pretty down. There was not much renting going on, there was a lot of empty space, space downtown was going begging because the World Trade Center had been built and didn’t get rented until the late ’70s, space in Midtown was going begging. There was a lot of stuff going on that wasn’t pretty, to say the least.

Jeffrey Lichtenberg (executive vice president, Cushman & Wakefield): Originally when I started [in 1977] I thought this was a huge big-deal issue and you had to be there. I remember a company called Swig Wyler & Arnell invited me. I remember talking [with Norman Jacobson, then the head of leasing for Swig Wyler] about East 42nd Street and how I thought that … Donald Trump redeveloping the Commodore Hotel into the Hyatt was going to change East 42nd Street for the better. This is not a bullshit story.

Mr. Silverstein: Seymour Durst was chairman of the board and when he got up, he started speaking, and he started reciting the Declaration of Independence. Nobody, absolutely nobody, cared about what he said, because who’s paying attention? He just rambled on and on, everybody was going about their business like he didn’t exist. The funny thing is he told me the next day he met some people and they said, “Hey did you make the ball last night? We didn’t see you.”

Mr. Speyer: The markets really began to turn in 1977. Then in ’78 and ’79, they really got better. Buildings went up, buildings were being renovated, there were a lot of good things going on.

1980s: The Rise of Manhattan
With the growing pangs of the 1970s long behind them, REBNY members welcomed an explosion of bigger buildings and bigger deals, perking up the moods of the REBNY gala … that is, until 1986 arrived.

Peter Hauspurg (chairman and chief executive officer, Eastern Consolidated): From 1981 to 1986 was really one of the great rises of Manhattan real estate in terms of activity and prices and people who are making a lot of money. So the mood during those times was buoyant, and then they changed the tax law at the end of 1986 [Tax Reform Act of 1986] to discourage syndication and the tax aspects of investing in real estate and activity plunged, for a while at least.

Mr. DiCapua: Through 1986, before everybody realized we had too much money and we were building foolishly, anybody who rubbed two sticks together got the financing and started a 40-story building. It was just too much and we oversaturated the market. We paid for it.

Mr. Speyer: In 1986 there was a big tax rehaul, and the real estate industry took a big hit in 1986, and that affected the industry in a significant way. And that combined with the changes in the economy in the next couple of years, the real estate business was really in tough shape by the end of the ’80s, and during the next five, six years, the industry was in a very difficult position to say the least.

While the economy rebounded—only to stumble once again—one thing was certain: REBNY attendees still would not stop talking for anyone, no matter who the speakers were. And one formerly fail-proof trick did not stand the test of time.

Fred Wilpon (co-founder and chairman, Sterling Equities): No one sits at the table all the time. Everybody is standing and schmoozing and talking, and one year I was to start the [gala]. I tried to get their attention and I couldn’t get their attention. It was impossible. The roar of the crowd—of them all talking to each other. And finally I [started] going, “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers …” A couple people in the front heard it and they were hysterical. The rest of them, they didn’t hear it, until they decided to say “OK, now we’ll go down to a minor roar rather than a large roar.”

Around that same time, several of real estate’s brightest female stars—including a future REBNY chairwoman—started attending the galas.

Mary Ann Tighe (chief executive officer, CBRE, current REBNY chairman): I remember it being a terrifying event for someone who was new to the industry. I remember thousands of men in black tie, and a tiny sprinkling of women in the mix. I remember the shock of [seeing people speak] through the invocation back in the day.

Leslie Himmel (managing partner, Himmel + Meringoff Properties): I will be embarrassed to say, and I’m not sure you should print this, is that I came to meet some friends who had tickets, and they just like walked me in. I sat all the way up in the mezzanine, so I didn’t even have a ticket for downstairs. I was way up in the mezzanine looking at everybody down below.

I can remember looking at the people who were then, I guess, on the executive committee and the powers that be, and you had people like Larry Silverstein and Bernie Mendick, and I think even Harry Helmsley.
It was my dream to one day be an owner, never mind a significant owner. So now it’s 30 years later and not only am I an owner of a few million square feet, but I am on that stage. I even was lucky enough to get the Bernie Mendrick Award, so it marvels me. When I got that award last year I can remember sitting up in the mezzanine and just saying “one day, I just want to own a few buildings.

Faith Hope Consolo (chairman retail leasing, Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate): I was at my old firm, which was Garrick-Aug [Associates] at the time [1985]. I felt like a little bit of a lost little girl. I mean, there weren’t a dozen women in the whole room out of 1,000 people.

Ms. Himmel: It was a great place to meet new people, but it was way smaller so it was easier. You could walk around and you could meet for the first time people who were very significant.

Ms. Tighe: One of the things I often joke about is after you’ve had the experience of going, how particular you become about the dress. Because you’re so densely packed, you can’t have a dress that drags on the floor, because people will step on you all night long.

Perhaps most impressive to newcomers was the universal respect held for Harry and Leona Helmsley throughout the entire REBNY gala.

Ms. Consolo: Oh, gosh, they held court. They had a table right in the front, front and center. And of course, she was, you know, very over the top. I got along with her very well. But Harry was very well respected because many of the men in that room he made very rich. I mean, he was like a dean and people liked him personally and professionally. And they would all come over and pay homage.

Mr. Silverstein: Truth of the matter is I’m a legend, but only in my own mind am I a legend, so I don’t consider myself kind of a luminary. I think of Harry, he was just a remarkable guy in his day. It’s amazing the swiftness with which legendary characters become a matter of past interest and very little relevance to today. Quite something. But it’s testimony that we are all here for a very fleeting time, and the world does not revolve around us and we’re not the masters of the universe we like to think we are or are not the legends we like to think we are. In a sense, when you think about it, it’s humbling.

The 1990s to Now: Boom and Bust

Mr. Hauspurg: Then, of course, the market turned and got worse in the early ’90s, and attendance at the banquets dropped markedly. Lot’s of people left the business—it was an awful time. I remember in the darkest days of it, which were ’91 or ’92, someone came up with the slogan “stay alive ’til ’95,” and, sure enough, it was actually ’95 when the market started to get healthy and turn again and attendance again returned to the banquet.

Mr. Siegel: The best of all was when Eddie Gordon, my partner, passed away in [2000] and I knew nobody would be quiet and I was asked to give a eulogy, and I kind of went “phewww, phewwww” into the microphone and I said, “I am going to ask you all to be quiet for 60 friggin’ seconds in honor of an icon of this business. One of the biggest real estate men we’ve ever had in this city of New York and in his memory I’d like 60 seconds of silence at a dinner which never had 1 second of silence.” And all of a sudden, I kept shushing and shushing, and the word spread and it was dead silence in Eddie’s honor … for about 12 seconds. [Laughs.] I didn’t even get a half a minute, but you know what, I got 12 seconds and I can tell you right now, I don’t think anyone’s ever gotten anything close, including Giuliani [and] Bloomberg.

Today, with people from every corner of the commercial real estate industry attending the gala, many REBNY vets believe it will continue to be a draw for years to come.

Mr. Resnick: I think over the last 20 years we’ve been averaging over 2,000 people, even in the bad times. They’re a lot younger, which I guess is a natural transition, that the young start kicking out the older ones. And hopefully the real estate board will be important to all of them.

Mr. DiCapua: We have 2000-plus [attendees] every year at the banquet. Back in the ’70s, it was half of that. It wasn’t anything close to those numbers. People feel the need to see and be seen, and if they’re not there they are missing out on some very substantial networking.

Ms. Tighe: The mayor and the governor still come usually just to the cocktail hour. And the other public officials come and sit on the dais, but we don’t subject them to the experience of speaking. I have to tell you that [the constant banter] is part of the tradition of the event. I’ve now come to the belief that people would be alarmed if suddenly folks were quiet.

Ed Koch (former mayor of New York): I remember who they are but I have nothing anecdotal to tell you.

drosen@observer.com

The Commercial Observer: As general counsel of the Real Estate Board of New York, you're intimately involved with crafting the group's strategy with regard to new rent-regulation legislation currently being debated in Albany. What's going to happen?

Mr. Boxer: I'm hoping rational heads will prevail. I mean, we need something to be able to help not only the landlords but the tenants to get that through. It's very hard to speculate about what the legislature will do, but hopefully our new governor, Cuomo, who I think understands the issue, will have some influence in getting something positive done that helps everybody.

It's not in anybody's best interest that the legislation concerning the tenancies should not be addressed and extended.

What is the Real Estate Board of New York's official stance?

I don't want to go on record with their official stance because it changes all the time. I'd have to speak to [REBNY president Steven] Spinola. So it's unfair to ask at this point. They're dealing directly with the issue, and Steven is the best one to answer that.

The current laws end next month. It's still evolving?

Yeah, that's because it's a moving target. There are so many issues today in the politics of the legislature that it changes from day to day.

Is there any single fringe group that would like to dismantle the current laws entirely?

I would think that a tenants' advocacy group would like to see all of the benefits come their way, without really understanding that the landlords are a big part of this state and this city, and that their viability is dependent on having rational laws concerning tenancies.

From a legal perspective, does the language of such legislation stay the same each time rent regulations return to Albany for a vote?

Well, it starts the same, but then there's all sorts of suggestions to modify it, which has all of the political issues intertwined with the legislation.

From what I understand, you were offered Richard Nixon's desk as a gift about a decade ago after negotiating a deal to move into 180 Maiden Lane. What happened?

When [former chief executive of CBS and head of the insurance firm CNA Financial] Larry Tisch and I really shook hands on the lease for Stroock to take over Webster Sheffield's lease, he thought that I was the catalyst to get it done and that I worked through issues that were involved with our move from 7 Hanover to 180 Maiden Lane.

And he was so appreciative, and when CNA took over the space from Webster Sheffield it included all of the furniture that was left behind, which included this desk that was Richard Nixon's desk. That was after he had left the presidency and came to Webster Sheffield in New York; and he was of counsel or whatever, but he was involved with the practice. And he had that desk, and Larry thought it would be a nice gesture to offer me the desk-because I was the catalyst.

Did you take it?

No, absolutely not. It was atrocious, it was beat up. It must have been a desk that they had given him when he came here. It certainly wasn't a desk that he had when he was the president. And I heard a rumor that they even offered the desk to his library in California--and they turned it down, too. I would have been ashamed to say it was my desk, let alone the former president's.

Have the assignments you've been working on for your real estate clients changed dramatically since before the economy collapsed, or have things stayed the same?

Well, there are more refinancings. A lot of the debt is coming due, and many of the people who own significant buildings--who are many of our biggest clients--are looking to refinance their debt. Many people are looking at this marketplace because of the low cap rates of selling viable properties because there are so many people out there trying to acquire real estate assets.

It used to be a client would call and say they have a property up for sale, they think they have a buyer and etc. Now, every deal seems to be an auction and no matter what you ask for your properties--at least in the New York area--we find that you should think twice about the first offer you receive because there's so much capital looking to invest in New York properties that it doesn't make sense to just take the first offer that comes your way.

So that's what I get involved with lately with a lot of our major clients: either the disposing of properties or really reaching for properties that are available for sale.

How long do you expect that to last?

I think interest rates are a function of it. I mean, look at people who have available cash. Look at what the banks are paying in interest. I mean, it's negligible what you can earn with sitting capital--and therefore people who have capital available are looking for a new viable alternative where they can make more than they could by taking the historic safe haven of putting the money in the bank. They look at the fact that real estate is just coming back but it hasn't reached its full potential, and they want to invest their capital in real property because that, they feel, is a way to be able to generate income.

You also find players who are playing the debt game. They're trying to lend to own, which is becoming a new phenomenon in our town because there are default obligations on mortgages. Many of the institutions are looking to clean up their balance sheets and they will sell mortgages very often at a discount, and players who like the real estate will take a shot at buying the debt at a discount in the hopes that the owner will continue the default.

jsederstrom@observer.com

He's always kind of been of New York, but not so much in it, the various Trump developments about town notwithstanding. Case in point: Mr. Trump nor his eponymous organization are members of the Real Estate Board of New York, the uber-powerful trade group that claims just about every big name in the business on its membership roster.

"Donald is obviously a very successful real estate and businessman," Steven Spinola, REBNY's president the last 25 years, told our Azi Paybarah this week. "That's all I can say."

Anything to read into the fact that he's not a REBNY member?

"Nothing to read into it," Mr. Spinola said. "When I asked him about it once, he said, 'I'm not a joiner.' [laughs] You know, so we've talked from time to time--when there's a need to talk to him or there's a need for him to talk to me or REBNY--and he is one of my members' colleagues in terms of the people that build this city, and they look at him as a colleague."

tacitelli@observer.com :: @tacitelli

In a January 2010 Observer article, he had sounded one of the earliest calls for not holding the 9/11 terror trials in the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan. Attorney General Eric Holder announced Monday afternoon that the trials will, indeed, be held at the Guantanamo Bay prison (to the dismay of many among President Obama's lefty base). 

The Observer nabbed Big Real Estate's super at the 101 Club on Park Avenue and queried: Was REBNY the first to sound the call? "I do believe we were," said Mr. Spinola with a wide grin.

As early as December 2009, Mr. Spinola (pictured) met with Bill Rudin, the landlord and Association for a Better New York chair, in his office. Initially, Mr. Spinola spoke with then-White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and presidential adviser and policy wonk David Axelrod. The board at first kept a low public profile on the issue to resist offending the administration.

But Mr. Spinola was getting an earful from REBNY members, as The Observer noted a month after the meeting with Mr. Rudin, more than he had gotten on any single issue since he took over the board in the mid-1980s: "They're saying to me, 'You've got to stop this, you can't let it happen.'" To hold the trial downtown, they said, would disrupt traffic and create security concerns that could drive out tourists and office tenants, plummeting the downtown economy to post-9/11 lows.

The real estate board, one of the most powerful lobby groups in the state, has had an impact on other issues like property taxes, but none with quite such national resonance. In other words, the board took on the president of the United States and won. 

During his Monday evening recap with The Observer, Mr. Spinola also gave credit to Community Board 1 for helping. Victory, Mr. Spinola said, was not surprising (rumors of the administration's reversal surfaced this past January). "We assumed it would not be in New York," he said. "We're very happy." 

lkusisto@observer.com 

In a surprise move last week, Mr. Cuomo said he wanted to include both provisions: "My position is I would like to see them done in the budget," he said during a presser with all four legislative leaders.

But Democrats told The Observer that staunch opposition behind closed doors from Republicans and Big Real Estate caused the governor's flip-flop yesterday. "Senate Republicans have been obstructionist," Senator Adriano Espaillat, of Northern Manhattan and the Bronx, who is leading the campaign for what proponents call rent reform on behalf of Senate Democrats, said in an interview. "They have worked very hard at preventing this issue from coming to the budget. We have not launched a campaign to prevent a property tax cap."

Joseph Strasburg, head of the landlord-friendly Rent Stabilization Association, told The Observer he has not spoken with the governor in the last week. "We're not going to negotiate against ourselves," he said, indicating he vigorously opposes linking rent reform to a property tax cap. Real Estate Board of New York president Steven Spinola, however, earlier expressed openness to raising the cap at which apartments can be destabilized, which currently sits at $2,000.

Republican majority leader Dean Skelos recently came out publicly in opposition to including rent reform in the coming week's debate, even if it was connected to a property tax cap. "I think both rent control and even the property tax caps should be discussed after the budget," Mr. Skelos said.

Democrats insist the governor, a former HUD head, is commited to rent reform, a top priority for members of his party with thousands of rent-regulated tenants in their consitutuencies. The lead bill would raise the threshold for deregulation to $3,000 a month; stop converting vacant apartments to market rate; close some of the loopholes landlords commonly use to raise rents; and return most of the apartments deregulated in the last 20 years to stabilization. As The Observer previously reported, this puts Mr. Cuomo in a difficult position because Big Real Estate, his largest donor, is deeply opposed to restrictions on rent.

Rent regulation is set to expire June 15, affecting more than one million city apartments, and Democrats fear that if they wait until the end they will have little leverage to strengthen the legislation. They're trying to meet with the governor in a last-ditch attempt to have the reforms included. Mr. Espaillat said: "The ball is pretty much in the governor's court."

lkusisto@observer.com

CB Richard Ellis led all comers with four nominees, notably a deal for Mercedes Benz' new flagship dealership at 770 Eleventh Avenue that did its part to revitalize Manhattan's autoabahn alley and Proskauer's eye-grabbing 400,000-square-foot, anchor lease deal at 11 Times Square.

Meanwhile, Newmark Knight Frank was nominated for three deals, including for Local SEIU-32BJ's office space at 620 Avenue of the Americas and the sale of 31 West 15^th Street.

"These awards are the most coveted honors that REBNY presents to its commercial members who have demonstrated their creativity and skill through these remarkably ingenious deals," said REBNY President Steven Spinola. "These awards are particularly meaningful in these trying economic times, when deals have been ever more complicated and difficult to get done. We commend all who submitted their most creative and challenging transactions and we look forward to announcing the winners on April 4."

The entire list of nominees is below:

• 100-104 Fifth Avenue office condos, Woody Heller & Will Silverman, Studley
• 250 East 57^th Street, Darcy Stacom & William Shanahan, CB Richard Ellis
• Cabrini Medical Center, 227 East 19^th Street, Vincent Carrega, Grubb & Ellis
• 31 West 15^th Street, David Noonan & Jennifer Schwartzman, Newmark Knight Frank
• 770 Eleventh Avenue, Michael Laginestra & Michael Geoghegan, CBRE
• 620 Avenue of the Americas, Robert Eisenberg, Barry Gosin & Mark Weiss, Newmark Knight Frank
• 333 West 34^th Street, Josh Kuriloff & Robert Lowe, Cushman & Wakefield
• 605 Third Avenue, Andrew Roos, Colliers International
• Susquehanna International Group, 140 Broadway, Chris Helgesen, UGL Equis
• Capital One, 90 Park Avenue, Lee Brodsky & Ross Perlman, Newmark Knight Frank
• Proskauer, 11 Times Square, Stuart Eisenkraft, Michael Geoghegan & Stephen Siegel, CBRE
• 4 New York Plaza, Bradley Gerla & Howard Fiddle, CBRE

jsederstrom@observer.com