Top 50: The Final Wrap
Here are the suggestions from readers of people who were not on the Top 50 list but should have been:
– Dan Rice, Watchtower Group
– John Sexton, NYU
– Councilmember de Blasio
– Councilmember Yassky
– Tim King, Chris Havens, Brian Leary, Commercial Brokers
– Mary Kay Gallagher, Victorian Flatbush Broker and Grande Dame
– Alan Fishman, Last CEO of WaMu
– Charles Bagli, NY Time Reporter
– Jonathan Lethem (and other Brooklyn-centric authors)
– Karen Auster, Organizer of Atlantic Antic and BKLYN Designs
– Arnold Lehman, Brooklyn Museum
– Harvey Lichtenstein, BAM
– Jack Walsh, Celebrate Brooklyn
– The What
Last chance: Any others?
Click through to see the entire list.
Top 50: Who’d We Leave Out?
Given that this was our first effort at putting together a list like this, we were bound to screw some things up, either by commission or omission. So help up pull together those deserving of inclusion that slipped our overly-crowded mind. One commenter already pointed out the following omissions: Dan Rice of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, John Sexton of NYU, Councilmembers de Blasio and Yassky and the commercial power trio of Tim King, Chris Havens and Brian Leary. We’ll do a wrap up on Monday.
Lifetime Achievement Award: The Ortners
Without Evelyn and Everett Ortner, there may very well have been no brownstone renaissance in Brooklyn (and, as one reader wrote to remind us, no Brownstoner.com!). Starting in the early 1960s, when they bought a brownstone on Berkeley Place (for $32,500!), the couple used a combination of charm and street smarts to preserve the architectural fabric of their neighborhood while building a strong activist community, among other things founding the Brownstone Revival Committee in 1968. Since then, they have served in leadership roles of Preservation Volunteers, the Victorian Society of America, D.C.-based Preservation Action, the Brooklyn Historical Society, BAM, the Brooklyn Museum and the Park Slope Civic Council. While Evelyn passed away in 2006, Everett, 89, continues to be deeply involved with Brooklyn preservation and community organizations. For a longer list of achievements, click here.
Number 1: Bruce Ratner
Anyone capable of sequestering $2 billion in public subsidies and 22 acres of private and public land (most through voluntary purchase and MTA approval, but some through still-pending eminent domain) for a single project, Atlantic Yards, has influence and then some. But even Bruce Ratner, president of Forest City Ratner, may not be mightier than a crash in the financial market, though he recently managed to fit through a loophole in the IRS’s tougher arena financing regulations. If built, Atlantic Yard’s basketball arena and high-rises will change life in Brooklyn forever. If not, it could be “Atlantic Lots,” blighting Brooklyn for a decades. Ratner is also responsible for three other local game-changers: Metro Tech, Atlantic Center and Terminal, and Lowe’s (the first big box store in Gowanus), but his bid to build the tallest tower in Brooklyn, City Tech, fell through. At least his rental tower at 80 Dekalb looks to be on track.
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 11-20 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 21-30 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 31-40 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 41-50 [Brownstoner]
Photo by Tracy Collins
Number 2: The Walentases
Two Trees Management founder David Walentas and his wife Jane, and more recently his son Jed Walentas, transformed industrial Dumbo into the borough’s most exclusive enclave, in part by providing free or discounted homes for creative institutions like St. Anne’s Warehouse, essentially artificially replicating Soho and Tribeca’s gentrification. In 1981, the Walentases bought 10 factories there for what now seems like a paltry $12 million considering half the borough’s 20 most expensive recorded condos sales are in those buildings, and a contract exceeding $7 million has been signed for the 14th floor of One Main Street, which would make it the top sale. In other buildings, he’s created one of the most important office markets in Brooklyn, home to scores of small and medium-sized “creative” firms. He hasn’t slowed down: Last year, The Real Deal named Walentas Brooklyn’s Biggest Builder with 905 units on the market. The Walentases (Jed, really) are also planning a boutique hotel in Williamsburg and brought the borough’s first Trader Joe’s to Atlantic Avenue. The Department of Education is reportedly warming to his suggestion of including a middle school in his proposed, controversial Dock Street project. And he might finally get his wife’s carousel inside Brooklyn Bridge Park!
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 11-20 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 21-30 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 31-40 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 41-50 [Brownstoner]
Photo by the NY Oberserver
Number 3: Purnima Kapur
Since Purnima Kapur’s appointment as Brooklyn City Planning Director in 2006, four rezonings covering over 470 blocks have been passed (Dyker Heights, Fort Greene/Clinton Hill, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Grand Street) and she is overseeing at least 10 more covering 800 blocks: Dumbo, Gowanus, Coney Island, Flatbush, Sunset Park, Greenpoint and Williamsburg, Canarsie, and Brighton Beach. She literally has a hand in deciding the size, shape, density, composition and sometimes even aesthetic of Brooklyn blocks. Sometimes millions of dollars in property value for a single parcel are at stake, and rezonings have been known to stop projects at the beginning stages of construction.
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 11-20 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 21-30 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 31-40 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 41-50 [Brownstoner]
Number 4: Tupper Thomas
Prospect Park: The beating heart of Brooklyn; its shared backyard and a symbol of our urban renaissance; with 8 million amblers a year, one of the borough’s most visited public attractions (Coney Island has 10.6 million). We have Tupper Thomas, Prospect Park’s administrator and founder of the Prospect Park Alliance, responsible for programming and 60 percent of its $10 million annual operating budget, to thank. When she took over in 1980, it was considered dangerous and decrepit, and only 1.7 million people ventured in a year. To bring in people, she arranged for off-leash hours, knowing dog owners would be the park’s most loyal users, and soon joggers, cyclists, and bar-b-quers followed. Thomas has also secured $120 million in public and private funds for renovations and capital projects, reviving an enviable amenity for Brooklynites of all stripes. The single largest feat of historic preservation in the borough.
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 11-20 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 21-30 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 31-40 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 41-50 [Brownstoner]
Photo by cassieshotz
Number 5: Robert Tierney
Fifty years from now, architecturally distinct neighborhoods like Dumbo and Crown Heights North will look largely the same as they do today, regardless of the individual property owners’ consent, thanks to city landmarking laws implemented under Robert Tierney, chairman of the Landmark Commission. Since he took the seat in January 2003, four districts comprising 823 buildings and 20 individual structures have been landmarked in Brooklyn, and according to a spokeswoman the commission plans to move forward with designating two more districts in Bed-Stuy and Prospect Heights that total 870 buildings. Then there are the scores of proposed alterations to existing landmarks that have put developers at the mercy of Tierney, such as 20 Henry Street and the Domino Sugar Refinery. And the Commission has surveyed 2,800 additional buildings in Brooklyn “that merit evaluation for landmark status,” meaning Tierney won’t have to worry about lack of work as long as he’s in office.
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 11-20 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 21-30 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 31-40 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 41-50 [Brownstoner]
Photo by newyorkobserver
Number 6: Marianna Koval and Regina Myer
Since Marianna Koval joined the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy in 1998, through her programming and fundraising efforts she’s helped keep the dream alive, even during those uncertain years when planners faced legal battles and endless construction delays. Koval was instrumental in starting popular activities like the Movies With A View series and the Floating Pool to bring people into the park, while lobbying hard to have construction on the piers started before developers for the far more controversial residential high-rises and commercial properties within the park were designated, which was a time-consuming and money-draining process that strained public support. Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation president Regina Myer, far more affable than her predecessor Wendy Leventer, finally got a shovel in the ground and an additional $75 million for construction, putting an end to fears that the project would die. Koval continues to develop plans for interim uses during construction, a skating rink beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, and ultimately for a role in operating the park once built. Within the next few months Myer will preside over designating developers for properties within the park, including a hotel, all intended to fund its maintenance. If Myer can pull off completing the park, with its stunning views it could trump Central Park as the must-see park in the city.
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 11-20 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 21-30 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 31-40 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 41-50 [Brownstoner]
Koval photo by Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance; Meyer by Brooklyn Paper.
Number 7: Joe Sitt
Since unveiling his audacious (and totally different from today) “glam rock” proposed makeover of Coney Island in 2005, Thor Equities founder Joe Sitt has been in the driver’s seat of the neighborhood’s redevelopment, whether the city likes it or not. Through voluntary sales, he owns most of the land within the amusement district, including that beneath the beloved Astroland and the boardwalk businesses (though he just lost the Wonder Wheel site to the city last week), and his willingness to negotiate with the city will determine what gets built in one of the most quintessentially, sentimentally New York neighborhoods. Bloomberg is handicapped by term-limits. Sitt also netted $100 million from selling the development rights to the former Albee Square Mall, of Biz Markie fame, and reportedly plans to bring more big box retail to the Revere Sugar Refinery. He seems to have a penchant for buying hallowed property and doing whatever the hell he wants with it.
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 11-20 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 21-30 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 31-40 [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn’s Top 50 Most Influential No. 41-50 [Brownstoner]