Crain's New York Business

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THE NEW CLASS Upstart firm for young investors takes on an industry giant PAGE 3

FEBRUARY 21, 2022

ECONOMY

PUBLIC HEALTH

NO PLACE TO GO NYC’s public restrooms are scarce and dirty, posing a health and public safety quandary

BY AARON ELSTEIN

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ew York, New York, is a hell of a town with one especially uncomfortable truth: We’re sorely lacking in public restrooms.

And the ones we do have are mostly crap.

“They’re the most disappointing thing about New York,” said Kathryn Anthony, an architecture professor from Champaign, Illinois. “In Central Park, you see bathrooms inside handsome old buildings, but the lines are long, and inside, well, it’s pretty bad.”

Many of New York’s 1,428 public restrooms “just stink,” City Comptroller Scott Stringer declared in a 2019 report calling on the city to clean up its act. (The city has since renovated 34 park bathrooms.) Not only do they stink, but they are few and far between. New York ranks 93rd out of the 100 largest U.S. cities in public bathrooms per capita.

It’s not just an inconvenience; it’s a health and public safety issue.

When restaurants, retailers and hotels closed during the pandemic, public-urination complaints across the city soared by 83%, according to a Crain’s analysis. Acute toilet scarcity is a source of pain for tourists away from their hotel, delivery workers biking around the city or really anyone away from home or the office.

Yet changing the situation has foiled every mayor since city restrooms went into the toilet starting in the 1970s. Even Michael Bloomberg, who succeeded in setting aside large parts of Times Square for pedestrians and paved the way for Hudson Yards by rezoning an old rail yard, failed in his quest to fix the city’s public bathroom problem.

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See BATHROOMS on page 31

NEWSPAPER

Business owners are hopeful as tourists and workers trickle back

BY CARA EISENPRESS

I

n January Crowne Plaza HY36, a hotel between Times Square and Hudson Yards, had more requests for future bookings than ever in its five-year history. And this month will be its strongest February ever.

“Demand is so pent up,” said John Beck, the hotel’s general manager. Both business and leisure groups are descending on the city, seeking the chance to socialize and taking advantage of bargain prices at hotels and activities, he said.

New York City’s leaders are crossing their fingers that the third atOFFICE tempt at a occupancy in the comeback from metro area for pandemic havthe week that oc will be the ended Feb. 2 one that sticks, and operators in commercial corridors say business is returning and the future looks good.

The businesses need a resurgence. Although the removal of pandemic restrictions in the spring brought back some office workers and a trickle of tourists, worries about the Covid-19 Delta variant cooled things off before the comeback got started. The pattern in the fall was similar: Broadway opened, and occupancy at hotels and in dining rooms climbed. After news media reports about omicron

25.8%

See REOPEN on page 34 VOL. 38, NO. 7

© 2022 CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC.

SPOTLIGHT

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CHASING GIANTS

ALINEA’S Halimi and Lakhani are aiming to create a sense of community around investing.

Upstart Alinea takes on investing Goliath Robinhood Firm founded by Barnard classmates courts young investors with stock “playlists”

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companies or environmentally sustainable businesses.

Lakhani, who is 24, previously worked as an investment banker at Citi. She met her co-founder and co-CEO, Eve Halimi, 25, when they were both economics majors at Columbia University’s Barnard College. They were both interested in investing and felt The upstart: Alinea there was no fun, easy way to get started.

“We’re all seeking a more social approach On the Alinea investing platform, there’s not much information about individual to it, where you can also learn from your friends and have a community,” stocks—just a few simple stats, phoLakhani says. tos of the company’s top executives Alinea graduated the Y Combiand a brief description. And that’s nator accelerator program, the point. The New York City–based launched in the spring and raised startup caters to novice, Gen-Z in$2.1 million in a seed round. vestors, and young women in parWith just seven employees and a ticular. few thousand customers—mostly For that crowd, co-founder and students investing $1,000 on averco-CEO Anam Lakhani says, investage—the startup is truly tiny. But it ing is a means of self-expression. has enormous potential, says AshAlinea steers users to invest in exANNE KADET ley Aydin, a principal at venture change-traded funds, or ETFs, capital firm VamosVentures, which which it refers to with the less-scary term “playlists for investing.” The playlists, funded the company as an angel investor. which can include 30 to 10,000 stocks, feature Alinea’s branding aims at Gen-Z users, but it themes appealing to the under-25 set. Cus- also appeals to a huge, untapped market of tomers can invest as little as $1 in ETFs cen- older folks who find existing investment plattered on sports betting, cannabis, video forms intimidating, Aydin says. Her hairgames and electric vehicles, for example. dresser, a Staten Island stylist in her late 30s, Alinea’s “impact” playlists, meanwhile, focus is a big fan, for example.

“It’s folks who are interested in trading and on specific concerns, such as female-led hasing Giants is a new, biweekly column on CrainsNewYork.com in which Anne Kadet profiles budding startups in New York City and their plans to compete with, and potentially overtake, an industry leader.

investing and really don’t know where to begin,” Aydin says.

The reigning Goliath: Robinhood Robinhood, which blew up earlier in the Covid-19 pandemic, was one of the first platforms to truly democratize investing with free trades, zero minimums and the ability to buy fractional shares. A hit with young investors, it now boasts 17.3 monthly active users and $98 billion in assets under custody.

How to slay the giant “Individual stock-picking is so 2020,” Alinea proclaims on its app. And so, it seems, are detailed statistics and long-winded analyses.

“I think there’s too much information out there, and that’s why most people don’t invest,” Lakhani says. “We wanted to keep the information available as bite-sized and accessible as possible.”

The app looks a bit like Instagram with its emphasis on friendly visuals—CEO photos and simple charts. It eschews alarming colors including panic-inducing red and greed-inducing green in favor of a cheery pastel palette. Data is typically presented in a visual format designed for the low-attention-span set.

“The last thing the world needs is another anxiety-producing, stressful tech product,” Lakhani says.

Amina Shindy is a typical user. The 20-year-

old math and economics major at Columbia University first learned of Alinea on Instagram. She so far has invested $300 in a 10th of a share of Tesla and a blockchain ETF. “It’s a very aesthetically pleasing app, and very welcoming,” Shindy says. “I’ve seen my friends on other platforms, and they look intense and overwhelming.”

The added challenge There’s a lot of money in fintech right now and nothing to stop a better-funded startup from making a play for the same market. But Alinea’s young, female-led team genuinely understands the customer and has created a strong community of users who provide constant feedback, Aydin says. “They were able to find the little wedge in the market because they are very in tune with the community-based approach,” she added. “It sounds simple, but a lot of startups forget to talk to their customer on a daily basis.”

Goliath responds Robinhood declined to comment on Alinea, but it noted that its Robinhood Snacks newsletter, designed to support users with bite-size investing insights, has nearly 25 million readers. The giant also recently rolled out a Recommendations Engine, designed to help new users get started by offering a set of diversified portfolios. ■

FEBRUARY 21, 2022 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 3

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TECHNOLOGY

Lawmakers, new finance watchdog take aim at backlog holding up state’s crypto license process $5K

BY RYAN DEFFENBAUGH

CONFERENCE CALLOUT

APRIL 6 CRAIN’S POWER BREAKFAST: GREGORY RUSS Gregory Russ, chair and CEO of the New York City Housing Authority, will be interviewed live onstage by Crain’s New York Business Editorin-Chief Cory Schouten about the strategies, action plans, goals, trends and improvements coming to the city to combat the current housing crisis.

NEW YORK ATHLETIC CLUB Time: 8 to 9:30 a.m.

180 Central Park South, ninth floor CrainsNewYork.com/PowerBreakfast

AMOUNT crypto companies pay in applying for the state’s BitLicense

$6.5B

AMOUNT venture capital investors poured into crypto startups based in New York last year

BLOOMBERG

A

new bill in Albany could put more administrative muscle behind the state’s cryptocurrency license, allowing state regulators to charge virtual currency companies for time spent examining them, the same as banks and insurers.

New York state has the longest-standing and, many say, strictest licensing process in the country for businesses that want to facilitate cryptocurrency transactions. The rules are overseen by the state Department of Financial Services. A priority of the new DFS superintendent, Adrienne Harris, is putting more resources behind those regulations, in part to address long-running complaints from crypto companies that the review process takes too long.

“We don’t take taxpayer money; we are paid for by assessments from the industry. And we don’t yet have the ability to assess virtual currency companies,” Harris said at her Senate confirmation hearing last month. “Industry advocates and lawmakers, I think, are uniquely united behind this proposition so that we can better regulate virtual currency companies.”

New York’s financial regulator

launched the crypto rules, known as the BitLicense, in 2015, requiring companies to prove they are putting strong cybersecurity and anti– money-laundering protections in place, among other requirements, before they can open their marketplace to New Yorkers.

Companies pay $5,000 to apply for a BitLicense but are not charged for regulatory inspections the same way banks and insurers are, as Harris noted. A bill under review in the Legislature would allow the department to assess charges for regulatory work on crypto companies.

One of the bill’s sponsors, Queens Assemblyman Clyde Vanel, said the proposed law would place the regulation of virtual currency companies in line with those of other financial institutions.

“We need to make sure that DFS and the state have the proper resources in this new field,” said Vanel, who chairs the Assembly’s subcommittee on the internet and new technology. “If we are the financial capital of the world, we need to make sure we have the resources to properly regulate virtual currency.”

Crypto hub Mayor Eric Adams has touted New York’s future as a cryptocurrency hub since he was elected last year. The city might already have achieved that status. The four most valuable private tech startups based in New York are all in the crypto business. Venture capital investors last year poured $6.5 billion into crypto startups based here, way ahead of the total for California’s Silicon Valley. Catching up to Silicon Valley in anything tech-related has been a goal of New York

mayors dating back to Michael Bloomberg.

That has happened despite the industry professing varying levels of distaste for the BitLicense, particularly when it launched. Some in the industry viewed the regulations as important validation for a nascent financial field (Bitcoin cost around $350 at the time it launched, compared with about $40,000 today). Others saw onerous, unfair demands that prompted, as Fortune reported in August 2015, “an exodus of Bitcoin startups from New York.”

As the investment data underlines, the crypto industry is certainly growing in New York. But there are still some notable names not operating here. That includes

“One of the things I have done is undertake a review of that unit and what was causing the backlog,” she said. “And indeed, as you know, it is the lack of resources making that process move so slowly.”

Devil in the details Asked about the bill, a representative for Genesis, a virtual currency brokerage in Manhattan, offered support for the concept. Genesis was approved for a BitLicense in 2018.

“The digital asset industry continues to grow and evolve quickly, and it is imperative that the DFS grows and evolves alongside it,” said Marc Yaklofsky, a company spokesman.

“Genesis supports initiatives that are designed to allow DFS to significantly add talented staff with a background in crypto so that New York can remain the industry’s center of innovation.”

Sandra Ro, who leads the Global Blockchain Business Council, an industry association, said the details will be important—as New York is already competing with Florida and other states hungry for crypto companies.

“If a better-funded DFS can more efficiently review applications and provide more timely oversight, that would certainly help attract more businesses,” Ro said. “On the flip side, charging too much or creating higher barriers to entry than already exist will drive business away.”

The bill does not include language spelling out the exact charges crypto companies could face.

Banks, for example, are charged

“IF WE ARE THE FINANCIAL CAPITAL OF THE WORLD, WE NEED THE RESOURCES” crypto.com and FTX, which ponied up for Super Bowl ads starring LeBron James and Larry David, respectively, along with naming rights to basketball arenas in Los Angeles and Miami.

One consistent complaint from the industry is that the process for obtaining a license takes too long.

There are 28 companies approved as cryptocurrency marketplaces in New York.

A representative for the state DFS declined to comment on how many BitLicense applications are pending. But Harris acknowledged in her confirmation hearing that state regulators had fallen behind.

through a complicated formula that factors in hours spent by examiners and the size of the institution. In an example posted by the department, a commercial bank with about $80 million in assets is charged a $40,000 annual assessment fee.

Gary DeWaal, chairman of financial markets and regulation practice at law firm Katten, praised the new leadership at DFS, but he questioned whether it was the right time to pursue assessments of companies in the industry.

“It is important to point out that it is not traditional around the country,” DeWaal said. “New York would be an outlier for charging the costs of regulation.”

What’s next Providing funding for crypto regulation has been a priority of past financial services commissioners as well, so there is no guarantee this is the year it will happen. The measure would have its best chance of passing through the budget process in April. Gov. Kathy Hochul did not include any reference to it in her executive budget proposal.

But it has powerful backers, including state Sen. James Sanders Jr., a Queens Democrat who chairs the banking committee, which the bill will need to pass through before a final vote.

Sanders acknowledged that there is a wide range of views within the crypto industry about regulation and said lawmakers are seeking feedback from both consumers and operators.

“We are open to dialogue,” he said. “We want to make sure this is good for New Yorkers and good for the industry.” ■

Vol. 38, No. 7, February 21, 2022—Crain’s New York Business (ISSN 8756-789X) is published weekly, except for no issue on 1/3/22, 7/4/22, 7/18/22, 8/1/22, 8/15/22, 8/29/22, 11/28/22 and the last issue in December. Crain Communications Inc., 685 Third Ave., New York, NY 10017. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to: Crain’s New York Business, Circulation Department, PO Box 433279, Palm Coast, FL 32143-9681.

For subscriber service: call 877-824-9379; fax 313-446-6777. $140.00 per year. (GST No. 13676-0444-RT) ©Entire contents copyright 2022 by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved.

4 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | FEBRUARY 21, 2022

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RESIDENTIAL SPOTLIGHT

Banker and city advocate looks to offload UES co-op General Atlantic’s chief executive bought the dark-toned, four-bedroom unit for $15 million just five years ago

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he head of a major investment firm who has played a big role in shaping the future of New York City has put his Park Avenue spread on the market.

William E. Ford, chief executive of investment firm General Atlantic who also works on behalf of the Partnership for New York City, a powerful advocacy group, has listed his four-bedroom co-op, No. 17E at 550 Park Ave., for roughly $16.8 million.

Ford bought the Upper East Side home, which has three and a half baths, three fireplaces and a 38-foot-long living room, for $15 million five years ago. The darktoned unit, which sports veiny marble walls in the kitchen and baths, also features a 25-foot-long formal dining room, a separate serving kitchen and exposures in all four directions.

Where Ford might relocate is a bit of a guess. Cathy Franklin, the Corcoran agent who has the listing, declined to comment or make Ford available.

But Ford has been a strong proponent of the city. Last year he took an unusually vocal role for a Wall Streeter: He pushed his colleagues to vote in the mayoral race by emailing specific instructions on how to sign up for the Democratic primary, according to news reports. At the time Ford was a co-chairman of the nonprofit Part-

$16.8M

LISTING PRICE for No. 17E at 550 Park Ave. nership, although he now is on its executive committee.

Exclusive company Ford is not the only financier planning to say goodbye to 550 Park Ave., a 17-story prewar apartment building on East 62nd Street called the Yosemite that is home to a long list of Harvard MBAs. Thompson Dean, chairman of Avista Capital Partners, a health care investor, listed his five-bedroom unit, which takes up a full floor in a building that mostly has two apartments per story, for $35 million during the spring of 2021.

But Dean has since lowered the price on the unit to $25 million, in a building that allows only all-cash buyers.

Not everyone who ascends into the Yosemite is in a numbers-focused field. In fact, the previous owner of Ford’s unit was author Barbara Goldsmith, whose biographies of VIPs included 1980’s Little Gloria … Happy at Last, a 650-page dive into the Vanderbilt family.

Goldsmith, who died in 2016, was an early investor in New York magazine. Her estate initially had listed No.17E at $19.5 million, records show, before Ford scooped it up at a 23% discount. ■

CORCORAN

BY C. J. HUGHES

550 PARK AVE. includes four bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, three fireplaces and a 38-foot-long living room.

ECONOMY

Industry City’s Kimball to lead Economic Development Corp.

O

ne of the leading figures in Brooklyn’s economic resurgence is expected to take the helm of the city’s Economic Development Corp.

Andrew Kimball—longtime chief executive of Industry City, South Brooklyn’s shipping, manufacturing and small-business complex— is expected to be named as the next president and CEO of the EDC. Kimball’s appointment by Mayor Eric Adams comes after Carlo Scissura, head of the New York Building Congress advocacy group, withdrew his name from consideration this month.

Before leading Industry City for nearly a decade, Kimball spent eight years as head of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp. He spearheaded the Navy Yard’s transformation from a derelict shipping ground into an economic hub of tourism and workforce development.

“He’s a visionary,” said Randy Peers, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.

“I’ve worked with Andrew a long

time at Industry City, and he’s topnotch. No one will be more knowledgeable, professional or engaged than Andrew Kimball.”

At the EDC, Kimball will replace Rachel Loeb, who has led the agency since March. She replaced President and CEO James Patchett.

Job creator Kimball takes command of one of the city’s premier job-creating entities. The EDC’s portfolio encompasses Covid-19 pandemic recovery operations, the city ferry system, capital spending for city hospitals, investments in the life sciences sector and workforce development projects with venture-capital firms and smaller nonprofits.

The EDC carries a $3.7 billion, five-year capital plan.

The organization announced in June that investments in life sciences would reach $1 billion, generate up to 40,000 jobs and establish the city as a global leader in research.

Allies close to Kimball testify to his experience coordinating largescale workforce development projects at the Navy Yard and coordi-

nating complex real estate leases at Industry City.

“All of our workforce development projects were started because of Andrew,” said Jocelynne Rainey, former chief administrative officer at the Navy Yard and the current president and CEO of the Brooklyn Community Foundation. “We had a small workforce development program in place, and he expanded that immensely,” Peers and Rainey stressed that Kimball laid the foundation for a comprehensive infrastructure plan—which enabled the Navy Yard to become a major commercial development center. Kimball expanded small-business permits, oversaw the construction of the Building 92 museum and visitor center, and championed the arrival of a neighborhood supermarket.

Kimball is known for his role in directing the redevelopment of Industry City—from an aging, nearly vacant concrete fortress into a retail and events center that is among Brooklyn’s most desirable locations to shop and work.

“That 6 million square feet of un-

KIMBALL

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BY BRIAN PASCUS

derutilized industry space? He helped transform it into a job-producing hub in southwest Brooklyn,” Peers said. “That, to me, is creating real value in the community.”

Even those who opposed Kimball during the controversial Industry City rezoning fight concede that he’s a fair and impartial executive who always looks to find middle ground.

“No doubt, the Industry City conversation was frustrating and be-

came politicized, but I observed him trying to be calm and offering facts,” recalled David Estrada, executive director of the Sunset Park Fifth Avenue Business Improvement District. “I think Andrew’s going to bring an interesting perspective and pretty good chops.”

Kimball did not respond to a request for comment. The mayor’s office said it doesn’t comment on pending appointments until they are announced. ■

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SPONSORED CONTENT

Tax considerations for ground leases For investors looking for new opportunities, ground leases are catching on in New York City and beyond. A ground lease occurs when the property owner sells the land to an investor, then leases it back from the investor.

The transaction is documented in a ground lease, a document that usually lasts from 35 to 99 years.

Often, during the time that the tenant is leasing the property, he or she may decide to build another structure on it; sometimes that entails razing an existing structure. Once the lease hits its expiration date, the tenant transfers the ownership of the improvements to the property owner.

Many types of property are ground-leased, including vacant land, industrial property, office buildings, multifamily residential properties and hotel properties. In New York City some coops are built on property that was ground-leased, allowing the owners to price the co-ops at very competitive prices. The co-op developers save some money by leasing the land, instead of buying it, and are able to pass this along to the residents. They also pass along the cost of paying for the ground lease, however, which contributes to monthly maintenance fees that may exceed those of other types of apartments.

Many property owners like the ground lease because it allows them to derive value from land they may not be using or are underusing.

For instance, some universities that own vacant land or own unused student housing have turned to ground leasing, creating a new revenue stream to fund campus programs and initiatives. Family businesses may opt for ground leases to keep a property in the family, even if they don’t have the

CRAIN’S: What tax issues arise with a ground lease?

JONATHAN STEIN Director jstein@goulstonstorrs.com 212-878-5183

CRAIN’S: How do ground leases work and why are they becoming popular?

STEIN: A new wave of ground lease investors is seeking to restructure the real estate capital stack by separating the ownership of the land under a commercial building from the building itself. In practice, the way this works is that an investor buys the land from the real estate owner or developer and then leases it back to the seller under a long-term ground lease.

Because these ground leases can unlock additional liquidity and lower the cost of capital, they are very attractive for owners and developers.

STEIN: As with all things real estate, there are some important tax considerations at stake.

Foremost, the parties must decide whether to treat the sale and leaseback of the land as a “true lease” for tax purposes. If the lease is respected as such, then the seller may have what is known as a “gain on sale.”

This gain could be deferred by entering into a like-kind exchange. This is when property used for business or as an investment is exchanged for another similar property that is used for the same purposes.

If the tax cost of a sale is high and a like-kind exchange is not feasible, then it may be possible to treat a long-term lease as financing or a loan instead of a “true lease.” In this scenario, the form of the transaction as a ground lease is ignored for income tax purposes. Instead, the owner of the real estate is treated as if the “purchase price” it received for the land was a loan, and the payments of “rent” are payments of principal and interest on this loan. Whether a given lease can be treated as financing depends on the terms of the lease, and in particular how the option to buy back the land is structured.

CRAIN’S: What about depreciation?

STEIN: Occasionally saleleasebacks will include a purchase of the buildings and

funds or the desire to develop it. For some owners, ground leases can generate higher returns on a property than they would get from its appreciation over time.

Although ground leases can offer many advantages to investors, there are also tax considerations.

The tenant must pay the property taxes when the property is subject to a ground lease.

It is important to get expert advice from knowledgeable commercial real estate professionals on how to take stock of a property for which the owner is considering ground leasing, what type of deal best meets the needs of the owner, and the level of control the owner will have over any construction on the property, among other issues. The owner will need legal protections in case the tenant does not take care of the property in the agreed-upon manner. Beyond this, the owner will need to develop a marketing strategy for the property that’s to be made available for ground leasing.

For insight, Crain’s Content Studio spoke with Jonathan Stein, a director at Goulston & Storrs.

Stein provides tax advice for commercial and real estate transactions. Among his clients are real estate investment trusts, developers, institutional and family office investors, closely held enterprises, family businesses, fund sponsors, portfolio companies and lenders.

Stein focuses on complex tax matters involving joint ventures, cross-border and tax-exempt structuring, tax-free exchanges, transfer taxes, leasing and finance matters. He also represents investment fund sponsors and portfolio companies in both taxable and tax-free merger-andacquisition transactions.

improvements, as well as the ground. In this circumstance the purchaser-landlord will be able to depreciate the building instead of the seller-tenant.

This tax result is subject to negotiation, and seller-tenants are often able to keep the benefits of depreciation on the improvements. Because land is not depreciable, this issue does not arise for a true ground lease.

References: https://assetsamerica.com/ground-lease/ https://www.us.jll.com/en/views/unlockthe-value-of-underutilized-land-with-aground-lease

ground-lease-concept https://streeteasy.com/blog/what-is-a-landlease-building-in-nyc/ https://www.skylineprp.com/resurgence-ofthe-ground-lease

https://www.reit.com/news/reit-magazine/ september-october-2018/reinventing-

CRAIN’S: Are there transfer taxes?

STEIN: This varies based on the jurisdiction. In New York the grant of a ground lease is usually subject to New York state transfer tax, either because the transaction contains a purchase option or because the lease term is longer than 49 years or both.

New York City transfer taxes typically do not apply to a new ground lease because “rents” under the city’s Commercial Rent Occupancy tax are excluded from transfer tax. However, assignments of ground leases may be taxable in both New York state and New York City.

With proper planning, it may be possible to avoid paying transfer tax twice, once on the sale and once on the leaseback.

Boston | New York | Washington, D.C.

At Goulston & Storrs, we are committed to achieving results for clients with no compromise to service. We are dedicated to professional excellence, exceptional personal service, and uncompromising ethical standards. We seek our clients' satisfaction and trust.

CRAIN’S: Are there any other structuring considerations?

STEIN: Leases should be analyzed to determine whether there is prepaid or deferred rent.

If so, special tax accounting rules may apply so that the prepaid or deferred amounts are accrued ratably over the lease term.

goulstonstorrs.com

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chief executive officer K.C. Crain senior executive vice president Chris Crain group publisher Jim Kirk

EDITORIAL

publisher/executive editor

Consider alternative office-building uses as city reopens post-Covid—yet again

Frederick P. Gabriel Jr. EDITORIAL editor-in-chief Cory Schouten,

cory.schouten@crainsnewyork.com managing editor Telisha Bryan assistant managing editor Anne Michaud

S

for more than 40% of those taxes.

Permit us to believe that this moment, February 2022, marks another “start” in the start-stop return to a post-pandemic normal.

A survey by the Partnership for New York City found that 6 in 10 major employers expect average daily attendance will exceed 50% in their Manhattan offices by the end of March.

The coming weeks will begin to answer two important questions: Will workers return? And what decisions about office space will employers make in response?

MSCI, a “fast-growing, ultra-profitable” nancial firm, NEW YORK HAS MORE RIDING ON fihas decided to do with less, THE RETURN OF OFFICE WORKERS as Crain’s THAN OTHER U.S. CITIES senior reporter Aaron Elstein noted last week. At cial real estate landlords with its 7 World Trade Center headoffice space in their portfolio quarters, MSCI plans to shrink its might be reasonably more footprint by a third. stressed than others.

It joins the growing list of Roth called empty office employers taking less space after buildings a major outlier in a city workers have demonstrated they increasingly returning to life. can do their job from home, It’s an important outlier. How Elstein wrote. goes commercial space goes City Efforts are in the works to allow Hall, as property taxes are the empty commercial structures to city’s largest revenue source, and convert to other uses: offices to commercial real estate accounts

data editor Amanda Glodowski

teven Roth, chairman of Vornado Realty Trust, called it “silly” last week, the way companies announce that they are bringing workers back to the office only to postpone and then postpone again.

Roth has a point. The start-stop, start-stop nature of emerging from pandemic restrictions can turn even short-term predictions into falsehoods. Other words besides silly also apply: inconvenient, infuriating, devilish.

Although we all share in these feelings to some extent, commer-

digital editor Taylor Nakagawa deputy digital editor, audience & analytics

Jennifer Samuels art director Carolyn McClain photographer Buck Ennis senior reporters Cara Eisenpress,

Aaron Elstein, Eddie Small reporters Ryan Deffenbaugh, Maya Kaufman,

Brian Pascus, Natalie Sachmechi, Shuan Sim op-ed editor Jan Parr,

opinion@crainsnewyork.com executive assistant Brittany Brown to contact the newsroom:

editors@crainsnewyork.com www.crainsnewyork.com/staff

BUCK ENNIS

685 Third Ave., New York, NY 10017-4024

housing, hotels to housing and hotels into short-term offices.

We support those evolutions and will be watching legislative proposals from state Sens. Brian Kavanagh and Michael Gianaris, among others, this spring in Albany.

New York, home to two of the largest business districts in the country, has more riding on the return of office workers than other

U.S. cities. No other city must confront the changing workplace more than New York.

The sudden shift to remote work during the Covid-19 pandemic upended the city’s commercial real estate industry. The coming weeks will tell how far the new start toward normal will take us. If it’s not all the way back, we know we can rely on New Yorkers’ resiliency to adapt. ■

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OP-ED

manager of conferences & events

The state needs to support pharmacies by controlling prescription drug middlemen

Ana Jimenez, ajimenez@crainsnewyork.com senior manager of events Michelle Cast,

michelle.cast@crainsnewyork.com REPRINTS director, reprints & licensing Lauren Melesio,

212.210.0707, lmelesio@crain.com PRODUCTION

BY DEANNA ENNELLO-BUTLER

S

tressors caused by the Covid-19 crisis continue to impact thousands of New York’s independent pharmacies as well as millions of patients in underserved communities who rely on their local pharmacy for accessible health care.

But vastly overshadowing the challenges to pharmacies posed by pandemic labor shortages and supply-chain issues are prescription drug middlemen, who are taking billions of dollars from New York pharmacists and taxpayers, raking in outlandish profits.

That’s why pharmacists cheered Gov. Kathy Hochul when she signed into law on New Year’s Eve landmark legislation dubbed by the news media as the “nation’s toughest crackdown” on pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, as the middlemen are known.

Hochul’s move was an important first step toward reclaiming New York’s prescription drug distribu-

tion system from the corporations that are hell-bent on destroying community pharmacies.

One credible and broadly supported solution for ensuring the survival of independent pharmacies and equitable patient access to health care is incorporating feefor-service parity in Medicaid managed care in the state’s budget plan, currently being considered by lawmakers in Albany.

Fair reimbursement Independent pharmacies have been a cornerstone of health care in New York for generations. When the pandemic struck, pharmacists showed a brave resolve to keep their businesses open seven days a week while some doctors’ offices closed. The pharmacists put their own health and safety at risk as they stood behind the vows they took to protect patients.

They organized and supported the state’s testing and vaccine rollout, safely administering tens of millions tests and jabs to vulnera-

ble patients all across the state.

When they got through their own patients (mostly the uninsured or on Medicaid or Medicare), they hit the road, forming outreach clinics to connect with hard-to-reach populations including senior citizens in nursing homes and communities overcoming hesitancy issues.

But all of that progress hangs in the balance, as PBMs have shown time and time again how skilled they are at finding ways to rig the health care system in their favor.

PBMs control every dollar and cent that independent pharmacies are reimbursed for dispensing prescription drugs. If pharmacies don’t receive permanent relief from PBMs’ grip of power, our patients and communities are at risk of losing access to critical health care services.

Fee-for-service parity ensures that pharmacies are reimbursed at the cost of drugs plus a reasonable dispensing fee for the prescriptions we fill. The current PBM-controlled model pitifully reimburses

pharmacies at or below cost for an overwhelming majority of prescriptions. Put simply, if pharmacies aren’t reimbursed fairly, we cannot afford to pay staff deserving salaries, keep our businesses open or provide for our families.

Pharmacists were devastated that fee-for-service parity was not included in the governor’s FY 2023 executive budget proposal, considering that she previously committed to addressing the policy in the state’s spending plan and that billions of dollars in bonuses committed to frontline health care workers were denied to the pharmacy industry.

There’s still a chance to support pharmacies and protect patient access, however, by passing feefor-service as part of the state’s budget, which is due April 1. The governor and the Legislature must seize the opportunity. ■ Deanna Ennello-Butler is executive director of the Pharmacists Society of the State of New York.

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8 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | FEBRUARY 21, 2022

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2/18/22 1:29 PM

OP-ED

It’s time to tackle the city’s waste crisis as offices refill

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ike most Americans, we New Yorkers have never been great at recycling or waste reduction. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, reports had New York businesses recycling a mere 40% of the 5.5 million tons of waste they produced per year. More realistic reports placed the figure at 9% to 25%. Residential recycling rates are often even worse.

When offices emptied out during the spring of 2020, recycling rates dropped even more as residential waste and recycling practices shifted and most of the country’s trash was generated in remote or work-from-home environments.

Concerns over Covid-19 infection led to a rise in single-use materials, while increased online shopping meant a huge amount of cardboard delivered to homes.

As chief executive of Recycle Track Systems, I can tell you that our city’s waste has started to show signs of New York’s recovery. During the third quarter of last year, the waste tonnage we picked up from commercial office spaces on average increased by 143% from the third quarter of 2020. Waste tonnage from large commercial retail properties increased on average by 264% during that period.

inefficient, duplicative routes. The overhaul also can increase safety standards and secure more accountability from commercial carters.

Finally, the waste management industry itself needs to incorporate more transparency in its operations. Materials-recovery facilities should disclose where materials go once they’re dropped off by trucks and thus build consumer confidence in the recycling process.

With work practices resetting, now is the time for businesses, government and the waste management industry to work together to create a more environmentally sustainable system in New York. Let’s come back as a smarter, cleaner, less wasteful city. ■ BLOOMBERG

BY GREGORY LETTIERI

Gregory Lettieri is CEO and co-founder of Recycle Track Systems.

Stronger Together.

CHANGE CAN START WITH SIMPLE EDUCATION Although things aren’t back to pre-pandemic levels yet, millions of people are slowly returning to office spaces, at least for part of the week.

Residential waste might decrease slightly when more people return to the office, but online shopping is likely to be a hard habit to break.

Overall, waste and recycling tonnages probably will continue to increase—and perhaps at an even quicker rate.

Fresh start The pandemic offers the city’s businesses a fresh start on more sustainable operations, specifically better waste management and reduction practices.

Change can start with simple education, including how to properly separate materials for recycling. People often contaminate recycling bins despite their best intentions. When something in the recycling bin isn’t recyclable, everything in the bin might be dumped into a landfill, or it could damage machinery or reduce the quality of the materials that are eventually produced.

Government must do its part— which is why I’m encouraged to see the city moving forward with plans for commercial waste zones. The program would divide the city into zones to reduce the number of trucks criss-crossing the city with

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FEBRUARY 21, 2022 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 9

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ON POLITICS

It’s time for the governor and the mayor to tell New Yorkers the plan for ending Covid restrictions What it doesn’t do, clearly, is prevent transmission.

Metrics needed Given those facts, and the reality that the local economy remains frail—with an above-average unemployment rate burdening, disproportionately, the working class and poor—it will be up to Adams, who has promised New York will have its “swagger” back, to end vaccine requirements for entering public venues.

So far the mayor has said he won’t, and he has not pointed to specific metrics that could change his mind. That contrasts with his counterpart in Boston, Michelle Wu, who recently announced her city’s vaccine passport will be rescinded once the positivity rate drops past a certain point and hospital ICU capacity opens up.

Although a vast majority of New Yorkers are vaccinated, tourists from across the U.S. might not be or could forget their vaccine card when traveling. International tourists, upon recommendations in their own country, might not have vaccinated their young children.

It is easy for the Twitterati to sneer at such an argument, but the revival of tourism is central to New York’s future. Through 2019, tourism boomed, fueling an economy that provided a stable living for thousands of working-class people. Hotel workers, waiters, food vendors and security guards desperately need tourism to rebound.

AP PHOTO

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ew York appears ready to remain at low risk for Covid-19, emerge from its omicron and perpetual masking could make winter. Covid-19 cases it harder for them to socialize and are plummeting, with a learn. Hearing-impaired children positivity rate in the five boroughs suffer especially in a world where now less than 5%. Hospitals are lip-reading is impossible. In many functioning well, and the city European countries, masking for seems to be slowly crawling back to younger children is not common.

Meanwhile, New York City mainlife. tains perhaps the toughThe Democrats in est vaccine mandate for charge are beginning to public life in America, understand that some with children as young as pandemic restrictions 5 needing proof of full cannot last forever, and vaccination to enter muwe must learn, one way seums, movie theaters or the other, to live with a and restaurants as well as circulating virus, espeparticipate in after-school cially because we now activities including have widely available sports. vaccines and antiviral ROSS BARKAN Though the New York treatments. The world of mandates, on civil liber2019 might never return in full, but society will have to keep ties grounds, made me initially wary, it is inarguable that they’ve lurching in that direction.

This is not an easy discussion to helped boost the city’s vaccination have, when more than 2,500 people rate. Today almost 76% of the city’s still die on average every day from population is fully vaccinated. A rethe novel coronavirus. New markable 86% of adults are fully Covid-19 variants might emerge. vaccinated; 95% have received at Pandemic preparedness—research least one dose.

At the same time, the omicron into vaccines and more effective treatments—should continue in- variant tore through the population, vaccinated or not. If the Delta definitely at the federal level.

But Gov. Kathy Hochul and May- variant was, in the parlance of Dr. or Eric Adams must outline, soon, a Anthony Fauci, a “pandemic of the blueprint to normalcy. So far Ho- unvaccinated,” omicron was a panchul has been hesitant to follow the demic for everyone.

It was an argument, too, for getlead of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, who is lifting his state’s mask ting vaccinated and boosted. The mandate in schools. Hochul un- vaccine, undeniably, is a wonderderstandably wants to tread cau- ful success story and has kept miltiously, though younger children lions of people out of the hospital.

Given that New York held up well against omicron and has a population on the way to being fully vaccinated, why keep mandates? If the goal is to reach, for example, 85% of the population with two doses, Adams and Hochul should state so outright. If there are no metrics, regulations shouldn’t persist. Otherwise, we will be engaged in perpetual security theater as we were after 9/11.

We also must extend compassion to the small part of the population that can’t get fully vaccinated for medical reasons. A select number of people had allergic reactions to first doses. Others have been told, due to medical challenges, vaccination might prove risky.

Such people are not free to participate in public life. In other countries, there is an honest conversation about the reality, and a new vaccine might soon help.

Covid-19 will never leave us. As

grim as this might sound, it also means there is a future when our society can regain a semblance of what it once was, using the fantastic technology at our disposal to ward off sickness and death. We’ll be there soon.

Quick hits ● Andrew Cuomo is clearly hungry for a political comeback. Putting aside his deplorable conduct, what does he still have to offer?

New York is better without him. ● As Adams seizes the spotlight, it will be up to the City Council to assert itself and be a coequal branch of government. So far the body has been quiet. ● Progressives beware: A dominating win by Hochul over Jumaane Williams will not further the cause in Albany. ■

Ross Barkan is an author and journalist from New York City.

ON REAL ESTATE

State should look to the pandemic-relief money in Hochul’s proposed budget to fund rent relief

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ew York’s rent-relief pro- nated for pandemic relief in Hogram needs more chul’s proposed budget. Her money—that’s not in dis- administration and the Legislapute no matter whom ture’s committing a portion of this you ask. The issue stakeholders are money to the rent-relief program having is where this money should sooner rather than later would give it a sorely needed boost come from. and guard against anothState officials currently er meager distribution seem content to wait for from Washington, but ofthe next distribution of ficials have so far apfederal funds and hope peared reluctant to do so.

New York receives more Hochul referred to helpthan last time, when it ing small landlords and was approved for only tenants as just one of about $27.2 million of the many possible uses for roughly $1 billion Gov. the funds in her remarks Kathy Hochul had reEDDIE SMALL upon presenting the budquested. But with more get, and acting Office of federal money far from guaranteed, numerous advocates Temporary and Disability Assisof the program have stressed the tance Commissioner Daniel Tietz importance of looking for other was similarly noncommittal during testimony before the Legislature. funding sources to be safe.

“I leave it to the Legislature in its And the state already has a great potential source of additional fund- negotiations with the executive ing on hand: the $2 billion desig- about how best to use those re-

sources,” he said, “and this may be one of those areas.”

Show of dedication The Hochul administration has been aware that a lack of rent-relief money is an issue since at least September, when the governor requested more funds from the U.S. Treasury Department. Her administration asked the agency for an additional $1.6 billion in January.

And, to be fair, tenants falling behind on rent is far from the only issue that has flared up in New York amid the pandemic. The virus has been devastating for key city industries ranging from restaurants to theaters to hotels, all of which would have extremely valid arguments for why they should receive some of the $2 billion as well. The money would also have to go through the rest of the state budget process before actually reaching the rent-relief program, so it would

not provide an immediate salve.

Hochul’s actions around the rent-relief program have faced plenty of criticism so far—namely her decision to close it in November, which a state judge then overturned in January—but she does deserve credit for making it a much bigger focus than her predecessor had. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo never treated the program as much of a priority apart from announcing a few changes following a public scolding from Sen. Chuck Schumer that advocates say did not lead to much improvement. In a way, running out of funds actually represents a remarkable turnaround for a program that was mainly lambasted for not giving out nearly enough before Hochul took over.

But for tenants and small landlords, the program’s not having enough in its coffers is just as big of an issue as its not distributing enough. Committing more state

funding for relief now rather than continuing to wait for the federal government would be a powerful way for the state to show its dedication to the program’s success and provide it with some much-needed teeth at a time when New York’s eviction moratorium is no longer in place and residents have essentially been told they can still apply for the program as long as they know not to expect any actual financial help from it.

Risky strategy Hopefully, the federal government will be much more generous in providing New York with rent relief moving forward and grant the state’s $1.6 billion request in full— or at least get closer than $27.2 million. But hoping for the best is a very risky strategy for the state to take when so many tenants and small landlords are still desperate for help. ■

10 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | FEBRUARY 21, 2022

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2/17/22 1:41 PM

How we’re boosting the fight against hunger Bank of America is proudly supporting our employees’ health and safety and addressing one of our local community’s most critical needs.

Each day, millions of Americans suffer from food insecurity, which typically spikes during the winter months. For every employee who lets us know they’ve received a booster shot, Bank of America is donating $100 to local hunger-relief organizations. This is a direct investment in the health of our teammates, and in the well-being of the communities where we work and live.

Through this effort, our team in New York City recently presented City Harvest, Food Bank For New York City and Feeding Westchester with checks totaling $1,000,000. This contribution is in addition to our long-standing philanthropic support to help fight hunger and food insecurity across the country. We are proud to be able to help our community as we work together to move forward.

José Tavarez President, Bank of America New York City

Learn more at bankofamerica.com/metroNY

Donations in each market reflect $100 per employee who has recorded their booster and an additional company contribution. Vaccination boosters and vaccination reporting are voluntary.

Bank of America, N.A. Member FDIC. Equal Credit Opportunity Lender. © 2022 Bank of America Corporation. All rights reserved.

CN020627.indd 1

2/14/22 4:52 PM

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

Advertising Section To place your listing, visit www.crainsnewyork.com/people-on-the-move or, for more information, contact Debora Stein at 917.226.5470 / dstein@crain.com

ACCOUNTING

ACCOUNTING

CONSULTING ENGINEERING

DIGITAL MEDIA SOLUTIONS

REAL ESTATE

Anchin

BDO USA, LLP

Jaros, Baum & Bolles

FIRST

Bridge Industrial

Vincent J. Gatto, CPA, CFP has been promoted to tax partner at Anchin. He has experience fulfilling the accounting, business, and financial needs of highnet-worth individuals, their families, and entities. He works closely with clients to advise on income and estate tax issues, and wealth preservation and transfer strategies. Vincent also has experience preparing complicated individual, partnership, fiduciary, and gift tax returns, and with judicial accountings for executors and trustees.

Emilio Escandon has been named BDO Tax Office Managing Partner of the firm’s Third Avenue New York City office. In this role, Escandon will manage all aspects of the local tax practice and oversee compliance and quality within the tax department. In practice since 1983, he has experience in public accounting and corporate tax practices and assists a range of public and private clients with tax and accounting methods, tax planning, and M&A transactions.

Brian T. Towers, PE, LEED AP, has been promoted to Partner at Jaros, Baum & Bolles.

In addition to his leadership role in the firm’s Philadelphia office, he has led the design and construction of high-rise towers such as 30 Hudson Yards, and 2 World Trade Center. His work on offices for major financial institutions is complemented by a wide range of data center projects for clients such as Morgan Stanley, zColo Telehouse and Sullivan & Cromwell. Brian is also a member of ACEC’s New York Board of Directors.

As a Non-Executive Director and a member of the Audit Committee, Jeff Farnath provides critical oversight of the financial reporting and auditing process as well as internal controls. Jeff is a senior-level finance executive with over 30 years of leadership experience in both traditional and digital media businesses, for both large multinational media companies as well as small entrepreneurial start-ups.

Previously, Jeff was CFO at Silvergate Media and also spent 10 years at Walt Disney Studios.

Bridge Industrial promotes former acquisitions and leasing Vice President Andrew Hurwitz to Market Officer, New York Region. In this role, Hurwitz will lead all aspects of development and acquisition — including investment, leasing and disposition activities — across the five boroughs and Western Long Island, while opening and growing the firm’s first New York office. He will be building out a team predominantly focused on deploying capital on behalf of Bridge and its institutional partners.

ACCOUNTING ACCOUNTING

Anchin Brent Lessey, CPA, MST has been promoted to tax partner at Anchin.

He is part of the firm’s Consumer Products group, as well as the Transaction Advisory Services practice and Economic Opportunity Zones group. His clients include many emerging brands and startups in the consumer products space. He also has experience performing tax due diligence services on both the buy side and sell side of transactions, as well as in tax compliance services.

BDO USA, LLP Steven Winter II has been named BDO Tax Office Managing Partner of the firm’s Park Avenue New York City Office. In this role, Winter will manage all aspects of the local tax practice and oversee compliance and quality within the tax department. With more than 17 years of industry experience, he has worked with private and public companies providing tax services to asset managers, hedge funds, private equity funds, investment partnerships and to global and regional banks and broker-dealers.

CONSULTING ENGINEERING

Jaros, Baum & Bolles Michelle M. DeCarlo, PE, LEED AP BD+C, has been promoted to Associate Partner at Jaros, Baum and Bolles. Michelle has led the HVAC design for JB&B on projects in the commercial office, transportation and life science sectors, including 30 Hudson Yards, the awardwinning redevelopment of Moynihan Train Hall, Columbia University Manhattanville’s Jerome L. Greene Science Center and pro bono work for the Lower Eastside Girls Club.

Her leadership extends to her advocacy for the advancement of women within the industry.

ACCOUNTING

ACCOUNTING

Anchin

Withum

CONSULTING ENGINEERING

Adam Pizzo, CPA has been promoted to assurance partner at Anchin. His clients range from venturebacked startups and aggressively growing entrepreneurial businesses, to well-established privately held and family-owned companies.

Adam provides accounting, tax, and advisory services for clients in various industries including food & beverage, manufacturing, distribution, and technology. These services include M&A consulting, debt vs. equity financing, and tax credits and incentives consulting.

Jeff Willinger joins Withum’s Digital Technology and Transformation team as the Firm’s first Digital Experience Director. Jeff, a known Microsoft superstar and MVP, specializes in advising clients on Digital Transformation strategies creating a True Digital Workplace and building enterprise solutions and collaborative intranets and portals that increase employee engagement through modern technology solutions. Jeff is an expert in all things Google Cloud, Azure, and more.

Jaros, Baum & Bolles Charles F. Murphy, Jr., PE, LEED AP BD+C, has been promoted to Associate Partner at JB&B. Charles leads the firm’s Science & Technology/Life Science Community of Practice and in 2020 relocated to Boston to support the launch of JB&B’s expansion into the New England market. Since joining the firm in 2008, he has led the design and development of HVAC, plumbing and fire protection systems across numerous project types, including S&T/life science, healthcare, commercial office and educational buildings.

LAW

Latham & Watkins LLP David Freedman has joined the New York office of Latham & Watkins as a partner in the Real Estate Practice and as a member of the Corporate Department. His practice focuses on all aspects of commercial real estate finance and he routinely represents national banks and other institutional investors on the origination, purchase, sale, and other disposition of senior and subordinate debt secured by complex commercial properties throughout the US.

INDUSTRY ACHIEVERS ADVANCING THEIR CAREERS Recognize them in Crain’s

LAW

Latham & Watkins LLP John Spears has joined the New York office of Latham & Watkins as counsel in the Real Estate Practice and as a member of the Corporate Department. He represents clients across multiple transactions including the origination of CMBS loans, construction loans, and mezzanine loans; secondary market transactions, including syndications, loan purchases and sales, and the negotiation of co-lender and intercreditor agreements; and workouts.

For listing opportunities, contact Debora Stein at dstein@crain.com or submit directly to CRAINSNEWYORK.COM/PEOPLEMOVES

12 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | FEBRUARY 21, 2022

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ASKED & ANSWERED

INTERVIEW BY NATALIE SACHMECHI

WHO HE IS President, The Related Cos. Office Development

T

he departure of Neiman Marcus from its posh storefront within the massive shopping complex at Hudson Yards was an early, though not entirely unexpected, casualty of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The luxury fashion retailer filed for bankruptcy protection in May 2020 and announced it would be vacating its 188,000-square-foot store that summer. But it didn’t take long for Philippe Visser, head of office development at The Related Cos., to make the decision to transform the department store site into office space.

Related Cos., which built the Far West Side office and retail development, will spend $95 million, Visser said, and is already attracting inquiries from potential tenants.

How did you come up with the idea to convert the space Neiman Marcus vacated into offices?

Neiman was declaring bankruptcy. We quickly realized this was way more valuable as office space.

It fit really well into what we could offer companies.

Those kinds of floor plates and that kind of room to breathe allows companies to have really expansive space for collaboration, meetings and events, for getting their employees to rub shoulders and have the advantages of being in the office.

AGE 47 GREW UP Central New Jersey RESIDES Prospect Heights, Brooklyn EDUCATION Bachelor’s in urban studies, University of Pennsylvania; master’s in regional and urban planning, London School of Economics; MBA, Columbia Business School WHAT A MENSCH Visser is starting a center for Jewish life in Brooklyn called The Neighborhood. It’s like a Jewish community center for millennials and Gen Zers. On Fridays he indulges in his wife’s homemade challah.

FAVORITE BUILDING His most loved building in the city is 30 Hudson Yards, which boasts an 80-foot Skydeck that visitors can climb. His kids call it the Tony Stark Building.

DOG DAD Visser has a Yorkie mix named Max that he is currently trying to train to stop barking at skateboards.

What is the space going to be like?

I’m calling it the Workshop—it’s a play on words. It is a product of the creative environment that the office space will create but also the fact that it’s plugged into

all the amenities at Hudson Yards, like our shops and restaurants in the retail complex. We’re expanding it to 430,000 square feet across four floors with space for 2,010 workstations and 2,010 conference seats. You can do exterior C-suite offices.

Is it important for real estate development companies to be able to convert spaces to alternate uses during times like this?

An interesting trend is conversions have been happening for a while, particularly from large-floor-plate department store spaces to offices. Vornado converted the Farley building for Meta. Amazon, preCovid, had purchased the Lord & Taylor building and is in the process of converting that. This isn’t an aberration—it was frankly an opportunity that opened up after Covid-19. The Neiman project was conceived in 2015. Here we are in 2022 making this decision, and the whole department store business has been transformed.

Why has there been a rush toward new office development in the city?

There is still a real shortage of trophy-level new building construction in New York City. That’s where companies are looking to go. When we started Hudson Yards, the average office building was from 1970. What you’re seeing now is long overdue, and the fact that these companies are moving toward it, it’s a natural progression. If you look back, the rezoning of the West Side by Hudson Yards was intended to bring that kind of new office stock, which leaders at the time, including Dan Doctoroff and Michael Bloomberg, thought was critical to the future success of New York City. ■

BUCK ENNIS

PHILIPPE VISSER The Related Cos.

DOSSIER

2022

Submit an organization or individual that is leading change by March 18:

crainsnewyork.com/D&Iawards FEBRUARY 21, 2022 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 13

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PUBLIC RELATIONS

PR exec Torossian’s company secretly scrubs news site it operated to tout itself, bash rivals

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controversial public relations executive secretly bought a news site that covers his own industry eight years ago, without disclosing his ownership. Now his firm is finally coming clean, scrubbing the site of the fake bylines that populated it for years and admitting for the first time that the site is “operated” by his company.

Ronn Torossian is a hardcharging executive who founded 5WPR in 2004 and built it into a sizable firm; he claims it’s one of the 20 largest independent PR firms in the U.S. He did it with a well-documented, take-no-prisoners management style that rankled rivals as well as many executives who worked for him.

To help burnish his reputation, in 2014 he secretly bought EverythingPR.com, a news site founded in 2009 by a husband-and-wife team that covers news and trends in the public relations industry. Torossian would frequently drop in favorable mentions boosting his own firm while bashing his rivals.

Torossian declined to comment on Everything-PR for this story.

In one instance of self-promotion on the site, an article published Oct. 29, 2020, about the top crisis management firms gave a glowing review to Torossian’s firm. “This agency is known as street fighters, an agency ‘in the know’ with the ability to turn stories around. There is no more aggressive crisis PR agency in the United States than 5WPR,” the site gushed.

now headed by Steven Rubenstein, Richard’s brother.

In a report on the Rubenstein “dynasty” published June 1, 2018, when Howard was still alive, the site noted there could be problems because there was no heir apparent—even though Steven Rubenstein was being positioned for years to take over Rubenstein Communications, whose clients include JPMorgan and the New York Yankees.

Of Richard Rubenstein’s firm, EPR wrote: “But the reports from RPR are often dismal regarding working conditions and length of time either employees or clients remain. There are far too many complaints from past and current employees about his unprovoked rants, angry outbursts, even in new client meetings, and total disregard for others.”

Said Richard Rubenstein, Torossian “weaponizes the publication to go after anyone who is a competitor.

It is competitive mudslinging at its worst. And the publication is simply trash.”

Owning up Several offensive stories, some years old, have been taken down from the site archives in recent weeks, sources said.

One of the few bylines still on the site belongs to stories written by Torossian that he apparently placed on the site himself. In one article, published Nov. 1, 2019, on PR dos and don’ts, the story by Torossian urges company heads to be “open and respectful, yet transparent.” But many executives who left the firm said they were subject to belittling comments, verbal abuse and ridicule while there—and bad references from Torossian when they tried to land a new job.

Torossian in the article also admonishes, “It may be obvious, but employees should never be asked to directly or subtly to do anything illegal or against company policy.” That may come as a surprise to a former executive who was reprimanded by Torossian after admonishing three young women from 5WPR who had gone on ABC’s Good Morning America, falsely pretending they were random people who’d had Botox treatments as teenagers. Torossian had set up a plastic surgeon client he represented to get good PR by speaking out against the practice.

Now, for the first time since the ownership change when he took over, Torossian has owned up. The site’s “about us” page now contains this admission: “Everything-PR is operated by PR agency 5WPR.” It comes after years of Torossian denying he or 5WPR owned the site.

“It would be incorrect to say Ronn Torossian owns Everything-PR,” he told this reporter in December.

The founders of the site tell a different story. Phil Butler, who was the original editor-in-chief of EPR,

“IT IS COMPETITIVE MUDSLINGING AT ITS WORST. SIMPLY TRASH.” In an example of bashing a rival, the site wrote about Kwittner PR and urged readers “stay away.”

Another target was Ken Frydman, a former communications chief for Rudy Giuliani who heads Source Communications. In 2017 he landed a contract with embattled taxi cab entrepreneur Alan “A.J.” Ginsburg, beating out 5WPR. Shortly after winning the deal, Frydman said he suddenly was the victim of a hit piece in Everything-PR by a Jason Tannahill—one of the apparently fake bylines on EPR—which concluded, “We cannot in good faith recommend this agency.”

Frydman told Crain’s he was blindsided by the story and had no idea EPR was operated by a rival PR agency that he had just beaten out for a contract.

EPR also seemed to have a particular animus for another rival, Richard Rubenstein, one of the sons of the late Howard Rubenstein. Richard worked for his father then started his own firm, Rubenstein Public Relations—a standalone from the larger Rubenstein Communications

said that in 2014 Torossian paid only $2,500 to buy the site owned by Butler’s wife, Mihaela Lica Butler.

“We were experiencing financial difficulties at the time, and we thought Torossian was a friend,” said Butler, who now lives on the island of Crete with his wife.

But he quickly found Torossian to be no friend. Shortly after buying the site, Butler said, Torossian erased Butler’s name from the archives and replaced it with a fake editor name, Richard D. Pace.

Butler said his wife’s byline was replaced in the archives with another made-up name, Archie Obrien.

Other fake names such as Jason Tannahill also appeared atop many of the stories in the archives.

“None of those names are real,” Butler said. “We begged Ronn to put our names back, but he refused.”

Bizarrely, in recent weeks, after a flurry of news stories revealing Torossian’s involvement with the PR news site in the Daily Beast, The New York Times and the New York Post, all the fake byline names were erased and replaced with a new anonymous byline, “By EPR staff.”

However, the former names can still be found on cached stories on internet archive site The Wayback Machine. But searching for the names of the founders via the search engine on the actual Everything-PR homepage now yields no such record. And none of the fake names used for nearly eight years can be found via the site’s own search button either.

Torossian declined to comment on what happened to Richard D. Pace and the other apparently fake byline names that once populated the site. They have apparently disappeared into thin air, along with the real names of the husband-andwife team who founded the site.

Disguising his ownership between the 2014 purchase until early this year could put Torossian in violation of Federal Trade Commission rules on fair marketing and advertising standards.

According to the FTC’s website: “Under the law, claims in advertisements must be truthful, cannot be deceptive or unfair, and must be evidence-based.”

In its FTC endorsement guides, the government consumer watchdog proclaims, “the guides say, if there’s a connection between an endorser and the marketer that consumers would not expect and it would affect how consumers evaluate the endorsement, that connection should be disclosed.”

The FTC guidelines do not specifically cover the oddity of a PR agency secretly buying a news site without disclosing it to the public.

“It’s FTC policy that we don’t comment on specific companies or conduct like this,” said Deputy Director of Public Affairs Peter Kaplan.

Torossian himself declined to comment on whether he had heard from the FTC. One roundup story, penned on the site by a Jade Minh—apparently

TOROSSIAN founded 5WPR in 2004.

GETTY IMAGES

BY KEITH J. KELLY

another made-up name whose byline has recently disappeared— opens with the question: “What kind of clients wouldn’t you work with?” Among the executives quoted in the roundup is none other than Torossian. “We follow the no-assholes rule more than anything else when it comes to clients we won’t want to work with,” he is quoted as stating.

One of his early clients was Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis, who was convicted of tax evasion and bribery. Francis saw his company go bankrupt and fled the country for Mexico to avoid a multimillion-dollar court-ordered settlement of a civil suit filed by Wynn casinos to satisfy millions in gambling debts.

Though past 5WPR clients have included the Sergeants Benevolent Association and conservative Christian and Orthodox Jewish groups, one of Torossian’s most lucrative longtime clients had been adult site Pornhub. One story in EPR even insisted that Pornhub is “much needed viewing for PR professionals” because it engaged in environmental PR by planting trees based on page views of its erotic content and supported breast cancer awareness campaigns.

“Pornhub has brilliant PR,” the article stated. “Their PR agency in the U.S. is 5WPR.” Needless to say, there was never a mention in EPR of lawsuits over the years accusing Pornhub and its parent company, Mind Geek, of profiting from the exploitation of underage children or aiding and abetting human sex trafficking. Torossian told Crain’s his firm no longer represents Pornhub.

Mayoral connection Torossian’s once-cozy relationship with new Mayor Eric Adams— where Torossian paved the way for Adams to gain entree into the exclusive members-only NoHo club Zero Bond on election night and at other times pre- and post-election—appears to have cooled after news reports about Torossian’s sketchy past resurfaced. Adams was asked at a press conference in mid-January if he still socialized with Torossian, but he declined to specifically distance himself. “I socialize with all New Yorkers,” he said.

Sources say there has been a decided chill and no contact between the two since Adams was sworn in Jan. 1.

Despite the recent blowback, there is no denying that Torossian has built a successful business from scratch. He purchased a swanky apartment at 520 Park Ave. for $16.9 million in 2018, in an all-cash deal.

It was reportedly purchased through a limited liability company, Rafema LLC. The deed for the luxe home was signed by Petro Zinkovetsky, an attorney representing Torossian. Edward Mermelstein, an attorney who is a close friend of Torossian, was also reportedly involved in the transaction. Mermelstein was recently appointed to be the mayor’s commissioner of international affairs. And Mermelstein’s first public appearance after the appointment was at a celebratory party held in the Turkish consulate. The Turkish government happens to be a client of Torossian.

Even though Torossian is now owning up to operating Everything-PR, one attorney, Richard Emery, of Emery, Celli, Brinckerhoff, Abady, Ward & Maazel, said there could be legal problems ahead for the PR executive and 5WPR from parties who claim they were damaged by negative stories on the site.

“There are a number of business torts that might be available,” said Emery. “For starters, one could ask the hosts of the website to take it down or have warning labels placed on its content.”

Everything-PR.com shows up in Google searches and has 11,700 followers on Twitter.

Syracuse University professor Anthony D’Angelo, former national chair of the Public Relations Society of America, said the association’s code of ethics says PR pros should “reveal the sponsors for causes and interests represented.” He added, “The end game for public relations is trust, and once trust is fractured, it’s tough to earn back.

“A PR professional should disclose, up front and clearly, any ownership interest in what is positioned as a news site,” said D’Angelo, who directs the Newhouse school’s master’s degree program in communications management. ■

14 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | FEBRUARY 21, 2022

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NEW YORK IS FERTILE GROUND FOR Black professionals and entrepreneurs. The state, for example, is home to more than 11,300 Black-owned businesses, the most in the U.S. In the spirit of this legacy, Crain’s has selected 105 honorees for its 2022 list of Notable Black Leaders and Executives. The objective was to identify talented and accomplished Black individuals whose professional and communal achievements enhance New York City and the lives of its inhabitants. Working in a wide range of industries—including law, medicine, engineering, finance, construction and entertainment—the honorees on this roster deserve accolades for their contributions.

To choose the honorees, Crain’s consulted with trusted sources in New York City’s business world. Nominations, submitted by individuals and companies in the area, were then vetted. Ultimately, the honorees were picked for their career accomplishments as well as their broader community involvement.

Read on to discover how the Black leaders on our list invigorate the New York business community every day.

AMELIA ADAMS

ADEOLA ADEJOBI

AMAL ALIBAIR

President and founder, Adams Advisors

CEO and founder, Avant-Garde Network

Throughout her career, Adams has worked to advance the interests of two groups: women and members of the Black community. She founded Adams Advisors, a political consulting and community development firm whose clients include the Bard Prison Initiative and the Partnership for New York City. Adams also serves as executive board chairwoman of 21 in ’21, a nonprofit that successfully campaigned for the inclusion of an unprecedented number of women on the City Council last year. In previous communityfocused roles, she led efforts to increase the New York state minimum wage and to reform a policy leading to high suspension rates among Black students at a local school.

Being the only Black lawyer at the New York office of a large firm spurred Adejobi to found the Avant-Garde Network, a social-impact organization for Black professionals dedicated to improving diversity, equity and inclusion in business.

As its chief executive, she has hosted more than 200 events to date, including the Diversity in Commercial Real Estate and Women of Color and Capital conferences. Her Avant-Garde Network has engaged more than 40,000 professionals worldwide, resulting in increased access to capital, opportunities and business solutions for the Black community. Adejobi has received numerous industry honors including a New York Women’s Chamber of Commerce Woman of Excellence Award.

Head of the U.S. institutional client solutions business, Goldman Sachs

A native of Somalia who immigrated to the U.S. as a student, Alibair is familiar with the challenges facing minorities—and she puts her knowledge to use at investment bank Goldman Sachs. As the head of Goldman’s U.S. institutional client solutions business, Alibair oversees billions of dollars in assets for endowments and foundations nationwide, leading a team that dispenses customized investment advice.

She launched the firm’s Advancing Black Advisors Leadership program and an initiative to increase diversity on nonprofit boards. She is designing a multiyear program to enhance Goldman’s relationship with the Black community.

ISTOCK

METHODOLOGY: The honorees did not pay to be included. Their profiles were drawn from submitted nomination materials.

This list is not comprehensive. It includes only executives for whom nominations were submitted and accepted after an editorial review. To qualify for this list, honorees had to self-identify as Black and be employed within New York City or the surrounding counties, serving in a senior leadership role at their organization. They had to show accomplishment in their field and the ability to effect change in their role or area of practice, in addition to demonstrating community or philanthropic activities.

DR. MACHELLE ALLEN Senior vice president and chief medical officer, NYC Health + Hospitals

The race-based disparity in health care access Allen has witnessed in central Harlem was the impetus for much of her remarkable work at H+H. Now as the health system’s chief medical officer, she oversees the more than 8,000 providers who make up its medical staff.

Allen, who has been at H+H for more than four decades, has used her post to develop innovative programs.

She implemented obstetric simulations designed to reduce race-based health care disparities, for instance. She commissioned implicit bias training for the health system’s board of directors and leadership, and she developed a pipeline program to attract underrepresented minorities to medical careers.

MARISSA ALTER-NELSON Partner, Sidley Austin

Alter-Nelson, a firstgeneration professional, is the first Black lawyer to rise from first-year associate to partner at the Sidley Austin law firm.

Her practice involves complex litigation related to business, commercial and financial disputes for clients including AT&T, Bank of America and Citibank.

Alter-Nelson, an accomplished litigator, participates in the Sidley Prelaw Scholars Program, which subsidizes Law School Admission Test study courses and application fees for financially challenged aspiring lawyers. In her pro bono practice, she has represented low-income women in domestic matters, as well as several death-row inmates.

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NOTABLE 2022 MICHELLE ARMSTRONG

JASON AUTAR

DONNEL BAIRD

Head of philanthropy and executive director of the Ares Charitable Foundation, Ares Management

Chief operations officer, Oyate Group

Co-founder and CEO, BlocPower

Autar’s on-the-ground work has helped upward of 30,000 people get vaccinated against Covid-19. As the chief operations officer at Oyate Group, a nonprofit that works to alleviate poverty and lift underserved communities throughout New York City, Autar oversaw door-to-door outreach and partnerships with community centers. Autar, who is responsible for Oyate’s varied programming, works to address gaps in health care, nutrition and higher education in minority communities. Before joining Oyate, he worked as a court liaison for the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services, providing defendants with alternatives to incarceration; and as a program coordinator at Goodwill Industries of Greater New York and Northern New Jersey.

Struggling to heat their home, members of Baird’s family would use their oven for warmth and open windows to release carbon monoxide.

That formative childhood experience catalyzed his career interest in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

Baird is co-founder and CEO of BlocPower, a climate technology company powering a cleanenergy revolution. Notably, the organization secured a contract to decarbonize upstate Ithaca in the first large-scale citywide electrification initiative in the country. Baird worked in the Obama administration on a Department of Energy greenbuildings project that leveraged $6.5 billion in funding to create green jobs and retrofit buildings.

Armstrong is charged with overseeing all philanthropic efforts for asset manager Ares Management, from employee engagement and volunteerism to corporate sponsorship programs. To further the firm’s core values and cultivate financial support for the Ares Charitable Foundation, she works with the Ares environmental; social and governance; and diversity, equity and inclusion teams.

Armstrong secured a $30 million grant for AltFinance, an initiative that prepares students from historically Black colleges and universities for careers in alternative asset management.

During the pandemic, she created the first firmwide virtual program that engaged employees from different locations in volunteer efforts.

HERMINA “NINA” BATSON Director and global head of internal audit regulatory engagement, Barclays

Compliance, regulatory reporting, taxes, accounting, operations, audits. Those areas are where Batson wields experience at Barclays.

Batson, committed to diversity on every team she manages, is serving a two-year term as the first Black president of the Financial Women’s Association.

The organization, for which she has volunteered for more than two decades, provides personal, professional and financial aid to young women in finance.

Batson formerly was director of securitized products at MUFG, a bank and financial services company where she managed accounting, regulatory reporting and compliance.

MARTIN BELL Partner, Simpson Thacher

When he joined Simpson Thacher as a partner last year, Bell brought his experience representing high-profile companies to handle complex disputes and sensitive investigations.

Bell, an accomplished trial lawyer, has held several public positions in New York and spent more than a decade as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District. Bell prosecuted criminal civil rights cases including those involving corrections-officer misconduct at Rikers Island. At Simpson Thacher, he is on a committee that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion at the firm through mentoring programs and affinity groups.

BLACK EMPLOYEES MAKE UP 12% OF AMERICA’S PRIVATE-SECTOR WORKFORCE —MCKINSEY & CO.

RODNEYSE BICHOTTE HERMELYN Member, New York Assembly; chair, Brooklyn Democratic Party

Bichotte Hermelyn, who represents Flatbush, East Flatbush, Midwood and Ditmas Park in the Assembly, has been vital to the passage of several bills aimed at boosting minority interests. In so doing she has championed minority- and woman-owned business enterprises, helped expand minority contracting opportunities and strengthened voting rights laws. Bichotte Hermelyn, the first Black woman to chair the Brooklyn Democratic Party, heads the Assembly’s MWBE subcommittee. She helped lead the diverse coalition that supported Eric Adams for New York mayor. She was instrumental in the creation of the Little Haiti cultural district in Brooklyn, and she is an advocate for Black maternal health care.

TROY BLACKWELL

VICTOR BODY-LAWSON

KYLE BOLDEN

TORRENCE BOONE

Founder and executive director, Ready for Change

Principal and founder, Body Lawson Associates

U.S. East market segment leader, EY

Motivated by the belief that voting is among the most powerful tools one can exercise in a democracy, Blackwell founded Ready for Change, a political action committee dedicated to increasing voting among young people, particularly those of color.

As executive director of the organization, which also focuses on issues related to climate change, mental health, criminaljustice reform and youth employment, Blackwell oversees its operations, communications and partnerships. He ran for the City Council last year, advocating municipal hospital– based grants for violenceintervention programs and expansion of the city’s paid-sickday requirement. He held several positions with the 2020 Biden-Harris campaign.

Body-Lawson says he believes architecture can play a major role in revitalizing Black and brown neighborhoods. As the principal of Body Lawson Associates, an architecture and design firm, he leads the design of hundreds of affordable housing units for New Yorkers and mixed-use projects for Black churches. Body-Lawson, who has worked in Ghana, has received awards for his work.

He is an associate professor of architecture and real estate at Columbia University, where he has introduced new approaches for communities that have historically lacked access to outstanding architecture, community solutions and urban investments.

In his nearly quarter-century with the professional services network of EY, Bolden has advised market participants on matters ranging from financial transactions to readiness for initial public offerings. At EY, he oversees tax, consulting, strategy, and assurance for the real estate, hospitality and construction sectors. He advises C-suite executives on strategy and counsels boards and investors on environmental, social and corporate governance. Bolden, who mentors Black students and EY professionals, is executive sponsor of the firm’s Inclusive Engagement and Development Initiative. He is on the board of the Real Estate Executive Council, an association of minority executives in the commercial real estate industry.

Vice president of global client partnerships, Google

Boone ranked 10th on the Crain’s list of the 25 Most Powerful New Yorkers last year— for good reason. In his role at Google, he has overseen the company’s massive expansion of its New York footprint. He is charged with driving Google’s strategy across a portfolio of global advertisers in the tech, beauty and consumer packaged goods spaces. As a member of the company’s global business hiring committee, he endeavors to hire and promote individuals from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in the tech sector.

16 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | FEBRUARY 21, 2022

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NOTABLE 2022 ESI-KILANGA BOWSER-SANTIAGO Senior project manager, Turner Construction

Bowser-Santiago is a trailblazer for Black women in construction. Since joining Turner as an assistant engineer in 2006—when there were even fewer minority women in the industry than there are today—she has held roles of increasing responsibility. She now leads a team of seven engineers in the interior fit-out of a 1.3 million-square-foot office and amenities space.

Bowser-Santiago has been an industry ambassador for the historically Black colleges and universities fellowship program at Columbia University, sharing insights from a Black perspective on navigating the corporate world. She was instrumental in the founding of an employee resource group at Turner for employees of African descent.

DANIELLE BROWN

DALE BURNETT

GERRARD BUSHELL

HENRY BUTLER

Senior vice president of data enablement and category strategy, Disney

Co-founder and managing director, BIG Equity Investors

Chairman and CEO, the New Terminal One project at JFK Airport; chairman, CAG Holdings

District leader and first vice chairman, Brooklyn Democratic Party

Bushell is committed to building a team characterized by inclusion and innovation in a project that is expected to benefit New Yorkers of all stripes: the New Terminal One project at Kennedy Airport. As its chairman and CEO, he is building on his extensive business, government and finance experience—in conjunction with the Port Authority—to deliver the new terminal. Under Bushell’s direction, the endeavor to date has involved more than $46 million in contracting with minority- and woman-owned business enterprises. He also is chairman of CAG Holdings, the airport infrastructure investment platform of the Carlyle Group, and he is a member of New York state’s MWBE task force.

Butler spent a sizable chunk of his career as a conductor with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and he showed his communitymindedness even then.

As an active member of his union, he advocated for workers’ rights and served as the union’s community outreach liaison. He remains an advocate for the people, albeit in a political setting. As district leader for the 56th Assembly District of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, he facilitates elections at poll sites and appoints election workers while taking part in selecting judicial nominees and running county committee meetings. As the people’s representative, Butler works with communities to ensure resources are being channeled to the neediest.

Brown oversees the use of data and targeted solutions to fuel Disney’s advertising approach— which allows clients to gain maximum impact from campaigns across the media and entertainment company’s product portfolio.

She manages a team that models hundreds of psychographic and behavioral attributes to customize audience-based ad solutions. In addition, she helps lead the hiring committee within Disney’s diversity, equity and inclusion committee and spearheads the Brave Conversations series, a forum in which employees reflect on and discuss inclusion. Brown mentors employees across the company, particularly women of color.

A son of Jamaican immigrants, Burnett is passionate about sharing the lessons his parents taught him, points that helped him achieve the American dream. Burnett helped found BIG, a minorityowned investment management platform that invests in middle-market real estate for public pensions, family offices and corporations.

He leads the firm’s equity investment function, including sourcing and acquisitions.

He is board chairman of Praxis Housing, a New York City provider of supportive housing, predominantly for Black and brown individuals. He is a member of several mentorship programs, through which he has exposed hundreds of young Black and indigenous people of color to career opportunities in real estate.

AS OF 2017, THE NEW YORK METROPOLITAN AREA’S BLACK POPULATION WAS CLOSE TO 3.5 MILLION—THE LARGEST IN THE COUNTRY —BLACKDEMOGRAPHICS.COM

DR. GARY BUTTS

GREGORY CALLISTE

VALENTINO CARLOTTI

NATALIA CINEAS

NICOLE CLARE

Executive vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, Mount Sinai Health System

CEO, NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull

Partner, Brown Brothers Harriman

Chief real estate development officer, Bowery Residents’ Committee

Calliste must consider employee wellness, clinical excellence, patient experience and fiscal viability in his role as Woodhull’s chief executive.

He guided the hospital’s Covid-19 pandemic response with all of the aforementioned in mind, addressing the public-health challenges of the city’s hardest-hit communities.

For his efforts, he was recognized as a health care hero by several media organizations. He has appointed people of color to H+H leadership roles, and he has mentored many throughout his career. Calliste is on the board of directors of RiseBoro Community Partnership, which provides affordable housing, food and health care for residents of Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Carlotti is the head of corporate advisory and banking at Brown Brothers Harriman, the oldest private investment banking firm in the country.

In that role, he oversees a team of professionals who advise privatebusiness owners and manage assets.

Before joining BBH, he was a partner at Goldman Sachs, where he served as president of its Brazil Bank and sat on the global firm’s diversity committee. He is philanthropically active in support of professionals, artists, performers and civic leaders of color. He sits on the boards of Carnegie Hall, the Boys’ Club of New York and Management Leadership for Tomorrow.

Senior vice president and chief nursing executive, NYC Health + Hospitals

Mount Sinai was among the first medical institutions to commit to becoming an anti-racist organization, establishing a task force to address that goal. Leading the charge is Butts, an executive vice president at the health system.

As chief diversity and inclusion officer, he is responsible for managing diversity programs and policies at Mount Sinai, including at its Icahn School of Medicine. Building on more than two decades as director of the Center for Multicultural and Community Affairs, Butts is a champion for equity in the Mount Sinai community. His service has been recognized by the National Association of Minority Medical Educators and other organizations.

Cineas instills in Health + Hospitals nurses, managers and administrative personnel the importance of responding to shifting patient demographics, in line with the organization’s goal of extending quality health care to all New Yorkers equally.

Cineas serves the health system as co-chair of its equity and access council. She is tasked with directing close to 10,000 nurses and overseeing all aspects of clinical operations and nurse education. When the pandemic struck in 2020, Cineas directed the recruitment and deployment of thousands of temporary nurses and nursing specialists to battle New York’s Covid-19 waves. She was named a 2021 Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.

At the Bowery Residents’ Committee, a nonprofit that provides services for homeless New Yorkers, Clare manages a $250 million housing development portfolio and co-chairs its diversity, equity and inclusion council.

Inclusion is reflected in all manner of ways at the BRC. Clare, for instance, acquired a site for a new residence in Inwood that is designed to incorporate a memorial center honoring its history as a burial ground for enslaved Black people and a ceremonial site of the indigenous Lenape people. She is a former committee chair of the New York Urban League’s Young Professionals.

18 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | FEBRUARY 21, 2022

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“We as citizens can address the virus of social inequity with the same selfless determination and courage we brought to bear on COVID-19, and in doing so prove the true strength of our shared humanity.”

Philip O. Ozuah, MD, PhD

President and CEO, Montefiore Medicine

Montefiore Einstein Congratulates Philip O. Ozuah, MD, PhD For his recognition in Crain’s 2022 Notable Black Leaders, in honor of his vision, innovation and impactful leadership while challenging the status quo and creating change.

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NOTABLE 2022 YAHONNES CLEARY

SEAN EBONY COLEMAN

SHARON CONTENT

JANESSA COX-IRVIN

DAVID CRICHLOW

Litigation partner, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison

Founder and executive director, Destination Tomorrow

Founder and CEO, Children of Promise, NYC

As a Black trans man affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic from a young age, Coleman felt galvanized to found Destination Tomorrow, a South Bronx agency that provides services for the LGBTQ+ community.

He now leads efforts to provide educational, financial, housing, health and personal support, among other services.

Some specific services include GED training, HIV testing and career readiness. He is a grant maker for Gilead’s TRANScend Community Impact Fund, identifying trans-led organizations that are deserving of funds. He was selected for Mayor Eric Adams’ Equity Transition Committee, where he shares his expertise on inclusivity and dismantling biases.

The often unseen victims of incarceration are the children of the imprisoned, and Content is on a mission to meet their needs. At the nonprofit Children of Promise, she has introduced culturally sensitive mental health care, academic enrichment, mentoring and youth programming to more than 350 children. The initiatives are aimed at improving the social, emotional, behavioral and mental health competencies necessary to deal with familymember incarceration. She was on the de Blasio administration’s nonprofit and social services sector advisory council, and she previously held roles at the United Way and the Boys & Girls Club of America.

Global head of diversity and inclusion and corporate citizenship, AllianceBernstein

Partner and national chairman of commercial litigation, Katten Muchin Rosenman

It’s little wonder that Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal and CNBC have turned to Cox-Irvin for her thought leadership.

At asset management firm AllianceBernstein, she directs the diversity, equity and inclusion strategy and ensures its alignment with business priorities. Under the leadership of Cox-Irvin, who is eager to help underrepresented populations access new opportunities, two Black members were added to AllianceBernstein’s board, and the engagement of Black employees increased measurably. She serves on the board of Dress for Success, a nonprofit that provides women with professional attire and developmental support.

Inspired by Justice Thurgood Marshall, Crichlow has long been intent on achieving justice through the law and uplifting Black communities.

At Katten Muchin Rosenman, Crichlow counsels companies on contract disputes, regulatory matters, international arbitrations, appeals and commercial litigation, among other issues. He has lectured for and mentored minority lawyers and law students. He is on the board of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and he previously was a co-chair of the American Bar Association’s bankruptcy and insolvency committee. Crichlow was named a 2020 Litigation Trailblazer by The National Law Journal.

Cleary is an ardent proponent of lawyers of color at Paul, Weiss, working intimately with them on the global law firm’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Cleary, a seasoned trial lawyer, advises corporate clients on commercial litigation and internal and regulatory investigations. His high-profile representations have included Citigroup, ExxonMobil, MasterCard, Morgan Stanley, Pfizer and Uber. In his pro bono practice, he focuses on issues of social and racial justice. He has collaborated with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund on voting rights litigation and with the American Bar Association on affirmative action lawsuits.

65% OF WORKING BLACK WOMEN HELD WHITE-COLLAR JOBS IN 2017, COMPARED WITH 42% OF BLACK MEN —BLACKDEMOGRAPHICS.COM

DR. NICHOLA DAVIS

PAISLEY DEMBY

MYLAN DENERSTEIN

VINCENT DUNN

NATHANIEL FIELDS

Vice president and chief population health officer, NYC Health + Hospitals

Business services director, Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Small Businesses at LaGuardia Community College

Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher

Co-partner in charge, Norton Rose Fulbright

CEO, Urban Resource Institute

As a Black female lawyer, Denerstein feels an obligation to support marginalized communities. She does that at law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where she is a litigation partner and co-partner in charge of the New York office.

She leads intricate criminal and civil litigation and investigations, often involving government agencies.

Denerstein is also the global chair of the firm’s diversity committee, and she is credited with spearheading the firm’s Black Advancement Initiative.

The program led to a 75% increase in the number of Gibson Dunn’s Black lawyers and a 50% increase in its Black leaders. Denerstein has been recognized for her work by City & State and Crain’s.

Dunn is committed to advancing diversity and inclusion wherever they are absent. As co-partner in charge of the New York office at law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, Dunn oversees administrative matters, implements policy changes, integrates new associates, coordinates events, and helps employees transition from remote to in-person work. Still, he prioritizes his work on the firm’s racial equity council, where he has been vital to its Black associate sponsorship program. He says his devotion to the program stems from memories of the isolation he felt early in his career, when he often was the only Black person in corporate meetings.

Fields leads operations at the Urban Resource Institute, which provides services for victims of domestic violence. The services include shelter and prevention programs aimed at arresting cycles of poverty, abuse and trauma. In leading the institute, a historically Black organization, Fields keeps its staff of 500 focused on those issues, which disproportionately affect Black and brown people. (Nine of 10 clients are Black or Hispanic.)

He routinely represents the institute in city, state and national organizations in the human services and homelessness sectors, including on the human services committee of Mayor Eric Adams’ transition team.

Davis drives innovative clinical models at H+H. With a holistic approach to health care, Davis focuses on chronic disease prevention and management, social determinants of health, and population health analytics.

Acutely aware of health care disparities that are often race-based, Davis works to improve the health of Black and brown communities. She founded a work group that launched innovations in obesity management, and she established and co-chaired a Covid-19 research council.

She is co-lead of a workforce diversity work group and an initiative designed to eliminate race-based clinical algorithms.

Demby leverages the power of economic development initiatives to support the Black community.

As the business services director for Goldman Sachs’ business management education program at LaGuardia Community College, he directs the marketing, outreach and recruitment of small-business owners for the course. In addition, he oversees a team of advisers who provide personalized advice to entrepreneurs in the program, and he works on developing the educational process. To date, more than 1,200 New York entrepreneurs have successfully completed the program.

Demby volunteers at the Prison Fellowship nonprofit, teaching entrepreneurship to Rikers Island inmates.

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Gary C. Butts, MD Executive Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Mount Sinai Health System Dean for Diversity Programs, Policy and Community Affairs, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

The Mount Sinai Health System and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Proudly honor

Gary C. Butts, MD and all the trailblazers Crain’s New York Business selected as Notable Black Leaders

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NOTABLE 2022 DEBBIAN FLETCHER-BLAKE CEO, Vocational Instruction Project Community Services

Fletcher-Blake began her career as a nurse practitioner serving the homeless and other marginalized communities, and she continues to battle health inequities at VIP Community Services, a nonprofit health care organization providing medical, housing and behavioral health resources. Fletcher-Blake is responsible for operations at the Bronx health center, including delivering integrated clinical care; ensuring customer service excellence; and coordinating team efforts with external stakeholders, providers and regulatory agencies. In response to the pandemic, she launched a house-based vaccination program for homebound senior citizens and succeeded at avoiding Covid-related furloughs, layoffs and terminations at her organization.

WILLIAM FLOYD

DR. FRITZ FRANÇOIS

MICHAEL GARNER

DARRELL GAY

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Director of U.S., state and local government affairs and public policy, Google

Executive vice president, vice dean and chief of hospital operations, NYU Langone Health

Chief diversity and inclusion officer, Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Partner, Arent Fox

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Floyd plans efforts that demonstrate how tech companies can build mutually beneficial relationships with the communities in which they operate. He manages Google’s engagements with community leaders and elected officials and executes the company’s local philanthropic and community relations programs. Notably, he was involved with the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund initiative, which last year provided $5 million to 50 Black-led startups across the nation, including seven in New York City. He sits on the board of the Children’s Museum of the Arts.

Helping NYU Langone Health cope with the pandemic came naturally for François because had been on the front lines of operational initiatives before. François works with leadership to standardize patient care, reduce patient safety risks, improve throughput, eliminate waste and optimize technology tools. He also strives to eliminate health disparities through medical education: In his role as national chairman of the American College of Gastroenterology’s minority affairs committee, he assists underrepresented trainees, and he developed a summer research program to address health disparities.

Garner has set a high bar for diversity, equity and inclusion officials everywhere. His strategies at the MTA have resulted in a 20% increase in the number of Blacks, Hispanics and women hired across the agency’s enormous workforce.

His work has led to significant growth for minority- and woman-owned business enterprises. Since he arrived at the MTA in 2009, the publicbenefit corporation has made $10.7 billion in payments to such businesses—a feat that culminated in Garner being named a New York state MWBE Champion by Gov. Kathy Hochul. Garner also received the 2021 Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer of the Year Award from Crain’s.

Gay is a founding board member of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, which advocates the hiring, retention and promotion of minority lawyers in corporate firms. As a partner with law firm Arent Fox, Gay is well-positioned to speak to the issue. He handles employeerelated issues—hiring, discharge, discrimination, internal investigations, workplace training and restrictive covenants—on behalf of the firm’s management.

For clients, he works on labor matters such as union negotiations, arbitrations and unfair labor charges. He chaired the Covid-19 task force for the nonprofit College of Labor and Employment Lawyers, hosting seminars on legal issues related to the pandemic.

THE FIRST BLACK CEO OF A FORTUNE 500 COMPANY WAS CLIFTON WHARTON JR., WHO BECAME CHAIRMAN AND CEO OF FINANCIAL SERVICES ORGANIZATION TIAA-CREF IN 1987 —BLACKENTREPRENEURPROFILE.COM

WILLIAM GOODLOE

SOPHIA GORING-PIARD

ALICIA GUEVARA

RYAN HARRIS

WENDY HILLIARD

President and CEO, Sponsors for Educational Opportunity

Partner, Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy

CEO, Big Brothers Big Sisters of NYC

Chief human resources officer, MetroPlusHealth

After attending the rigorous Brooklyn Technical High School, Goodloe was prepared for college and a stable career. But realizing that others from his low-income community did not receive similar preparation spurred his desire to work toward educational equity.

At Sponsors for Educational Opportunity, which provides college and career support for disadvantaged youth, Goodloe develops and implements strategies for recruitment, donor engagement and financial viability. In addition, he oversees day-to-day administrative and programmatic operations.

Under his stewardship, the SEO Scholars program has celebrated a 90% college graduation rate among participants from New York City public schools.

Goring-Piard manages employment-based immigration issues for individuals and corporate clients including Fortune 100 clients in telecommunications, financial services and engineering.

A sampling of matters she handles at Fragomen includes nonimmigrant visas, permanent residence, compliance issues and corporate restructuring.

Goring-Piard maintains a robust pro bono practice, providing immigration services related to asylum proceedings, familybased cases and petitions for unaccompanied minors. As a leader of her firm’s New York diversity, equity and inclusion initiative, she helped improve its recruiting process and opened doors for young lawyers of color. She has been recognized as an immigration law expert by Best Lawyers.

Guevara wields three decades’ worth of nonprofit leadership experience in her role as CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City.

Guevara develops and implements fundraising initiatives, community outreach efforts and volunteer recruitment. She forges partnerships with government agencies and community organizations. In a testament to her leadership, the organization has been able to provide continuous services for more than 2,000 young people during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since the pandemic began, the median length of mentormentee matches has increased, as has enrollment in the group’s college and career success program.

Harris promotes best practices for racial, social and sexual inclusivity at MetroPlus. He develops human resources strategies in service of the organization’s overall business plan, focusing on talent acquisition, employee relations, succession planning, change management, compensation and performance management.

He recently was chosen to serve as chairman of a youth leadership conference, which is expected to welcome 350 participants, most of them Black high school males. At the height of the pandemic, Harris raised funds to provide headphones for students in environments that complicate virtual learning. He previously was a deputy attorney general in New Jersey.

Founder and CEO, Wendy Hilliard Gymnastics Foundation

Hilliard, the first Black gymnast to represent the U.S. in rhythmic gymnastics, has long been devoted to giving urban youth similar opportunities.

The foundation she created has provided low-cost or free gymnastics to 20,000 New York City youngsters since 1996. As CEO, Hilliard oversees the organization’s strategic and financial operations, including partnership development and fundraising. She is on the board of the Armory Foundation, which promotes youth fitness and education. She previously served as the first Black president of the Women’s Sports Foundation. For more than a decade, she sat on the executive committee of USA Gymnastics.

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DONNA HUGHES

KARIM HUTSON

Chief people officer, EmblemHealth

Founder and managing member, Genesis Cos.

Hughes identifies barriers to diversity, equity and inclusion in hiring, retention, advancement and training at EmblemHealth, and she drives inclusive policies in response. She aligns the nonprofit health plan’s human capital strategies with the organization’s overarching business goals. She is credited with doubling diverse representation in leadership, introducing inclusivity training, building a library of DEI resources and piloting mentorship programs for colleagues of color.

As chairwoman of her organization’s DEI council, Hughes works to expand contracting opportunities for Black- and indigenous-run businesses by emphasizing supplier diversity. She previously was on the board of Roots & Wings, a nonprofit that helps young people aging out of foster care.

Affordable housing is a pressing issue, especially in communities of color historically marginalized by discriminatory practices.

Hutson is out to disrupt that pattern.

In running Genesis, a full-service real estate development firm, Hutson develops affordable and market-rate homes for individuals, families, veterans, senior citizens and the formerly homeless. He and his team have earned a reputation for turning underperforming real estate assets into quality, energyefficient spaces that remain accessible to community members. As part of the effort, they develop community programming—including Thanksgiving food drives and urban farming—that adds to residents’ quality of life.

LESLEIGH IRISH-UNDERWOOD Chief brand and external relations officer, MetroPlusHealth

Irish-Underwood has built her career around serving underserved communities.

At health insurance agency MetroPlus, which offers low- to no-cost coverage to eligible New Yorkers, she is responsible for executing the organization’s brand strategy, from product marketing, strategic communications and media relations to the member experience, special events and marketing innovation.

She is involved in her company’s mentorship program and works with the human resources team to educate senior staff members on modern leadership techniques. Irish-Underwood previously was senior vice president and chief marketing officer at the United Way of New York City, leading its brand marketing and communications.

LANAYA IRVIN

TANYA ISAACS

CEO, Coqual

Senior vice president and chief human resources officer, New Jewish Home

A team of researchers, data analysts, consultants and storytellers reports to Irvin at Coqual, a nonprofit think tank that conducts research and advises corporations on matters related to diversity, equity and inclusion. Irvin leads efforts to shed light on inequities and barriers that underrepresented groups face at work. She is partnering with business leaders to develop a Black Equity Index, designed to set standards for racial equity and provide benchmarks for systemic change within firms. Forbes, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have spotlighted her thought leadership on race, gender, authenticity and inclusivity.

Isaacs oversees labor-relations functions at the New Jewish Home, a nonprofit senior health care system.

Aside from the duties that the role usually demands— leadership development, employee engagement, talent acquisition, compensation and benefits—Isaacs administers the Geriatric Career Development Program, a nationally acknowledged youth workforce development initiative that provides health care career pathways to primarily Black high school students. The program, which includes paid training and professional certification, boasts a 96% employment rate. Isaacs has diversified leadership at the New Jewish Home while improving staff relations and introducing management training initiatives.

Sponsored Content

NOTABLE Q&A with Lesleigh Irish-Underwood How a branding executive created a mission-based career CRAIN’S: What inspired you to decide to focus your career on serving vulnerable and underserved communities?

Executive Lesleigh IrishUnderwood has devoted her career to helping New York City’s most vulnerable and underserved communities. She is chief brand and external relations officer at the health plan MetroPlusHealth, a position she assumed a year ago.

In this role she oversees stewarding and executing MetroPlusHealth’s brand strategy. In addition, she is heavily involved in the company’s mentorship program, for which she taps into her prior experience as senior vice president and chief marketing officer at the United Way of New York City. Outside of work, she is a member of The Brooklyn Community Foundation Board.

Crain’s Content Studio recently connected with her to discuss her work and goals.

IRISH-UNDERWOOD: Growing up, I learned that “to whom much is given, much is required,” and so my focus has always been to give back to communities like the one I grew up in. I have always sought (or made) ways to create an intersection between my work and my passion— to serve a greater purpose and make a lasting impact on New York City communities—especially communities of color.

CRAIN’S: What was your inspiration for joining MetroPlusHealth?

IRISH-UNDERWOOD: After more than 20 years on the private side, I wanted to transfer and leverage my skills, knowledge and resources to a mission-driven company.

MetroPlusHealth’s mission to close the gap in health equity and create access to quality health care for all aligns with my belief that health care is a right, not a privilege.

CRAIN’S: How has your experience at United Way informed how you perform your current position?

IRISH-UNDERWOOD: At United Way of New York City, I was responsible for innovating—moving beyond the nonprofit industry “playbook”—to design unconventional solutions supporting a mission focused on underserved New Yorkers. Thankfully, that experience, community connection and local market insight allowed me to quickly identify a roadmap for MetroPlusHealth to show up for communities in need during the worst public health crisis most of us have ever experienced.

CRAIN’S: What are your goals for MetroPlusHealth and its branding?

IRISH-UNDERWOOD: Simply put, I want MetroPlusHealth to be iconic. We have a connection—a kinship—with New Yorkers of every background, every neighborhood, every socioeconomic level, every language, unlike any other brand. My goal is for MetroPlusHealth to fully reflect that rich, diverse, culturally competent,

community-connected and equitable New York City that we all envision.

CRAIN’S: You have done a lot of work to support women leaders, particularly those who are women of color. What are your goals on that front in the next few years?

IRISH-UNDERWOOD: I want to see more women of color seated at leadership tables across every NYC company and industry. I know that my voice, unique life experience and perspective as a Black woman are my superpowers. I am dedicated to helping other women, seasoned and neophyte, to own their strengths. To do that, I plan to double down on mentoring, upping my sponsorship game, and designing a course that focuses on developing women’s leadership.

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NOTABLE 2022 CANDACE JACKSON

PRINCESS JENKINS

ANTHONY JONES

STEVEN JONES

Principal, CJAM Consulting

Founder and president, Women in the Black

District leader, Brooklyn Democratic Party

CFO, Project Renewal

Since 2006, when she founded CJAM, a boutique consulting firm specializing in the arts and culture sector, Jackson has led organizations in that space through expansion, capital restoration and executive planning. Her firm is committed to supporting racially inclusive institutions that highlight communities of color. Jackson spurs her team to focus on small and midsize organizations that are the cultural life force of local communities. She mentors the next generation of cultural leaders and serves as treasurer of the board of the Heidelberg Project, a project initiative in Detroit that seeks to improve lives through outdoor art.

Jenkins learned about entrepreneurship behind the counter of her grandparents’ candy store. Now she’s at the helm of Women in the Black, which fosters the growth of businesses owned by Black women through education, networking and financing. The organization has trained thousands of entrepreneurs to date. Keenly aware of the threat that the pandemic has posed to Harlem small businesses, Jenkins has fielded hundreds of questions related to federal Small Business Administration loans and pandemic unemployment.

With female-led Harlem organizations, she formed a women’s business coalition that lobbied local leaders for grants. Jenkins founded the Brownstone, a contemporary lifestyle boutique in Harlem.

Jones represents Brownsville—one of the most systemically disadvantaged communities in New York City—as district leader of the 55th Assembly District. Born and raised in Brownsville, three-quarters of which is African American, Jones was inspired to advocate for its residents after years of confronting street violence. He has arranged food and personal-protectiveequipment distributions during the pandemic, and he has led efforts to educate voters about ballot issues. Last year he ran for Brooklyn borough president. He has served on the 81st Precinct Clergy Council. He founded the Community First Democratic Club and is a former chairman of the One Brownsville nonprofit.

Marshaling his accounting and financial management finesse, Jones strives to uplift communities of color in the metropolitan area. As the chief financial officer at Project Renewal, a social services agency that helps the homeless and underserved, he oversees a $120 million budget spread across shelters, clinics and housing programs. Jones, who sees the financial stability of Project Renewal as vital to the well-being of Black New Yorkers, has helped to maintain the organization’s solvency during the pandemic. He was integral to the launch of a diversity, equity and inclusion initiative throughout the organization, the hiring of a DEI consultant and the formation of an employee resource group. He previously was president of the Martin Luther School Foundation.

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NICOLE JORDAN-MARTIN

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CEO and executive director, community care division of NYC Health + Hospitals

Jordan-Martin leads H+H’s community-based care management programs. One example is the NYC Test & Trace Corps’ Take Care hotel program, which provides Covid-positive individuals and their close contacts with free hotel stays, testing and clinical monitoring.

To date, the program has helped 30,000 guests. Jordan-Martin has served as a health expert on community panels, addressing the Black maternal mortality crisis. As a proud advocate for health equity, she has helped the city’s communities of color gain increased access to homeand community-based medical, behavioral health and social support services.

ONE IN FIVE BLACK AMERICANS STARTS A BUSINESS —GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP MONITOR

KATY KNIGHT

LILLIAN LANDRUM

President and executive director, Siegel Family Endowment

Senior director of recruiting, Ro

Knight draws on her broad professional experience—real estate, technology, nonprofit development and communications—at the Siegel Family Endowment.

She oversees the foundation’s overall strategy and grantmaking approach, including the recent introduction of an in-house research function, which supports organizations working at the intersections of learning, workforce and infrastructure.

Knight, the rare Black woman to lead a major philanthropic foundation, has long tried to support communities of color.

She has represented her community on Queens Community Board 5.

Landrum has succeeded in embedding diversity within recruitment efforts at patientdriven telehealth company Ro. She launched the company’s tech diversity hiring initiative, developing recruiting partnerships with organizations such as AfroTech and Lesbians Who Tech and introducing platforms to scale diverse hiring.

Landrum is responsible for developing high-performing teams at Ro. She led the hiring of more than 400 employees in the past year. She worked with colleagues to launch Ro Mentors, an initiative in which local students of color are paired with Ro employees for support related to their professional, academic and personal development.

SYDNIE LIGGETT-DENNIS

KEVIN LILES

Executive director, A.I.M by Kyle Abraham

Chairman and CEO, 300 Entertainment and Elektra Music Group

Liggett-Dennis is adept at balancing artistic objectives with strategic and financial goals as executive director of A.I.M, a dance company that produces choreography informed by Black culture and history.

Liggett-Dennis oversees all aspects of the organization, from leading the administrative team and forging relationships with external stakeholders to securing gifts from supporters and facilitating fiscally sound touring. She also works on communications, marketing, permit renewals, vendor contracts and staff policies. She recently arranged anti-racism education workshops for staff and board members, and she advocated for dancers to receive 52-week contracts with health benefits.

Even while growing the 300 Entertainment record label, Liles seeks to maintain its original entrepreneurial spirit. As its chief executive, he conceives new programs and cultivates relationships with artists.

Intent on elevating the Black community, he arranged for company-wide training sessions on anti-racism, unconscious bias and professional allyship at the organization. His place in the music industry is wellestablished: His previous roles include president of Def Jam Records and executive vice president of the Warner Music Group. He created the Kevin Liles for a Better Baltimore Foundation, which aims to help young people in that city build ambition, character and self-esteem.

DR. LEWIS MARSHALL JR. Chief medical officer, NYC Health + Hospitals/ Lincoln Hospital

Joining Lincoln Hospital as chief medical officer in April 2020, Marshall hit the ground running. He led Lincoln’s Helping Healers Heal program, which is under the auspices of H+H, and he worked with colleagues to develop pandemic response plans. A lawyer as well as a doctor, he is responsible for quality management, fiscal improvements, risk management, patient satisfaction and clinical service delivery coordination. He served on a task force formed in 2020 to research the causes of the Black maternal mortality crisis and to develop innovative solutions.

Marshall is the founding president of the American Academy of Disaster Medicine.

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DEBRA MARTIN CHASE

DARREN MARTIN JR.

KERRY MAYBANK

HAZEL-ANN MAYERS

JAMES MCCLAMMY

Executive producer, Martin Chase Productions

CEO and president Streamlined Media & Communications and Bold Culture

Founder and CEO, Strategic Links

General counsel and corporate secretary Turnitin

Partner Davis Polk & Wardwell

Debra Martin Chase is the first Black female producer to have an overall deal with a major studio—in her case, Universal Television. As the executive producer of the eponymous Martin Chase Productions, she has produced multiple TV and film hits. Aside from being a pioneering female executive herself, she highlights strong, independent female leads such as those in Harriet and The Princess Diaries. Her work has garnered Oscar, Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. She recently was named to Variety500, a list of leaders shaping the media industry, and was included among Ebony’s 150 Most Influential African Americans. She is on the board of the New York City Ballet, where she leads the diversity and inclusion committee.

Martin created the prototype for Streamlined Media & Communications while he was still in college.

Now the chief executive, he is responsible for developing and executing the vision for the company and its subsidiary, Bold Culture. At Streamlined, a media and creative services agency, he oversees internal operations as well as client relationships. The client list has included the New York Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs.

At Bold Culture, a business management and consulting firm, Martin develops cultural insight reports and offers diversity, equity and inclusion consulting for corporate clients including GCI Health, IDEO and M Booth.

Maybank, chief executive of the Maybank Group, a business and systems engineering consulting firm, has the same title at Strategic Links, a consortium he created that supports New York City businesses and Black-owned concerns nationwide. Strategic Links, which is evolving into a business accelerator, has been providing networking and empowerment for Black executives and entrepreneurs for more than a decade. Maybank, who was once assigned to lead a top-secret weapons project for General Electric and the Navy, has served on the alumni board of directors of the National Society of Black Engineers.

Mayers manages contracts, business affairs, litigation, intellectual property, regulatory matters and corporate governance for education technology company Turnitin.

Mayers, a first-generation American, says it is imperative to elevate the next generation of the Black community. Toward that end, she attempts to expose Black youth to a range of career possibilities by speaking to and mentoring students. She is on the advisory councils of the Foundation for the City College of New York and the Women in Law Empowerment Forum. She is a fellow at the American Bar Foundation, a nonprofit research institute.

McClammy, a partner in the civil litigation practice at Davis Polk, represents financial institutions, corporations, debtors and creditors in a range of matters including antitrust, securities, commodities, class-action lawsuits and bankruptcy-related litigation. He is representing Purdue Pharma in its bankruptcy, which has the largest claims pool of any such case in U.S. history. He is a member of his firm’s Black affinity group steering committee, which defines Davis Polk’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies in coordination with leadership.

McClammy is on the advisory board of Legal Outreach, which prepares New York City students from underrepresented communities for higher education and professional careers.

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Congratulations to Vincent Dunn On his recognition as one of the Crain’s New York Business 2022 Notable Black Leaders Law around the world nortonrosefulbright.com

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NOTABLE 2022 LENARD “CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD” MCKELVEY Chief creative officer, Black Effect Podcast Network

McKelvey—better known as “Charlamagne tha God”—has built a notable media empire.

The radio host and TV personality is a co-founder of Black Effect, a 51% Blackowned and 100% Black-staffed organization.

As its chief creative officer, he is responsible for driving and overseeing development projects. He co-hosts The Breakfast Club, a daily radio show listened to by 4.5 million people, and hosts the God’s Honest Truth podcast. He created the Mental Wealth Alliance, which strives to achieve equity by highlighting issues of Black mental health.

CHERYL MCKISSACK DANIEL President and CEO, McKissack & McKissack

McKissack Daniel is the fifth-generation owner of her family’s century-old business: McKissack & McKissack, the oldest minority- and woman-owned design and construction firm in the country. Under her leadership, the firm is involved in some of New York’s biggest projects including the New Terminal One at Kennedy Airport and the renovation of Coney Island Hospital’s campus.

Earlier in her career, she provided quality assurance and control for research projects at the U.S. Defense Department.

She is on the boards of the New York Building Congress Foundation and the Women Builders Council.

ERIC MCLENDON

FELICIA MEANEY

MELVA MILLER

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President and CEO, Clear National Title

Head of human resources, Piermont Bank

CEO, Association for a Better New York

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McLendon oversees the provision of title services for some of the largest and most complex commercial real estate transactions in New York City, setting the strategy and leading business development at Clear National Title, an insurance agency. He has spurred technological advancement at Clear, along with improvements in marketing communications and customer service. As a Black executive in an industry with few minority professionals in high-profile roles, McLendon encourages people from underrepresented groups to pursue careers in title services and commercial real estate through his involvement in professional organizations such as the New York Real Estate Chamber.

Piermont, a women-led institution founded in 2019 by Wendy Cai-Lee, is on a mission to change the face of banking.

To that end, its human resources chief implemented an inclusive hiring process that contributes to the diversity of the bank’s team. People of color make up half the staff. Meaney also develops Piermont’s talent strategies and initiatives. During the pandemic, she has played a crucial role in protecting the health and safety of employees while ensuring the bank’s business needs are met. In previous roles, at Scotiabank and architecture firm Gensler, she counseled leaders on aligning company policy and values, ensuring compliance and overseeing workforce planning.

Miller is entrusted with the overall success of the Association for a Better New York, a coalition of corporate, nonprofit, educational, health, cultural and government leaders that implements ideas to advance the city. Miller works on economic development, stakeholder engagement, strategic partnerships and membership expansion. She diversified ABNY’s board of directors and developed a plan to diversify the organization’s membership.

In addition, she implemented a community-based arts campaign in communities of color to tell stories of pandemicera resilience. Miller created the Jamaica Now Action Plan, an agenda for increasing quality employment, economic diversity and financial security in the Queens neighborhood.

NEW YORK STATE IS HOME TO MORE THAN 11,300 BLACK-OWNED BUSINESSES, WHICH TOGETHER EMPLOY 72,000 PEOPLE —MONEYTALKSNEWS.COM

CAROL MOODY

STEVE MYRTHIL

MICHELLE NICHOLAS

CYRILLE NJIKENG

RIGAUD NOEL

President and CEO, Legal Momentum

Vice president of information technology, Westhab

Senior vice president, chief diversity officer and director of community development, PCSB Bank

Managing director, Oyate Group

Executive director, New Settlement

As the managing director of Oyate, a nonprofit that fights poverty in underserved communities, Njikeng oversees a field team that works on a host of initiatives including vaccination campaigns, food distribution and gun buyback programs. Njikeng doesn’t hesitate to get out there himself: He has conducted door-to-door outreach to battle vaccine hesitancy and dispel myths regarding inoculation.

Njikeng recently produced a documentary telling the story of the pandemic in the Bronx through the lens of Oyate’s work.

He founded the My Sister Cares Foundation, which distributes computers, toys and clothing to children in African orphanages.

Noel is the voice of New Settlement, an organization that strives to improve housing and community development in the Bronx.

Noel builds and maintains relationships with stakeholders, including government officials, financial supporters and community partners, and he oversees an $8 million budget.

Seeking to improve the wellness of Bronx families, he led efforts to reopen New Settlement’s state-of-the-art community center. He raised funds to expand the organization’s services, which help individuals retain their agency in matters of education, employment and housing. Noel is a board member of the New York State Network for Youth Success.

Focusing on the intersection of racial justice and gender equality, Moody tries to advance educational, economic and gender equality each day. As the chief executive of Legal Momentum, which fights for women’s legal rights, she oversees the strategic implementation of the nonprofit’s mission. Under Moody’s leadership, Legal Momentum created a resource for low-income women that informs them of their rights. It fields hundreds of phone calls annually, providing free legal guidance through the Syms Legal Momentum Gender Equality Helpline. Moody spearheads the Rights Now! program, which gives young women of color knowledge on issues related to gender-based violence and discrimination.

Myrthil is committed to closing the digital divide and making online learning accessible to all. At Westhab, a nonprofit that addresses the affordable housing crisis, he leads efforts to meet the technological needs of more than 10,000 residents of shelters and affordable housing. He is scaling infrastructure design solutions to give residents reliable broadband access, for example.

Earlier in the pandemic, in a previous role at Excellence Community Schools, he led an educational technology strategy to support students through remote learning. Myrthil is a board member of the Ascenders, a group that provides collegeadvising support services to high school students.

Nicholas learned the importance of community development early, observing her parents’ dedication to their village in Guyana.

She has put that principle into action at PCSB Bank. She is responsible for the bank’s diversity, equity and inclusion competencies and for engaging the bank’s host community—all while advancing its business objectives. As a board member of the bank’s foundation, Nicholas reviews grant proposals for initiatives intended to meet local needs. She was the first Black woman to be the executive director of Girls Inc. in Westchester County, a role in which she standardized DEI efforts.

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ALEX NOETHER

ROBERT OKPALA

DR. PHILIP OZUAH

TANYA POPE

DANYALE PRICE

Expert associate partner, Bain & Co.

Partner, Buro Happold

President and CEO, Montefiore Medicine

Noether delivers change programs for some of the world’s most pre-eminent companies.

He designs diversity, equity and inclusion strategies and consults on social-impact matters. He is a leader in Bain’s pro bono consulting practice for nonprofits in the racial equity and social justice arena. He is co-champion of Black employee resource groups in Bain’s New York and Toronto offices. He launched OneTen, a coalition of 60 CEOs committed to hiring, training and promoting 1 million Black employees into roles that pay family-sustaining wages in the next decade. Noether spends several hours weekly mentoring Black colleagues at Bain.

Whether leading the team that delivered a sustainability plan for Battery Park City or working on the design team for Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business, Okpala engages with ambitious clients and top architects to integrate mechanical, electrical and plumbing solutions into built assets. At engineering firm Buro Happold, Okpala delivers sustainable commercial, public and higher education projects, often complete with smarttechnology frameworks.

As a trustee of the Happold Foundation, he develops programs that elevate new thought leaders and the next generation of Black professionals in the field. Among the most influential Black professionals leading large-scale sustainability planning in New York City, Okpala is lauded for bringing out the best in diverse teams.

Ozuah, a teacher, researcher and author, leads Montefiore Medicine, the umbrella organization for Montefiore Health System and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Ozuah oversees 40,000 employees across 13 hospitals in the Bronx and Westchester County.

He led a swift and nimble pandemic response across those institutions, working to provide positive health outcomes for communities stricken disproportionately by Covid-19.

Ozuah, a Nigerian by birth, was instrumental in creating an office of leadership, engagement and diversity at Montefiore that develops initiatives to help minority and disadvantaged students thrive in the medical professions.

Assistant vice president of supplier diversity, Columbia University

Chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison

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Under Pope’s direction, Columbia has paid more than $1.2 billion to minority-owned, woman-owned and locally owned business enterprises in the past decade. Pope oversees vendor sourcing, onboarding and performance reviewing at the university. In particular, she cultivates MWLBE contracting opportunities as a founding member of the Corporate Alliance Program, a publicprivate arrangement between New York City and partners such as Columbia. In 2017 Pope launched the CU Grow program at the university, a coaching initiative to help MWLBEs expand their contract portfolios.

She co-hosts a radio show during which she shares information helpful to small businesses.

Price joined Paul, Weiss in 2006 as its first full-time diversity, equity and inclusion professional.

Now as the law firm’s chief DEI officer, she is responsible for implementing efforts to ensure a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture. In addition, she is a DEI adviser for the firm’s growing environmental, social and governance practice. She recently launched a supplier diversity program, reimagining the vendor selection process to empower minority-owned businesses in New York.

In recognition of her DEI contributions to the legal profession, Price was honored in 2020 by the Association of Black Women Attorneys with the Ruth Whitehead Whaley Professional Achievement Award.

We Congratulate Our Partner

Martin Bell for his Recognition as a Notable Black Leader N E W YOR K

BE I J I NG

B RU S S E L S

HONG KONG

HOUST ON

L ON DON

LOS A NGEL ES

PA L O A LT O

S Ã O PAU L O

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WA S H I N G T O N, D. C .

FEBRUARY 21, 2022 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 27

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NOTABLE 2022 DENNIS PRUDE

MICHAEL PUGH

JOVIA RADIX

DON RICE

BRIAN ROBINSON

Executive vice president of field operations, CNY Group

President and CEO, Carver Federal Savings Bank

Vice president of legislation, Kasirer

CEO, Rice Financial Products

While growing up in a predominantly minority community in Detroit, Pugh witnessed the importance of financial education and small-business development.

Now, as Carver’s chief executive, he communicates to business leaders across the nation the importance of supporting economic empowerment in communities of color. He manages the overall equity of the bank and focuses on increasing access to capital and other financial services. With the Society for Financial Education and Professional Development, Carver amplifies financial education at three historically Black colleges. The bank provides free financial literacy training for minority- and woman-owned business enterprises.

At lobbying and government relations firm Kasirer, Radix advises clients on an array of legislative matters. She monitors and interprets City Council legislation and weighs in on legislative initiatives. She worked on the government relations team that helped pass the controversial New York Blood Center rezoning. Radix, vice president of the Brooklyn Women’s Bar Association and the editor of its newsletter, has operated a free youth tutoring and mentoring program for five years in conjunction with the Barbados Ex-Police Association.

During the pandemic, she has worked with the Caribbean American Lawyers Association to organize panels of local leaders to disseminate critical public health information.

Rice leads a firm with niche expertise in five areas: historically Black colleges and universities’ capital funding, municipal fixed income, institutional equity, corporate fixed income and infrastructure private equity.

As chief executive, Rice is directly involved in the day-to-day management of each of those practice areas. In the firm’s most recent fiscal year, it underwrote municipal bond issues totaling more than $100 billion. When the pandemic struck, Rice oversaw the firm’s sudden transition to a virtual environment and the continued growth of the firm’s business lines. He served on the governing board for the city’s Administration for Children’s Services, which oversees Head Start programs.

Head of prime brokerage sales for the Americas, Goldman Sachs

Since its inception, construction and developmentservices firm CNY has prioritized inclusion, fostering diverse work environments and cultivating opportunities for all its people. Prude embodies that mission. He assists Black professionals by mentoring, lecturing in schools and providing employment opportunities. More generally, he supervises hiring, training and staff development; coordinates assignments; serves on the strategic executive team; participates in approving logistical plans; ensures quality control; and monitors the workforce. He has overseen major residential, commercial, hospitality and institutional projects in the metropolitan area.

D S

C A

Robinson leads a Goldman Sachs team that develops financing and prime services relationships with asset managers, hedge funds and family offices across the Americas.

Robinson, a partner, is a senior sponsor for the Goldman Sachs Black Analyst and Associate Initiative. He mentors more than 30 Black professionals, both within the firm and without. Robinson is on the board of advisers for Launch With GS, Goldman’s $1 billion initiative to increase access to capital for diverse investors and entrepreneurs.

He sits on the board of the Guggenheim Museum.

o i

R d d i e f v I t c s s w o r a

WORLD WIDE TECHNOLOGY, THE LARGEST BLACK-OWNED BUSINESS IN AMERICA, HAS MORE THAN $11 BILLION IN ANNUAL REVENUE AND MORE THAN 5,000 EMPLOYEES —TIME.COM, BLACKENTERPRISE.COM

JERELYN RODRIGUEZ

DONALD RUFF JR.

DAVON RUSSELL

CEO, Knowledge House

CEO and interim president, Eagle Academy Foundation

President, WHEDco

The Knowledge House was founded in 2014 to close gaps in the education-to-employment pipeline by providing underserved young people in the Bronx with technology training, career support and a network of partners.

Rodriguez, a Knowledge House co-founder, directs a team responsible for development, programming, communications and human resources while she serves as the organization’s representative.

Rodriguez, an Aspen Institute Fellow, was named a Technology, Entertainment and Design 2020 Emerging Innovator. She was on former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s New York Workforce Recovery Strategy Group, and she sits on the New York City Employment and Training Coalition board.

Ruff leads the organization in its mission to support all-male college-preparatory schools, grades 6 through 12, in challenged urban communities.

He works with internal and external stakeholders, oversees a diverse staff and reports to the board of directors, all to improve the workforce readiness, financial literacy and social-emotional wellness of young men. In response to the pandemic, Ruff oversaw virtual post-secondary programming and facilitated the distribution of hundreds of learning devices. He has spoken at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Black Male Initiative Conference.

The Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corp. is a nonprofit with an ambitious mandate: build affordable and sustainable housing in a low-income urban area, provide afterschool enrichment for children, and support small businesses and cultural institutions such as the Bronx Music Heritage Center. Russell guides a staff of several hundred employees at WHEDco to achieve those goals for South Bronx residents. He expanded the reach of WHEDco’s afterschool programming, which formerly served 30 children and now serves 1,200. In addition, Russell developed a peer-topeer sex-education program for Bronx teens. He is board chair of the South Bronx Early College Academy Charter School, which he helped establish.

LARRY SCOTT BLACKMON Vice president of community affairs, FreshDirect; CEO, the Blackmon Organization

As a vice president at online grocery delivery service FreshDirect, Scott Blackmon is charged with expanding partnerships, cultivating new ones and serving as a company representative. His work builds on existing community partnerships at FreshDirect that work to fight hunger and improve nutritional education, among other endeavors. Scott Blackmon, who has two decades of experience in public service, community development and government, is also the chief executive of the Blackmon Organization, a public affairs and political consulting firm.

Scott Blackmon, an administrative consultant for former Mayors Bill de Blasio and Michael Bloomberg, was named to City & State’s 2021 Most Powerful of the Bronx list. He sits on the boards of 100 Black Men and the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Education Center.

WENDELL SCOTT

P

Senior vice president of sales, Disney

P c N

Scott oversees media and investment partnerships for the advertising holding companies WPP and Dentsu across Disney’s portfolio of streaming, digital and social properties.

They include ABC News, Disney Channels Worldwide, ESPN Networks, Hulu and National Geographic.

Working closely with agencies, Scott leverages Disney’s data, platforms and storytellers to drive growth in the brands’ businesses. He leads employee and career development as a member of Disney’s diversity, equity and inclusion executive committee in the advertising sales department. Scott is on the New York City board of Pencils for Kids, which helps children in developing countries attend school.

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C h

G w Y i i Y g s t w d B C W b

s

DR. BEVERLY SHEPPARD Chair of pediatrics, AdvantageCare Physicians

Sheppard oversees the care of more than 50,000 children in and near New York City. At AdvantageCare Physicians, a primary and specialty care practice, Sheppard manages more than 40 pediatricians.

Recognizing that routine doctor’s visits fell to the wayside during the pandemic, especially in Black communities, she established direct outreach to families to encourage standard vaccinations and checkups.

In response to misgivings toward medical establishments common in Black communities, she instituted staff cultural sensitivity training. Sheppard, who has more than 35 years of medical experience, has received several industry awards.

JAMES SIMMONS III CEO and managing partner, Asland Capital Partners

After a long real estate investment career, Simmons founded Asland in 2019. He now is responsible for the privateequity firm’s strategic direction and investment planning. The real estatefocused firm owns more than $1 billion in assets. It concentrates on urban revitalization and the preservation of workforce housing. Simmons is a board member of the Greater Jamaica Development Corp. and vice chairman of the Real Estate Executive Council. He mentors many first-generation college students, among others, and speaks frequently at universities, conferences and industry events.

PRISCILLA SIMS BROWN President and CEO, Amalgamated Bank

Amalgamated views itself as “America’s socially responsible bank.” Sims Brown tried to ensure that the bank fulfills its mission while increasing its market share and profits. To that end, she leads and encourages fellow employees to develop partnerships with progressive organizations and pursue sustainable financing.

Of the bank’s 10 impact areas, she is most vocal on voting rights; racial equity; antiviolence and gun safety; and climate justice. Sims Brown partnered with Cirque du Soleil to help homeless students graduate, and she worked to finance a large public housing complex for those in need. She is on the board of directors of Project Mercy, a nonprofit in Ethiopia.

DAWN SMALLS

SHELLEY STEWART III

Partner, Jenner & Block

Partner and director of the McKinsey Institute for Black Economic Mobility, McKinsey & Co.

With experience in law, government, politics and philanthropy, Smalls advises clients on complex legal, policy and regulatory matters. As a member of Jenner & Block’s management committee, she led a team last year that won two temporary restraining orders against the city in connection with the pandemic-related placement of homeless New Yorkers in hotels.

In 2019 she co-led a team that achieved a historic $65.5 million settlement for a class of 90,000 au pairs. Smalls is on the boards of the Roosevelt Institute think tank and the nonprofit Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture.

As a partner in McKinsey’s marketing and private equity practices, Stewart works with businesses from a range of sectors on marketing and sales initiatives.

Stewart also has a social impact: He is director of the McKinsey Institute for Black Economic Mobility, a think tank devoted to advancing racial equity and inclusion. In that role, he publishes research, convenes with thought leaders and stakeholders, and translates insights into tools for fueling economic growth in Black communities. Stewart is on the board of the National Black MBA Association, which empowers young Black professionals to achieve their business potential.

IN FISCAL 2019–2020, MORE THAN 2,000 BLACK-OWNED FIRMS ACHIEVED MINORITY- OR WOMAN-OWNED BUSINESS ENTERPRISE CERTIFICATION IN NEW YORK STATE —ESD.NY.GOV

PATRICIA SWANN

AISHA THOMAS-PETIT

Program director for thriving communities, New York Community Trust

Chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer, AMC Networks

At public charity New York Community Trust, Swann has focused on grassroots organizations in Black communities, particularly when it comes to grants. She helps lead the Census Equity Fund and the GoVoteNYC Fund. The former worked to ensure that New Yorkers were fairly counted in the 2020 census, which improved the odds of Black New Yorkers receiving needed government services; the latter sought to reverse a downward trend in voter turnout. Swann was the founding executive director of the Manhattan Borough Development Corp. She is on the Brooklyn Workforce Innovations advisory board.

At AMC Thomas-Petit works to ensure a diverse and inclusive environment in front of and behind the camera. As the brand’s first diversity, equity and inclusion officer, ThomasPetit develops and executes measures to achieve that goal across AMC’s workforce and portfolio of entertainment brands and streaming services. She oversaw the launch of an internal mentoring program, introduced DEI educational resources for staff and continued to work on pay-equity assessments.

Thomas-Petit launched Can We Talk About This? The on-air, short talk-show series is a forum for conversations about classic films with content considered culturally insensitive today.

ALLISON BROOKE TOMLINSON Principal and regional legal counsel, Gensler

From creating foundational documents to advising on employment law issues, Tomlinson plays an important role in the Northeast offices of design and architecture firm Gensler.

Tomlinson identifies and assesses risk by overseeing debt collection, contracts and negotiations, in addition to sustainability, compliance and ethics programs. She has been integral to negotiations involving complex multimillion-dollar master services agreements with clients in the financial services and health and wellness sectors.

She is co-chair of Gensler’s global race and diversity committee, and she is involved in efforts focused on the recruitment and retention of Black professionals. Tomlinson was named to the 2021 National Black Lawyers Top 100 list.

VINCE TOYE

JESSICA WALKER

Head of agency and off-balance sheet lending, JPMorgan Chase

President and CEO, Manhattan Chamber of Commerce

Within his first year at JPMorgan, Toye launched a business line with expanded financing solutions. He leads a team that provides commercial real estate clients access to a suite of lending and credit solutions through government-sponsored enterprise partnerships. He has worked on lending that helped developers finance projects to revitalize affordable housing and community centers in predominantly Black neighborhoods such as BedfordStuyvesant and Morris Heights.

He is a diversity, equity and inclusion lead for JPMorgan’s commercial real estate business and has spoken on related topics at industry events.

At the Chamber of Commerce, which represents and supports more than 100,000 businesses, Walker is responsible for managing operations, political advocacy, events and programming.

She is the chamber’s chief spokesperson, often representing the business community before government entities and the news media.

In response to the pandemic, she helped design and launch the Small Business Resource Network, which has provided free tools and technical assistance to 25,000 businesses across the city. Seeing the pandemic’s uneven impact on Black-owned businesses, Walker targeted the bulk of her organization’s outreach toward communities of color.

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NOTABLE 2022 TOMYA WATT

ANDRE WHITE

VALERIE WHITE

JACQUELINE WILLIAMS

KEITH WRIGHT

Chief diversity officer and vice president of talent acquisition, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

CEO and executive director, Phipps Neighborhoods

Executive director, Local Initiatives Support Corp. NYC

Partner, State & Broadway

Director of strategic planning, Davidoff Hutcher & Citron

By providing access to education and economic empowerment opportunities, White works to help Black people ascend.

He directs Phipps Neighborhoods, a nonprofit that helps families in low-income areas rise above poverty. White, who has nearly two decades of public service experience, is expanding the organization’s job training programs while creating initiatives to bridge the digital divide in the communities Phipps serves. He has guided the organization through the turmoil of the pandemic and has expanded its community support programs in response.

White is a board member of JobsFirstNYC.

White has focused her team on helping minority-owned small businesses weather the pandemic while working to close the racial wealth gap in the city. That fits within her broader LISC mandate: advancing a platform of racial and economic equity and securing affordable housing, economic and workforce development and health equity in underserved communities. White initiated a public-private partnership to increase opportunities for minority- and woman-owned development firms to bid on and secure public contracts. In her previous position, at the Empire State Development Corp., she was the executive vice president of the Division of Minority and Women’s Business Development.

Williams fights to improve the quality of life for low- and middle-income workers. She is the principal lobbyist at State & Broadway, a New York firm that specializes in providing political, legislative and communications consulting services to clients across a number of industries. Among Williams’ most notable accomplishments is the passage of Human Rights Law Intro 339-A, which extended fundamental employment protections to domestic workers in the city. She was previously a lobbyist at law firm Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein and a senior staff member in the state Assembly. Williams has been a member of the state’s MBWE team.

Wright counsels businesses, nonprofits and housing entities on ways to achieve their long-term goals. As part of the firm’s efforts to establish a cannabis practice, Wright recently offered guidance to those interested in entering the state’s burgeoning market. He was a New York assemblyman for more than two decades, during which he chaired the Black, Puerto Rican and Hispanic Legislative Caucus and sponsored efforts aimed at bolstering civil rights and assisting businesses owned by women and minorities. He is chairman of the board for the Addicts Rehabilitation Center in Harlem.

Watt endeavors to ensure that the workforce at Memorial Sloan Kettering reflects the patient population it serves. As vice president of talent acquisition and mobility, she oversees recruitment for thousands of hirings. After she became acquainted with the work culture, a diversity, equity and inclusion learning program—under the aegis of Watt’s office—was mandated for all staff. Watt also was behind an internal mobility function at the cancer center that’s designed to provide career opportunities for people of color. Under her direction, the institution has partnered with OneTen and other workforce diversity development programs. Watt is on the board of the Children’s Law Center.

Congratulations, Michelle, on being recognized as a Notable Black Leader by Crain’s NY Business!

How do you motivate

CHA NGE

W

Michelle A. Nicholas SVP | Chief Diversity Officer & Director of Community Development

“In my role at PCSB Bank I’m engaging with staff, customers and the communities we serve. I’m listening and learning so much about people with different needs and cultures, with the goal of making real changes that benefit everyone.”

in comm lieve un e b ity e

NEW YORK

fro m th

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The Incredibly Neighborly Commercial Bank

SERVING THE LOWER HUDSON VALLEY SINCE 1871 • 914-248-7272 • PCSB.com • Member FDIC 30 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | FEBRUARY 21, 2022

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FROM PAGE 1

BUCK ENNIS

Disgusting bathrooms lie at the core of rising complaints that parks and public places have become shabby and unsafe, said Adam Ganser, executive director of New Yorkers for Parks.

“Change that and you would change a lot about how people perceive the city,” he said.

Now it’s Mayor Eric Adams’ turn.

Encouragingly, he has pledged to double a Parks Department budget that accounts for 0.5% of city spending. Most cities spend from 1% to 4%, Ganser said.

But rather than address the problem head-on, the city, in familiar fashion, is nudging businesses to ease the restroom shortage by opening their own lavatories. Effective Jan. 21, the City Council required restaurants to open bathrooms to workers such as Antonio Soliz, who makes deliveries in Queens for Doordash and must sometimes race home to Astoria when he needs a bathroom. He says other delivertistas have it even worse.

“If you live in Queens and a restaurant in Manhattan wouldn’t let you use the bathroom, you had no chance,” Soliz said. “At least I work closer to home.”

More consequential, last year the council revised the plumbing code in a way that could force more businesses to make their restrooms available to most everyone. In response to the change, which takes effect in November, members of the business community are saying more public bathrooms are a must.

Help on this front will not be coming from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which closed all bathrooms in 76 subway stations at the start of the pandemic and has no plans to reopen them.

“It’s not a priority,” MTA CEO Janno Lieber said at a January hearing, citing safety concerns. “We are a transportation agency.”

That sort of buck-passing is all

ADAMS AND DAISLEY maintain the city’s cleanest restrooms, in Bryant Park.

too familiar to Steven Soifer, president of the American Restroom Association, a group that lobbies for posher potties.

“The state of a civilization can be judged by its public toilets,” he said.

“New Yorkers are literally stepping over feces because people have to eliminate somewhere. What’s going to be done about that?”

Biological-function taxes The first public toilets were built in New York in 1869, but they didn’t become widely available until Prohibition closed the saloons and caused a shortage of restrooms for the mostly male clientele. In the 1930s Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and Commissioner Robert Moses built or renovated 145 public “comfort stations.” Many still stand in city parks.

Things deteriorated in the 1970s with the city’s finances. Protests by feminists also played a role. In 1975 the Legislature banned pay toilets because men got urinals for free while women paid for stalls. Gov. Hugh Carey called the situation “a discriminatory tax on human biological functions,” and women held “stand-ins” to call attention to the inequity.

Today, fed up with 40 years of municipal failure to deliver more restrooms, some are describing the issue as a matter of menstrual justice.

“The absence of public bathrooms constrains the freedom of those who menstruate from participating in the public sphere,” said the authors of a paper published in November in the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law. Marni Sommer, a co-author and a professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, said the importance of public bathrooms became obvious when just about everything in the city closed and those venturing outside had few places to go when they needed to go.

“I hope people don’t forget what that felt like,” she said.

Back in 1990, Mayor David Din-

SOLIZ, a Doordash driver, races to his home in Astoria when he needs to go.

kins hired a German company to install 20 public toilets, but the plan went nowhere after advocates complained the facilities weren’t wheelchair-accessible, while others worried making them large enough would attract prostitutes. When Mayor Rudy Giuliani took aim at the issue, his staff was unable to find a vendor willing to outfit the entire city. In 2006 Bloomberg signed a 20-year contract to install up to 20 freestanding public bathrooms with Cemusa, a European company that envisioned making $1 billion in revenue from advertising attached to the units.

But only five bathrooms have been installed—in Madison Square Park, outside Prospect Park, plus in the Bronx, Queens and Upper Manhattan. Each costs about $4 million, and their doors lock for a minute and a half after each use for cleaning, making for an unpleasant wait.

Getting one installed requires permission from the city Department of Transportation, a community board, a City Council member, the Public Design Commission, then the City Council speaker and finally the mayor. Usually at least one authority balks, sometimes because it’s complicated to connect the bathrooms to plumbing but also out of fear the bathrooms will become magnets for the homeless and addicted.

“Most people assume a public toilet will be an eyesore and push against it,” said Dan Biederman, president of the 34th Street Partnership, a business group that pays for a public bathroom at Greeley Square Park. “My directors asked me gently not to do it.”

A Downtown Brooklyn community board tried to install one of the new public bathrooms in 2006, 2009 and again in 2013 before giving up.

“There was a lot of inertia,” said Carol-Ann Church, the board’s assistant district manager.

Stuck with unwanted inventory, Cemusa’s fortunes sank, and in 2015 it was acquired by France’s JC Decaux, the world’s largest outdoor advertiser (it also makes the city’s bus shelters). For years the 15 unused Cemusa bathrooms sat in a Queens warehouse. Their current whereabouts are unclear, a person familiar with the matter said.

to duck into businesses when they need a restroom. Most retailers and restaurants must provide one to anybody with a legitimate purpose for being on the premises.

But starting in November, bathroom doors could be flung open, thanks to a change last year in the plumbing code. The code used to say most businesses must allow “employees, customers, patrons and visitors” to use their bathrooms.

In 2020 the City Council amended the wording to say restrooms must be open to “the public.”

“What does ‘the public’ mean here?” said James Colgate, a partner at the law firm Bryan Cave

BUCK ENNIS

BATHROOMS

luminates the interior, making it difficult to spot a vein so junkies can’t park themselves inside and shoot up.

On the downside, the toilets don’t flush automatically or clean themselves. City officials were unreceptive to the pitch from sales manager Evan Madden.

“I literally couldn’t get through the front door,” he said.

Tourist-attraction toilets Amid the city’s hundreds of stinky public bathrooms, two stand out as pleasant: Bryant Park and the High Line. That’s no accident.

At both places, maintenance is paid for with private money, and staff keep things spotless.

Experts say the key to a successful public restroom is constantly swabbing the floor. Users tend to assume any liquid is urine.

“It requires a lot of attention,” said Biederman, who runs Bryant Park Corp., a business improvement district that manages the park.

“We’re trying to mimic the bathrooms at the Regency or Plaza.”

Biederman said his BID spends $256,000 a year keeping the Bryant Park bathroom clean. The cost is covered by assessing nearby businesses that belong to the BID. Biederman said he wants to install another bathroom by converting a park building.

The Bryant Park bathrooms are kept immaculate by full-time attendants Colita Adams and George Daisley. Visitors are welcomed with vases of fresh flowers. Mozart’s 41st symphony was playing on a recent morning. Sometimes the line is an hour long.

“The hardest part is when people want to brush their teeth, really clean themselves up, and I have to point at the sign saying they can’t do that,” said Adams, who is paid minimum wage plus benefits. “Two or three times a week someone gets belligerent and I have to call security.”

“I see business guys doing conference calls from the stalls,” Daisley said.

Both attendants see themselves as ambassadors for the city.

“We represent the city and everyone who lives here,” Daisley said.

“This is a tourist attraction. People take photos.”

“I want people to think New York is the world’s greatest city and has everything you want,” Adams said.

“Sometimes what you really want is a bathroom.”■

DISGUSTING BATHROOMS LIE AT THE CORE OF RISING COMPLAINTS THAT PUBLIC PLACES HAVE BECOME SHABBY AND UNSAFE

Defining ‘public’ With public toilets so scarce and smelly, New Yorkers have learned

Leighton Paisner and a former assistant commissioner at the Department of Buildings.

When informed of the looming code change, business owners were appalled.

“If a business wants to provide access to their restroom voluntarily, that’s great, but the government should not start mandating this and should instead build public toilets around the city,” said Andrew Rigie, executive director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance.

A Buildings Department spokesman said the revisions “aren’t meant to be read as instructions” for businesses and were made following recommendations from the International Code Council. But Colgate said the revised code could be interpreted to mean anyone must be allowed into the bathrooms of most businesses.

“If a mayoral administration wanted to read it that way, they could,” he said.

To relieve this uncomfortable situation, the city might consider the latest in street-toilet technology: the Portland Loo. A basic model, used in Hoboken and many other cities, costs just $130,000, although the final price would depend on the cost of connecting it to plumbing.

The Portland Loo has big advantages over older models of public toilets. Louvers make it clear when someone is inside and help maintain privacy. The sink is outside to keep the line moving. Blue light il-

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CLASSIFIEDS CLASSIFIEDS

Advertising Section Advertising Section

To place a classified ad, Call 212-210-0189 Contact Claudia Hippel at 312-659-0076 or email: claudia.hippel@crain.com or Email: classifieds@crainsnewyork.com

INVITATION TO BID

Invitation to Prequalify and to Bid Rehabilitation and Flood Mitigation of the New York Aquarium, Brooklyn, NY: Turner Construction Company, an EEO Employer, is currently soliciting bids for the Rehabilitation and Flood Mitigation of the New York Aquarium from subcontractors and vendors for the following bid packages: BP #057– Existing Conditions Scan to BIM Services (Bid, Payment & Performance Bond Required) BP #053 – Security/Fire Watch Services (Bid, Payment & Performance Bond Required) BP #058 – Temporary Sanitary Facilities (Bid, Payment & Performance Bond Required) BP #047 – Tile Flooring (Bid, Payment & Performance Bond Required) BP #049 – Mirrors & Glazing (Bid, Payment & Performance Bond Required) Only bids responsive to the entire scope of work will be considered and, to be successful, bidders must be prequalified by Turner. Certified M/WBE and Small Business (13 CFR part 121) companies are encouraged to submit.

In order to receive the bid packages, potential bidders either (1) must initiate the prequalification process by submitting a Subcontractor/Vendor Prequalification Statement to Turner, or (2) must be prequalified based on a prior submission to Turner. (Note: Prior prequalification submissions that remain current will be considered as previously submitted or may be updated at this time.) All bidders must be prequalified by the bid deadline: March 7th, 2022 and initial submission of a prequalification statement not later than March 7th, 2022 is strongly encouraged. All bidders must have an acceptable EMR, and will be subject to government regulations such as 44 CFR and Federal Executive Order 11246.

Successful bidders will be required to use LCP Tracker compliance verification software. Note that while this is a New York City prevailing wage project, union affiliation is not required for BP #057, #053, #058, #0447 or #049.

A Webcast about the above Bid Package/s will be held on February 11, 2022. Attendance is optional for all; the Webcast is designed to assist potential M/WBE subcontractors/vendors.

Link: Please join this meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone.

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetupjoin/19%3ameeting_NDJmNmIxYjktODNiOC00NjZjLTllZDMtZjhhMDdjNDUwNmM5%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3 a%2220e27700-b670-4553-a27c-d8e2583b3289%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22732a90ce-24b7-42eb-bf78-d638e2a629ac%22%7d

To obtain further information about contracting opportunities and/or the prequalification package and bid solicitation package/s, please contact Dolores Wooden, lspangel@tcco.com 646-842-1659.

The date for the virtual public opening at the Turner Construction Company office located at 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York, is March 8th, 2022 9 AM Link: Please join this opening meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone.

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetupjoin/19%3ameeting_MDI0Mzk3MWUtYmE0Mi00Y2MxLTg0ZmQtYWIyYWMyNjgwZjli%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b %22Tid%22%3a%2220e27700-b670-4553-a27c-d8e2583b3289%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22732a90ce-24b7-42ebbf78-d638e2a629ac%22%7d

POSITIONS AVAILABLE Technology Portfolio Manager (Citadel Americas Services LLC – New York, NY); Mult. Pos. Avail.

Employ a fundmntl invstmnt process to pick stocks in the Tech sector. F/T. Reqs a Bach degree (or foreign equiv) in Finan, Econ, Math or a rel quant field & 1yr of exp in the job offered or in manag’g invstmnts in the tech sector. Must have 1yr of exp in each of the follow’g: Utiliz’g math models & techniques to analyze comp data & forecast trends; Evaluat’g invstmnt risk & structur’g portfolios; Integrat’g vendor APIs to aggregate & process data for rsrch & trad’g; Cover’g a min of 40 stocks in a specific sub-sector; & train’g & manag’g jr invstmnt professionals.

Exp may be gained concurrently.

Resumes: citadelrecruitment@citadel.com. Ref JobID: 5555384.

Principal Consultant (PA Consulting Group, Inc. – New York, NY) Mult pos avail. Lead client projct workstrms using validated & reliable psych methods to design & deliver employee-centric practices complex & large-scale transformat’n programs. Analyze qual & quant human-centered data, lead & design client workshops & train’g programs, dev & implement strategies & plans. F/T. Apply w/resume to MaryAnn Bettencourt at maryann.bettencourt@paconsulting.com.

Ref. JobID: 5484052.

Research Systems Associate (Citadel Americas Services LLC – New York, NY); Mult. Pos. Avail. Partner with Investment Analysts, Portfolio Managers, & the internal tech specialists to des & implement innovative tools that enhance the investment process, portfolio construction, & risk management for the sector investment teams. F/T. Reqs a Bach degree (or foreign equiv) in Fin, Stat, Engin, CS or a rel field. Edu, train’g, or exp must include the follow’g: perform’g fundamental analysis or public markets invest’g; maintain’g detailed income statement models & relevant market data spreadsheets in MS Excel or sim; programm’g with SQL, VBA, Linux/Unix or sim; & build’g customized analysis & data visualizations using built-in functions, aggregation, lookups & creat’g dashboards, or Tableau. To apply please submit resume by email to citadelrecruitment@citadel.com and reference JobID: 5898082.

Engr III Cslt-Data Science needed by Verizon in New York, NY. Daily video advertising measurement and optimization. To apply, email resume vz-apply@verizon.com. Please refer to Job # YKZHEY.

PUBLIC & LEGAL NOTICES NOTICE OF FORMATION OF Eugene Business Consulting, LLC. Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/27/2021. Office location: NEW YORK County.

SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against it may be served. The Post Office address to which the SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC served upon him/her is: 8711 92nd Street, Woodhaven NY 11421. The principal business address of the LLC is: 8711 92nd Street, Woodhaven NY 11421.

Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Qualification of 83LEONIS LLC. Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/07/22. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 11/29/21.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Ajaypal Singh Banga, 875 5th Ave., Apt. 19A, NY, NY 10065. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808.

Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, Div. of Corps., John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of Impactive Solutions, LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/14/21. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Georgia (GA) on 02/09/18. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Registered Agent Solutions, Inc., 99 Washington Ave. Ste. 1008, Albany, NY 12260. Principal office address: 301 E Lamar St #6, McKinney, TX 75069. Arts of Org. filed with the Secy. of State, State of GA Secy. of State Corporate Division, 313 West Tower, 2 Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr., Atlanta, GA 30334-1530. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Qualification of Fulton RE Holdings LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/14/21. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 12/01/21. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Ilyse Dolgenas, Esq., Withers Bergman LLP, 430 Park Ave., 10th Fl., NY, NY 10022. Address to be maintained in DE: 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Arts of Org. filed with the DE Secy. of State, Division of Corporations, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Qualification of ESNY BEACON LLC. Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/05/22. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Florida (FL) on 08/29/19. Princ. office and FL addr. of LLC is: 900 5th Ave. South, Ste. 202, Naples, FL 34102. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. Cert. of Form. filed with FL Secy. of State, 500 S. Bronough St., Tallahassee, FL 32399. Purpose: Investments for profit of a general nature, including real estate, land, closely held business entities, and any other lawful business activity allowed by law.

Notice of Qualification of DERBY BLISS 68, LLC. Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/14/22. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 11/24/21. Princ. office of LLC: 41 Madison Ave., 40th Fl., NY, NY 10010. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Investing.

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PUBLIC & LEGAL NOTICES Notice of Application for Authority of FLLC: Tinicum Venture Partners I GP LLC Application for Authority of FLLC filed with SSNY: 12/10/2021. The jurisdiction of the co. is DE, it was formed on 11/22/2021. Office location in NYS, NY County is 800 3rd Ave. 40th flr, NY, NY 10022. SSNY desig. as agent of the FLLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY can mail process to c/o Tin. Enter. Inc. 990 Stewart Ave, Ste 580, Garden City, NY 11530.

The address of the principal office of the Co. in DE is 1209 ORANGE STREET, WILMINGTON, DE 19801. Name & address of the auth. officer in DE where a copy of the Articles of Organization of the FLLC is filed at SOS JEFFREY W. BULLOCK, 401 FEDERAL STREET, STE 4 DOVER, DE 19901. Purpose of company is any lawful activity.

ed

Off The Rip LLC Arts. of org. filed with NY Secy. of State (SSNY) on 9/16/20. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail process to:105 West 125th Street #1048 NY, NY 10027. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of 400 CAPITAL ASSET BASED ONSHORE TERM FUND III L.P. Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/30/21.

Office location: NY County. LP formed in Delaware (DE) on 05/18/21. Princ. office of LP: 510 Madison Ave., 17th Fl., NY, NY 10022. Duration of LP is Perpetual.

SSNY designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. Name and addr. of each general partner are available from SSNY. DE addr. of LP: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of LP filed with Secy. of State of the State of DE, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Gomez Personal Custom Prints LLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 10/10/21. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to 429 Orchard St, Englewood, NJ 07631. R/A: NY Registered Agent LLC, 90 State St, Ste 700, Ofc 40, Albany, NY 12207.

Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of Qualification of 400 CAPITAL JSIF IV GP LLC. Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/30/21. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 06/11/21.

Princ. office of LLC: 510 Madison Ave., 17th Fl., NY, NY 10022.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of the State of DE, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of CLAMPETT PHYSICAL THERAPY (NY), PLLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/06/21. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: C T Corporation System, 28 Liberty St., NY, NY 10005. Purpose: to practice the profession of Physical Therapy.

Notice of Qualification of DOUP PARTNERS LLC. Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/13/22. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 09/17/21.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. 3, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Raymond Realty Group LLC, Arts of Org filed with SSNY on 07/17/18. Off Loc: New York County, SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail a copy of process to: The LLC, 17 Catherine St, Unit 13, New York, NY 10038. Purpose: to engage in any lawful act.

Application for Authority of ABL RPC RESIDENTIAL CREDIT ACQUISITION LLC filed with the Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 2/1/2022. Formed in DE on 7/22/2020. Office loc.: NY County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. The address SSNY shall mail copy of process to 30 Montgomery St., Ste. 215, Jersey City, NJ 07302. The office address required to be maintained in DE is The Corporation Trust Company, Corporation Trust Ctr., 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of formation filed with the Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., #4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

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cases, however, business slackened almost immediately.

For the week that ended Feb. 2, office occupancy in the metropolitan area was at 25.8%, down from 37% the week of Dec. 1—the highest figure last year, according to Kastle Systems, which collects security card data.

Six in 10 employers surveyed by the Partnership for New York City said they expected average daily attendance in Manhattan offices to exceed 50% by the end of March, ac-

half of the prepandemic level. But weekends are busier than before, Karasyk said, and though numbers for this month are not yet official, she said it was obvious from walking around the neighborhood during the past two weeks that workers were back and residents were out and about. She recalled getting on and off the subway in recent days and having to squeeze past people again: “That’s a good sign.”

Sightseers and cubicle jockeys At the Crowne Plaza, business guests finally have permission from their firms to gather, Beck said.

For the first time in a long while, he sees big groups at lunch, a sign of office workers co-mingling.

“We are seeing more eight- and 10tops,” he said— much larger tables than last year or in 2020, as teams of previously remote employees get together, sometimes for the first time ever.

Broadway shows are also behind this month’s sold-out weekends, he said. When shows reopened in September, it was like a light switch turned on for the hotel. And though cancellations occurred in December and January, the rebound this month has been swift, he said.

“The leisure traveler is starting to realize if they want to get New York at these good prices, they have to do it now,” he said.

“I’M HEARING GOOD THINGS ABOUT MARCH, BUT I’M A LITTLE AFRAID” cording to responses gathered between Jan. 10 and Jan. 18. That is a quick turnaround. In December 75% of employers delayed return-to-office plans, and 22% closed offices to nonessential employees.

“Human beings need to collaborate,” said Samara Karasyk, president of the Hudson Square Business Improvement District. “We have companies in our neighborhood in biotech and media that need to be together.”

A January count showed that about 30,000 people walked through the area on an average weekday,

Attendance and gross sales at theaters are still just two-thirds of prepandemic levels, but they have begun to climb after late December show cancellations and early January doldrums. For the week ended Feb. 13, capacity averaged 87% at 148 shows. Total attendance was 165,971, compared with 249,720 the same week in 2019 and 240,602 the second week of December.

The audience is not necessarily heading out after the show, however. There used to be a big pop after curtain call, but evenings seem to end earlier, said Jeremy Merrin, founder and CEO of the Havana Central Restaurant and Rum Bar on West 46th Street. Still, each week since mid-January, sales have grown steadily, he said, and they have quickened since Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the end of a statewide indoor mask mandate Feb. 9.

Broadway’s two-thirds-of-theway-back pace rings true at P.S. Kitchen, a vegan spot on West 48th Street where general manager Jeffrey LaPadula said he’d noticed a similar change. Sales in early December were about 90% of prepandemic levels, he said, but they crashed later in the month to just 20% of a similar period in 2019.

Now they are climbing back up to 70%, driven by orders from Broadway performers, crew members and ticket holders as well as office workers and tourists who Google “vegan restaurants” from their Midtown hotel.

“We might get all the way back by the spring,” LaPadula said.

Part-time patrons The ground-floor businesses in areas from Hudson Square to Midtown need more than a good sign.

They need lots of people dropping in to spend money.

In Midtown East, the elongated recovery has led to a doubling of vacancy rents at ground-floor businesses. More than 20% are empty, compared with about 10% prepandemic, according to Rob Byrnes, president of the East Midtown Partnership.

It’s the same on the West Side, where Myzel Chocolate, a 30-yearold store on West 55th Street, almost closed for good. There, Polish immigrant Kamila Myzel maintained steady sales of truffles and licorice to tourists on their way to Central Park or locals heading to City Center or Carnegie Hall. On nights when those venues stage productions, the candy store stays open late.

But when tourism dwindled and office workers stopped coming, the street emptied out. Soon Myzel owed months of rent, according to Betsy Bober Polivy, creator of the Manhattan Sideways project, which tracks businesses on the city’s side streets. Bober Polivy helped Myzel, who is not internet-savvy, raise $90,000 on GoFundMe. Myzel needs more than the occasional tourist or part-time office worker in order to pay rent on the

400-square-foot store. She needs busy streets and lines out the door, Bober Polivy said.

Yet that may not be in the cards.

Just 16% of employers in the Partnership for New York City survey said daily average attendance in the office exceeded 50%, and 40% said they wouldn’t have more than half of their people on site until after June 30, if ever.

Coming back to the office once a week “isn’t going to do it from the small-biz perspective,” Bober Polivy said.

The governor agrees. At a recent meeting with business leaders, Hochul admonished executives to “tell everybody to come back” and to “give ’em a bonus to burn the Zoom app and just come back to work.”

The governor reiterated the sentiment during a recent news conference, saying she wanted commuters to return to offices in New York City as soon as possible.

Without workers back at the large companies within about 10 blocks surrounding Havana Central, happy hour is lagging, Merrin said. Whereas waves of workers used to crowd the bar three-deep, now there is almost no gathering.

The part-time approach is likewise not a “sustainable economy” across town, said Byrnes of Midtown East. He hopes crowds return soon, he said.

“I’m hearing good things about March,” he said, “but I’m a little afraid I’ll get my heart broken again.” ■

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SMALL- BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT

BUCK ENNIS

STOUT patrons take in a match Feb. 12.

FOCAL POINTS

Downtown sports bar embraces its fighting spirit

COMPANY NAME Stout NYC FOUNDED 2005

Stout’s Financial District spot builds its clientele by showing pay-per-view UFC matches for free

OCCUPANCY OF FIDI LOCATION 200 patrons

BY GRIFFIN KELLY

GROWTH STRATEGY The bar chain covers the cost of broadcasting UFC fights at its Financial District location, established in 2014, to attract fans of the growing sport.

S

ultan Inniss and Johnny Goldman sat at the bar with heads slightly tilted up toward the screen where Dominick Cruz had just out struck Pedro Munhoz for a decision victory at UFC 269. Around them, nearly 200 other Stout customers did the same.

“I came here pretty much all of 2019 to watch these fights,” Inniss said. “There are a lot of sports bars out there, but not a lot of [mixed martial arts] bars. It can be a little bit of a scramble to find one that shows the fights for free.”

When compared to the viewership and revenue of sports like baseball, football and basketball, mixed martial arts and its lead promotion, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, still have a way to go. Stout is looking to cater to an emerging fan base and capitalize on the sport’s growing success.

Shinobu Ridley, a partner in the franchise of five Manhattan bars, said the company established its Financial District location in 2014 with the intent of attracting MMA and more traditional sports fans. This was at a time when the sport’s major names, including Ronda Rousey, José Aldo and Jon Jones, were bringing in a whole new audience.

Stout’s team had noticed a buzz around MMA on social media, and the FiDi location was

next to a UFC gym at the time.

“It took about a year to really build a good business around it, but [now] we are well known for showing UFC here,” she said.

Bar boost Unlike plenty of bars that charge a cover for pay-per-view events, with the prices charged to establishments based on occupancy, Stout does not pass the roughly $2,000 cost along to its customers.

“It’s absolutely an investment on our part,” Ridley said. “It’s about building the guests for us. Our UFC clientele are repeats. We have a lot of the same people coming in.”

The strategy has paid off. According to Ridley, on a Saturday night when Stout shows a UFC payper-view match, the bar sees a 25% increase in food and drink sales compared to any other night of the week.

“If it’s a really huge fight like with Khabib [Nurmagomedov] or Conor McGregor, it’s more like 30% to 35%,” she said.

The fights bring in capacity crowds who don’t have to purchase the ESPN+ streaming service to watch each pay-per-view event at

home. In 2020 and 2021, a dedicated fan who bought every match on PPV would’ve spent roughly $900 per year.

UFC didn’t always have the popularity it does today—with fans or advertisers.

“In the early days, trying to sell the UFC was like trying to sell cancer,” said John Meindl, a Farmingdale State College lecturer who runs SportsBrandedMedia. “The idea of having your logo on the mat and having someone bleeding all over it, it was hard for the big potential sponsors to deal with.”

One UFC event was held in Buffalo in 1995, but two years later, Gov. George Pataki signed a bill outlawing the sport. The organization adopted a unified rules system in 2000, gained major sponsors such as Anheuser Bush and Coca-Cola and released four video games with EA Sports.

By 2016, Meindl said, New York realized it was missing out on tremendous amounts of money in potential tax revenue and tourist spending for matches set in venues such as Madison Square Garden, for example, and lifted the ban.

The organization’s first show at MSG saw

“IT’S ABSOLUTELY AN INVESTMENT ON OUR PART. IT’S ABOUT BUILDING GUESTS”

BUDGET BENEFIT On a Saturday night when Stout shows a UFC payper-view match, the bar estimates that it sees a 25% increase in food and drink sales.

WEBSITE stoutnyc.com McGregor TKO Eddie Alverez for the lightweight belt and become the first double champ in UFC history. The event garnered the Garden’s biggest gate ever at nearly $18 million. It also created 300 jobs, paid $1.6 million in taxes to the state and generated $37.4 million in total economic output, according to figures provided by the UFC.

Word of mouth To promote the fights it shows, Stout opts for the standard digital marketing of email blasts, website updates and social media posts, but manager Danielle Armstrong said it relies mostly on word of mouth.

“A lot of people just seem to know that we’re the spot to watch these,” she said. “Not a lot of places show UFC, but we’ve been pretty consistent. Since 2014 we’ve shown every single pay-per-view.” ■

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