At
the
Desk
of:
D
aniel Blanco had just started focusing on Lower Manhattan real estate when the area was decimated by the World Trade Center attacks in 2001. For years after that, business was slow going. But now Blanco, a principal at Broad Street Development — which develops, owns and manages properties — is bullish on Downtown. Blanco — who cut his teeth with legendary commercial broker Ed Gordon — co-founded Broad Street in 2004 with Raymond Chalmé. And as the
Daniel Blanco company name suggests, their portfolio is indeed broad. The firm behind projects like Maison East on the Upper East Side and 184 Thompson in Greenwich Village is now building 25 luxury condos at 209 Sullivan Street, the former home of the Children’s Aid Society. It also owns commercial properties, including 55 and 61 Broadway. This month, the devout Catholic and self-described “obsessive compulsive” showed TRD around his office at 61 Broadway. B y G uelda V oien
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This framed artwork by Blanco’s older
daughter, Josephine, 11, reads “I love you dad. My heart breaks when you aren’t around.” Blanco said his kids (his younger daughter, Amanda, is 9) are great at manipulating him. “They get whatever [they] want,” he said. “I don’t even fight.”
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This photo of then-Gov. George Pataki with
during his childhood — reading the dictionary.
Blanco in front of 75 Broad Street was taken
Blanco, who grew up in Middle Village, Queens,
in 2003. The governor was announcing that
said that he thinks his dyslexia helped him become
Millennium High, a public school, would move
a successful entrepreneur. “They doubt you; [they]
to the 35-story office building, which was owned
think you are stupid,” he said. “It drives you.”
by JEMB Realty, where both Blanco and Chalmé
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worked before launching Broad Street. But Blanco
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said the governor’s announcement jumped the gun
his ongoing projects in piles around his desk.
because “there was no contract or lease signed.”
He also has 5,500 subfolders in his email and
cause after Chalmé’s father died of the disease a few
multiple cell phones, he said. “I have such bad
years ago, just weeks after being diagnosed.
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Blanco is a huge fan of comic book action
movies as these figurines attest to. Superman, Pitt, the Tasmanian Devil and the Hulk are posed next to a statue of Spartan King Leonidas I, who was the Greek hero depicted in the movie “300,” which was adapted from a comic book. Blanco saw last summer’s blockbuster comic book flick “The Avengers,” three times.
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Blanco keeps correspondence on each of
OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) that I make piles,” he said. “But I find everything.”
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This 2003 photograph of Blanco with former
New York Archbishop Cardinal Edward Egan
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Blanco has numerous plaques for philanthropic
was taken at an event for Teach NYS. Blanco, who is
work he’s done with the nonprofit Uniting Against
Catholic, and Chalmé, who is Jewish, participate in
Cancer. He got involved with the
the interfaith education charity. While he considers
Lung
himself devout, Blanco said he doesn’t always make it to church. “I sin a lot, unfortunately.”
This signed photograph of rapper Jay-Z was a
gift from a close friend who knows the rap artist, Blanco said. He is a devotee of the Brooklyn-born musician as well as of fellow rapper Kanye West.
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This “word of the day,” calendar is a vestige
of the treatment for dyslexia that was widely used 24 January 2014 www.TheRealDeal.com
PHOTOGRAPH OF DANIEL BLANCO FOR THE REAL DEAL BY JEREMY WILLIAMS