By David Gibbons

That the financial crisis is over and our economy is in full recovery is old news—at least from the viewpoint of several high-profile real estate insiders, all experts on the downtown market.
“The word ‘recession’ is not even used in the last six to nine months,” said Andrew Barrocas, CEO of MNS, a real estate brokerage firm specializing in residential properties. “We’re far out of that.”

For the fourth quarter of 2012, the MNS report on new development sales showed solid overall gains on a quarterly and yearly basis. While the Upper West Side topped closings (65), two downtown neighborhoods, Battery Park City (48) and Chelsea (46), were strong contenders. All other areas south of 34th Street showed lively activity, with rents still high and sales prices exceeding pre-crisis levels.

“Downtown is mimicking the rest of the market,” said Lori Ordover, CEO/founder of the Ordover Group. “The big issue is a lack of inventory.”

According to The Corcoran Report, total available listings in Manhattan reached their lowest number in more than seven years during the past quarter.

Residential development stalled in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers (September, 2008); significant numbers of new properties are not expected to crop up for several years.

“It’s a very tight market,” said Gary Malin, president of Citi Habitats, a leader in NYC sales and rentals.

The crux of the matter is liquidity: Larger institutions, such as banks involved in real estate, have been slower to rebound and remain cautious about lending. The purse strings are still tight, both for developers seeking to obtain financing and potential buyers hoping to secure mortgages. The days of huge luxury condo towers selling out to eager buyers based on nothing more than a floor plan, a virtual tour and a dream are over. Nevertheless, the brokers are optimistic.

“The overall big picture for downtown Manhattan is very positive,” said Ariel Cohen, exclusive agent for 75 Wall Street, a 346-unit luxury condo high-rise on the market since 2009. Given his stake in the area, Cohen is understandably bullish.

“Lower Manhattan has been an ongoing, emerging category since 2004,” he said. “Chelsea and Tribeca have already emerged. Battery Park City is a very mature market. Now, in the Financial District, we are heavily emerging.”

“I live in Tribeca, and every day I get seven or eight postcards from brokers saying, ‘I could sell your apartment.’ I know that, but I don’t want to move,” Ordover said. “I love living downtown. I think it’s the most vibrant part of the city.”

Cohen said that sales at 75 Wall Street picked up “dramatically” in the second quarter of 2012; the building is now more than to 60 percent sold. At an average of $1,220 per square foot, its remaining units compare well: “A husband will call me and say, ‘My wife wants to live in Tribeca, but please tell me what you have in the Financial District.’” Even on the fringes of Tribeca, Cohen points out, prices are in the $2,000 range. Both Barrocas and Malin agree, comparing the Financial District favorably to Greenwich Village for value—and adding the Lower East Side.

Another strong indicator for downtown is its preponderance of first-time buyers and young families, many from other parts of Manhattan. Ordover marvels at the stroller gridlock on West Broadway and stiff competition for exercycles at her favorite spinning class. “They’re starting to call the Financial District the Diaper District,” Cohen joked. “Our buyers run a big gamut,” he said. “It’s not just your Wall Street-driven clientele.” Both note many positive signs for the community, including good new schools opening; Condé Nast’s impending move to the new World Trade Center tower; and plans for a downtown performing arts center.

For “affordable” new development downtown—i.e., in the range of $1,500 to $2,000 per square foot—Barrocas looks east from the Bowery to the river. “Obviously, the development process takes time,” he said. “Two, three, four years out, I can only predict numbers being stronger than they are today.” He noted the Seward Park Mixed-Use Development Project for nine city-owned lots along Delancey Street, approved last September, as a potential game-changer in the area.

A museum-going love for the fine arts, incisive curiosity, intellectual rigor—these are not traits immediately associated with successful shoe salesmanship. Robert Goldberg puts them to good use, however, as the current scion of a family that, for three generations, has brought the Upper West Side one of its favorite retail businesses, Harry’s Shoes.

On a recent day at the store, Goldberg, 49, a self-proclaimed “low-key guy,” wore glove-soft leather loafers with no socks and a calm expression, despite the surrounding bustle. With his relaxed demeanor and quiet intensity, there’s no doubt he inherited his father’s enthusiasm, though perhaps from a different angle.

“I’ve always had a fascination with people’s different perceptions historically, with learning many different points of view,” said Goldberg, who studied political science and art history at Vassar. “There’s also a curiosity about how people achieve creativity through their workmanship. I love the concepts of footwear patterns and last shapes and how they express fashion or function.” He adds that he takes an “almost academic” approach, always striving to increase his knowledge, which gets him excited and makes him better at his job.

“I’m impassioned about this business,” he said. “I’m just a very interested party, highly motivated when it comes to understanding the product itself and also consumer trends. I love what I do. There’s a lot of emotion, a lot of pride, a lot of enjoyment.”

Goldberg’s grandfather Harry founded the business in the Bronx in 1931. His father Joseph opened a branch in Manhattan in 1975. A modest giant among footwear retailers, Joseph was a beloved community figure, kind mentor and common-sense philosopher who passed down much wisdom and shoe-selling savvy. He had a knack not only for connecting with customers but for recognizing trends and promoting sales.

“My father and I built this business together,” said his son. “He was already here, obviously, but we took it to the next level.”

Outgrowing their original store at 83rd and Broadway, they opened a kids’ branch half a block north then hatched plans to expand the main shop from 2,800 to 6,800 square feet and transform it into a sleek 21st-century emporium. Joseph stayed active in the business into his eighties, working there frequently until just a few weeks before his death in March. Sadly, he did not live to see its reopening in early September, though he could go to his grave knowing his legacy was secure.

“My father was my life coach,” said Goldberg. “That about sums it up. He was the best man at my wedding. He was a very close, dear friend, a wonderful man and a great consigliere. Anyone who knew him loved him. He was a really great guy, and he’s sorely missed.”

By the time Goldberg went to work for his father at 23, he had already amassed considerable experience. During high school and college summers, he sold shoes at Stadler Florsheim and Barney’s. After graduation, he enrolled in the management training program at Macy’s. “When you’re in a small business,” he said, “you do everything: You sell, you do stock work, you manage the floor. When I first came to work for my dad, I was already well-versed in all that. So it was a natural transition.”

It’s too soon to tell whether Harry’s great-grandchildren will carry on the legacy. Goldberg’s sister, Randi Goldberg Wasserman, helps run the business; they each have two children—all school age.

“Randi and I would both be thrilled if future generations take over,” he said. “But it would have to be their decision because it’s a business of passion. You do it because you want to, because you’re interested, you enjoy people, you enjoy the product, you want to study it, you want to learn.”

The first thing you notice about Nancy Easton is the sparkle in her eyes and then the crinkle in her smile, sure signs of the eternal optimist who won’t take no for an answer and relishes a tough challenge.

Easton’s mission, through Wellness in the Schools, a nonprofit she founded in 2005, is not only to promote the notion that improved diet and exercise lead to better academic achievement and enhanced individual potential, but to put it into practice. Easton acts as the “coach”—the program’s teaching face and athletics consultant—and Bill Telepan as “cook”—its chief of sourcing, developing and implementing new school lunch recipes.

“It’s the passion and energy that Nancy brings to this project that makes it work,” said Telepan, known for his eponymous restaurant on West 69th Street. “There are a lot of roadblocks, but she doesn’t let them stop her.”

Telepan and Easton met as fellow parents at P.S. 87 and she soon convinced him to join WITS, which now operates in 40 New York City public schools as well as 14 in Kentucky and Florida.

Easton, 46, has the lithe physique and buoyant stride of the elite college athlete she once was: Recruited to play soccer at Princeton, she also ran track, setting a school record at 800 meters and anchoring a 4 x 800 relay team at the national championships.

After earning her master’s degree at Bank Street, Easton taught at I.S. 370 on the Lower East Side, where 99 percent of students were at poverty level and many struggled: “They would walk into the school with a bottle of soda and a bag of chips for breakfast. Then they ate a processed meal for lunch. The same kids couldn’t focus in class, couldn’t walk a flight of stairs without catching their breath. This was the ’90s and no one was really talking about it at the time

“We were kids teaching young kids,” said Easton, a Miami-area native. “We would take them biking after school or hiking on weekends, and they couldn’t keep up. It was just so bizarre to me, as someone who grew up running around.”

Easton’s family ate figs and mangoes from their backyard. Her mother tended garden and put health food on the table; friends and neighbors called her “Nature Lady.” Easton’s father is a self-made man who started with a dry-cleaning business and eventually became a successful real estate developer. “I attribute that positive can-do attitude to him. If you wanted to do something, you were going to do it and do it well.”

Nancy the Eternal Optimist admits to an ingenuous false naiveté: When she’s trying to get to “yes,” she’ll often conveniently behave as if “no” doesn’t exist. Asked whether she needs a realist on staff for balance, she chuckles, “Yes, that would be Marjorie [Wolfson], our director of programs. I joke that when we’re crossing the street together and the sign says ‘Don’t Walk,’ she always stops and I just keep walking.”

But there’s more to it than just forging ahead: “If the cook in the kitchen or the woman who runs the school gives us feedback that it’s not going well, we don’t gloss it over. Listening to the problems and continuing to work through them is another important trait.

“It’s not just about changing lunch,” said Easton. “We need to talk about why we changed it, to cook with the kids, cook with the parents, teach them about nutrition, so they understand why they’re not getting chicken fingers.”

Beethoven and Bernstein—as in Ludwig van and Leonard—aren’t a bad place to start for an aspiring young classical musician who wants to study conducting. Those two musical giants were Cynthia Elliott’s idols as a Stanford freshman and prospective music major.

There was also Seiji Ozawa, who headed the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra just 30 miles to the north. Elliott had the privilege of performing under maestro Ozawa’s direction with the Stanford Choir. After a summer at Tanglewood, when she rubbed elbows with a coterie of high-powered international prospects, she reflected on her own ambitions and decided to go into arts management.

“I realized I had neither the talent nor the fire in the belly required to pursue a peripatetic career as a conductor,” she said. “Plus, I also had the third strike against me—my gender. Unfortunately, that is still true to a large extent in the business.”

Fast forward about a quarter century, and we find Elliott, now mature and at mid-career, a VP for new media and editorial services at Sony Classical at a time when the record industry was imploding. “I said to myself, I’d really like to get back to the stage, where the art is being created, and to the nonprofit world, which seemed more stable [ironic chuckle].”

The Upper West Side and Symphony Space have these twists of fate to thank for sending Elliott their way and roping in a passionate, driven and extremely capable director for the tantalizing and eclectic program at this distinguished neighborhood performing arts center. Elliott, 59, has been with the organization for nine years, as executive director until 2010 and now as president and CEO, ultimately responsible for putting on 350 original shows per year.

The satisfaction of tackling the job and her joy at its thrills remain unabated: “I love all the arts so it’s ideal for me because I can go from music to theater to dance to film to literature,” she said. “And the music itself encompasses everything from classical to jazz to Broadway to rock ’n’ roll and world music.

“I found out that what I wasn’t so good at as an artist, I was quite good at from a business standpoint, which is to approach problem-solving from a strategic point of view. I enjoy that kind of chess game.

“What I like most about my job is being able to go downstairs and attend any performance or any rehearsal and hang out with the artists. The most challenging part is putting the finances together because there’s never enough money, and there’s always increasing demand.”

Elliott grew up on the Upper East Side, attended the Chapin School and then Ethel Walker in Connecticut. She currently lives in Soho with her husband Douglas Rice, a painter whose day job is running his own high-end residential construction firm; Rice is also chairman of the board of the Bronx Museum. “In my personal life, I’m actually in a very fortunate position right now in that my kids are grown up and I don’t have to worry anymore about getting home every night for dinner,” said Elliott. “I have a husband who likes to go out at night.”

So what’s a medievalist with Ph.D. expertise in a mid-14th century civil war that brought the first bastard king to the throne of Spain by dint of propaganda doing running the New-York Historical Society?

The answer is she has a prodigious talent and infectious enthusiasm for drawing her audience in by weaving fascinating historical narratives. In other words, she’s a helluva storyteller.

Equal parts schmoozing fundraiser, museum curator, exhibition promoter, advocate for education and community booster, Louise Mirrer, in her eight years as president and CEO of the N-YHS, has presided over a remarkable renaissance, including a three-year renovation that reopened the institution, literally and figuratively, to the public last November.

“Quite a lot of my activities, including fundraising, are based on my abilities to tell a good story,” Mirrer said. “If I didn’t have an almost mother’s milk love for the history of the city and history in general—the really remarkable power it gives you to know things about the past—I just wouldn’t be able to make a case for supporting this institution. It’s New York’s first and oldest museum. But knowing that is just totally insufficient to engage people. The truth is they love a good story.”

After saying hello to Abraham Lincoln or Frederick Douglass on the way in, visitors to the society’s landmark building at 77th Street and Central Park West are invited to view Mirrer’s brainchild, an inspiring 18-minute film that covers the 400-year history of the city in broad, bold strokes.

Mirrer, 59, is a fourth-generation New Yorker, born in Brooklyn Heights, brought up in Great Neck. “I come from a long line of people—certainly on my mother’s side—who have been very interested and involved in culture,” she said. She has fond memories of spending nearly every weekend in the city with her grandmother, Katherine Friedelbaum, who was a mainstay at the Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs well into her eighties.

“In my generation, growing up in New York, there was nothing to do on Sundays because everything was closed—all the shops, the stores, the supermarkets. But the museums were open, and I have endless recollections of standing in line to go in,” she said.

While researching her Ph.D. thesis on city history, Mirrer’s mother introduced her to the historical society as a library; only later did she discover it was also a museum. The credential that most likely spurred its trustees to the hiring decision was Mirrer’s highly successful seven-year stint as provost of the CUNY system, where she was impressive at furthering the university’s mission of engaging as many New Yorkers as possible in higher education. She notes that more than half of CUNY’s students are immigrants or children of immigrants; so she was delighted to promote the telling of the American story, to make U.S. history a graduation requirement and to hire faculty to teach it.

Asked which historical figure she would most like to meet, Mirrer does not hesitate: “Alexander Hamilton, because he’s the quintessential New Yorker. He prefigures all those who would come here for the same reasons he did—penniless orphaned immigrants from places like the West Indies or Southern or Eastern Europe. He came here for education and for economic opportunity.” She proceeds to spin a tidy narrative of how they’d sit down at the Tontine Coffee Shop, an important early 19th-century hub near what is now the South Street Seaport, and discuss several issues of great concern to Hamilton, among them taxation and slavery, and in the process tells a good portion of Hamilton’s “amazing story.”