Jed Walentas

For decades, David and Jed Walentas’ Two Trees Management Company has holed up in Brooklyn, building up the neighborhood of Dumbo almost on its own, along with other sites in the borough.

But now the family is seeking to move forward on its first Manhattan development in 30-plus years, as Two Trees has entered the city’s seven-month public approval process for a planned 900-unit rental apartment building on 11th Avenue and 54th Street.

So far, it doesn’t appear that it will be all smooth sailing for the Enrique Norten-designed building, an eye-catching white-and-gray, Z-shaped tower that steps upward in height from east to west.  read more »

During a June 18 appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Steven Roth, New York real estate kingpin and the chairman and CEO of Vornado Realty Trust, suggested that a President Barack Obama could lead the United States out of its economic imbroglio.

“President Obama comes in, O.K.—that’s not a political prediction by the way, this is just a fantasy—and somehow or other, he does what he says he was going to do. He gets us out of the war,” began Mr. Roth in his heavily inflected New Yorkese.

In Mr. Roth’s imagined course of events—related to a deeply skeptical roundtable of pundits—the future president would use the billions of dollars that aren’t wasted overseas, coupled with increased tax revenues, to pay down the deficit.  read more »

Location: How long have you been working with your father, David?

Mr. Walentas: Since ’97.

And before that you were with Donald Trump?

For a year.  read more »

Check out this eye-popping new rendering of the Walentas family's $600 million Clinton Park development planned for Manhattan's far West Side, on 11th Avenue, between 53rd and 54th streets.

The Walentas family released this new rendering of the mixed-use development, complete with this sinuous spine of gardened terraces, a car dealership on the ground floor, and about 900 rental apartments on top.  read more »

A fire broke at 110 Livingston today (original news here, Curbed link here), so we called Jed Walentas, the building's developer.

"Not a big deal," he promised. "The electrician's shanty caught fire." So maybe the building's dark history with the Board of Ed will still be its biggest problem.