Housing for Generations

Leonard Litwin’s introduction to apartment construction came as a landscaper. In the 1950s, he and his father ran a small landscaping business that serviced the interior courtyards of New York apartment buildings. It was the building owners’ hope that these aesthetic improvements would make their poorly rented properties more appealing to tenants. After seeing the success their labors achieved, the Litwins decided to stop landscaping courtyards for others and begin building and renting properties themselves.

More than 50 years later, this father-son business conceived in a landscaping truck is one of the most successful high-end real estate management companies in New York City. Glenwood Management Corp. focuses on building and managing rental properties almost exclusively in Manhattan. Read more

An Eye for Improvement

David L. Picket has put his personalized stamp on a family real estate enterprise started four generations ago. His great-grandfather, Nathan Picket, founded the Gotham Organization, Inc. in 1913. Today, the company develops, builds, owns and operates properties throughout the city. Nathan’s grandson, Joel I. Picket, currently serves as chairman and CEO. Great-grandson David Picket practiced law after college and finally joined Gotham in 1991. He became president in 1999 and now oversees development.

Picket focuses on luxury rentals, but he still deals with aspects of the division where he first began working: affordable housing. Read more

All in the Family

Joe O. Brusco has never lived on the Upper West Side, but he knows it better than most.

“I grew up in the [family] business. Starting at 8, 9 years old, I was handing my father nails. I worked all through school, high school, in the summers—all on the Upper West Side.”

Brusco, his wife of 26 years and their five children live in Westchester. But he’s deep in the West Side neighborhood. As a property owner and manager of the Brusco Group (they also operate under the name Westside Management Corp.), he no longer pounds nails. He is the oldest of three brothers, and all are involved in the business in some capacity. Read more

A CITY HIGH-RISER

REAL ESTATE ROYALTY

Growing up in New York City, Susan M. de Franca got a firsthand look at real estate.
The oldest of four sisters, she grew up in a real estate family with a father who was a real estate owner and manager, and a mother who was a residential real estate broker.

“I suppose you can say that real estate is in my blood,” de Franca said

Since then, de Franca has become a force of her own in the Read more

BUILDING FROM THE GROUND UP

REAL ESTATE ROYALTY

Shlomi Reuveni remembers paying $950 per month for his first Manhattan apartment. Needless to say, the units with which he currently works as the senior managing director and executive president of Brown Harris Stevens would have been just a tad out of his price range at that time. Reuveni now deals with the high-end real estate market, where properties are geared toward a wealthy clientele, like at 15 Union Square West, where units will go for around $4 million each. Read more