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Mark interviews journalist Steve Cuozzo. · The Mark Simone Show

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  Speaker 1: It's the Mark Simon Show Live from the w o
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  Speaker 1: R Life Back Studio. Well, Steve Cuso, the great column
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  Speaker 1: Listen to the New York Post. Nobody better on real estate,
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  Speaker 1: on restaurants and what's going on in New York. You
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  Speaker 1: can read all of his columns. They're all up on
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  Speaker 1: the New York Post website. Steve Cuzo, how you doing.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, Good morning, Mark?
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  Speaker 1: Hey, Now tell us the truth. Everybody will tell you
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  Speaker 1: New York is dying. Nothing but empty storefronts everywhere. What
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  Speaker 1: is the real deal?
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  Speaker 2: The real deal is that we ain't dying, at least
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  Speaker 2: not yet, as long as well in New York. We
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  Speaker 2: survived nine to eleven, survived the Wall Street crash, we
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  Speaker 2: survived COVID, we survived all these things. Question is whether
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  Speaker 2: we can survive mayor Mom, Donnie your new pal there
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  Speaker 2: I see from the Yeah, Mark, anyway, I'm glad to
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  Speaker 2: know he has a sense of humor. He does. But anyway,
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  Speaker 2: so everything you know, I happen to live on the
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  Speaker 2: Upper east Side. Privilege, I get it, okay, but not
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  Speaker 2: all of the Upper east Side is rich wherever I go,
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  Speaker 2: and not only there, but through the village I was
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  Speaker 2: in Brooklyn on the Saturday Lavonia Avenue. And it's remarkable
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  Speaker 2: for a city. If we follow the media, you know
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  Speaker 2: we're in terrible crisis. There are all these strains, there's
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  Speaker 2: all those underlying anguish and everything. And yet guess what,
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  Speaker 2: it's amazing how peaceful everything is. Nobody's getting knifed or stabbed.
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  Speaker 2: Businesses are booming for the most part, and you know,
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  Speaker 2: it's great. And you know, if you look at look
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  Speaker 2: at Brian Park, one of the great places in the
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  Speaker 2: city and one of the great parks in the world,
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  Speaker 2: urban parks in the world. It's so popular that you've
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  Speaker 2: got two different restaurant companies fighting over the restaurant. You know,
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  Speaker 2: it's called the Brian Park Grill. And this is one
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  Speaker 2: of the strangest stories I've ever called. Because there's a
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  Speaker 2: company there called Art Restaurants. They've run the Brian Park
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  Speaker 2: Grill for thirty years. Their lease was up last year.
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  Speaker 2: Their landlord, which is the Bryant Park Corporation, declined to
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  Speaker 2: renew their lease. They want to bring a new operator.
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  Speaker 2: The new operator will probably be Jean George or Vanka Richton.
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  Speaker 2: And there are many, many complications to this whole story.
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  Speaker 2: We have limited time, so I'm not going to get
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  Speaker 2: into them. But basically, Brian Park Grill is still there
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  Speaker 2: without a lease. Bryant Park Corporation got a court order
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  Speaker 2: allowing them to begin eviction proceedings. That's going to take
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  Speaker 2: a long time. And meanwhile, Jean George, one of the
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  Speaker 2: great chefs in the world and his company would love
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  Speaker 2: to be there. And it typifies the energy in the
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  Speaker 2: restaurant scene, and not only restaurants scene, but in the
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  Speaker 2: public realm. You know, Brian Park is a great landmark
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  Speaker 2: at a great location, and right now it's one of
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  Speaker 2: the best places in the world to be. A couple
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  Speaker 2: of days from now, it's going to be one hundred
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  Speaker 2: degrees so maybe a little less desirable, but that affects
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  Speaker 2: everyone and everywhere. So it's a great time to be
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  Speaker 2: in New Yorker. No matter what anybody says.
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  Speaker 1: The greatest ns run tours, whether it's John George or
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  Speaker 1: Danielle or all these danny they keep opening more and
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  Speaker 1: more and more places in New York City. So they
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  Speaker 1: must know something. They must have faith in this city.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, or they're making a big mistake. But you know,
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  Speaker 2: the days of Overexpansion in the city or over. I
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  Speaker 2: don't see guys like the ones you mentioned of opening
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  Speaker 2: restaurants all over the place. When they do open, it's calculated.
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  Speaker 2: They're very careful. They know the market. They hire the
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  Speaker 2: best people to run them. So, for example, in Brooklyn,
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  Speaker 2: now is On George's company and his CEO, Lois Readman
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  Speaker 2: have the new restaurant ABC Kitchens, which is it's in
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  Speaker 2: Brooklyn Bridge Park and it's a combination of three of
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  Speaker 2: Von Garrickton's restaurants branded as ABC. There's ABC that It's
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  Speaker 2: already won the Design Award. It's enormously popular. But they
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  Speaker 2: chose that place very carefully. They're not just opening all
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  Speaker 2: the yeah, just to say, hey, we've got a restaurant.
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  Speaker 1: This is how good Steve Cuser is. He's the only
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  Speaker 1: man on earth that can pronounce John George's last name.
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  Speaker 1: What is it again, Von, I've worked on that for years.
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  Speaker 2: I can't get it, good old French name.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, now, what about retail. Is retail making any kind
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  Speaker 1: of comeback?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? It is. I wrote about to this. Today a
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  Speaker 2: Real Estate Board of New York has a new survey
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  Speaker 2: and it's a balanced acknowledged that there was still album box,
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  Speaker 2: by and large, it's doing. Retailers is a good shape.
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  Speaker 2: Retailer is hard to measure. It's not like office space
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  Speaker 2: where everybody has access to the same data. It's easy
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  Speaker 2: to measure. You know, this building has a million square feet,
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  Speaker 2: this company releases half of it. That's not true in retail.
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  Speaker 2: The spaces are all different sizes. When people talk about well,
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  Speaker 2: you know there are only ten vacancies on a certain
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  Speaker 2: stretch of an avenue, ten vacancies. Those vacancies can be
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  Speaker 2: six hundred square feet or they could be sixty thousand
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  Speaker 2: square feet and I'm exaggerating, but only a little very
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  Speaker 2: hard to quantify overall, My sense is that this isn't
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  Speaker 2: from the real estate board. This is my own two cents.
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  Speaker 2: It's very healthy. There's one of the problems with New
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  Speaker 2: York City retail is that there's too much space because
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  Speaker 2: over the last twenty five thirty years, lots more new
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  Speaker 2: space was created, and at the same time that there
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  Speaker 2: was downward pressure on demand for brick and mortar stores
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  Speaker 2: because of obviously online the shopping. So you've got all
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  Speaker 2: this new space and places like the World Trade Center
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  Speaker 2: of Hudson Yards, Brookfield Place on Manhattan West, all these
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  Speaker 2: different areas with hundreds of thousands of square feet to
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  Speaker 2: be filled, and there are only so many stores to
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  Speaker 2: go around. All that said, it's in very good shape.
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  Speaker 2: You go to neighborhoods like Soho, you can't believe how
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  Speaker 2: densely packed it is with every kind of store from
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  Speaker 2: all over the world. You go to the meatpacking district
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  Speaker 2: and you see that it's hard on Ninth Avenue, the
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  Speaker 2: meatpacking district. Baccarat has moved their flagship from Madison Avenue
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  Speaker 2: to Ninth Avenue. That says a lot about the strength
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  Speaker 2: health of the market.
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  Speaker 1: And also apartment rentals. The rental market is booming. Condo sales,
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  Speaker 1: even on the high end are doing well.
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  Speaker 2: Right Yeah, I mean, I lived on First Avenue in
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  Speaker 2: the seventies. There's a building that just went up on
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  Speaker 2: Second Avenue. It's pretty much around the corner for me,
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  Speaker 2: Second Avenue in seventy seventh Street, and it doesn't have
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  Speaker 2: a name. Once they just gave it a nice it's
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  Speaker 2: the number of the street something in East seventy seventh
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  Speaker 2: Street and none of these silly names. But the developers
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  Speaker 2: there Mickey knough Tali who really knows what he's doing.
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  Speaker 2: And he's the guy that brought the Plaza Hotel back
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  Speaker 2: after it was sold years ago. And this building, as
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  Speaker 2: I read this a week ago, had the highest sale,
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  Speaker 2: highest price sale of any residents in New York City.
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  Speaker 2: It was like some crazy number, thirty forty million. I
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  Speaker 2: don't know, that's amazing. That's on Second Avenue. Think about that.
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  Speaker 2: You know, we're not talking Park, We're not talking Madison,
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  Speaker 2: the seventy nine street. So yeah, the market's great. How
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  Speaker 2: much affect.
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  Speaker 3: The rent Guidelines Board decision will have, you know, not
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  Speaker 3: allowing landlords of rent stablis departments to raise rents.
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  Speaker 2: For another year or two or whatever it is. I
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  Speaker 2: think it's a stupid and self defeating stroke that will
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  Speaker 2: have the effect. It's not going to help anybody. If
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  Speaker 2: you live in a rent stay boys department. It means
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  Speaker 2: it will save you a couple of dollars over two
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  Speaker 2: years not to have your rent increase by your legal percentage.
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  Speaker 2: At the same time, it will discourage landlords from making
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  Speaker 2: necessary repairs, maintaining their buildings properly, and it will also
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  Speaker 2: encourage landlords to keep apartments off the market in the
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  Speaker 2: expectation that when this all passes, they can get a
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  Speaker 2: much higher rent, so they don't want to commit to
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  Speaker 2: a lower artificially lower rents now, which of course has
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  Speaker 2: boomerang effect. It doesn't help people looking for apartments. It
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  Speaker 2: hurts them by reducing the infantry. Yeah, that's New York
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  Speaker 2: for you.
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  Speaker 1: Well, but I'm glad to hear things are better, much
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  Speaker 1: better than they're being portrayed. And that's good news. And
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  Speaker 1: you can see all of Steve Cuzo's columns just go
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  Speaker 1: to the New York Post website. Just typed in his name,
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  Speaker 1: but you'll see column after column, really interesting stuff. And
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  Speaker 1: Steve Cuzo, thanks for being with us.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks Mark, always great to be on.
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  Speaker 1: All right, take care, Yeah, rental market booming. I always
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  Speaker 1: like to check the hotels, the major hotels in New York,
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  Speaker 1: the big ones. Just check the hotel prices, just you know,
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  Speaker 1: try look at how much your room is. You see
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  Speaker 1: fifteen hundred, eighteen hundred, two thousand a night, that's when
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  Speaker 1: you know some of the city's doing well. That's where
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  Speaker 1: you know a lot of tourists are coming in when
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  Speaker 1: the rates are that ridiculously high. Hey, don't forget coming
• 9:59
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