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October 11, 2007
Atlantic Yards got GIRL POWER!
Two familiar faces landed on the "100 Crain's Most Influential Women in NYC Business" list, Forest City Exec MaryAnne Gilmartin and ACORN Director Bertha Lewis.
DEVELOPER WITH KEEN STYLE SENSE
MaryAnne Gilmartin, Forest City Ratner
MaryAnne Gilmartin, executive vice president of Forest City Ratner Cos., is about to change Brooklyn forever. She is spearheading the colossal Atlantic Yards project, a $4 billion development that includes an arena designed by Frank Gehry, a 511-foot tower and 6,400 residential units. It ranks among the city's most important projects so far in the new millennium.
That Forest City CEO Bruce Ratner gave Ms. Gilmartin the job reveals her stature in real estate. With the Renzo Piano-designed New York Times building, she showed the field that it was possible to do a speculative project with a top-tier architect. Other developers are now following her lead.
Ms. Gilmartin, 43, says the paucity of female developers made it easier to carve out a space in her own style, which includes an artistic sensibility. She sits on the advisory board of the New York City Ballet and is a member of the Architectural League of New York.
"I've helped create a new image for developers," she says. "Women have a place in this world, and they can be authentic here."
— Elizabeth MacBride
NoLandGrab: Overdevelopment with style, that should ease the authentic concerns of women in Brooklyn.
A BELIEVER FIGHTS THE GOOD FIGHT
Bertha Lewis, New York ACORN
Bertha Lewis has a passion for left-wing politics, and feet that are not at all pretty. Ms. Lewis, the executive director of the New York Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has logged thousands of miles collecting signatures, walking picket lines and getting out the vote.
Along the way, she has become the leader of a grassroots force that can make or break many a well-crafted business deal.
Ms. Lewis, 56, started down the road almost 20 years ago, fighting successfully for everything from squatters' rights to a higher minimum wage. In 1998, she helped found the union-allied Working Families Party.
The WFP is as much a lobbying group as it is the choice on a ballot line; politicians of all stripes routinely seek Ms. Lewis' endorsement.
"Once a year, I'm a popular girl," she says. "These are people that otherwise wouldn't bother to spit on me."
Ms. Lewis has recently used her clout to help derail one controversial development plan, Starrett City, and assist another, Atlantic Yards. This past summer, she helped 60,000 child care providers win the right to unionize.
Her vision extends beyond New York: Ms. Lewis is helping groups in half a dozen states establish liberal third parties of their own.
— Elizabeth MacBride
Is Bertha Lewis's grassroots street cred undermined by being on a most-influential-in-business list, or did that go out the window when she struck an affordable-housing deal with Forest City's Bruce Ratner, where most of the "affordable" units would be out of reach for her own group's core constituents?
Posted by lumi at October 11, 2007 9:15 AM