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October 16, 2011
‘Designs’ on women send city big packin’
New York Post
By Josh Margolin and Rich Calder
James Stuckey, who was the lead for the Atlantic Yards project, has left his current job because of alleged sexual harassment. Apparently, this was the case as well when he suddenly left Forest City Ratner in 2007.
The president of the city’s Public Design Commission abruptly quit late yesterday as The Post was preparing to reveal he had been ousted from his day job at NYU because of accusations he had sexually harassed women at the university.
James Stuckey, 57, an appointee of Mayor Bloomberg, held the unpaid post as president of the design commission since 2007, after three years as a member of the commission.
Bloomberg spokeswoman Julie Wood declined to elaborate on Stuckey’s one-sentence resignation letter, but insisted his decision to step down was “voluntary.”
Stuckey’s resignation from the city panel came two weeks after he abruptly quit his job as dean of NYU’s Schack Institute of Real Estate. University spokeswoman Paola Curcio-Kleinman said Stuckey quit for “health” reasons.
Sources briefed on the situation said NYU officials forced Stuckey out after confronting him with the harassment accusations.
...
“This man should not be in a position of public trust and judgment,” said one former ranking city official with deep knowledge of Stuckey’s alleged history of harassing female subordinates. “He’s been doing this a very, very long time. There’s a pattern of this behavior. He’s a very competent guy, technically speaking. But his historical Achilles heel is this stuff.”
The NYU episode echoed Stuckey’s surprise exit four years earlier from mega-development firm Forest City Ratner Cos., where he led the firm’s controversial Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn and its effort to move the New Jersey Nets to the Big Apple.
Stuckey was ousted by the company’s CEO, Bruce Ratner, in early 2007 after a series of complaints had been made against him by female employees, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of what happened.
Ratner, sources told The Post, resisted the idea of getting rid of Stuckey until some of his top lieutenants threatened to quit after an ugly incident at a 2006 Christmas party.
According to company sources, Stuckey took all of his subordinates to a club and then called a number of women employees into a private room, where he had them sit on his lap as though he were Santa Claus.
NoLandGrab: A rather good source predicted this outcome.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, A scoop from the Post: allegations of sexual harassment provoked Stuckey's departure from jobs at NYU and FCR; Ratner's influence got him NYU position
Finally, a media outlet has published an explanation for why Jim Stuckey, Forest City Ratner's former Atlantic Yards point man, and then head of the NYU Schack Real Estate Institute, departed both jobs in a similarly hasty fashion: allegations of sexual harassment.
While a source--I'd bet one connected to Forest City--called Stuckey "very competent" professionally, this might cause some reporters who trusted Stuckey to have some second thoughts about his overall character.
Maybe, for example, the New York Times's Nicholas Confessore and his editors recognize that it might not have been wise, in 2005, to unskeptically convey Stuckey's notorious assertion that "It's Orwellian, almost" to question the company's purported transparency regarding Atlantic Yards.
And it might remind them that Forest City Ratner was involved in some serious damage control, massaged by p.r. fixer Howard Rubenstein, when Stuckey resigned.
Gothamist, City's Head Of Public Design Quits Amid Sexual Harassment Rumors
The former dean of NYU's Schack Institute of Real Estate, and Forest City Ratner's ex-point man on the Atlantic Yards project, has abruptly resigned his unpaid post as the head of the city's Public Design Commission. Sources tell the Post that 57-year-old James Stuckey, who claims he left NYU a few weeks ago for "health reasons," allegedly quit because of repeated sexual harassment claims. "All I can say is I left for health reasons and there's really nothing to say," Stuckey told the Post. Is "hot blooded" a health condition?
"He's been doing this a very, very long time," the source says. "He's a very competent guy, technically speaking. But his historical Achilles heel is this stuff." After spearheading the Atlantic Yards project, Stuckey was allegedly fired from Forest City Ratner after one of Bruce Ratner's "top lieutenants" threatened to quit following an incident at a 2006 Christmas party. According to the source, Stuckey "took all of his subordinates to a club and then called a number of women employees into a private room, where he had them sit on his lap as though he were Santa Claus."
Because it would cause a "PR nightmare" to fire him in the middle of the Atlantic Yards project, Ratner reportedly helped Stuckey get the job at NYU, as Ratner is a member of the Schack Institute's board. Mayor Bloomberg's spokesman declined to comment on Stuckey's resignation other than to say it was "voluntary." No word on whether anyone has applied for a permit to build a Christmas-themed strip joint called The North Pole.
Posted by steve at October 16, 2011 12:03 AM