00:00:00
Speaker 1: It's the Mark Simon Show Live from the w o R Life Back Studio. Well, Steve Cuso, the great column Listen to the New York Post. Nobody better on real estate, on restaurants and what's going on in New York. You can read all of his columns. They're all up on the New York Post website. Steve Cuzo, how you doing.
00:00:21
Speaker 2: Hey, Good morning, Mark?
00:00:22
Speaker 1: Hey, Now tell us the truth. Everybody will tell you New York is dying. Nothing but empty storefronts everywhere. What is the real deal?
00:00:30
Speaker 2: The real deal is that we ain't dying, at least not yet, as long as well in New York. We survived nine to eleven, survived the Wall Street crash, we survived COVID, we survived all these things. Question is whether we can survive mayor Mom, Donnie your new pal there I see from the Yeah, Mark, anyway, I'm glad to know he has a sense of humor. He does. But anyway, so everything you know, I happen to live on the Upper east Side. Privilege, I get it, okay, but not all of the Upper east Side is rich wherever I go, and not only there, but through the village I was in Brooklyn on the Saturday Lavonia Avenue. And it's remarkable for a city. If we follow the media, you know we're in terrible crisis. There are all these strains, there's all those underlying anguish and everything. And yet guess what, it's amazing how peaceful everything is. Nobody's getting knifed or stabbed. Businesses are booming for the most part, and you know, it's great. And you know, if you look at look at Brian Park, one of the great places in the city and one of the great parks in the world, urban parks in the world. It's so popular that you've got two different restaurant companies fighting over the restaurant. You know, it's called the Brian Park Grill. And this is one of the strangest stories I've ever called. Because there's a company there called Art Restaurants. They've run the Brian Park Grill for thirty years. Their lease was up last year. Their landlord, which is the Bryant Park Corporation, declined to renew their lease. They want to bring a new operator. The new operator will probably be Jean George or Vanka Richton. And there are many, many complications to this whole story. We have limited time, so I'm not going to get into them. But basically, Brian Park Grill is still there without a lease. Bryant Park Corporation got a court order allowing them to begin eviction proceedings. That's going to take a long time. And meanwhile, Jean George, one of the great chefs in the world and his company would love to be there. And it typifies the energy in the restaurant scene, and not only restaurants scene, but in the public realm. You know, Brian Park is a great landmark at a great location, and right now it's one of the best places in the world to be. A couple of days from now, it's going to be one hundred degrees so maybe a little less desirable, but that affects everyone and everywhere. So it's a great time to be in New Yorker. No matter what anybody says.
00:03:22
Speaker 1: The greatest ns run tours, whether it's John George or Danielle or all these danny they keep opening more and more and more places in New York City. So they must know something. They must have faith in this city.
00:03:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, or they're making a big mistake. But you know, the days of Overexpansion in the city or over. I don't see guys like the ones you mentioned of opening restaurants all over the place. When they do open, it's calculated. They're very careful. They know the market. They hire the best people to run them. So, for example, in Brooklyn, now is On George's company and his CEO, Lois Readman have the new restaurant ABC Kitchens, which is it's in Brooklyn Bridge Park and it's a combination of three of Von Garrickton's restaurants branded as ABC. There's ABC that It's already won the Design Award. It's enormously popular. But they chose that place very carefully. They're not just opening all the yeah, just to say, hey, we've got a restaurant.
00:04:29
Speaker 1: This is how good Steve Cuser is. He's the only man on earth that can pronounce John George's last name. What is it again, Von, I've worked on that for years.
00:04:38
Speaker 2: I can't get it, good old French name.
00:04:41
Speaker 1: Hey, now, what about retail. Is retail making any kind of comeback?
00:04:46
Speaker 2: Yeah? It is. I wrote about to this. Today a Real Estate Board of New York has a new survey and it's a balanced acknowledged that there was still album box, by and large, it's doing. Retailers is a good shape. Retailer is hard to measure. It's not like office space where everybody has access to the same data. It's easy to measure. You know, this building has a million square feet, this company releases half of it. That's not true in retail. The spaces are all different sizes. When people talk about well, you know there are only ten vacancies on a certain stretch of an avenue, ten vacancies. Those vacancies can be six hundred square feet or they could be sixty thousand square feet and I'm exaggerating, but only a little very hard to quantify overall, My sense is that this isn't from the real estate board. This is my own two cents. It's very healthy. There's one of the problems with New York City retail is that there's too much space because over the last twenty five thirty years, lots more new space was created, and at the same time that there was downward pressure on demand for brick and mortar stores because of obviously online the shopping. So you've got all this new space and places like the World Trade Center of Hudson Yards, Brookfield Place on Manhattan West, all these different areas with hundreds of thousands of square feet to be filled, and there are only so many stores to go around. All that said, it's in very good shape. You go to neighborhoods like Soho, you can't believe how densely packed it is with every kind of store from all over the world. You go to the meatpacking district and you see that it's hard on Ninth Avenue, the meatpacking district. Baccarat has moved their flagship from Madison Avenue to Ninth Avenue. That says a lot about the strength health of the market.
00:07:02
Speaker 1: And also apartment rentals. The rental market is booming. Condo sales, even on the high end are doing well.
00:07:09
Speaker 2: Right Yeah, I mean, I lived on First Avenue in the seventies. There's a building that just went up on Second Avenue. It's pretty much around the corner for me, Second Avenue in seventy seventh Street, and it doesn't have a name. Once they just gave it a nice it's the number of the street something in East seventy seventh Street and none of these silly names. But the developers there Mickey knough Tali who really knows what he's doing. And he's the guy that brought the Plaza Hotel back after it was sold years ago. And this building, as I read this a week ago, had the highest sale, highest price sale of any residents in New York City. It was like some crazy number, thirty forty million. I don't know, that's amazing. That's on Second Avenue. Think about that. You know, we're not talking Park, We're not talking Madison, the seventy nine street. So yeah, the market's great. How much affect.
00:08:13
Speaker 3: The rent Guidelines Board decision will have, you know, not allowing landlords of rent stablis departments to raise rents.
00:08:24
Speaker 2: For another year or two or whatever it is. I think it's a stupid and self defeating stroke that will have the effect. It's not going to help anybody. If you live in a rent stay boys department. It means it will save you a couple of dollars over two years not to have your rent increase by your legal percentage. At the same time, it will discourage landlords from making necessary repairs, maintaining their buildings properly, and it will also encourage landlords to keep apartments off the market in the expectation that when this all passes, they can get a much higher rent, so they don't want to commit to a lower artificially lower rents now, which of course has boomerang effect. It doesn't help people looking for apartments. It hurts them by reducing the infantry. Yeah, that's New York for you.
00:09:16
Speaker 1: Well, but I'm glad to hear things are better, much better than they're being portrayed. And that's good news. And you can see all of Steve Cuzo's columns just go to the New York Post website. Just typed in his name, but you'll see column after column, really interesting stuff. And Steve Cuzo, thanks for being with us.
00:09:33
Speaker 2: Thanks Mark, always great to be on.
00:09:34
Speaker 1: All right, take care, Yeah, rental market booming. I always like to check the hotels, the major hotels in New York, the big ones. Just check the hotel prices, just you know, try look at how much your room is. You see fifteen hundred, eighteen hundred, two thousand a night, that's when you know some of the city's doing well. That's where you know a lot of tourists are coming in when the rates are that ridiculously high. Hey, don't forget coming up at noon. It's buck Sexton, Klay Travis three o'clock, you got the most listened to radio show in America, Sean Hannity. You got Jesse Kelly. At six, you got Jimmy Fayler, What a funny show every night nine to midnight. And then now every morning, you got Curtis Sliwa and Larry Minty. Here on seven ten WR
Speaker 1: It's the Mark Simon Show Live from the w o R Life Back Studio. Well, Steve Cuso, the great column Listen to the New York Post. Nobody better on real estate, on restaurants and what's going on in New York. You can read all of his columns. They're all up on the New York Post website. Steve Cuzo, how you doing.
00:00:21
Speaker 2: Hey, Good morning, Mark?
00:00:22
Speaker 1: Hey, Now tell us the truth. Everybody will tell you New York is dying. Nothing but empty storefronts everywhere. What is the real deal?
00:00:30
Speaker 2: The real deal is that we ain't dying, at least not yet, as long as well in New York. We survived nine to eleven, survived the Wall Street crash, we survived COVID, we survived all these things. Question is whether we can survive mayor Mom, Donnie your new pal there I see from the Yeah, Mark, anyway, I'm glad to know he has a sense of humor. He does. But anyway, so everything you know, I happen to live on the Upper east Side. Privilege, I get it, okay, but not all of the Upper east Side is rich wherever I go, and not only there, but through the village I was in Brooklyn on the Saturday Lavonia Avenue. And it's remarkable for a city. If we follow the media, you know we're in terrible crisis. There are all these strains, there's all those underlying anguish and everything. And yet guess what, it's amazing how peaceful everything is. Nobody's getting knifed or stabbed. Businesses are booming for the most part, and you know, it's great. And you know, if you look at look at Brian Park, one of the great places in the city and one of the great parks in the world, urban parks in the world. It's so popular that you've got two different restaurant companies fighting over the restaurant. You know, it's called the Brian Park Grill. And this is one of the strangest stories I've ever called. Because there's a company there called Art Restaurants. They've run the Brian Park Grill for thirty years. Their lease was up last year. Their landlord, which is the Bryant Park Corporation, declined to renew their lease. They want to bring a new operator. The new operator will probably be Jean George or Vanka Richton. And there are many, many complications to this whole story. We have limited time, so I'm not going to get into them. But basically, Brian Park Grill is still there without a lease. Bryant Park Corporation got a court order allowing them to begin eviction proceedings. That's going to take a long time. And meanwhile, Jean George, one of the great chefs in the world and his company would love to be there. And it typifies the energy in the restaurant scene, and not only restaurants scene, but in the public realm. You know, Brian Park is a great landmark at a great location, and right now it's one of the best places in the world to be. A couple of days from now, it's going to be one hundred degrees so maybe a little less desirable, but that affects everyone and everywhere. So it's a great time to be in New Yorker. No matter what anybody says.
00:03:22
Speaker 1: The greatest ns run tours, whether it's John George or Danielle or all these danny they keep opening more and more and more places in New York City. So they must know something. They must have faith in this city.
00:03:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, or they're making a big mistake. But you know, the days of Overexpansion in the city or over. I don't see guys like the ones you mentioned of opening restaurants all over the place. When they do open, it's calculated. They're very careful. They know the market. They hire the best people to run them. So, for example, in Brooklyn, now is On George's company and his CEO, Lois Readman have the new restaurant ABC Kitchens, which is it's in Brooklyn Bridge Park and it's a combination of three of Von Garrickton's restaurants branded as ABC. There's ABC that It's already won the Design Award. It's enormously popular. But they chose that place very carefully. They're not just opening all the yeah, just to say, hey, we've got a restaurant.
00:04:29
Speaker 1: This is how good Steve Cuser is. He's the only man on earth that can pronounce John George's last name. What is it again, Von, I've worked on that for years.
00:04:38
Speaker 2: I can't get it, good old French name.
00:04:41
Speaker 1: Hey, now, what about retail. Is retail making any kind of comeback?
00:04:46
Speaker 2: Yeah? It is. I wrote about to this. Today a Real Estate Board of New York has a new survey and it's a balanced acknowledged that there was still album box, by and large, it's doing. Retailers is a good shape. Retailer is hard to measure. It's not like office space where everybody has access to the same data. It's easy to measure. You know, this building has a million square feet, this company releases half of it. That's not true in retail. The spaces are all different sizes. When people talk about well, you know there are only ten vacancies on a certain stretch of an avenue, ten vacancies. Those vacancies can be six hundred square feet or they could be sixty thousand square feet and I'm exaggerating, but only a little very hard to quantify overall, My sense is that this isn't from the real estate board. This is my own two cents. It's very healthy. There's one of the problems with New York City retail is that there's too much space because over the last twenty five thirty years, lots more new space was created, and at the same time that there was downward pressure on demand for brick and mortar stores because of obviously online the shopping. So you've got all this new space and places like the World Trade Center of Hudson Yards, Brookfield Place on Manhattan West, all these different areas with hundreds of thousands of square feet to be filled, and there are only so many stores to go around. All that said, it's in very good shape. You go to neighborhoods like Soho, you can't believe how densely packed it is with every kind of store from all over the world. You go to the meatpacking district and you see that it's hard on Ninth Avenue, the meatpacking district. Baccarat has moved their flagship from Madison Avenue to Ninth Avenue. That says a lot about the strength health of the market.
00:07:02
Speaker 1: And also apartment rentals. The rental market is booming. Condo sales, even on the high end are doing well.
00:07:09
Speaker 2: Right Yeah, I mean, I lived on First Avenue in the seventies. There's a building that just went up on Second Avenue. It's pretty much around the corner for me, Second Avenue in seventy seventh Street, and it doesn't have a name. Once they just gave it a nice it's the number of the street something in East seventy seventh Street and none of these silly names. But the developers there Mickey knough Tali who really knows what he's doing. And he's the guy that brought the Plaza Hotel back after it was sold years ago. And this building, as I read this a week ago, had the highest sale, highest price sale of any residents in New York City. It was like some crazy number, thirty forty million. I don't know, that's amazing. That's on Second Avenue. Think about that. You know, we're not talking Park, We're not talking Madison, the seventy nine street. So yeah, the market's great. How much affect.
00:08:13
Speaker 3: The rent Guidelines Board decision will have, you know, not allowing landlords of rent stablis departments to raise rents.
00:08:24
Speaker 2: For another year or two or whatever it is. I think it's a stupid and self defeating stroke that will have the effect. It's not going to help anybody. If you live in a rent stay boys department. It means it will save you a couple of dollars over two years not to have your rent increase by your legal percentage. At the same time, it will discourage landlords from making necessary repairs, maintaining their buildings properly, and it will also encourage landlords to keep apartments off the market in the expectation that when this all passes, they can get a much higher rent, so they don't want to commit to a lower artificially lower rents now, which of course has boomerang effect. It doesn't help people looking for apartments. It hurts them by reducing the infantry. Yeah, that's New York for you.
00:09:16
Speaker 1: Well, but I'm glad to hear things are better, much better than they're being portrayed. And that's good news. And you can see all of Steve Cuzo's columns just go to the New York Post website. Just typed in his name, but you'll see column after column, really interesting stuff. And Steve Cuzo, thanks for being with us.
00:09:33
Speaker 2: Thanks Mark, always great to be on.
00:09:34
Speaker 1: All right, take care, Yeah, rental market booming. I always like to check the hotels, the major hotels in New York, the big ones. Just check the hotel prices, just you know, try look at how much your room is. You see fifteen hundred, eighteen hundred, two thousand a night, that's when you know some of the city's doing well. That's where you know a lot of tourists are coming in when the rates are that ridiculously high. Hey, don't forget coming up at noon. It's buck Sexton, Klay Travis three o'clock, you got the most listened to radio show in America, Sean Hannity. You got Jesse Kelly. At six, you got Jimmy Fayler, What a funny show every night nine to midnight. And then now every morning, you got Curtis Sliwa and Larry Minty. Here on seven ten WR
