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REAL ESTA TE INSIDE 2012 forecasts from six top industry executives PAGE 30 Multilevel stores gain traction as retailers eye more space for less rent PAGE 34 Top property sales in 2011 PAGE 36

LIVING TESTAMENT: Century 21 broker Gamal Hasan is using a picture of Green- Wood Cemetery’s trolley in ads to help boost neighborhood real estate. buck ennis Back from the dead New tours and educational programs are drawing crowds of onlookers to NY’s big cemeteries and turning erstwhile neighborhood liabilities into assets. All-star lineup runs from Herman Melville to Duke Ellington BY ANNE FIELD

FOR ALMOST A DECADE, Rambling House, an Irish pub and restaurant on Tara Carty. Katonah Avenue in the Bronx, has done a healthy business catering to the needs Similarly surprising phenomena are being reported in the vicinity of two of of a lively local crowd. Only recently has a new crop of patrons begun to pop up. ’s other famous burial places known for their meticulously manicured They are people drawn by the tours and educational programs offered half a grounds,museum-quality monuments and permanent residents including some dozen blocks down the street at the neighborhood’s biggest (400 acres) and oldest of history’s biggest names. All three, including Green-Wood in Brooklyn and (148 years) business, Woodlawn Cemetery. It’s also the only one that ranks as a Moravian on , are working hard to draw crowds and are achieving National Historic Landmark. results that are already beginning to have an impact not just at the gate but in the “There’s a steady stream of customers we’ve never seen before,” said manager See REBORN on Page 28

January 16, 2012 | Crain’s New York Business | 27 20120116-NEWS--0028-NAT-CCI-CN_-- 1/12/2012 11:44 AM Page 1

REPORT REAL ESTA TE

nal destination to a tourist draw ca- think about these longtime neigh- pable of a totally new feat: attract- borhood dead zones. In a telling ex- Reborn graveyards draw crowds ing repeat business. Today, it offers ample, two blocks from Green- everything from live dance to film Wood at the office of Century 21 screenings and book signings, at Block & Lot Real Estate, broker Continued from Page 27 nority leader of the City Council. “In 50 years,we realized we would prices ranging from $10 to $35 for Gamal Hasan is actually using a pic- receipts of some local businesses and So far, the biggest beneficiaries, no longer have any graves left to sell,” nonmembers—those who don’t ture of the cemetery’s cheerful green the perceptions of neighbors and however, have been the cemeteries said Jeffrey Richman,Green-Wood’s pay $30 in annual dues. Green- trolley in ads. Most people, he not- visitors alike. themselves, led by the most aggres- official, salaried historian. Wood Cemetery President Rich- ed, associate Green-Wood with its “I’d hope the folks who visit sive of the lot, Green-Wood. In ard Moylan predicts the events will picturesque grounds, but the new Moravian take a hop, skip and jump 1998, its directors founded the non- Repeat business start becoming profitable in the events are helping to win still more down to New Dorp Lane, where profit Green-Wood Historic Fund Since then, the cemetery’s man- “near future.” converts. there are all kinds of shops,” said to forge a new life for a business agement has aimed to do nothing The programs already are begin- “They are definitely a plus,” he James Oddo, R-Staten Island, mi- whose old business is slowly dying. less than transform the site from fi- ning to change the way some people said. Ⅲ

WOODLAWN CEMETERY LOCATION Woodlawn, Bronx ACRES 400 FOUNDED 1863 SUBWAY 4 train to Jerome Avenue PERMANENT POPULATION More than 300,000 BOLDFACE NAMES Nellie Bly, Duke Ellington, R.H. Macy, Bat Masterson, Herman Melville, Joseph Pulitzer, Elizabeth Cady PICTURESQUE: Stanton, F.W. Woolworth The Scorsese DRAWING CARDS Six of the 100 Great Trees of New York, Jazz mausoleum in Moravian MORE BULLISH Corner, mausoleums by Cass Gilbert, Sir Edwin Luytens Cemetery. THAN BEARISH: RECENT HITS Easter egg roll, concert of Ellington music, Migrants Attendance at Green- of Woodlawn early-morning bird walk, Royals and Imperials tour Wood totaled nearly 40,000 last year. of graves of nobility oodlawn’s emergence from decades spent in the shadows of its predominantly Irish MORAVIAN CEMETERY neighborhood holds real promise for nearby Wbusinesses, according to Tracy Shelton, ex- LOCATION New Dorp/, Staten Island ecutive director of the Kingsbridge ACRES 113 GREEN-WOOD CEMETERY Riverdale Van Cortlandt Development Corp. In a first, just last month the cemetery participated in a lo- FOUNDED 1720 LOCATION Sunset Park, Brooklyn cal business fair, sponsored by the newly formed Woodlawn TRANSPORTATION Ferry to St. George, S74 or S76 bus to ACRES 478 Heights Merchants Association, which Ms. Shelton helped Richmond Road/Todt Hill Road organize. During the event, a rented trolley whisked visitors PERMANENT POPULATION 65,000 FOUNDED 1838 from the cemetery’s holiday concert down the street to local SUBWAY R train to 25th Street shops and restaurants. BOLDFACE NAMES Alice Austen, Paul Castellano, I, II and IV, Civil War Gen. Stephen H. Weed, John PERMANENT POPULATION 560,000 “Any time you bring more people to a community, the area is likely to benefit,” she said. Eberhard Faber BOLDFACE NAMES Henry Ward Beecher, Leonard Bernstein, Since taking over as executive director of the 13-year-old DRAWING CARDS Original Vanderbilt mausoleum, two lakes, Horace Greeley, Samuel Morse, F.A.O. Schwarz, William “Boss” Friends of the Woodlawn Cemetery two years ago, Brian Sahd three 19th-century bridges, 11 miles of winding pathways, views Tweed has been in charge of attracting more visitors. He already has of lower New York Bay DRAWING CARDS Panoramic views from Brooklyn’s highest upped the number of events to 22 a year from 16 previously, RECENT HITS Weekend walking tours, private tours during the point, rolling hills, four glacial ponds, mausoleums by Stanford kicking off each year with the Easter egg roll in April and run- week White ning through December’s holiday concert. RECENT HITS Lecture with author/Green-Wood admirer Paul Increasingly, he partners with others to host such events as bout seven years ago, Richard Simpson, a retired Auster, concert by Blues Project founder Danny Kalb, screening October’s concert and panel discussion on singer and perma- chauffeur and Staten Island historian by avoca- of a film about artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and visit to his grave nent Woodlawn resident Celia Cruz, which was co-sponsored tion,started researching the lives of such residents by the Bronx Musical Heritage Center and drew about 150 Aas Robert Crooks Stanley,who in 1905 had a hand ver a decade’s worth of hard work is beginning to people.There also are 7 a.m.bird walks presented with the New in the invention of Monel, the precursor to stain- pay off. Attendance at Green-Wood Cemetery York City Audubon Society. Overall attendance in 2011 is es- less steel; and John Eberhard Faber, of the eponymous pencil is estimated to have totaled nearly 40,000 in timated to have topped 3,000, six times the level of a decade company. O2011, more than 10 times the traffic of a decade ago, and it is still swelling. “I realized they all had a common denominator:They were earlier, according to Green-Wood’s historian, One of the most popular destinations is the Jazz Corner.Ac- all resting in Moravian Cemetery,” Mr. Simpson said. After Jeffrey Richman. He attributes much of the gain to the shift in cording to official Woodlawn historian Sue Olsen, after Duke hosting a few informal tours,he persuaded the cemetery’s man- recent years from merely conducting tours to marketing and Ellington was interred there in 1974, jazz greats ranging from agement to allow him to do more formal sessions. hosting events. More than 1,000 people attended last spring’s Miles Davis to Illinois Jacquet bought plots close by. Another Today,he hosts 90-minute tours of the graveyard,set on the Memorial Day extravaganza. It featured a Civil War re- favorite visiting spot: Herman Melville’s grave, where visitors edge of Todt Hill, the island’s most picturesque and affluent enactment, a brass band and a nighttime procession to place often leave pens and even manuscripts. Ⅲ area, with views out across the harbor. His spring and fall ren- luminaries on the graves of the cemetery’s 4,000 Civil War vet- ditions on Sundays attract about 20 people,who each pay a $10 erans. Similarly, a program in October billed as “An afternoon fee.He also does private gigs during the week for organizations with best-selling [Brooklyn] author Paul Auster” was sold MUSICAL REST: and families. Among them is a special tour highlighting edu- out—at $20 for nonmembers, including a trolley ride—draw- Woodlawn’s Jazz cators buried at Moravian and another of doctors’ tombs. He’s ing 130 people. Corner is a hot now putting together a tour of grave sites of turn-of-the-last- drawing card. “The first day I came, I was amazed by the place,” said Mr. century luminaries, including John Carrère, co-designer of the Richman.Thirty years later, he leads tours that range from vis- New York Public Library. its to the graves of Roosevelt family members to nighttime trips “This cemetery is taking on a new life of its own,” said Mr. inside the Catacombs, a former quarry turned into burial Simpson, pointing to attendance, which ballooned to 1,200 vaults, accompanied by accordion music. last year from nothing six years ago—despite a decidedly low- That is all music to the ears of Donald Gizzi, chief financial key marketing effort. officer of Aladdin Bakery.He is hoping to capture some of that That success also comes despite the exit of some of Mora- traffic at the new store the bakery is opening just across from vian’s most famous residents,the Vanderbilts.Their 1865 mau- Green-Wood later this year. He is also looking forward to the soleum, with room for 100, still stands. For security reasons, projected 2013 opening of the cemetery’s new visitor center in however, their mortal remains were shifted 18 years later to a a landmarked 1895 greenhouse bought for $1.5 million. mausoleum patterned on a French Romanesque church on 14 “We’re hoping it increases street traffic and draws people to acres of private land adjacent to the cemetery,which were land- the area,” he said. Ⅲ scaped by Frederick Law Olmsted of Central Park fame. Ⅲ

28 | Crain’s New York Business | January 16, 2012