Amir Korangy on Trump, RE history and what major NYC developers have in common

Donald Trump is charming, New York real estate has transformed, and many top developers hail from the Bronx, The Real Deal‘s founder and publisher said in a television appearance Wednesday.

“There’s a backstory for every one of these buildings, ” Amir Korangy told PBS 13’s Mike Schneider, describing the city’s skyline. “New York’s skyline used to belong to a handful of families, but today there are so many new players in the game.”

A surprisingly large number of those players –many of whom appear in Korangy’s new interview collection, “The Closing” – hail from the Bronx, Korangy said, and had “bootstrapped it” on the way to success. Perhaps less surprisingly, many are also alumni of the University of Pennsylvania or its graduate business college, the Wharton School.

Korangy described one such – Donald Trump, the front runner for the Republican presidential nomination –  as “his own breed of person. Even amongst the titans of real estate, these really big personalities and big egos, he’s his own man. People don’t realize he’s been a significant part of pop culture for four decades now.”

Korangy said the city would “absolutely” be far different in five years. “I’m looking forward to seeing it,” he said [PBS 13] – TRD