The computer gaming company Atari that popularized early digital favorites such as Asteroids and Pong signed a new lease at Cohen Brothers Realty’s Murray Hill office tower at 475 Park Avenue South, cutting its space by more than 75 percent.

Atari, founded in 1972, is taking 7,998 square feet on the seventh floor of the 35-story building at the corner of 32nd Street, Henry Goodfriend, executive vice president at commercial firm NAI Global New York City, said. Goodfriend and Trent Dickey, a company associate, represented Atari in the transaction. Marc Horowitz, a vice president at Charles Cohen’s Cohen Brothers, represented the landlord. [more]

Successful real estate must be “connected to a community of interest,” said Charles Cohen, president and CEO of the Cohen Brothers Realty Corporation. In an interview with the New York Times, Cohen, 57, explained that he got involved with the design community during the 1990s, and the niche stuck with him. His company now owns more than 12 million square feet of office and design center properties across the country, including the Decoration & Design Building in Manhattan, which he says has a 100 percent occupancy rate. He’s currently working on renovating an office building at 32nd Street and Park Avenue South, and he’s building two fountains on the corner of 57th Street and Lexington Avenue. Recently, his affection for the film industry led him to step in and help the Film-Makers’ Corporation, which was facing eviction in Tribeca. He said the situation “struck a note” with him, so he called the group and offered to rent them space at his 475 Park Avenue South for $1 per year.

The Film-Makers’ Cooperative
has signed a five-year lease for space at developer Charles Cohen’s 475
Park Avenue South, at 32nd Street. For a rent of $1 a year, Cohen, a
film aficionado, gave the non-profit group — which archives, distributes and
restores experimental and avant-garde films — an approximately
3,600-square-foot space on the sixth floor. The film group will move
from its 900-square-foot space at the Clock Tower Building in Tribeca, where it
pays about $1 a foot in rent. As part of the move, a 15-seat theater will
also be built in the space. “I was in a position to help, and I thought
that I should,” Cohen said. “They are a wonderful group doing important
work.”