Inset: Robert Shapiro

“What I did for the gig” is a weekly web feature that chronicles the outlandish, risky and comical strategies that residential and commercial real estate brokers have used to land listings, clients and jobs.

Negotiating for space in Midtown Manhattan is a tough business, especially when faced with an uninterested seller and a looming deadline. For Robert Shapiro, a broker who orchestrated a 1986 REBNY award-winning assemblage deal for the Crowne Plaza Times Square, the challenge called for a stunt that would let him rise to the occasion. Literally…. [more]