Working hard or hardly working?

It’s a basic fact about New York City and its attendant hustle and bustle: People here work their butts off.

Most people view summer as a time to kick back and relax, but not the Type A personalities that populate the upper echelons of New York City real estate. (Some of their deal-making takes place at Hamptons cocktail parties, however.)

In this issue, we look at what it takes to get to the top of the heap, starting with a profile of SL Green CEO Marc Holliday.

Over the past decade and a half, Holliday has grown the REIT into Manhattan’s largest office building owner, and he’s now pulling it even further ahead of its competitors, observers said, including the once seemingly invincible Vornado Realty Trust. (These days, as one real estate insider put it, SL Green “eats Vornado’s lunch.”)

One recent blockbuster deal featured round-the-clock meetings, with CEOs woken up at 2 a.m. to discuss new wrinkles in the lease. This month, reporter Hiten Samtani takes a look inside the world of the $19 billion REIT, where “the job is to kill, fight and pillage to make shareholders value.”

In another story, we take a look at the potential SL Greens of the future — newbie investment firms on a buying tear after launching during the downturn. These up-and-coming investors (they are invariably well-heeled young men — it looks like a Brooks Brothers catalog) mostly hail from established firms, but felt the time was right to strike out on their own.

Start-up ventures require an incredible amount of work, but many of these firms are already seeing big dividends on their deals. One company, for example, bought a building on the Lower East Side for $8 million and sold it for $18 million a year later.

Meanwhile, in another story we take a look at Manhattan’s top residential brokers in our annual survey of agents with the most listings. Generally, residential real estate agents don’t get the credit they deserve for their hard work. Let’s face it — much of the general public mistakenly thinks brokers just collect a commission check when a home sells, with little or no work involved.

The agents at the top of our list, of course, belie that notion. How else do you rack up more than $410 million in property listings like our first-place finisher, John Burger of Brown Harris Stevens? (Before you reach for your calculator, a 6 percent commission on all of that would amount to $24 million.)

Many of the 75 agents we ranked saw a dramatic increase in the dollar value of their listings this year, despite the fact that fewer homes are on the market. That rise is due to today’s stratospheric asking prices for luxury properties, with more homes in the jaw-dropping, eye-popping $100 million territory. (The Hamptons market, by comparison, isn’t quite at that level yet.)

Of course, not everyone is into working hard. Unions get a lot of heat from developers, who perennially complain about “no show” jobs and paying hefty wages for little work.

We take a look at Local 14, which includes the crane operators who singlehandedly set the pace of construction at many projects.

One of the most powerful unions in North America, Local 14 is also one of the most obstinate when it comes to labor agreements with developers, and has engaged in weeklong work stoppages at times.

The union has recently shown more willingness to play ball on the cost-saving labor agreements that developers insist are necessary in getting projects done today. (Developers are saying no to $400,000-a-year jobs that involve little to no work; the unions claim they are preserving the middle class and ask why anyone selling $95 million apartments needs a cost-saving agreement.)

And finally, speaking of hard work, I’d like to congratulate our managing editor, Jill Noonan, on the birth of her son Remi. At nearly nine months pregnant, she made deadline for the May issue last month, and then, around 15 minutes after closing the issue, went into labor. That’s dedication. More importantly, mother and son are doing very well and the whole staff here (all incredibly hard workers, too) wish her the best during her maternity leave.

Enjoy the issue. And for all you Type B personalities: Enjoy the summer, too.