This month in real estate history

1985: Zaccaro pleads to keep broker’s license

New York City real estate developer John Zaccaro, who was also the husband of vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, made an emotional appeal 27 years ago this month to keep his real estate broker’s license. The appeal came after Zaccaro admitted he attempted to defraud a mortgage broker two years earlier.

“I think I’ve suffered enough,’’ Zaccaro said during a hearing with the state Department of State, making the case that because of his wife’s 1984 White House campaign with Walter Mondale, “everything was blown out of proportion,” The New York Times reported at the time.

Officials accused Zaccaro of trying to defraud a commercial mortgage broker in 1983 as part of an effort to win a loan for a client who sought to purchase five multifamily buildings in Queens. He plead guilty in January 1985 and was sentenced to 150 hours of community service.

His plea to keep his license failed. The state suspended his license for 90 days. However, his license was later reinstated. And online state records show that his license is still active today. Ferraro died last year.

1938: City agencies required to list office space needs

New York City adopted a new public bidding system to purchase or lease property 74 years ago this month as part of an effort to combat corruption by civil servants. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia appointed Lee Smith as director of the city’s Real Estate Bureau in 1938 and charged him with cleaning up corruption at the agency. One of Smith’s first courses of action was to require all city agencies to announce their need for office space in the city’s official paper, The City Record. That allowed owners and brokers to submit potential offers, rather than have taxpayers rely on city employees who could quietly make inefficient or potentially corrupt deals with favored landlords.

Smith first announced the plan to require public notification — which was modeled after the system used by the city when it sought bids for construction contracts — to the Real Estate Board of New York and later to the public.

Prior to the change, officials in a department would go to the now-defunct Board of Estimate with a location already selected. The choice would then be reviewed by the city’s director of real estate, who would have that space as well as others inspected.

Smith, who later served as president of REBNY, said the system was flawed because it often bypassed spaces that were not officially on the market.

1899: Heir to vast NYC real estate fortune dies

Robert Goelet, an owner and developer of one of the largest real estate fortunes in New York City, died unexpectedly of heart failure on a visit to Italy 113 years ago this month. Goelet’s fortune, mostly in real estate in Manhattan and Newport, R.I., was valued at $40 million when he died at age 57 on his yacht. The assets, which today would be worth approximately $1 billion, were passed on to his wife Henrietta and teenage son Robert Walton.

Robert’s death came just two years after his brother and frequent investment partner, Ogden Goelet, died at the age of 51. Ogden, who also coincidentally died on a yacht, had a similarly valued real estate empire, which was left to his immediate family.

At the turn of the century, the family’s property holdings were seen as only second to the Astors, whose assets were estimated in 1907 to be about $500 million.

Robert’s estate included properties such as 895-899 Broadway at 20th Street; the Hotel Imperial, on Broadway between 31st and 32nd streets; 809-811 Broadway between 11th and 12th streets, and his home at 591 Fifth Avenue at 48th Street, which have since been demolished.

The brothers inherited their fortune from older generations of Goelets, including their father, Robert, and their uncle, Peter, who were founders of the Chemical Bank.