Jay Furman, real estate developer and a founder of New York University’s Furman Center for the Real Estate and Urban Policy, died of lung cancer Sunday.
The Furman Center, a joint center of the NYU School of Law and the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, was launched in 1995. Furman also ran the firm RD Management, which owned buildings throughout the U.S. and in Puerto Rico.
“Jay was always the Furman Center’s toughest questioner — his curiosity, incredible intelligence, breadth of knowledge, and enthusiastic embrace of any complexity made him the best thinker in the room on almost any issue,” Vicki Been, Department of Housing Preservation and Development commissioner and former Furman Center head, said in a statement.
“But he was also the Furman Center’s greatest supporter, because he had a deep appreciation for the value of rigorous research tied directly to important and immediate policy debates.” — Mark Maurer