• Join Puck

    Directly Supporting Authors

    A new economic model in which writers are also partners in the business.

    Personalized Subscriptions

    Customize your settings to receive the newsletters you want from the authors you follow.

    Stay in the Know

    Connect directly with Puck talent through email and exclusive events.

  • What is puck? Newsletters Authors Podcasts Events Gift Puck Careers

Fade to Blackstone

Insights into a REIT headache, and some of the craftiest investors who are seeing around the corner.

Steve Schwarzman
A division of Steve Schwarzman’s Blackstone Group more or less pulled the plug recently on 1740 Broadway, a 26-story building between 55th and 56th streets. Photo: Thos Robinson/Getty Images for New York Times
William D. Cohan
May 17, 2023

“My clients are scared shitless,” one longtime Wall Street real-estate investment banker told me the other day. I had called to check in on the prospects for commercial real estate in big cities, such as New York, San Francisco and Chicago, and to see if the long-rumored financial comeuppance in the sector was real, imagined or apocryphal. It turns out, it’s very real and it’s happening. But, like any serious financial disturbance, it’s not monolithic, or uniform.