Daniel A. Biederman is an American urban redevelopment expert and public space management consultant. He is the co-founder of Grand Central Partnership, 34th Street Partnership, and Bryant Park Corporation, three Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and private park managers operating in Midtown Manhattan, and is also the President of Biederman Redevelopment Ventures, a place-making consulting firm. Biederman has been cited for his success in using private funding to revitalize urban public spaces. [1] [2] [3]
Daniel Biederman | |
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Born | |
Nationality | American |
Education | B.A. Princeton University, magna cum laude M.B.A. Harvard Business School, with distinction |
Occupation(s) | Downtown manager and urban redeveloper |
Known for | Founder: Bryant Park Corporation 34th Street Partnership Grand Central Partnership Biederman Redevelopment Ventures |
Spouse | Susan Duke |
Children | Robert Biederman Brooke Biederman |
In 1980 Biederman and Andrew Heiskell, then-Chairman of Time, Inc. and the New York Public Library, co-founded the Bryant Park Corporation (BPC). The not-for-profit private management company was created by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund to bring improvements to Bryant Park, a 9.6-acre (3.9 ha) park in Midtown Manhattan that had suffered a severe, decades-long decline. BPC immediately brought enhanced security and sanitation to the park and began slowly to rehabilitate its physical plant.
In 1987, the City of New York signed a 15-year agreement entrusting BPC with sole responsibility for managing, programming, and improving the park, whereupon it was closed for a four-year renovation. The project entailed improving existing, and creating additional, park entrances to increase visibility from the street, enhancing the formal French garden design, and improving the park's paths and lighting. BPC's plan also included restoring the park's monuments, renovating its long-closed restrooms, and building two restaurant pavilions and four permanent food kiosks. [4]
After a four-year effort overseen by Biederman, the park reopened in 1992 to widespread acclaim. Called "a triumph for many" by The New York Times architectural critic Paul Goldberger, the renovation was lauded for its architectural excellence. [5] The renovation was also lauded as "The Best Example of Urban Renewal" by New York magazine, [6] and was described by Time as a "small miracle". [7] [8] Many awards followed, including a Design Merit Award from Landscape Architecture Magazine, [8] and a 1996 Award for Excellence from the Urban Land Institute. [9]
34th Street Partnership (34SP) was founded in 1989 when then-Mayor David Dinkins and property owners on 34th Street asked Biederman to spearhead efforts to improve the area adjacent to Madison Square Garden in preparation for the 1992 Democratic National Convention. [10]
In January 1992, the Partnership opened a $6 million annual program of security, sanitation, tourist information, public events, and debt service on a major capital improvement bond of $25 million for improvements to the district's street, sidewalks, and plazas. [11]
In 1999, 34SP completed a project to redevelop the formerly dangerous Herald Square Park and Greeley Square Park, two triangular public spaces located at the convergence of Broadway, Sixth Avenue, and 34th Street. The renovation included adding a public restroom and permanent food kiosk to each park, as well as installing horticultural elements, chairs, and tables. [12]
The 34SP BID continues to operate across the 31 blocks comprising the 34th Street District. The capital improvements have been widely regarded as a prime reason for the rise in 34th Street property values that began in the 1990s and continues to this day, with "rapid appreciation on nearly every street". [13] [14] 34th Street Partnership has also been credited with attracting national retailers to 34th Street, and for the rise in retail rents. [15]
As President of 34SP, Biederman has criticized the condition of New York's streetscape and has led efforts to upgrade it.
34SP has worked with shop owners on 34th Street to improve the appearance of store frontage and to curtail the use of opaque steel doors during closing hours. [16]
The BID's design and capital departments have greatly reduced the number of individual newsboxes in the district, and convinced publishers to place their publications in 34SP's own multiple newsboxes. [17]
Senior 34SP staff has lobbied NYC government to enforce laws prohibiting bus and truck idling, and to move intercity buses away from the 34th Street District. [18]
In 1984 then-Mayor Ed Koch, at the behest of executives from many of the Fortune 500 companies that are headquartered near Grand Central Terminal in New York, asked Biederman to help make the downtrodden area around the terminal commensurate with the offices nearby. Biederman formed the Grand Central Partnership (GCP), a Business Improvement District that provided enhanced security, sanitation, and streetscape improvements to the area. [19]
GCP was one of several Midtown Manhattan BIDs to be given credit for the economic and environmental revival of the area in the 1990s. [20] [21]
After a series of disagreements with then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani over rules governing BIDs, Biederman resigned from GCP in 1998. [22] He continues to serve as President of Bryant Park Corporation and 34th Street Partnership.
Biederman Redevelopment Ventures (BRV) specializes in creating and operating transformative redevelopment projects in the public realm. BRV works for real estate developers, government agencies, and non-profit organizations (and often a combination of the three), as well as professional sports teams, to conceive and execute concepts that provide communities with new and innovative amenities.
BRV has led many of the most value-creating urban redevelopment projects in the United States, beginning in 1980 at Bryant Park, which at the time was a troubled public space that hurt the values of the real estate that surrounded it. Now it is the most densely-used park in the world, an international model for revitalizing public spaces.
BRV was founded in 1998 and has taken the tools and principles developed at Bryant Park and applied them in 32 states and eight foreign countries. Over the years, BRV has consulted on a wide variety of projects, ranging from small parks to large urban districts. Among the notable projects are the development and operation of Klyde Warren Park in Dallas, TX; the redevelopment of the Canalside waterfront district in Buffalo, NY; the development of Levy Park in Houston, TX; the revitalization of Military Park in Newark, NJ; and the creation of Titletown District in Green Bay, WI. No matter the city, BRV has built a consensus among property owners and government around the demonstrated return on investment in placemaking.
Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Hudson Yards Redevelopment Project, the headquarters of the United Nations, Grand Central Terminal, and Rockefeller Center, as well as several prominent tourist destinations including Broadway, Times Square, and Koreatown. Penn Station in Midtown Manhattan is the busiest transportation hub in the Western Hemisphere.
Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighted areas in inner cities in favour of new housing, businesses, and other developments.
Herald Square is a major commercial intersection in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, formed by the intersection of Broadway, Sixth Avenue, and 34th Street. Named for the now-defunct New York Herald, a newspaper formerly headquartered there, it also gives its name to the surrounding area. The bow tie-shaped intersection consists of two named sections: Herald Square to the north (uptown) and Greeley Square to the south (downtown).
Bryant Park is a 9.6-acre (39,000 m2), privately managed public park in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is located between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas and between 40th and 42nd Streets in Midtown Manhattan. The eastern half of Bryant Park is occupied by the Main Branch of the New York Public Library. The western half contains a lawn, shaded walkways, and amenities such as a carousel, and is located entirely over an underground structure that houses the library's stacks. The park hosts several events, including a seasonal "Winter Village" with an ice rink and shops during the winter.
William Hollingsworth "Holly" Whyte Jr. was an American urbanist, sociologist, organizational analyst, journalist and people-watcher. He identified the elements that create vibrant public spaces within the city and filmed a variety of urban plazas in New York City in the 1970s. After his book about corporate culture The Organization Man (1956) sold over two million copies, Whyte turned his attention to the study of human behavior in urban settings. He published several books and a film on the topic, including The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1980).
Redevelopment is any new construction on a site that has pre-existing uses. It represents a process of land development uses to revitalize the physical, economic and social fabric of urban space.
The 34th Street–Herald Square station is an underground station complex on the BMT Broadway Line and the IND Sixth Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. It is located at Herald Square in Midtown Manhattan where 34th Street, Broadway and Sixth Avenue intersect, and is served by the D, F, N, and Q trains at all times; the R train at all times except late nights; the B, M, and W trains on weekdays; and the <F> train during rush hours in the peak direction.
Manhattan Community Board 5 is a New York City community board, part of the local government apparatus of the city, with the responsibility for the neighborhoods of Midtown, Times Square, most of the Theater District, the Diamond District, the Garment District, Herald Square, Koreatown, NoMad, Murray Hill and the Flatiron District, all in the borough of Manhattan. It is bounded by 59th Street on the north, Eighth Avenue, 26th Street, the Avenue of the Americas on the west, 14th Street on the south, and Lexington Avenue on the east, excluding the area from 34th to 40th Streets between Madison and Lexington Avenues, and the area from 20th to 22nd Streets between Park Avenue South and Lexington Avenue/Irving Place.
Brooklyn Commons, formerly MetroTech Center, is a business and educational center in Downtown Brooklyn, New York City.
HOPE VI is a program of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. It is intended to revitalize the most distressed public housing projects in the United States into mixed-income developments. Its philosophy is largely based on New Urbanism and the concept of defensible space.
Hudson Yards is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, bounded roughly by 30th Street in the south, 41st Street in the north, the West Side Highway in the west, and Eighth Avenue in the east. The area is the site of a large-scale redevelopment program that is being planned, funded, and constructed under a set of agreements among the State of New York, City of New York, and Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), with the aim of expanding the Midtown Manhattan business district westward to the Hudson River. The program includes a major rezoning of the Far West Side, an extension of the New York City Subway's 7 and <7> trains to a new subway station at 34th Street and 11th Avenue, a renovation and expansion of the Javits Center, and a financing plan to fund the various components. The various components are being planned by New York City Department of City Planning and New York City Economic Development Corporation.
The 42nd Street–Bryant Park/Fifth Avenue station is an underground New York City Subway station complex, consisting of stations on the IRT Flushing Line and IND Sixth Avenue Line. Located at 42nd Street between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, it is served by the 7, D and F trains at all times, the B and M trains on weekdays, and the <7> and <F> trains during rush hours in the peak direction. A free passageway from the IND platforms to the Times Square–42nd Street/Port Authority Bus Terminal station, served by the 1, 2, 3, 7, <7>, A, C, E, N, Q, R, W, and S trains is open during the day from 6 a.m. to 12 a.m.
Navy Yard is a neighborhood of Washington, D.C., located in Southeast D.C. Navy Yard, situated along the Anacostia Riverfront south of Capitol Hill, takes its name from Washington Navy Yard, the administrative seat of the U.S. Navy. Historically an industrial area, today Navy Yard is a popular entertainment district, home to Nationals Park, a notable nightlife scene, and numerous waterfront esplanades.
Planning and development in Detroit since the late 20th century has attempted to enhance the economy and quality of life of Detroit, Michigan, United States. In 1970, the private group Detroit Renaissance began to facilitate development in the city. Its successor, Business Leaders for Michigan, has continued to facilitate development into the 21st century. Projects have included new commercial facilities, revitalization of neighborhoods, hospitality infrastructure, and improvements to recreational and public facilities, such as the QLine light rail project.
15 Penn Plaza, also known as PENN15 and Vornado Tower, is a planned supertall office tower to be constructed by Vornado Realty Trust on Seventh Avenue between 32nd and 33rd Streets in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The building, designed by Foster and Partners, will contain 430 units on 61 floors and 2,050,000 square feet (190,000 m2) of floor space as well as passageways to the adjacent Pennsylvania Station, 34th Street–Herald Square station, and the 33rd Street terminal of the PATH. Despite only having 61 floors, it is planned to be 1,270 feet (390 m) tall, 20 feet (6.1 m) taller than the mooring mast or spire of the Empire State Building two blocks east. The timing of construction will be dependent on market conditions. Vornado is currently exploring using the site for "fashion shows or other temporary uses" until market conditions warrant construction of the building.
The Grand Central Partnership manages the Grand Central Business Improvement District, one of the largest business improvement districts in the world. It comprises 76,000,000 square feet (7,100,000 m2) of commercial space in a 70-block area of Midtown Manhattan, New York City, around Grand Central Terminal. Its irregular borders reach from East 35th Street to East 54th Street and from Second Avenue to Fifth Avenue.
A business improvement district (BID) is a defined area within whichever businesses elect to pay an additional fee in order to fund projects within the district's boundaries. A BID is not a tax, as taxes fund the government. BID funds are collected and used for the exclusive benefit of the industry that pays the assessment.
The East River Greenway is an approximately 9.44-mile-long (15.19 km) foreshoreway for walking or cycling on the east side of the island of Manhattan on the East River. It is part of the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway. The largest portions are operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. It is separated from motor traffic, and many sections also separate pedestrians from cyclists. The greenway is parallel to the Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive for a majority of its length.
425 Park Avenue is an office building in New York City redeveloped by L&L Holding and GreenOak Real Estate, with a design by architectural firm Foster + Partners. Work on the new structure began in 2016, and the building was completed in October 2022.
The Bryant Park restroom is a public toilet in Bryant Park, an urban park in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The 315-square-foot (29.3 m2) structure was built at the same time as the New York Public Library Main Branch and designed by the same architects. It opened in 1911 and closed in the 1960s as the surrounding park deteriorated. It was restored in the 1990s and underwent renovations in 2006 and 2017, modeled after luxury hotel bathrooms. With flowers, automatic toilets, original artwork, classical music, and an attendant, it is often regarded as among the best public bathrooms in the city, used by more than a million people per year.