Career
Watch World
In 1994, while still working at Salomon Brothers, [5] Reisner, his partner Mati Weiderpass and Paul Dominguez founded Watch World International, [6] [7] opening the first Watch World store in New York City's SoHo neighborhood that year. [8] [9] By July 1997, they had opened nine New York locations. [6] By 2000, Watch World had become a national chain of 119 stores. [10] On June 8, 2000, Sunglass Hut International announced that it had purchased Watch World for $30 million in cash, stock and debt. [10]
Parkview Developers and The 505
Reisner is the founder, managing partner and president of Parkview Developers, a developer of residential and hotel properties, primarily in New York City, which he founded with Mati Weiderpass in 2000. [11]
In 2007, Reisner and Weiderpass launched a 109-unit luxury condominium constructed on the site originally built for the New York Central Railroad in the 1930s. [12]
Parkview Developers owns 20 units in the 230 Central Park South building in New York City. [13] [14] Starting in the early 1990s, Reisner and Weiderpass bought roughly half of the apartment units in the 19-story building. [13] They combined, renovated and sold many of the units, [13] including a penthouse sold for $11.9 million in 2014. [15] Reisner lives in one of the penthouses in the building. [16] Parkview Developers formerly owned and operated the Carnegie Hotel in Manhattan, near Columbus Circle. [11]
The Out NYC
In 2007, after spending a few nights at the Axel Hotel Barcelona, part of a small chain of upscale hotels aimed at a gay clientele, Reisner decided to open a similar type of hotel in New York. He located a vacant space in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood and secured a 49-year lease. The property was originally home to a Travelodge in the 1960s, and was later used as a Red Cross homeless shelter. [7]
The hotel opened on March 1, 2012. [17] The $30 million entertainment complex consists of a three-story, 70,000 square-foot hotel with 105 rooms, the 11,000 square-foot XL/BPM Nightclub, the Mediterranean-inspired KTCHN Restaurant, an art gallery, outdoor gardens, a spa and a bar. [7] [18] [19] [20] The Out NYC was built after five years of planning. [21] It won a Trendsetter Hotel Award from Fodor's in 2012, [22] and in 2014 Fodor's named its garden one of the world's 10 most beautiful hotel gardens. [23] Past performers at The Out NYC and the XL/BPM Nightclub include Alan Cumming, Cyndi Lauper and Ariana Grande; [3] [24] celebrity guests include Lady Gaga, Perez Hilton, James Franco and Nick Jonas. [4] [25] [26]
Reisner was sued by architect Paul Dominguez in 2013 for his failure to properly compensate Dominguez for work on the Out NYC. [27]
Fire Island Pines
On January 22, 2015, Reisner and Sip-N-Twirl nightclub owner P.J. McAteer purchased a strip of commercial real estate along the harbor on Fire Island Pines, a gay destination on Long Island, New York, for $10.1 million at auction. [28]
Controversy
On October 29, 2014, 23-year-old Sean Verdi died of an apparent drug overdose at St. Luke's Hospital in Manhattan after being found unconscious in a Manhattan apartment owned by Reisner. [30] [31]
On April 20, 2015, Reisner and Weiderpass hosted a private discussion with U.S. Senator Ted Cruz at Reisner’s apartment. [32] Cruz’s positions on LGBTQ+ rights prompted criticism from some in the LGBTQ+ community after news of the meeting became public. In response, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS canceled a planned fundraiser at XL Nightclub. [33] [34] Reisner later issued a statement on his Facebook page expressing regret, calling the decision to host the meeting “a terrible mistake” and acknowledging “poor judgment.” [35] [36] Some additional attention followed remarks he made in an interview, where he described parts of his clientele as “frugal” and “entitled.” [37] [38]
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
