hododo.com

Shopping Blog

This word has appeared in 11 New York Times articles in the past year.
The Learning Network

From left: Josephe Moshe, co-owner of Rutenberg Realty, and Paul Purcell and Kathy Braddock, heads of the brokerage

A co-owner of Rutenberg Realty is suing the brokerage and firm heads Paul Purcell and Kathy Braddock for almost million, claiming they have failed to pay him any dividends since the company’s founding, a new lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court says.

The suit was filed last Friday by Joseph Moshe, who heads the large Long Island branch of the Rutenberg franchise and is a co-owner of the New York City office. He claims in the suit that Braddock and Purcell are improperly siphoning funds from the New York Rutenberg office, and that they are competing against the firm with their own consulting company, Braddock + Purcell.

According to the complaint, Moshe is seeking at least .9 million in monies he says he is owed, including distributions paid to Braddock and Purcell that he claims should have been directed to Moshe.

Braddock declined to comment, but Purcell said he anticipates the dispute will be resolved amicably.

“I have every expectation that we can have a swift resolution to this,” he said. “All I want to do is run a business and make everybody money.”

Moshe and his attorney did not respond to requests for comment.

Moshe is the trustee and sole beneficiary of an entity called the Krug Family Trust, which controls the Rutenberg name in New York state, according to court papers. Moshe owns one-third of New York City’s Rutenberg Realty, while Purcell, Braddock and two other investors each own one-sixth of the brokerage.

The lawsuit underscores the tension between outside partners who expect a certain return on their investment and believe they are not being paid their fair share. In a similar suit filed in 2008, Timothy King, as a minority partner with the Brooklyn office of investment sales firm Massey Knakal Realty Services, sued to discover how much the firm was making to know with certainty his ownership stake. State court records show that case was disposed of in 2009, when the dispute was sent to arbitration. Such court actions are known as derivative lawsuits, because the plaintiff, as an owner of the company, is suing on behalf of all owners who are allegedly being harmed by the actions of those leading the company.

The dispute also raises questions about the profitability of the “100-percent commission” brokerage model, which has grown in popularity in recent years, due in large part to Rutenberg Realty. Founded in 2006, Rutenberg has become one of the fastest growing firms in the city under the leadership of Prudential Douglas Elliman veterans Purcell and Braddock. The firm charges set transaction and monthly fees rather than taking a percentage of agents’ commission checks.

The firm expected to begin quarterly profit distributions in February 2008, the lawsuit says, but no money was ever sent to the Krug Family Trust. The suit claims that 0,000 was improperly distributed to Purcell, Braddock and others, under the “guise of general business expenses and/or consulting fees.”

To check up on the situation, Moshe asked to review the financial records, but claims he has not been given access.

In addition, the lawsuit alleges that Braddock + Purcell is competing for business with Rutenberg Realty, and is not paying rent although it operates out of the same office space.

Terrence Oved, a partner with the law firm Oved & Oved who is not involved with the litigation, said those claims are particularly biting.

“It’s a very reprehensible allegation to say that not only are [Braddock and Purcell] not diligently and faithfully and accurately performing their duties to [Rutenberg Realty], but they have formed a competing business in breach of fiduciary duties at the cost and expense of [Rutenberg Realty],” he said.

But real estate insiders had high praise for Purcell and Braddock.

“They are fantastic people and experienced brokers,” said Lawrence Link, president of the residential firm the Level Group, which operates under a 100-percent-commission plus transaction fee model, like Rutenberg. Because of the similar model, they speak frequently, Link said, adding: “I have the utmost respect for them.”

But Link noted that the high-commission-split model, by definition, is less profitable for firms than the tradition model, in which the house often takes around 50 percent of each broker’s commission.

“The transaction fees don’t come anywhere near 50 percent,” Link said. “You try and provide a high-quality, well-designed platform for a lower margin. You just know that at the outset.”

The Real Deal New York

Shopping Blog

I haven’t been doing much in terms of photography lately, but I’ve been filming a few things on & off during the holidays and winter. Before Christmas, I made a time lapse video from around Jersey City and views from my apartment. And yesterday I made a quick time lapse video of me doodling in a notepad.

I can’t remember the last time I did a time lapse but I have a feeling it was when I proposed to my wife. The Jersey City time lapse was shot using my Nikon D300 camera and taken over a few days around downtown Jersey City. I shot around my neighborhood in Paulus Hook, the Waterfront and the marina area. For just a 2 minute video or so, I had to take A LOT of photos! For most of the photos, I shot every 3-5 seconds. I tweak the photos in Adobe Lightroom, made the photos widescreen, and then brought into Adobe Premiere. Then the magic happened haha. I tried to do a tilt shift effect with the photos but didn’t turn out as well as I hoped. Plus the flickering was a bit annoying at times but I think I got a handle of it now. Note to self, don’t have autofocus or anything auto on! For the music, I had “The Sabre Dance” playing in my head the entire time I was putting this together and think it works well.

After my Xmas videos, I didn’t really do much in terms of filming. I had an idea when I got my video camera (Canon XF100) to maybe just try to out some time lapse/interval filming of me doodling. Not original but whatever, it was fun to just draw a bunch of stuff that just popped in my head. I do that on a daily basis so why not film it. Operation Ivy’s “Bankshot” is another song I had in my head when shooting this. There’s really not much else to explain. I used some minor color correction with Magic Bullet Looks and edited in Premiere. Hope you enjoy, and keep coming back for my videos and sooner or later (photos).

Be sure to add me on Vimeo if you have an account there.

SkaPunkPhotos.com

“Woolworth Fragment #1″
Oil on canvas
6 x 8 inches
Sold

“Woolworth Fragment #2″
Oil on canvas
6 x 8 inches
Sold

“Woolworth Fragment #3″
Oil on canvas
6 x 8 inches
Sold

I was going through some older slides today and came across these three paintings of the Woolworth Building. Several years ago, an artist friend suggested I try painting sections of a building. I thought it an interesting idea and decided to use the Woolworth Building as an experiment. These three paintings were done from a photo that I took and then divided into 3 sections. I still want to tackle a big painting of this wonderful building and I’ve taken many photographs over the years. All of the detailing on the facade is a tad intimidating which is why I’ve yet to do a painting. But, one day…

SJF New York Art

We enter the year of the Water Dragon on Monday with the kick-off of the Chinese New Year, a celebration filled with traditions highlighting change with an emphasis on “out with the old, and in the with new.”
PinkMemo New York – The Front Row

Shopping Blog

CliffsNotes Films has created a new animated “edutainment” series based on classic literature. What is your take on these and other products like them?
The Learning Network

Mona Hatoum, 'Home,' 1999, photograph courtesy of Alexander and Bonin

Mona Hatoum’s 1999 sculpture Home (featuring kitchen implements with wires running out of them, accompanied by the sound of pulsating current) inspired this unsettling exhibition plumbing the darker side of the places in which we live. High on anxiety but regrettably low on risk factor, this hit parade of big-name artists still affords the pleasure of reconnecting with iconic artworks about painful circumstances.

Family relations simmer in the show’s best pieces. Louise Bourgeois’s claustrophobic house teeming with phallic/breast/fungal forms and Rachel Whiteread’s black urethane mattress creased by a labial fold conjure a dread matched by a Luc Tuymans painting of place settings that foretells the drama of a family gathering.

Violence spills over in Gregor Schneider’s photos of a strung-up sex doll and in Mamma Andersson’s painting of a disordered bedroom with ominously bloodred furniture. But the most disturbing pieces hint at souls lost to the chaos (Jeff Wall’s photo of a disheveled character standing by the door of his decrepit domicile) or obsessive order (a Thomas Ruff living-room scene) of their lives.

Even a cheery painting of a beach house by Maureen Gallace turns suspiciously, unbelievably idealized in this context, while a whimsical paintbrush by Michael Brown, its handle crafted from melted Neil Young records, seems primed for a cover-up. Viewed from the right angle, David Altmejd’s plaster sculpture of a fantastical lair with dangling staircases turns out to be the head of some deranged giant. Such twists add intrigue to this domestic thriller of a group show.

New York Art Tours