Star of Real Estate Boom Is Confronting Hard Times

The New York Times reports:

Through the real estate boom, few new developers filled the city with luxury condominiums as fast as Shaya Boymelgreen. He turned Wall Street corner offices into minimalist bachelor lairs, built TriBeCa apartments snapped up by celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and crowded the edges of Park Slope, Brooklyn, with condos.

But Mr. Boymelgreen, 58, has since retreated mightily from the limelight as his fortune has reversed.

He is battling a bankruptcy filing against one of his companies, eviction from his Brooklyn headquarters — a judge ruled Tuesday morning that the proceedings could move forward early next year — and the seizure of a Queens theater in what the buyer calls a “friendly foreclosure.” Condo owners are filing lawsuits over his construction. He has cut his staff to 15 from 200, his spokeswoman says, and several former co-workers report that the five of his eight children who are in the family business are looking for other employment.

Great moments in real estate.