In Bryant Park in midtown Manhattan, we play a variant of musical chairs with Dan Biederman amid the Friday lunch-hour crowds.
That”™s Daniel A. Biederman, Scarsdale-bred, Chappaqua-residing, Playland-eyeing president of Biederman Redevelopment Ventures Corp., the private Manhattan consulting firm he founded in 1998. Bryant Park ”“ the green, inviting seven-acre space behind the New York Public Library that draws tourists, office workers, lovers and idlers, people watchers and bird watchers alike ”“ is his exemplary handiwork, a public park that for 20 years has been privately managed and privately funded. Biederman manages it as president of the nonprofit Bryant Park Corp., which employs about 50 park workers on a $7.2 million annual operating budget.
That”™s about the size of the budget that a revived, privately operated Playland in Rye would need, he estimates. Biederman would very much like his BRV Corp. to manage the wondrous and perennially money-losing park on the Sound Shore for Sustainable Playland, the group of Rye residents whose proposal to create and operate a more diversified and aesthetically appealing park ”“ picture a Great Lawn like Central Park”™s, a sculpture garden ”“ is vying with two amusement park companies”™ proposals for approval by the Westchester County administration of Robert P. Astorino.
“I was originally going to bid on it myself,” he says over the French cabaret melodies of the Bryant Park carousel behind us. “I do want to be involved and be the acting manager of the (Sustainable Playland) team. It”™s a very good team to be associated with.”
“It”™s been a very long trail,” he says of the Playland project and the county”™s protracted review and decision-making process. Still he speaks highly of Astorino and his executive staff and the “excellent” request for proposals they issued to turn over the county”™s public amusement park to a private operator.
“Rob Astorino is kind of a more conservative version of Bloomberg,” says Bierderman, who gets along well with New York”™s run-it-like-a-business mayor. With Rudy Giuliani, he did not. Giuliani thought the redeveloper had grown too big for his public breeches, so to speak, and forced him out as president of the Grand Central Partnership that Biederman had created in 1989.
“I know privatization,” says the Scarsdale High School alumnus, who now is consulting in 23 cities. He is guiding the redevelopment of parks in Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and Dallas and leading improvements to a section of the Boston Common and an overhaul of historic Military Park in downtown Newark. His turnaround expertise, applied to neighborhoods and business districts as well as public parks and plazas, has brought him consulting work overseas on projects in London, Dublin, Helsinki, Jerusalem and Singapore. “My whole career is to take things from government and run them privately.”
That career has been built on a string of highly visible successes in other private redevelopment ventures in Manhattan”™s public spaces: the Grand Central Terminal area, Chelsea Triangle, Greeley Square and Herald Square in the 34th Street commercial district, where Biederman is president and co-founder of the private 34th Street Partnership.
“Playland is a natural progression for us,” he says. And turning around an amusement park would be a novel venture to add to his portfolio.
“There are very few privatizations of amusement parks going on at any time,” he says. “This is unusual.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Biederman,” a park worker politely interrupts, “could you move to another table? We have to set up here for a birthday party at 2.”
We grab a table near the statue of William Cullen Bryant on the rear library terrace. A ragtime piano player entertains the lounging terrace crowd.
Despite the growing demand for his services, “I”™ve never been able to do a Westchester project,” Biederman says rather plaintively. “What”™s the expression, you”™re always a prophet without honor in your hometown?”
His hometown, New Castle, like other smaller Westchester communities, couldn”™t afford his consulting services these days, he concedes, though he has freely advised his town officials. “At this point, I”™m expensive,” he says.
“I”™ve always been really interested in working in Yonkers,” where large-scale downtown redevelopment has stalled since the recession. He sees Larkin Square ”“ where the city is completing its riverwalk park on the newly uncovered Saw Mill River ”“ as “a potential nucleus” for redeveloped public space stretching from the waterfront to Getty Square. “If you piece them together, I think you can do it.”
“I would almost want czarlike powers,” he adds, in order to get things done amid the city”™s fractious politics.
It”™s hard to be heard above the ragtime player”™s singing and music. We pack up and move off to another table. No one recognizes the guy who led the revival of this park they enjoy.
“I walk through three times a day,” he says. “I have a tougher eye than most of the staff.”
At times he poses as a patron at its open-air restaurants and lounges. “We get 10 percent of the gross from every drink, every meal bought in Bryant Park,” he notes.
“This was a huge turnaround and a risk. Playland is a turnaround too.”
He”™d like to have a crack at it. “It”™s the best amusement park site I”™ve ever seen.”
“The setting is exquisite, but it hasn”™t been maintained as a scenic park for some time. It”™s been an amusement park. As a general park, it lacks a lot.”
Vigilant duty interrupts his talk. “Let me make a note to the staff that Henry”™s got the piano cranked up too loud.”
