Who

The head of one of the oldest and richest real estate clans in New York, Bill Rudin is the chief executive of Rudin Management.

Backstory

The Rudin real estate dynasty first took shape in 1898 when Bill Rudin's great grandfather, a Polish Jewish immigrant named Louis Rudinsky, bought an apartment building at 153 East 54th Street, a property that remains in the Rudin portfolio to this day. The next generation of Rudins, which included Bill's grandfather Sam, incorporated the family's real estate assets into Rudin Management in 1924, and started to slowly acquire apartments in the Bronx and, later, office buildings in Midtown. But the Rudins' holdings really ballooned under the stewardship of Bill's father, Lewis Rudin, a major behind-the-scenes political player who famously helped bail the city out of the fiscal crisis during the '70s. Lew both increased the firm's presence in midtown and gave it a footprint in the financial district. Bill, himself, joined Rudin Management shortly after graduating from NYU in 1979, and was appointed president in 1993. Today, the company has some 15 million square feet of space under its control.

Of note

The Rudins have developed a few big-ticket buildings since Bill took over the firm, most notably the Reuters Building at 3 Times Square. They've also converted several others, such as 55 Broad Street, which is now tailored toward tech companies. But they generally acquire property sparingly, opting instead to milk revenue out of the properties they've owned for decades. The Rudins control close to two dozen mid-range residential buildings in the city, totaling some 2,000 apartments. More lucratively, though, they own sixteen office buildings, including 345 Park Avenue (home to Steve Schwarzman's Blackstone), 40 East 52nd Street (home to Larry Fink's BlackRock), 1675 Broadway (home to a bunch of law firms), and One Battery Park Plaza (co-owned with Daniel Rose's Rose Management). What was to be the Rudins' first major new development in years, a $1.6 billion overhaul of St. Vincent's Hospital and the surrounding area, was effectively killed by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in May 2008. 

Pet causes

Although he lacks the political influence that his father once commanded, Bill has tried to carry on Lew's tradition of civic-mindedness. He's the chairman of the Association for a Better New York, a federation of business leaders, labor officials, and politicians that his father founded in 1973. (The group's logo is an apple and Rudin frequently fastens apple pins to the lapels of people he meets.) In the aftermath of Sept 11th, Rudin suggested to his friend Jane Rosenthal that downtown movie premieres would be a good way to revive lower Manhattan, an idea that gave rise to the Tribeca Film Festival. Rudin is also a trustee of NYU, on whose board he sits alongside Ken Langone, Martin Lipton, Donald Marron, Larry Fink, Daniel Brodsky, and Barry Diller.

Family ties

Bill's sister, socialite Beth Rudin DeWoody, is (in name, at least) an executive vice president of Rudin Management. So are his cousins Eric Rudin and Madeline Rudin Johnson, whose father, Jack Rudin, remains the company's chairman.

Personal

Rudin and his well-tanned wife Ophelia have two children, Michael and Samantha. They live on the Upper East Side, and also have a beachfront house in Bridgehampton.