Deals & Dealmakers
BY REW . June 8, 2016
Team gets to art of the deal
Eastern Consolidated has arranged the sale of a historic six-story, 13,150 s/f cast
iron loft property at 124 West Houston Street in Greenwich Village that was owned
for decades by the late artist/architects Madeline Arakawa Gins and Shusaku
Arakawa.
The Arakawa/Gins Building traded for $15,415,250.
Exclusive brokers Peter Hauspurg, chairman and CEO, and Evan Papanastasiou,
director, represented the sellers, the Estate of Madeline Arakawa Gins.
Eastern Consolidated director Jonathan Schwartz procured the buyer, a private investor. Gary Meese, Director
of Financial Services, was the analyst for the deal.
Gins, a poet, painter, and architect who died in 2014, and her husband, the artist Shusaku Arakawa who died in
2010, bought 124 West Houston Street in 1966. Proceeds from the sale will go to the Reversible Destiny
Foundation, which Gins and Arakawa established in 1987 to promote an inventive style of art/architecture.
“The Arakawa/Gins Building has a rich history of innovative art and architecture produced by the original
owners and other artists including Bob Dylan, who used the ground floor as his private rehearsal studio,”
Hauspurg said.
“Because the property was under the same ownership for 50 years, the building’s remarkable original
architectural details remain intact.”
Schwartz said ,“This property will give the new owners a blank canvas that will allow them to come in and
redevelop a unique space on one of the hottest commercial corridors in New York City.
“The building is located in a residential zoning district with commercial uses permitted on street level, making
it ripe for multiple uses.”
In their long careers, Gins and Arakawa completed a park, office building, nine Reversible Destiny Lofts in
Japan, and the Bioscleave house in East Hampton.
An exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum displayed 30 years of their work.