Walter Cronkite Launched This Woman’s Real Estate Career

Cassidy Turley’s Susan Kahaner started out as a writer for Charles Kuralt and then Cronkite. But when Walter left CBS, Susan, raising a daughter on her own, heard a lot of women were going into real estate. (And that's the way it is... well, was.)

We snapped Susan at the Cassidy Turley office on Friday. She tells us she started out in art and nonprofit brokerage because the people are so interesting (and she’s stayed with that clientele, doing more than 100k SF of deals last year). MoMa, for instance, tasked her with leasing an annex 10 years ago, and while she was showing the space, she lucked into seeing a Picasso being repaired. The Richard Avedon and Henry Frank Guggenheim foundations leased the space, and now she's repping both in renewal negotiations.

Susan started out with the now-extinct firm Collins Tuttle, knocking on doors to find clients, including the Finland consulate. She knew the penthouse of 380 Madison (which we snapped this snowy afternoon) was available and sought out the Finns with a little creativity. Aware that they love jazz, she wrote, directed, and starred in a promotional video that a composer friend scored with jazz. And it worked.

Susan says that in the search for affordable space, nonprofits go against traffic and search in less trendy areas (she recently put a major one in LIC space that was half the price of Manhattan). And just like bigger tenants, they can realize savings by moving into smaller footprints in newly reconfigured space. She moved the Better Business Bureau, for instance, from 11k SF to 7,500 SF at 112 Madison Ave (above), which is owned by nonprofit-friendly landlord Samco Properties.