Oil and water. How better to describe the strange partnership between Toronto's Eddy Cogan and New York City's Howard Milstein?
Eddy's a guy who likes to see his name in the papers. If you're a reporter, you know that a phone call from Eddy is going to be an hour-long affair and, because he's fun and interesting, it's generally worth it.
Howard, on the other hand, doesn't like seeing his name in the papers even when he's done something good. I can tell you, for example, that he's purchased nearly $100,000 worth of advertisements over the past three years for community groups as diverse as the Firefighters Toy Fund, the Friends of the Library, Catholic Charities, the United Way and the ASPCA and, although I've suggested that he might benefit by putting "Paid for by Howard Milstein" or "Paid for by Niagara Falls Redevelopment" at the bottom of them, he prefers to let his gifts remain anonymous.
Eddy founded Niagara Falls Redevelopment six years ago. Frank Taibi went up to Canada to see him after hearing about some of the developments he was involved in there. Frank convinced Eddy to come across the river and have a look at the diamond-in-the-rough that is our city.
Cogan's a vision guy. He looked at the vacant land and boarded-up buildings and saw a paradise. He brought in the best urban planners money could buy and came up with a plan that couldn't be improved upon. In fact, when the state-run USA Niagara Development drew up its own plans for the revitalization of the city's South End, they pretty much just copied what Cogan had come up with years earlier.
But vision guys need money guys and, in 1998, Eddy brought Howard Milstein to town. Howard's a billionaire. He and his brother own the Emigrant Savings Bank. He used to own the New York Islanders hockey franchise, founded Liberty Cable, and still owns the fashionable Milford Plaza Hotel and scads of other choice Manhattan real estate stretching from the Bronx to the Battery.
Shortly after Eddy brought Howard in, two things happened that changed both their relationship and NFR's relationship with the city. Eddy went bankrupt and Irene Elia was elected mayor.
Elia's campaign against NFR often bordered on the comical, and ended up costing the city a lot of money in needless litigation. She held up the transfer of the Splash Park property for eight months before finally settling for exactly what NFR had offered in the first place. Cogan's financial troubles served as a further distraction, and Milstein became more and more active in the day-to-day operation of the development firm.
Eddy's problems and the mayor's vitriol both generated headlines, to which Howard is decidedly averse. The partnership grew more and more strained, and two guys who had made some money together years ago on a Fifth Avenue building in the heart of Manhattan became estranged.
Finally, the Toronto playboy and the New York banker just couldn't seem to get along. The divorce appears as though it's going to be anything but amicable. And they say that divorce always hurts the children, who, in this case, are the people of Niagara Falls.
Things seemed to be coming to a head earlier this year when Milstein offered to buy Cogan out for a reported $14 million. That deal fell through because of uncertainty about the Splash Park, which is the centerpiece of NFR's holdings here.
Last week, after NFR and the city closed on the property, Cogan announced he was buying Milstein out, presumably for the same $14 million. This came as a surprise to Milstein, whose attorney said he was unaware of any such deal.
It goes back to the oil and water thing. Eddy apparently decided to announce his intentions on the front pages of the daily newspapers rather than going through the more mundane channel of having "our people get back to your people."
What happens now is anybody's guess. NFR owns the Splash Park, the Nabisco complex and the Turtle outright. They also have options on all the land between Daly Boulevard, Portage Road, Niagara Street and Buffalo Avenue. The outcome of this clash of titans -- Toronto millionaire versus New York billionaire -- will have an impact on the people of this city for a generation to come.
Both Milstein and Cogan have sunk a considerable chunk of change into the future here in Niagara Falls, not to mention years of their time. Neither man will likely let go easily.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me."
Scott's been dead for more than 50 years but what he said is as true today as it was when Hemingway told him, "Yes, they have more money."
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | July 1 2003 |