Bruce Ratner
| Bruce Ratner | |
|---|---|
| Born |
January 23, 1945 Cleveland, Ohio |
| Residence | Manhattan, New York |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Real estate developer and minority owner of the Brooklyn Nets |
| Spouse(s) | Julie Ratner Pamela Lipkin (2008-present) |
| Children | 2 |
| Parent(s) | Harry Ratowczer |
Bruce Ratner (born January 23, 1945 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American real estate developer and minority owner of the NBA's Brooklyn Nets.
Ratner was born into a Jewish family in the Cleveland metropolitan area, the son of Harry Ratowczer (later Americanized to Ratner), one of eight children to immigrate to the US from Poland. Four of his paternal uncles founded Forest City Enterprises in 1920; originally a construction materials company it eventually evolved into construction and then into real estate development. Ratner's older brother is New York attorney Michael Ratner and his sister is Ellen Ratner, a news analyst for Fox News. Ratner graduated from Harvard College in 1967, and earned a Juris Doctor from Columbia University in 1970.
After law school, he worked for the City of New York. Under Mayor Ed Koch he became consumer affairs commissioner where he went after corrupt merchants, repairmen and alarm companies. As Consumer Affairs Commissioner, he gained notoriety for "diapering" the horses pulling carriages in Central Park. Commissioner Ratner was successful in initiating a law that required horse drawn carriages to install receptacles to catch horse excrement rather than allow it to fall onto the street. He then turned to developing real estate.
In 1985, he founded Forest City Ratner of which he is now executive chairman. He developed the $1 billion complex of nine buildings in downtown Brooklyn called MetroTech. He supervised the building of a 393,000 square-foot shopping mall at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues in the 1990s. Forest City Ratner's unsuccessful bid to develop Columbus Circle, included installing a Sears there.
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