The Real Deal profiled BBG co-founding partner Sherwin Belkin in connection with his planned retirement this October after a 50-year career in real estate law.
The profile traces Sherwin’s career from his early work at the city’s Conciliation and Appeals Board, which administered rent stabilization, through the founding of BBG in 1989 with a small staff. The firm has since grown to 65 attorneys, all focused on real estate.
The piece highlights some of the city’s most prominent landlord-side matters Belkin handled over the decades, including representing the Zeckendorf family in connection with the Mayflower Hotel, which was later redeveloped as 15 Central Park West, and negotiating an agreement at Waterside Plaza that kept the Mitchell-Lama development’s four towers outside of rent stabilization. It also recounts some of the more unusual assignments of his career, including defending a landlord accused by a tenant of conducting nuclear experiments in the building.
Sherwin discussed the shifting regulatory landscape for property owners in New York, particularly the impact of the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019, which he said fundamentally changed the nature of landlord-side practice. Much of his recent work, he noted, has focused on due diligence for buyers and sellers of rent-regulated properties.
The profile also touches on Sherwin’s personal connection to regulated housing, having grown up in a rent-controlled apartment in the Bronx and later a Mitchell-Lama development in Coney Island before living in rent-stabilized apartments in Brooklyn.
In retirement, he plans to spend time with his family and pursue his interests in drawing, sculpting, and watercolor.
The full article is available at https://therealdeal.com/new-york/2026/05/22/sherwin-belkin-to-retire/.