Patrick Silberstein says he is trying to figure out how a local business can thrive in today’s world where convenience in some cases takes precedence over the personal touch.
“I’m concerned with all small communities, but Great Neck especially because I have my business here,” said Silberstein, who owns the historic Thomaston Building at 8 Bond St., which is the home of eight businesses.
“The Internet is a wonderful thing, but it is disruptive. E-commerce has changed the way local merchants do business, and they have to shift to a new paradigm.”
Silberstein, who is also a tenant at 8 Bond St., said he is trying to help the tenants in his building succeed by changing how he does business.
His latest effort to help his tenants is a monthly breakfast networking club called 8at8 held at Elaine’s Asian Bistro & Grill in 8 Bond St. where the tenants of his building can exchange their thoughts and ideas on how to run a business.
Silberstein said the breakfasts allow him to not only get to know his tenants better, but also helps him develop new relationships with possible future tenants.
“I may have an open spot downstairs, and one of my tenants will tell me to approach this person I may not know to fill the spot,” he said. “It creates potential business.”
Silberstein, who brings a feel for cafe society that reflects his native France, said he also tries to curate a unique series of businesses in his building, helping coordinate with business owners and helping them build their business.
“You have to offer something unique,” he said. “You cannot have a virtual meal, or a virtual haircut.”
Silberstein said he believes a creative approach is also needed to improve business in the Village of Great Neck Plaza and says everyone in the community must share the blame for the empty storefronts that currently dot the business district.
“Everyone is responsible,” Silberstein said. “The politicians, the landlords the tenants are under, the merchants who don’t adjust – you can’t point the finger at one person. It’s a communal problem.”
Silberstein said as a landlord he tries to get his tenants to stay as long as possible and does not look for the quick fix. He said he wants to have businesses in the space that will survive even after he decides to stop being the landlord.
“The point is that, in good times, it is easy to raise a tenant’s rent,” Silberstein said. “If you exploit them, then in bad times, they will leave.”
Silberstein was born in 1945 in Lyon, France and has been an American since 1980.
He has travelled extensively, he said, but moved to the area after meeting his wife a Glen Cove native who he met in the South of France in 1971.
When Silberstein took over the building, he said, he wanted to refurbish its inside to make it more modern.
Growing up in France, Silberstein said, he had an appreciation for buildings where the outside looked old but the inside had the latest luxuries.
The Thomaston Building was constructed in 1926 by the WR Grace Company.
Even though it was for a time, according to the building’s website, the Great Neck City Hall, it eventually fell into disrepair out of neglect. The building was still beautiful from the outside, but outdated.
“I wanted the look of the old with the comfort of the new,” Silberstein said. “I didn’t want to touch the façade.”
The building is now wired by Verizon and Optimum for internet, and all the windows were replaced, Silberstein said, as were the lights, which are all now LED. He also replaced the boiler for the building, which was originally powered by coal, Silberstein said, and the building is now heated by gas.
Silberstein runs the building with Joe Gauci, who worked for the previous owner of the building.
When Silberstein bought the building in 1981, Gauci decided to stay on, and they have been growing old together ever since.
“Joe is the unsung here of the building,” Silberstein said. “He knows how everything is run in the building. We are like ‘The Odd Couple.’”
Silberstein is friendly with many of the tenants of the building, who not only say hello but stop to talk if they see him.
Linda Silver, president of Linda Silver Designs, a fashion boutique in the building, said she has had many landlords in the past, but that most landlords tenants don’t know well at all.
“How many landlords try to help their tenants,” Silver said.
Village of Great Neck Plaza Justice Neil Finkston is also a tenant, and said the building is a warm comfortable environment.
“The great thing is that we’re all close and we all see each other,” Finkston said. “You walk down the hallway here and it’s just a different feel.”
