BIENENSTOCK, Morris

A close and versatile student of real estate of this boro (as well as, incidentally, outside of it); a keen observer of the development of Brooklyn for many years, Morris Beinenstock, whose present office is in his own "Arsenal Building" at 463 Seventh Avenue, has been an exceedingly energetic builder whose achievements are widely known both in Boro Park, where he lives, and in the boro in general.

Unaffected and modest, Bienenstock is a man of deeds, not of words, and he invariably lets his actual accomplishments speak for themselves. This, by the way, applies not only to his profession of building, but also to his philanthropic activities, for which, too, he is extensively recognized.

Bienenstock has done a great deal of building throughout Brooklyn, and has done it very successfully. Ordinarily he builds to keep, but more often others snatch it from him by offers of alluring profit. He has erected numerous home and business structures in various p arts of Brooklyn, and, latterly, in Manhattan as well.

Bienenstock was born in Austria forty-seven years ago. He came to America as a youth without money and without guidance. The new country, large, strange and boiling with activity, frightened him at first. Poor and ignorant of its language he felt as if he had dropped into a foaming whirlpool without knowing how to swim.

But Bienenstock carried in his young head some pretty big visions and he also carried with him a large stock of energy and persistence, and he had an aptitude to learn things quickly.

In a short time he got around to know the ways and means of this new land and he lost no time in getting started for himself. it was thus that he drifted into the realty field in which he distinguished himself both in this boro and in Manhattan.

The crowning milestone of his career is embodied in the imposing and artistic Arsenal Building. Bienenstock went ahead and bought the plot solely on his own initiative and because of his won vision. He did it when others advised against it, and when others thought he would go broke. Far from breaking him, the building proved a most successful undertaking.

Bienenstock is a man of wide sympathies. There is not a worth while institution in Boro Park that does not enlist his support. He is a member of the Federation, Boro Park Yeshiva, Israel-Zion Hospital, and ex-president of Temple Beth El.

Music, the theater and light physical exercise constitute his diversions. He is married and lives with his family at 5117 Fifteenth Avenue.

BLANK, David

To say that David Blank is but an old official of a title company would be to err greatly on the side of modesty. He is that, but he is also much more than that. He represents even considerably more than a Brooklyn old-timer, who happens to be well conversant with realty matters of this boro. The truth, then, is that David Blank is neither merely a title company official nor yet only a Brooklyn realty expert, he is a Brooklyn institution.

It may conceivably happen that someone or other in Brooklyn who is closely or remotely interested in real estate does not know or has not heard of David Blank. But then it also happens that here and there you will find a Brooklyn old-timer who has not heard that there is such a thing as the Brooklyn Bridge.

For over forty years, Blank, in that diligent and unassuming manner of his, has been sitting behind one desk or another, examining titles, giving counsel, and speaking to thousands of realtors who happened to have crossed the threshold of the Title Guarantee and Trust Company, on either its Montague or Remsen Street entrance. In fact, an entire generation must have passed into oblivion, with a new generation taking its place, while this man, with his garnered wisdom of years, his ready wit and his painstaking wish to be of service, sat there watching closely the changing panorama of real estate doings in this boro.

With that reticence which comes to men, who arrive at the stage in life, when they can see things in their true perspective, Blank could tell a story of this boro's development that could fill pages and pages. And the summary of this story would be that Brooklyn has had a steady and healthy growth, that unlimited possibilities still lie ahead of it, and that, in general, the future is indeed alluring.

Blank is at present Assistant Secretary of the abovementioned company, to which he came in 1889, to do the job of examining titles. Subsequently he was promoted to "head of closing department," which led to his present post. He was born in New York in 1867, went to local public school and high school, and then studied law at home. He was admitted to the bar in 1888. Two years later he married and settled down in Brooklyn.

Blank is a member of the Fox Hills Golf Club, a Mason, a Shriner, an Elk, a member of the Chamber of Commerce.

In addition to leisure-time reminiscences of his vivid, colorful and absorbing which he tells with apparent gusto, Blank considers golf as his principal diversion.

He lives with his family at Manhattan Beach.