The 1987 city plan talked about expanding the central business district across the East River into western Queens. That meant kicking out existing light manufacturing and working-class residents, of course. Trying to take advantage of this scheme, Lazard Realty, an arm of Lazard Freres, developed some office properties in LIC. Sadly, they were completed as the 80s boom was falling apart, so no tenants were to be found.
Not to worry. Lazard was the employer of the odious Felix Rohatyn, the investment banker who "saved" New York via an early structural adjustment program. For years, Felix had been agitating for the creation of a School Construction Authority, independent of the Board of Ed, that would handle building new schools. Not coincidentally, it would issue municiapl bonds, which Lazard could underwrite. Felix got his way - and, perhaps merely coincidentally, the new authority moved into one of the empty Lazard buildings in LIC. And also, no doubt by coincidence, La Guardia College (one of the CUNY community college) also moved into the Lazard building. Happy ending.
Doug