Simon Harrison
| Simon Harrison | |
|---|---|
| Born | Simon Charles Harrison January 30, 1964 Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| 🏫 Education | New York University |
| 💼 Occupation | |
| Known for | Simon Harrison Real Estate, Sag Harbor Oyster Club |
| 👩 Spouse(s) | Stephanie |
| 👶 Children | 1 |
| 🌐 Website | simonthebroker |
Simon Harrison (born January 30, 1964) is a clean water advocate and independent real estate broker in The Hamptons region of Long Island, New York.
Early life[edit]
Simon Charles Harrison was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on January 30, 1964, to Malcolm Charles Harrison and Alison Marjorie (née Pullan), both immigrants from England. His father was fulfilling a post-doctorate position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the time.[1] His elder sister Joanne Louise had been born in England in 1962; younger sister Eve Danielle Harrison was born in New York City in 1965.
Harrison's grandfather was an English barrister who served into his 90s. His father, born and raised in England, studied mathematics at Cambridge University.[2] Pursuing his doctorate at University of Leeds,[2] he worked in the newly created computer applications group in the mathematics department and wrote programs for the Pegasus computer. Offered a post-doctorate position at MIT he moved the family to Boston in 1962. While at MIT he re-worked the Pegasus programs to adapt them to MIT's newer and faster IBM 709 computers. A chance invitation by a former MIT colleague to give a talk at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University led to a 35-year affiliation with NYU.[3] He served as professor of computer science from 1973[4] until his retirement in 2000 — later being granted the title Professor Emeritus.[1]
At three years of age, Harrison went to the Children's Aid Society on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village,[5] where they placed him with the four-year-olds. He attended PS 41 on 11th street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan (across from the original Rays Pizza). Harrison later attended PS 3, John Meltzer's then-new school on Hudson Street. He went to Stanfordville Elementary School in Warwick, New York for his fifth grade, where the family renovated a 208-year-old homestead.
After sale of their upstate home, the family gravitated to the coast of Maine every summer, where they split their lives between Greenwich Village and Little Cranberry Island[1] during the summer. After high school, Harrison alternated in employment between Hamptons restaurants, NYC night clubs, and white-gloved catering companies like Glorious Foods, Kennedy Center, and New York University.
He majored in economics and finance at NYU (without earning a degree).
Licensing[edit]
Harrison was licensed first through Long Island University in Southampton, New York as a real estate agent in 1986. He later attended Southampton College for a New York State Brokers License.[6] Shortly after selling the office building he worked in, Harrison went to California, taking an additional eight college courses there which helped him get a California Brokers License.
Career[edit]
Harrison began as a real estate agent with Carl Marino at Harbor Cove Realty in Sag Harbor in 1986. Training toward his California Brokers License led to an association with Dyson & Dyson[7] in Carlsbad, Encinitas, and Rancho Santa Fe where he listed California "homes teetering over ten-lane highways next to islands for sale in Fiji." In that short tenure, Dyson & Dyson expanded throughout Southern California and Las Vegas.[8]
Harrison arranged to buy his former real estate firm in 2002, but was outbid by Century 21.[9] He instead opened his own brokerage firm, Simon Harrison Real Estate, across the street. A year later, he hired away the administrative staff from his old firm. Ultimately the agents and brokers also migrated to Harrison's firm. His eponymous firm survived the economic collapse of 2007–2010, existing to this day.
The Solana Beach real estate brokerage Harrison had worked for in Southern California, an affiliate of Sotheby's International Realty, shut down in October 2009. As the premier agency in the region with hundreds of agents per office, Bob and Loraine Dyson sold out to Realogy, owned by parent company Apollo Global Management, owners of Coldwell Banker (who further own Century 21 franchises). The Dysons ultimately ended up in bankruptcy,[10] with co-founder Robert Dyson later starting up Home.Chat.[9]
Simon Harrison Real Estate[edit]
Simon Harrison Real Estate is one of the last independent brokers throughout The Hamptons. With 35 years of successful real estate transactions, Harrison and his 15 agents and brokers[6] have sold and rented thousands of properties, including vacant land, commercial ventures including hotels, mixed-use buildings, entire subdivisions, and boast billions of dollars in successful transactions.
The brokerage office is situated on The Long Wharf, where the municipality has undergone a dramatic renovation — making it the most attractive feature of Sag Harbor Village.
Environmental activism[edit]
Harrison funded and maintained the Conscience Point Shellfish Hatchery, an "oyster garden" under the Sag Harbor village docks. His shellfish were being grown “not for snacks,” he said, but to “help repopulate the water.” Harrison had taken up oyster gardening as a concerned environmentalist, but also as a real estate broker[11] who had sold approximately 100 waterfront houses. Watching the inlet's water quality decline, he'd wanted to do something to help reverse that trend.
Harrison said he dreamed of a day when the village's harbor bottom would be home to a million or more oysters, churning away at the nutrients and algae in the water. “Fifty million gallons per day. Nobody is going to tell me that’s not going to have an effect,” he said. Each oyster can filter between 30 and 50 gallons of water per day.[12]
Unfortunately, Harrison's oyster garden was located in the middle of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation red zone closed to shellfish farming.[13] This jurisdictional overlap between state and local had been addressed in the original Dongan Patent which established the legal basis for the area.[14] Harrison had obtained permission from both the village Harbor Committee and the Village Board to raise the oysters under village-owned docks. But, reasoning that he was not growing them for human consumption, he did not bother to get a DEC permit. "There are a lot of projects underway in certified waters under the purview of the DEC,” Harrison said. “I mutinied. I was a pirate. I did it in uncertified waters."[15]
In January 2016, after learning that Harrison had been raising the bivalves so close to the outlet pipe of the Sag Harbor sewage water treatment plant on the village waterfront, the DEC ordered the Sag Harbor Harbormaster to confiscate the oysters and racks where they were being cultivated. New York State prohibits cultivation of shellfish in uncertified waters — where harvesting of oysters for human consumption is banned.[13] A further danger is oysters ingesting (and filtering) polluted water, as they too become tainted.[15] Harrison stressed his oysters were not offered for human consumption. As he said at the time:
I’ve had five years of success without anybody stealing oysters or getting sick. There’s no lack of enthusiasm for what I’m doing. We need more oysters. If the law is preventing that, we need new laws.
Fully-funded by Simon Harrison Real Estate from its inception, The Sag Harbor Oyster Club was formalized into a 501-3c[16] in New York State during the COVID-19 pandemic, with Harrison and his son Colin serving as founding members and current directors. Replicating historic oyster reefs and robust populations, the SHO Club has a mission of clean water advocacy up and down the East Coast, including public education elements earmarked and cycled into the universe of print, press, and media functions of a robust brokerage business in The Hamptons.
This includes supporting current projects to repopulate remnant salmon populations throughout the coast of Maine, and the entire maritime regions of southeast Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. Supporting strong river systems where native salmon have been extirpated in Harrison's lifetime, with liming efforts and effective management and public education. Harrison owns a mile on one of those rivers sourced in 1.5 million acres of wilderness that make up The Nova Scotia Biosphere.
Personal[edit]
Following a series of arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol, Harrison began a life of sobriety on September 1, 1993. He currently resides with his wife, Stephanie, in Sag Harbor. His son, Colin, a champion swimmer at East Hampton High School,[17][18] is studying astrophysics at the Florida Institute of Technology[19]—where he is on the swimming team.[20]
Harrison considers himself a family man fortunate enough to have discovered his passion as a "bayscaper" and zooplankton "aficionado".
Reference section[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Contributor, Opinion (2008-09-25). "MALCOLM C. HARRISON". Bangor Daily News. Retrieved 2021-10-20.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Malcolm Harrison's home page". cs.nyu.edu. Retrieved 2021-11-03.
- ↑ "Malcolm C. Harrison". cs.nyu.edu. Retrieved 2021-11-03.
- ↑ Harrison, Malcolm C. (1973). Data-structures and Programming. Scott, Foresman. ISBN 978-0-673-05964-2. Search this book on
- ↑ "The Children's Aid Society's Deep Roots in Greenwich Village and the East Village". Village Preservation. 2019-10-16. Retrieved 2021-11-03.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Simon Harrison Real Estate Llc in Sag Harbor, New York - Real Estate Corporation". licensee.io. Retrieved 2021-11-08.
- ↑ "Robert Dyson". LinkedIn. Retrieved November 7, 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Dyson Real Estate". November 7, 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ 9.0 9.1 Paris, Ellen. "Real Estate Veteran Bob Dyson Is Changing the Industry Paradigm With His Third Act, Home.Chat". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-11-07.
- ↑ Bagley, Chris (2009-02-06). "REAL ESTATE: Couple known for high-end real estate fall into bankruptcy". San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved 2021-10-15. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Simon Harrison Of Simon Harrison Real Estate In Sag Harbor NY". www.nystatemls.com. Retrieved 2021-11-03.
- ↑ Kotz, Steven J. (2015-12-17). "Raising Oysters To Improve Water Quality". The Sag Harbor Express. Retrieved 2021-10-18. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ 13.0 13.1 "Shellfishing - NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation". www.dec.ny.gov. Retrieved 2021-11-08.
- ↑ "Dongan Patent - East Hampton Town Trustees". 2021-04-15. Retrieved 2021-10-20.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Kotz, Steven J. (2016-02-10). "Oyster Operation Catches Eye of DEC Enforcement". The Sag Harbor Express. Retrieved 2021-10-18. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "THE SAG HARBOR OYSTER CLUB, INC - New York Company Search". www.newyorkbusinessgo.com. Retrieved 2021-10-18.
- ↑ Keegan, Desireé (2021-02-17). "East Hampton Swim Team Threepeats As League Champions". The Sag Harbor Express. Retrieved 2021-11-07.
- ↑ "Colin Harrison|50 Freestyle|Ehy". www.swimmingrank.com. Retrieved 2021-11-07.
- ↑ "Colin Harrison | Swimcloud". www.swimcloud.com. Retrieved 2021-11-07.
- ↑ "Colin Harrison - Men's Swimming". Florida Tech Panthers. Retrieved 2021-11-07.
External links section[edit]
- The Sag Harbor Oyster Club Facebook page.
- Simon the Broker real estate brokerage.
- Simon the Broker Zillow profile.
- Simon the Broker Realtor.com page.
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