Henry Moskowitz (1905 – September 7, 2008) was a New York-based real estate investor and founder of the real estate management company The Argo Corporation. He also built and owned hotels in Israel.
Biography
Moskowitz was born to a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family in
Kielce, Poland
Kielce (, yi, קעלץ, Keltz) is a city in southern Poland, and the capital of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. In 2021, it had 192,468 inhabitants. The city is in the middle of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (Holy Cross Mountains), on the bank ...
. He lost his first wife, daughter, both parents, and a brother in the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners ...
.USC Shoah Foundation Institute testimony of Henry Moskowitz retrieved January 1, 2014 In 1948, he remarried in Germany to his second wife, Rose. They had two children in Germany, Sonia and Jacob. In 1951, the family immigrated to the United States, settling on the
Upper West Side
The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...
of Manhattan and had two more children: Dan and Mark. In 1952, pooling the assets of over 100 investors, many of them Holocaust survivors, he founded The Argo Corporation and began investing in real estate in New York City. The partnerships' early investments were all rentals and Argo was hired by the partnerships to manage them.The Cooperator: "The Argo Corporation - A Full-Service Real Estate Team" By Barbara Wagner November 2000 In 1955, he purchased the Ivy Hill Park Apartment complex in the Ivy Hill neighborhood in
Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.cooperative ownership during the 1960s and 1970s typically keeping the management contract thereafter.New York Times: "Condominium Offering Plan on Upper West Side" By RACHELLE GARBARINE March 21, 1997 , ''Argo converted 14 properties to 2,048 cooperative units'' In the 1980s, they expanded into third party management of buildings. In 1997, he made his first
condominium
A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership structure whereby a building is divided into several units that are each separately owned, surrounded by common areas that are jointly owned. The term can be applied to the building or complex ...
conversion. He also owned hotels in Israel.
He grew the business to become one of the largest independent real estate management companies in New York City. As of 2013, Argo owns 5,500 units and manages 6,500 units on the behalf of condominiums and cooperatives.Argo Corporation website: "About Us" retrieved December 26, 2013 In addition to management and the conversion of rental buildings to cooperatives and condominiums,Real Estate Weekly: "Argo named NYARM Management Company of the Year" October 2, 2013 Argo continues to invest in building ownership and also will purchase individual unsold units in buildings for rental. His son, Mark Moskowitz, now runs the company. Moskowitz was known for not selling any of his buildings.
In 2008, the Broadway Mall Association dedicated the Henry Moskowitz North Mall in his honor. Moskowitz was a strong supporter of Israel. In 2010, the Square of Hope in the
Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations
The Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations ( he, גַן חֲסִידִי אוּמות הָעוֹלָם) is part of the much larger Yad Vashem complex located on the Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem. Along with some two dozen different structu ...
at
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...
USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education
USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education, formerly Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to making audio-visual interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Hol ...
Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu (; ; born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who served as the ninth prime minister of Israel from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2009 to 2021. He is currently serving as Leader of the Opposition and Chairman of ...
with the Foreign Investor Jubilee Award. Although raised
Hassidic
Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contem ...