Pioneering LI developer Nathan Serota dead at 90

Nathan L. Serota, known to many for his tenacity and audacity and his achievements as a pioneering developer of shopping centers on Long Island, also made his mark with his more quiet acts of both individual and organized philanthropy, said those who knew him.

Serota, 90, died May 1 at his Manhattan home. His death was caused by renal and heart failure, said his son, Geoffrey Serota, a principal of the Valley Stream-based Serota properties.

"The people who not only give money but give of themselves - this is what America is missing, and this is the great message of Nat Serota's life," said Stanley Schuckman, 65, president of the Woodbury-based Schuckman Realty Inc. and Serota's former business partner. "Not only what's good for me but also what's good for my fellow man."

Throughout his life Serota undertook many individual acts of philanthropy, like buying a motorized wheelchair for a quadriplegic man whose story he had read in the newspapers.

Touched by friends who had lost children to drug abuse, he also immersed himself as the chairman of Daytop Village, an organization that provides substance abuse treatment, in the 1970s.

"He wasn't about race or religion," Geoffrey Serota said. "He just loved everybody. He was good to everybody, and I am going to miss him."

Serota was one of the early developers who transformed Long Island's landscape, building and developing more than 50 shopping centers and more than 5 million square feet of commercial real estate, Geoffrey Serota said.

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Serota grew up in Bensonhurst. His father, Charles Serota, a Russian immigrant, had earned some success building homes but saw his business suffer when the Great Depression hit. A few years later he had a stroke and died, leaving behind a wife and four children.

To support his family, Nathan Serota, who was 16, went to work for his uncle's ice, coal and oil distribution business, finishing high school at night. He then took a job as a ticket seller for the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Serota was drafted into the Army during World War II, where he served as an anti-aircraft gunner in the Pacific and earned the rank of sergeant. When he left the military, he returned to the railroad and also began building homes -- first with his brother Morton and then with Ike Elias.

Serota and Elias soon began building shopping centers. Among them was Ira Waldbaum's first Long Island supermarket, in Hewlett, and the first Times Square Store -- a 130,000-square-foot structure in Levittown. Serota's three sons would later join his business.

Serota's survivors include his wife, Vivian Serota; his sons Charles, Geoffrey, and Daniel; his daughter, Deborah Carbone, and nine grandchildren.