Obituary: Andrea Bunis, Head of Namesake NYC Management Company
Andrea Bunis
Aug. 29, 2014 — Andrea Bunis, founder and president of the New York City property-management firm that bore her name, died Monday, Aug. 25, after a 14-month battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 57.
"You gave her a challenge, she met it, and then she surpassed you. That was a given," her executive assistant, Genevieve Hernandez, told Habitat. Describing her as "tough as nails, with a heart of gold," Hernandez said the company's staff "is very, very heartbroken." Bunis had planned for the company's transition, she added. "Everything she has set up will stay in place. We have a director of management who will handle the agents and make sure they continue to do what they have to do."
The nearly three-decade-old Andrea Bunis Management has won such accolades as the Habitat Management Achievement Awards for, variously, Management Excellence, General Effectiveness, Finances and Crisis Management, as well as the ABO Special Award for Excellence in Management, and was named to The Cooperator's list of the city's top management companies.
Andrea Bunis was born March 5, 1957, at the now-gone Central Maternity Hospital on the Grand Concourse in The Bronx, and graduated from the borough's recently closed Christopher Columbus High School in 1975. She went to earn a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from the City University of New York's Lehman College and later attended New York University's Schack Institute of Real Estate Certificate Program, where, as a State-licensed real estate broker, she would return to teach as a senior staff instructor.
Donations
The family has asked that anyone
wishing to donate a gift in Andrea
Bunis' memory to contribute to:
Memorial Sloan Kettering's
David M. Rubenstein Center
for Pancreatic Cancer Research
Prior to founding Andrea Bunis Management in 1985, Bunis was a senior real estate account executive with the real estate management firm the Kriesel Company (now part of Insignia Residential Group). She was a member of the Real Estate Board of New York, Professional Women in Construction and the Association of Real Estate Women.
In her personal life, Bunis was a varsity athlete in volleyball and swimming and was the Shorehaven Beach Club woman's paddle ball champion for four consecutive years. She received the PSAL's Louisa Wingate Underhill Award for outstanding female athlete and was a New York Giants and Knicks fan. She enjoyed skiing and boating.
A Manhattan resident for the last three decades, she was predeceased by her brother Stephen. Her survivors include her parents, Joan and George; nephews Kris, Matt and Henry; niece Priya; and her companion of 42 years, Harvey Rudman, a CPA and her firm's chief financial officer.
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