{"id":279928,"date":"2026-06-27T16:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T16:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/279928\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T16:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T16:45:09","slug":"broadway-star-cut-douglas-elliman-out-of-broker-fee-with-sale-of-nyc-buildings-to-al-sharpton-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/279928\/","title":{"rendered":"Broadway star cut Douglas Elliman out of broker fee with sale of NYC buildings to Al Sharpton: suit"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Tony Award-winning choreographer allegedly danced around his exclusive deal with high-powered real estate firm Douglas Elliman to unload an historic firehouse in Harlem<\/a> \u2014 selling it directly to Al Sharpton instead for $6 million.<\/p>\n

Douglas Elliman wants Broadway star George Faison to pay them $360,000 \u2014 equal to the 6% commission the company said it should have earned on the sale.<\/p>\n

Faison, 80, the first African-American to win a Tony for choreography for his work in 1974\u2019s \u201cThe Wiz,\u201d inked an agreement in July 2025 with Douglas Elliman to sell 4 and 6 Hancock Place in South Harlem, the real estate giant said in a lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Douglas Elliman claims George Faison, who won a Tony Award for choreography in 1975, owes it $360,000. Charles Sykes\/Invision\/AP<\/p>\n

The buildings represent a combined 30,000-square-feet of space just south of 125th Street and Saint Nicholas Avenue. Faison bought 6 Hancock Pl., a shuttered Beaux Arts firehouse, in 2000 for $600,000<\/a> and converted it to a theater, with room for offices, a residence and a dance studio.<\/p>\n

Faison bought adjacent 4 Hancock Pl. in 2013 for $1 million.<\/p>\n

But after signing the agreement with Douglas Elliman, Faison allegedly \u201csurreptitiously\u201d sold the building\u2019s to Sharpton\u2019s National Action Network, according to the Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The company claimed the choreographer \u201cdeliberately refused to comply with his obligation under the listing agreement and sought to avoid paying the commission due to Douglas Elliman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharpton plans to move NAN to the property, and rename it the House of Justice Rev. Jesse Jackson\u2019s Workshop.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cNAN purchased the firehouse property for $6 million and has already begun moving into the building,\u201d spokeswoman Rachel Noerdlinger told The Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have no knowledge of the lawsuit or the allegations contained within it. Any legal dispute between Mr. Faison and Douglas Elliman is a matter between those parties, and NAN has no involvement in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Faison sold the properties to Al Sharpton\u2019s National Action Network for $6 million. J.C. Rice for NY Post<\/p>\n

Al Sharpton is moving his National Action Network to the Hancock Place properties. AP Photo\/Alex Brandon<\/p>\n

Faison claimed Douglas Elliman \u201chad not called me since January,\u201d when reached by The Post for comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we had any discrepancy they should have called me,\u201d he added, before hanging up. <\/p>\n

The choreographer \u201chad a contractual obligation to refer all inquiries to Douglas Elliman,\u201d said attorney Don Abraham, who is repping the real estate giant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Tony Award-winning choreographer allegedly danced around his exclusive deal with high-powered real estate firm Douglas Elliman to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[11159,207,5043,469,57805,2850,75,57,75072,9,56,63,65,64,3006,30427,58],"class_list":["post-279928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-al-sharpton","tag-broadway","tag-douglas-elliman","tag-harlem","tag-jesse-jackson","tag-lawsuits","tag-manhattan","tag-metro","tag-national-action-network","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-residential-real-estate","tag-tony-awards","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}