Norman F Levy

Chairman of the Cross & Brown commercial real estate brokerage of Manhattan from 1976 to 1990. Mr. Levy graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, attended New York University and joined Cross & Brown in 1934. He was named president in 1967. Cross & Brown was acquired by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in 1984. After retiring from Cross & Brown, Mr. Levy continued to do business under his own name. Among properties in which he had a stake were 21 shopping centers in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland and Florida and several Manhattan office buildings, including 10 East 40th Street. Mr. Levy's wife, Betty, died in 1987. Besides his daughter Jeanne Levy-Hinte, of Ann Arbor, Mich., he is survived by a son, Francis Levy, of Manhattan, and two grandsons. In January 2010, about the $220 million settlement was returned to the trustee liquidating Mr. Madoff’s assets, Irving H. Picard, from the estate of Norman F. Levy, a longtime friend of Bernard Madoff who invested with him since the 1970s and who died in September 2005 at age 93. According to a court filing by Mr. Picard’s lawyers, the Levy family and a charitable family foundation had withdrawn $305 million more from Mr. Madoff’s firm than they had placed with it. Mr. Picard sought to recover all but the $84 million that the foundation, which is shutting down, already gave to charity. Mr. Picard said he was “very pleased” that Mr. Levy’s children, Jeanne Levy-Church and Francis N. Levy, had approached him to discuss a settlement. “The Levys have acted honorably and are to be commended,” he said in a statement. “We hope that others will follow their example.”