Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue, This Lease Extension Is Just for You

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Commercial real estate broker Ed Rosenthal, 64, is known as the poet-broker of downtown Los Angeles. He’s been penning poems about downtown for years. Topics include some of the city’s famed buildings, and even the business and civic personalities of the community.

The published poet has even released a book, “Jaded Deco,” which includes poetry about downtown’s Eastern Columbia building, a historic department store that is now a condo building.

He’s even used poetry in real estate transactions. Once, while brokering a deal with developer Tom Gilmore, who was buying a property, Rosenthal sent a poem to the seller that asked for an extension on the escrow period.

“The real estate poetry really got stimulated dealing with Gilmore,” said Rosenthal, who got the extension he wanted.

While a lot of Rosenthal’s poetry is on the topic of real estate, he said that lately he’s moved outside of that realm. But in one recent poem he returns to property poetry. The title: “Brokers of the Downturn.”

“It captures the longing and alienation that poetry is supposed to be about,” he said.

Show Me the Funny

The economic news over the past few years hasn’t given people many reasons to smile – that is, unless they’ve been getting it from Thomas Sullivan.

The regional sales manager for Wells Fargo Commercial Banking, who oversees the South Bay territory, sends out weekly economic and financial commentaries to nearly 800 local business people. He decided to counter the gloom of dire reports by including a selection of jokes from late-night talk shows hosts such as David Letterman and Jay Leno.

“I just felt it was something that was necessary in light of the news,” he said. “The economic news has not always been uplifting, so I just started throwing in some humor to offset the negativity. It turned out to be a very good move.”

The response, he said, has been overwhelmingly positive. He has to be careful, though, when selecting jokes. He has to cut out the lewder ones to avoid offending anyone.

Sullivan said he is not known as a comedian, so he hopes people can forgive him for stealing the jokes.

“Is somebody going to sue me?” he asked, laughing.

Staff reporters Daniel Miller and Richard Clough contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by Editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].

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