PENCIL to honor Meringoff of Himmel + Meringoff

Stephen Meringoff, chairman of Himmel + Meringoff Properties will be the guest of honor at PENCIL's annual gala taking place at the American Museum of National History on May 10th. Meringoff has played an active role in the N.Y.C. real estate community as a principal and currently owns and operates a portfolio of commercial property valued in excess of $1 billion. He has been a major catalyst for PENCIL's growth since 2008. A member of PENCIL's board of directors since 2009, he has helped to increase the reach of its Partnership Program to nearly 400 N.Y.C. public schools, enabling PENCIL to implement its inimitable mandate: to revitalize public education by providing opportunities for private support. He helped to found and launch PENCIL Fellows, which has transformed the lives of nearly 500 N.Y.C. public high school students over the past four years by providing career readiness training and paid summer internship opportunities. Also being honored is the N.Y. office of Arup, one of the world's leading engineering, design consultancies, which is currently involved in the first phase of the Second Avenue subway project, among other high-profile projects. "We are thrilled to recognize Stephen as a Public School Champion and Arup as a business partner," said Michael Haberman, president of PENCIL. "Stephen has demonstrated a tireless commitment to strengthening our schools, and particularly for helping create job opportunities for so many under-served and disadvantaged New York City public school juniors and seniors." "We are equally pleased to recognize Arup and their extraordinary teams who have spent many hours helping to design an interdisciplinary class curriculum based on the renovation of a music room at the School for Integrated Learning, and their time and expertise spent in creating a bridge project at the International High School in Prospect Heights." Since 1979, Meringoff and his partner Leslie Himmel have acquired more than 45 commercial properties comprising approximately four million s/f in New York and Los Angeles. Their specialty is acquiring and operating existing undervalued properties, then subsequently upgrading them to add value. Meringoff is a past chairman of both the Midtown South Preservation and Development Committee and the Park Avenue South Association. He has been a member of the board of directors of the Fifth Avenue Association, a trustee of the City of Hope National Medical Center and the Institute for East-West Security Studies. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute, the Association for a Better New York, the Cornell University Real Estate advisory board and the Real Estate Council of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was honored as "the Distinguished Citizen of the Year" by the 23rd Street Association, Inc. About Pencil PENCIL pioneered the idea of improving student achievement by developing and supporting long-term partnerships between businesses and public schools. Through a unique approach, PENCIL enables business leaders to share their talent, ideas, and skills directly with schools in need. The PENCIL Partnership Program matches business leaders with public school principals based on their backgrounds, interests, needs, and goals. Partners are then empowered and supported to develop strategic solutions to address challenges and transform their schools. The PENCIL Fellows Program provides promising public high school students with the dynamic experiential learning experience they need to succeed in the workplace through career readiness training and a paid summer internship. Visit www.PENCIL.org or call 646-638-0565 for more information.