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Inside 3rd Ward Owner's Sweet Waterfront Getaway In Montauk
By
John Del Signore
Published Oct 10, 2013
Modified Oct 11, 2013
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By
John Del Signore
Published Oct 10, 2013
Modified Oct 11, 2013
Share
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While Jason Goodman's artsy 3rd Ward enterprise went into a financial tailspin, he and his wife kept busy decorating a very charming pair of houses on Montauk that he bought this year for over $700,000. Now the cottages are being rented out as bed & breakfasts on Airbnb for $275 a night, with a seven-night-minimum. So at least he'll have that to fall back on. Take a look around!
On a Reddit thread about 3rd Ward's recent closure, one person claiming to be a former employee says Goodman seemed more focused on his second home than on his struggling business. In a lengthy post chronicling 3rd Ward's problems in NYC and at the Philadelphia outpost, the Redditor writes:
The Philadelphia employees had a terrible time trying to fend for themselves. While his employees were dealing with the website problems and trying to get Philadelphia off the ground, Jason bought a vacation home in Montauk and would leave Thursday nights to go work on remodeling the home, taking a 3-day weekend every week, while paying himself and his wife, Frida, a hefty salary even though she no longer worked for 3rd Ward. They now rent it out as a bed and breakfast.
3rd Ward appeared to be a slush fund to pay his friends for odd jobs, such as to work on his house or the Philadelphia location. They would often rent hotels in Philly and throw parties while paying a lot of money to build all the furniture from scratch. He eventually paid a lot of money for a professional CFO to come in, but the damage was already done, the CFO had no choice but to start firing people and desperately try to get more people to give the company money as they owed the bank interest. This didn't work since Jason Goodman could no longer lie about the true state of the company. The only employees that were left were the ones who were too clueless to figure out that it was dysfunctional company and a sinking ship, drinking the kool-aid until the very end. There is now so much debt that there is no way out.
It is sad that this cultural institution was brought down by the greed of one man. The community deserves to know what really happened.
We sought Goodman out for comment at 3rd Ward today, but he refused to answer questions; his only interview since abruptly closing 3rd Ward appears to be with the NY Times. "We realized that we needed to get ahead of this early in the summer, and we initiated an equity raise at the very beginning of the summer,” Goodman said, explaining that both spaces were short $1.5 million in operating costs.
A crowd-sourced investment campaign on the site Fundrise raised "only" $375,000 before being disabled this week. It's unclear if anyone who contributed to that $375,000 will be refunded. Daniel Miller of Fundrise tells IBT no money was collected from potential investors.
In an email to members last night, Goodman announced that 3rd Ward would not be issuing any refunds. “We were unable to bring in fresh capital,” Goodman added. “It was a roller coaster.”
Tagged
3rd ward
jason goodman
Montauk
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John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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