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DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN REAL ESTA TEM artin Orlofsky and som e of his crew in the com plex of 11 old buildings he isrebuilding. Below, business continues on the ground floor florist shop that first broughthim to the site. (Phoenix/Koch Photos)Midtown's Orlofsky Turns Adversity Into a New Business:Florist Becomes a DeveloperBY LIZ KOCHMartin Orlofsky owns Midtown Florists on the comer of Flatbush and Fourth Avenues and as in all flower shops in this high season of bloom, a brisk business is being carried out with gladiolas and spring flowers. His shop, he points out, touring the premises, is in the %u201ctop one hundred of the FTD. That is the top quarter of one percent of the flower shops in the country.%u201dBehind his store, however, and to either side and around the comer on State Street, another brisk business is underway. Construction workers move around in the nearly gutted interiors of a row of four-story buildings along State Street and walk in the rubble directly behind Orlofsky%u2019s flower and fruit basket operation.This work he describes in another way. %u201cI always hoped I could be part of the urban renewal plan,%u201d he says. %u201cI was living here and planning it vears before it came to pass. We had sketches of what we wanted to do here ten or twelve years ago.%u201dThe work now underway on the site is part of Orlofsky%u2019s plan to construct 70-80 apartments on the land between AtlanticAvenue and State Street west of Fourth Avenue, over the next three years. The first 39 apartments, he hopes, will be installed in the gutted shells of the abandoned buildings he is rehabing by the first of next year, after which construction of new buildings on the empty half of the land will begin.The final feather in his cap will come when an expanded and modernized store will house his ever growing florist shop.Although things are working out well for Orlofsky now and he says with a big smile about his business that %u201cthere is nothing I would rather do; I don%u2019t believe in retiring; why retire when I%u2019m doing what I enjoy most,%u201d his involvement with the project is the culmination of nearly 40 years in the downtown area. It has been a time of changes up and down, with some concern whether he wanted to stay in the neighborhood and some concern whether he would have the choice to stay, when, with urbanin the late Sixties, the site Florists was targeted for clearing and the City condemned his building.Although the flower shop has now growntremendously, Orlofsky points out that when he first moved into the area in 1947, he set up with a smaller %u201cmom and pop%u201d type business at his first location on Flatbush and Third Avenues.The building which Orlofsky affectionately refers to as a %u201cshack%u201d was owned by him, but he leased the property from the City on a month to month contract. The City eventually decided that the land should be used for other purposes and a plan was put forth to give the space to an auto supply business, forcing Orlofsky to relocate. The new business never happened %u2014 that land is now a parking lot %u2014 but in the meantime, Orlofsky has relocated to his current premises.The question that arose with the move, however, was whether the flower shop indeed wanted to stay in the neighborhood. %u201cWhen we first moved here the neighborhood was a Triple-A top location,%u201d1 - - * ---%u2014 tkMnlOfU 4V%u00ab A ifU C l C l U C l i i U C l b , b u t W i i u u h n w j v - c * ^kept getting worse. We had to decide whether we wanted to stay here %u2014 we had been successful %u2014 or whether we shouldContinued on Following PageM ay 29, 1986, TH E P H O E N IX , Page 19