Developer Elie Hirschfeld owned so much artwork that he once had a face-down Mark Rothko on the floor. Today the painting has a new home, as do around 130 other works.

The chairman of Hirschfeld Properties and his wife, Sarah, said he has spent more than three decades collecting everything from Keith Haring to Edward Hopper, Marc Chagal and Andy Warhol. These days, art has moved from its apartment at 817 Fifth Avenue and made its home to the New-York Historical Society as Scenes of New York City: The Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld Collection.

It was a donation, and Hirschfeld, in an interview with The Real Deal, declined to provide its value. However, 12 of the coins in the collection are worth $ 1 million or more. Do not hesitate to crunch the numbers.

Hirschfeld is far from the only New York developer interested in the arts. Sotheby’s is expected to start selling the $ 600 million Macklowe collection, thanks to developer Harry Macklowe and his ex-wife, Linda. A judge ordered its liquidation in divorce proceedings after the quarreling couple could not agree on the collection’s value.

Hirschfeld’s art collection is emotional, not financial. The paintings, like the buildings, are monuments to life in New York, where he grew up. This helps explain the works depicting the Brooklyn Bridge by Georgia O’Keefe and Warhol.

The son of the late real estate mogul Abraham Hirschfeld graced another landmark, the long-gone S. Klein’s department store, with a Theresa Bernstein coin showing her lunch counter. Hirschfeld bought the land in 1983 with William Zeckendorf Jr., helping to start the transformation of a Union Square neighborhood then described by the New York Times as “the shabby home of drug dealers and wrecks.”

The developer said he is adamant that the collection stays together. A friend and administrator of the historical society first broached the idea of ​​the gift, acknowledging that dividing it would make as much sense as cutting a history book in half.

Hirschfeld has no plans to stop collecting art and hopes to maintain a relationship with historical society. Whether the new pieces stay home or end up leaving the nest remains to be seen. It may depend on the space left on the walls.