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“Intimidating?!? I don’t think anyone’s ever been intimidated by me in my entire life.”

Illustration: Rob Kelly

In a city obsessed with real estate, Barbara Corcoran isn’t just an entre-preneur, she’s an icon. As head of the Corcoran Group, the billion-dollar brokerage firm she built with a thousand-dollar loan from a boyfriend in 1973, she successfully positioned herself as the queen of Manhattan’s real-estate world. Most famously, she birthed The Corcoran Report, a twice-yearly analysis of the property market, quoted by countless papers hungry for real-estate news. More than just business acumen, Corcoran, 56, who lives in Carnegie Hill with her husband and two young children, possesses media savvy. Perhaps it’s little surprise, then, that after selling the Corcoran Group for $66 million in 2001, the onetime D student took a break to write her memoirs (2003’s Use What You’ve Got) and has now shifted her focus to devel-oping her television career. TONY chatted with the engagingly candid woman by phone as she drove out of the city to attend her son’s lacrosse game in Dutchess County.

Time Out New York: You were spotted on a rickshaw in Union Square recently, blowing bubbles for a scene from your new reality pilot, The Bubble. Is the show about your life?
Barbara Corcoran: No, not at all. It’s like The Apprentice, but rather than getting to work for Donald Trump, you get all the bells and whistles it takes to be a successful real-estate broker.

TONY: Why TV?
BC: It’s an exaggeration of the arena I was most interested in. The reason I was able to build such a good company is because I love the limelight. I’m sure that comes from growing up with nine siblings—I probably need a shrink more than a business.

TONY: I think there’s something sort of intimidating about you.
BC: Me? That’s honestly the first time I’ve ever heard that one!

TONY: Seriously?
BC: Intimidating?!? Oh my God. [Laughs] I don’t think anyone’s ever been intimidated by me in my entire life!

TONY: Well, you are personable in conversation and in your book, but with the giant billboards with your picture and the very official-sounding Corcoran Report—
BC: [Interrupting] Oh, you’re talking about authority. I went out of my way to build my brand into the authori-tative voice in the industry. I planned every inch of that. And if you put anyone’s face 40 feet high, they’d look intimidating. Even Mother Teresa.

TONY: Of money, fame or power, which is the most important?
BC: To people or to me?

TONY: To you.
BC: Well, money was never important because I spent it recklessly, and now that I have a lot of money, which is something I never had, I again realize it’s not important because it doesn’t make any difference. If anything, it adds a nuisance factor to living because I’m always afraid of losing it. So money I wouldn’t put there, and I hope I’m being truthful. What were the other choices?

TONY: Fame and power.
BC: Oh fame, without a doubt. It’s not  an option; I frankly need it. I didn’t realize that until the last few years of my life. Selling the Corcoran Group and the two years following that were probably the hardest years of my life, and I thought they would be the easiest.

TONY: Because you didn’t have an audience?
BC: Because I didn’t have a thousand adoring children telling me every day of my life how much I meant to them. By multiplying the sales staff, I had created a large, adoring fan club who totally trusted me and pledged their loyalty. That’s a big drug.

TONY: There’s a story in your book about when you were trying to hire a bunch of people to fill seats in your office and you placed an ad that said—
BC: one empty desk. Yeah, I used that again and again and again.

TONY: And you had everyone show up at the same time so it appeared there were a lot of people going for the position.
BC: I was creating a perception that I knew people would fall for. I knew instinctively that people like sales because there’s limited merchandise, and people like the restaurant that’s crowded. I mean, you only have to be in New York one day to get that lesson. People love lines because then they’re convinced they’re in the right one.

TONY: But where’s the limit? At a certain point, isn’t it dishonest?
BC: You know what? You should never tell a lie in business. You can take as much liberty as you wish in spinning the perception as long as you don’t change the facts.

TONY: Do you know the website Gawker?
BC: I’ve been on it but it was a long time ago and I forget what it’s all about. Tell me and I’ll remember.

TONY: It’s a Manhattan media and gossip site. They call you “Corco-devil.”
BC: What is that?

TONY: Like your name, but with devil on the end.
BC: [Pauses] I’m flattered.

TONY: You are?
BC: Of course! Corco-devil. No one ever accuses a devil of not having an impact. A Corco-nobody would be very disturbing. Corco-devil, that’s kind of cute. You know, I’ve had junctures along the way where people have aggressively taken shots at me, and you know what my interpretation always was? That I was winning.

TONY: Really?
BC: Yeah, because you know that old Southern expression, “Nobody kicks a dead dog?” That’s true. When someone gives you a negative label, obviously you’re noticed.

For interviews with Corcoran about today’s real-estate market, turn to TONY on Demand, channel 1112 on Time Warner Cable.