Helena Durst
Principal
Durst Organization

Helena Rose Durst is a Principal at The Durst Organization, overseeing all aspects of the company’s residential portfolio, including leasing, management, operations and marketing. Currently, she is spearheading the lease up and pipeline of more than 2,000 market rate and affordable units in Queens at Halletts Point in Astoria and Sven in Long Island City. Helena has helped lead the ground-up management of nearly 2,000 units of rental housing at several projects, including EŌS, The Helena, FRANK 57 WEST, Historic Front Street and One Bryant Park.

Active in the NYC real estate and environmental community, Helena serves as a board member of the Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board, Board of Governors on the Real Estate Board of New York, Chair of Lower East Side Ecology Center and member of the New York Restoration Project and Lincoln Center Real Estate Advisory Board.

As the former President of New York Water Taxi/Circle Line Downtown for seven years, Helena transformed the organization into a profitable mass transit, tour and travel operation serving more than 1.5 million passengers annually. During her tenure, NYWT became the first maritime company in the harbor to implement a minimum wage of $15 per hour for its 200 employees.

When Helena’s not in the City, she can be found with her two children at her family’s McEnroe Organic Farm, one of the largest family-owned-and-operated organic farms in New York State. Helena started an education program at McEnroe Organic Farm, reconnecting neighbors and youths with agriculture to educate future generations.