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Two Views of the South Bronx
November 18th, 2005

Andrew Wolff of the New York Sun has few kind words for Majora Carterin his latest New York Sun column. Carter recently won a MacArthur “Genius” Grant for her work in the neighborhood.

The South Bronx may need a genius, writes Wolff, but “Ms. Carter’s particular genius has been in finding surefire ways to insure that the tens of thousands of jobs that were once located there, never return.”

His main beef with Carter is with her assertion that the South Bronx has been asked to take an unfair burden of environmentally damaging industry — a common lament from local activists in the area. He writes that the area has always been industrial, and that its residents must have known that before moving there. By targeting such industries as the basis for a plan for the neighborhood, he writes, Carter is essentially working for South Bronx’s economic stagnation (though he mentions no specific proposals of hers that have offended him -it’s her worldview he doesn’t like).

Carter wrote a Newsday op-ed this spring — which Wolff cites — that can be read as a preemptive response to her critic: “New York City needs the kind of leadership that will stand up to the false claim that sustainable development cannot be done economically.”

After reading the two articles, one can’t help but think that these two aren’t going to find a common ground in the middle anytime soon.

By Joshua Brustein on November 18, 2005, 8:15 pm
In category: Community Development, Environment, Land Use | 2 Comments »

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Is the Media to Blame?
November 18th, 2005

In response to Wayne Barrett’s charge that newspapers were guilty of a “campaign-long splurge of double-standard news coverage” Ben Smith of the Politicker says that Fernando Ferrer’s poorly run campaign deserves as much blame for the defeat as the media does. Smith points out that political reporters continued to give Ferrer a chance even after his own campaign (we now know) had given up on him.

Smith was one of several reporters to discuss the media and the campaign earlier this week at a Drum Major Institute panel discussion. (Daily Gotham covered the event live in a slightly disorienting post.) Smith said it wasn’t the media’s responsibility to scold people into knowing the issues.

On the DMI Blog , Andrea Batista Schlesinger gave herforum post-mortem:

Despite the openness of the reporters on the panel, the audience still seemed frustrated with the press and its role in engaging the public in a serious discussion of the issues at stake in elections.

The reporters didn’t necessarily see it as their job to do that. It’s up to the candidates, they said. Be compelling and we’ll cover you. Talk about issues and we’ll cover them.

But what if they don’t?

By Joshua Brustein on November 18, 2005, 8:16 am
In category: Electoral Politics, Gotham City | No Comments »

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City Council Speaker Candidates Speak
November 17th, 2005

Whoever is selected as the next Speaker of the New York City Council will likely use his/her power to amend the term limits law, allowing members to serve 12 years instead of 8 years — that was the consensus of all seven of the speaker hopefuls who attended a public forum at Baruch College.

Leroy Comrie, Bill deBlasio, Lewis Fidler, Melinda Katz, Christine Quinn, Joel Rivera, and David Weprin all said they were opposed to term limits, which they believe has weakened the City Council as a balance to the mayor and has given too much power to lobbyists and staff members.

“Every speaker will be a lame duck,” said Lew Fidler.
“The speaker should have at least one more term than the mayor,” said Melinda Katz.
“Let’s put it this way, when you go to the dentist, do you want someone right out of dental school,” said Joel Rivera, who was elected to the council at age 19.

The seven candidates all support Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s garbage plan, although each vowed to increase recycling.

When asked about the looming $4 billion budget deficit, each mentioned the commuter tax, although Lew Fidler was the only one to admit it is probably not realistic to believe Albany would ever agree to one.

Each person also said they support the use of eminent domain for private development, but only under special circumstances.

When asked how they would reform the operations of the council itself, some offered specific rule changes like speeding up the legislative process, providing better notification of what members will vote on at meetings (some have complained they don’t know until they show up), and allowing more debate on the floor of the council.

“I will end the practice of Speaker-mail,” said Christine Quinn, referring to current Speaker Gifford Miller’s use of $1.3 million in taxpayer funds to tout his record to voters across the city during his mayoral campaign.

The candidates reserved their most passionate speeches for the city’s Campaign Finance Board, something which will likely earn points with many council members who say they feel bullied by the agency.

“Their mission is flawed,” said Melinda Katz.
“They have become rule makers, judge, and jury,” said Leroy Comrie.

Although the speaker is selected from within the council and the voters have no say in who holds the “second most powerful position in the city,” hundreds of people packed the standing-room only auditorium. And dozens of people — including current council members, reporters, and City Hall staffers – were kept waiting downstairs when Baruch security guards told them the room was beyond capacity.

This apparently included bloggers from Backroom Deal Breakers, who are following the speaker’s race – and smelled a conspiracy.

Those who missed it – or were barred from the overcrowded room – can read a full transcript on GothamGazette.com when it becomes available.

By Mark Berkey-Gerard on November 17, 2005, 10:07 pm
In category: Electoral Politics, Governing | No Comments »

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Council Passes Labor Bill
November 17th, 2005

The City Council voted yesterday to pass a bill ease restrictions on labor unions’ contributions to political candidates. Ben James from the Village Voice blog, Power Plays, writes“Passage of the bill marks the first time in the 17-year history of the city’s Campaign Finance Board that a rule has been changed through legislation, rather than through hearings by the board.”

The NY Young Republicans Club says, “This is a city council that has no checks or balances.” But Working Families Party Man agrees with the decision, noting “The different locals of the national union are very different in their political views.”

The Back Room Deals blog wants to ask Council Member Bill DeBlasio: “Why did you not heed the requests of good-government groups, the Times and Daily News to hold-off on pushing the single-source legislation?” at tonight’s City Council Speaker debate.

By Mike Muller on November 17, 2005, 5:09 pm
In category: Electoral Politics, Public Finance | No Comments »

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Forced Hospitalization Of Sexual Predators
November 17th, 2005

The Daily News today criticizes the decision by State Supreme Court Justice Jacqueline Silbermann to order independent psychiatric evaluations of 12 convicted sexual offenders who had been forced into mental hospitals after their prison terms ended. If the psychiatrists find the men no longer to be dangerous, the judge ordered that they be released.

The judge criticized the policy begun by Governor George Pataki’s policy in September, of moving some sex offenders into hospitals, saying it violated the men’s due process.

The Daily News called the judge “just silly” and said her ruling could be “corrected on appeal,” but that “the real villain here” is Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who has delayed enacting legislation promoted by Pataki “authorizing the forced hospitalization of convicts who can’t control their sexual urges.”

But several bloggers say, in effect, no, the villain is Pataki. Mike Gaither of the blog Liberty Watch, said the governor knew he had no authority to hospitalize the ex-convicts against their will, likening it to kidnapping, and said Pataki’s actions had been just “petty grandstanding.” Kevin Keith of
Sufficient Scruples has a long, philosophical discussion that explains why he thinks Pataki “assumed the powers of a dictator — he literally ordered state workers to incarcerate citizens legally entitled to liberty with no notice, no hearing, and no legal authority, and ordered medical professionals to essentially falsify findings of fact to provide superficial justification for doing so.”

Jazz Shaw of Running Scared said the governor’s decision to appeal the ruling was a waste of time, since the higher courts would likely uphold it, and instead “Patki would be wise to use this ruling as ammunition to get the legislature moving on new laws for serial sex offenders with far stricter sentence guidelines.”

A discussion in Riehl World View elicited this comment from Kelly: “I hate this kind of story..The ‘moral’ thing to do is keep them locked up. The ‘legal’ thing is to let them go.”

By Jonathan Mandell on November 17, 2005, 1:00 pm
In category: Civil Rights, Crime & Safety, Health, Law | No Comments »

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MTA Surplus = Unhappy Riders
November 17th, 2005

Gothamist wonders what it must be like to be the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s accountant. The MTA has changed its projected budget surplus for the third time this year. Early in the year, it was $76 million; this summer it was $833 million; now it is $1.04 billion. The news comes a week after voters approved $3 billion in transportation spending, about half of which will go to mass transit in the city.

But all of this good financial news for the MTA doesn’t mean that the transit riding (and blogging) public is any happier.

Contraceptacon posts an open letter to the MTA describing in painful, and profanity-laced, detail how it recently took a rider two and a half hours to travel from Park Slope to Greenpoint.

Beyond the Ramp wonders why the MTA isn’t planning on using the surplus to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. “Is it a lack of technical ability or merely a lack of interest? Because from the looks of it they seem to have the funds.”

And on the Straphanger’s Rider Diaries, visitors respond to the question: “So what is everyone going to do with the BIG dollar they are going to save on the weekend now that the MTA is charging only a dollar to ride on weekends from Thanksgiving to New Years?”

By Mark Berkey-Gerard on November 17, 2005, 9:11 am
In category: Transportation | 3 Comments »

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Madonna May Love New York, But What's The Official Anthem?
November 16th, 2005

Madonna’s new song “I Love New York” is, says Gawker, the “perfect anthem” for New York (though Wonkster realizes this is hip talk for “dreadful”), and then reprints the lyrics:

I don’t like cities but I like New York
Other places make me feel like a dork
Los Angeles is for people who sleep
Paris and London, baby you can keep
Other cities always make me mad
Other places always make me sad
No other made me glad, except New York
I love New York

This begs the question — what is New York’s official anthem?

The Politicker and the world-renowned NYC administrative law judge and Big Apple enthusiast Barry Popik both have said that it’s New York For The Time Of Your Life, by Frank Wildhorn, who wrote the Broadway musicals “Jekyll and Hyde” and “Dracula”, and that the lyrics go like this:

It’s a great front row seat for the world at your feet
It’s the Yankees and Knicks, the Rockettes doin’ kicks.
You can sail Sheepshead Bay, see a show on Broadway.
It’s Fifth Avenue, plenty to see and do. …
New York, New York
Winter, spring, summer, fall
Baby we’ve got it all!
New York, anytime of year
New York, it’s all happening here
New York, for the time of your life!
You can shop ’til you drop, live your life to the top.
Double header at Shea, somethin’ new every day.
It’s the lights in Times Square, the moments you share.
Summer breaks. Paint the town — paint it up, paint it down.
Take the ferry to Staten from lower Manhattan. It’s a bagel and schmear, it’s a whole other gear.
It’s a hot dog from Coney, a waiter named Tony. Yellow cabs, limousines. It’s the subway to Queens. It’s so nice, see it twice, paradise by the slice,
Brooklyn Heights, The Bronx Zoo, somethin’ old, somethin’ new
I love New York, baby come paint the town

Others, however, say it’s “New York, New York,” which was written by John Kander and Fred Ebb for Martin Scorsese’s 1977 film of the same name and which former Mayor Ed Koch proclaimed the city’s official song in 1985. The lyrics, as modified by Frank Sinatra, who made it a hit when he recorded it in 1980, go like this:

Start spreadin’ the news, I’m leavin’ today
I want to be a part of it, New York, New York
These vagabond shoes are longing to stray
Right through the very heart of it, New York, New York

I wanna wake up in a city that doesn’t sleep
And find I’m king of the hill, top of the heap

These little town blues are melting away
I’ll make a brand new start of it, in old New York
If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere
It’s up to you , New York, New York

New York, New York

I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps
And find I’m A-number-one, top of the list,
King of the hill, A-number-one

These little town blues are melting away
I’m gonna make a brand new start of it in old New York
A-a-a-nd if I can make it there, I’m gonna make it anywhere
It’s up to you, New York, New York

But then what about Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green’s New York, New York (It’s A Helluva Town), or Billy Joel’s New York State Of Mind or Norah Jones’s “New York City (Such A Beautiful Disease)” ?

By Jonathan Mandell on November 16, 2005, 7:09 am
In category: Arts, Gotham City | 11 Comments »

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Power Plant Instead Of Park in Williamsburg
November 16th, 2005

In his attempt to build a 1,100-megawatt natural gas power plant in Williamsburg, Adam H. Victor, the president of TransGas Energy Systems, went to court to condemn eight acres of land along the waterfront, using “an obscure 1909 state law that lets utilities and railroads condemn and acquire land for their needs, including power projects,” according to an account last August in The New York Times. The Bloomberg administration counter-sued “to condemn the same piece of land as part of its effort to establish a 35-acre park in Williamsburg.”

The case is scheduled today to go before a state court judge, Abe Gerges, according to an editorial in today’s New York Post, which urges the judge to reject the city’s arguments and let the power plant be built instead of the park. Ruling for the city, the Post writes, “could set a precedent for local jurisdictions looking to use their powers of ‘eminent domain’ — even when the state sees a more important need for the land.” Also: “Gotham needs the juice.”

By Jonathan Mandell on November 16, 2005, 5:59 am
In category: Environment, Land Use, Law, Parks | 3 Comments »

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Labor Unions And Campaign Contributions
November 16th, 2005

Should two affiliated locals within the same national labor union have the right to make separate campaign contributions to New York candidates?

That is the question that has been debated vigorously since the Campaign Finance Board proposed regulations in March that would have prohibited separate contributions — a move that prompted such an outcry that the board backed down.

But today, the City Council is expected to vote on a bill that would stop the board from going ahead with such a ban. An editorial in the Daily News today entitled
“City Council Money Grab” is sharply critical of the bill, to be introduced by Councilmember Bill deBlasio. ” The Council’s 48 Democrats (out of a membership of 51) rely heavily on labor to provide campaign workers and general logistical support, so it is perhaps no surprise that they would think nothing of eviscerating the campaign finance rules to let unions back them with big bucks, too,” the Daily News writes. “Organized labor deserves a voice in the city’s political life – but no more of a voice than other donors.” The News editorial makes similar arguments against the bill as previous editorials in the Times and the Post.

However, Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez sees it differently, echoing the charge by organized labor that the Campaign Finance Board’s regulations are part of its overall efforts to restrict unfairly the voice of labor in local elections. “Two locals within the same national union can have very different memberships, leaders and interests,” Gonzalez wrote yesetrday. “Because of that, they should be regarded as separate organizations when it comes to campaign finance limits. Two of the city’s most powerful unions, Local 32B-32J and 1199, for example, belong to the same Service Employees International Union. Local 32B-32J represents tens of thousands of private maintenance workers and security guards in the metropolitan area, while Local 1199 represents nearly 240,000 health care workers. In last week’s election, Local 32B-32J supported Republican Mayor Bloomberg while 1199 championed Democratic challenger Fernando Ferrer.” It would be unfair, Gonzalez writes, to treat them as one organization, which would mean that both together could only contribute a maximum of $2,750 for any one City Council candidate.

By Jonathan Mandell on November 16, 2005, 5:29 am
In category: Electoral Politics, Governing, Public Finance | 2 Comments »

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The Media Is To Blame!
November 15th, 2005

Wayne Barrett in The Village Voice bestows his annual Wacko Awards this year to the media, blaming the publishers of the Daily News, the Post, the Times and the Observer in particular for the “campaign-long splurge of double-standard news coverage Instead of paying so much as lip service to the level-playing-field job of a free press, the moguls added their own ‘objective’ voices to the torrent of echoing ads purchased by Bloombucks.”

Barrett attacks others by name — a pollster, a political consultant — but it is the press coverage of Bloomberg’s re-election campaign and of New York City’s campaign 2005 in general that gets the major rap.

A “roundtable” discussion of that coverage is scheduled for tomorrow which will feature Patrick Healy of The New York Times, Evelyn Hernandez of El Diario La Prensa, Ben Smith of The Politicker and also me, Jonathan Mandell, from Gotham Gazette. Andrea Batista Schlesinger, of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, will be the moderator.

One of those anonymous politicos who comment in the Politicker (scroll all the way to the bottom) is not as sure whom to blame: “Do voters (through their lack of interest and participation) deserve blame for the lack of choice in legislative races? Does the media share in the blame, by not encouraging and reporting on challengers? Or is the system so rigged there is no chance for a real choice?”

By Jonathan Mandell on November 15, 2005, 1:35 pm
In category: Electoral Politics, Governing | No Comments »

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Commuter Tax, Congestion Pricing
November 15th, 2005

At the same time that Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that, contrary to recent reports, he was not considering “congestion pricing” — charging vehicles a fee for using certain traffic-clogged streets during certain periods of the day — he announced that he WOULD be pushing the state legislature to reinstitute the commuter tax. The announcement has inspired a critical editorial in the New York Post today, entitled Bloomy’s Broken Promise. (The reference is to the mayor’s promise not to raise taxes). “Mayor Mike has never understood the fundamental problem with the city’s budget. It’s quite simple, really: The budget is too high! ” The answer is “curbing the city’s financial obligations Not forever scrambling for new streams of revenue.”

Of course, the commuter tax isn’t exactly “new.” Garth Johnston of Gothamist expressed a preference for reinstituting “the tax of 0.45% that commuters had to pay from ‘69-’99,” and so did readers who commented on his post: “This is a no brainer for any NYC resident,” someone named J wrote. Commuters “who use our services, should pay a fair amount for those services.”

Meanwhile, in her blog, Miss Representation makes the case for congestion pricing. “Given what a hard sell it was in London, it nonetheless deserves fuller consideration here,” since it is an “eminently sensible plan” that will reduce traffic and provide other benefits as well (such as ” improved response time for emergency dispatch, less noise, less pollution, and a net savings in economic efficiency.”) “I can’t find a reason to not support this. Anyone vehemently opposed will be, by definition, a non-resident, slipping out of the city at the end of the day, likely blaring a horn and driving dangerously on their way to some distant suburb, siphoning off tax dollars and giving nothing back to the life of the city.”

By Jonathan Mandell on November 15, 2005, 10:59 am
In category: Public Finance, Transportation | 2 Comments »

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Prison Phone Charges Are A Crime
November 15th, 2005

Daily News Columnist Errol Louis supports a planned protest tomorrow in Bryant Park against “New York’s policy of shamefully squeezing people who have done nothing wrong” by charging them “outrageously jacked-up prices” to receive collect calls from prison inmates. “Thanks to an exclusive contract that gives monopoly control over prison phones to MCI, the price of talking to New York inmates is 630% higher than the cost of regular collect calls – a higher rate than what it costs to speak with federal prisoners or those locked up in any other state.”

Ironically, much of the profit goes to “the same MCI whose ex-CEO, Bernie Ebbers, got sentenced to 25 years in federal prison this year for orchestrating an $11 billion accounting fraud [A]s a federal inmate, Ebbers can talk with his family and lawyers for a reasonable 7 cents a minute- far less than the $3 per call and 16 cents a minute MCI charges to talk with a New York prisoner.”

By Jonathan Mandell on November 15, 2005, 9:00 am
In category: Crime & Safety, Tech | 3 Comments »

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Tale Of Two Food Markets
November 14th, 2005

The Neighborhood Retail Alliance blog praises the treatment of the 36 fish wholesalers of Fulton Fish Market who have now moved to their new home in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx — and contrasts it with the “totally opposite” treatment of the 23 ethnic food merchants of the Bronx Terminal Market.

It is useful to point out, for those unacquainted with the blog of the Neighborhood Retail Alliance, that this latest post is one of more than 100 posts over the past six months about the 85-year-old Bronx Terminal Market. Since April of 2004, the market has been slated for demolition, its 23 vendors who sell “goat meat, African produce and Hispanic dry goods” (to quote a recent article in the Observer) slated to be replaced by a million-square-foot shopping mall where soon will rise “a Circuit City. Or a Bed Bath & Beyond. Or a Target. Or a Wal-Mart.”

Over the dead bodies of the Neighborhood Retail Alliance, a 20-year-old organization of local businesses (mostly supermarkets), which has campaigned from their very first blog post, to “save the Bronx Terminal Market.”

By Jonathan Mandell on November 14, 2005, 11:12 pm
In category: Land Use | No Comments »

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St. Vincents Board Must Resign
November 14th, 2005

Dennis Rivera, the head of powerful health care workers union Service Employees International Union local 1199, called on the entire board of St. Vincent Catholic Medical Center — which filed for bankruptcy this July — to resign today in a full page advertisement in the New York Times.

“It is bad enough that the Board has abandoned its moral obligation to the people of New York, but it can only be through either sheer incompetence, neglect, or lack of vision that it has embarked on such a path of destruction,” writes Rivera.

He observes that the system’s CEO makes $125,000 each month, and that a team of consultants was paid $29 million for 18 months of work that culminated with St. Vincent filing for bankruptcy, even as hospitals in low-income neighborhoods were being closed. In addition to the board resigning, writes Rivera, the Department of Health and the Attorney General should intervene to protect the hospital system’s patients and employees.

(To read more about the financial crisis in the hospital system, see Gotham Gazette’s recent article on the subject).

By Joshua Brustein on November 14, 2005, 5:53 pm
In category: Health | No Comments »

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The Nets, NIMBY, and Nostalgia
November 14th, 2005

John Manbeck, a former Brooklyn historian, weighs in on the Atlantic Yards arena/residential/commercial project and — comes down squarely in the middle. In a Times op-ed article, Manbeck assails developer Forest City Ratner for taking what Manbeck says what initially a project to brig major league sports to Brooklyn and turning it into a 14-million square foot behemoth, with thousands of residents who “will swiftly overload the neighborhood’s social services and commercial amenities,” as the project’s footprint “encroaches on historic neighborhoods.” He’s irate at the borough, city and state governments for giving the huge real estate developer “$1 billion in tax breaks, subsidies and noncompetitive bidding.”

But he also takes aim at the opponents of the project: “The community’s response to it – a mix of not-in-my-backyard rejection and idealized nostalgia – is overkill as well. ”

One such opponent, Norman Oder author of the Times Ratner report, disagrees. He disputes the Times’ general treatment of the project and argues with Manbeck on some factual points. But, perhaps most of all he objects to Manbeck’s characterization of opponents as NIMBY and nostalgia types: “After all, the leader of the opposing coalition is called Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn,” which helped put together another plan (in .pdf) for the railyard, Oder says. And, he continues, “As for “idealized nostalgia,” it’s Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who regularly invokes how the Brooklyn Dodgers 50 years ago brought the borough together.

Meanwhile, Assemblymember Roger Green, who represents the area, has proposed a compromise. He would like to see some of the apartments now slated for the Atlantic Yards project moved farther east, to a largely industrial area around Bergen and Grand Street. “Quite an interesting development, as this area seems to be ripe for development. A recent bike ride through the area confirms that it is full of auto-body shops and warehouses,” blogs Itjbukem . But the owners of those businesses, of course, may not see it that way.

By Gail Robinson on November 14, 2005, 12:40 pm
In category: Community Development, Land Use | 6 Comments »

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Criticizing Council
November 14th, 2005

Now that this campaign is over, City Council is looking to the future — much to the dismay of the Times and the Post.

Both papers weigh in against a proposed measure that would make it easier for city politicians to get multiple campaign contributions from the same labor union. The Campaign Finance Board requires proof that, if a union local wants to make separate contributions from the parent union, it must be able to prove that it is independent. Some locals are; some aren’t. But now City Council is considering a measure that would make it far easier for a local to prove its independence. That “almost meaningless test,” as the Times called it, “would undercut the system” of public campaign financing.

The Post is far harsher, saying council members ” just can’t do enough to suck up to the [labor] bosses.”

But that’s not the politicians’ only sin in the paper’s eyes. The council members are thinking of overturning term limits — a measure the Post says it never liked, but that the voters do. Overall, the editorial says, “New Yorkers may have been voting for responsible government when they re-elected Mayor Mike last week, but no such impulse seems to have informed their choices for City Council.”

By Gail Robinson on November 14, 2005, 8:36 am
In category: Governing | No Comments »

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Court Commissions and Omissions
November 13th, 2005

Sounding another theme for his second term, Mayor Michael Bloomberg yesterday took to the opinion pages of the Daily News to call on Albany to clean up the courts. Citing widespread judicial corruption in Brooklyn , Bloomberg said Albany should act immediately to create “independent commissions to determine whether candidates running for judge are qualified. The political parties must agree – NOW – not to nominate anyone not found qualified by the commissions.”

Writing on It Takes a Blogger, JM (Judith Memblatt) cheers the mayor’s willingness to confront judicial corruption but questions his solution. While commissions are “good for a press releases and to create the illusion of reform,” they often become the refuge for the very hacks the system is suppose to root out. A better tact? According to Memblatt, “What is most needed is a push for an independent counsel to examine the relationships between all of the local political machines and the courts. The most effective means of reform is to demonstrate that abuses will not be tolerated.”

By Gail Robinson on November 13, 2005, 10:47 pm
In category: Law | No Comments »

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Opposition to the New Yankee Stadium
November 11th, 2005

Curbed has picked up on a blog from the Bronx, called Save Our Parks, formed in opposition to the new Yankees stadium. It’s made up of “local residents who are opposed to the taking of Macombs Dam and Mullaly parks by the Yankees for a new stadium.” They are also worried the increased traffic will aggravate health conditions in an area already called “Asthma Alley”.

They have an in depth review of the recent Draft Environmental Impact Statement(pdf).

Neil deMause at Field of Schemes has been keeping tabs on the developments of the new stadium as well. This blog looks with “a critical eye on the roughly $2 billion a year in public subsidies that go toward building new pro sports facilities.” Chalk full of anti-stadium goodies.

By Mike Muller on November 11, 2005, 1:05 pm
In category: Community Development, Land Use | 1 Comment »

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Bloomberg's Reelection: A Good Sign and Bad One
November 11th, 2005

Greg Sargent of liberal magazine American Prospect sees both good and bad in the re-election of Mayor Michael Bloomberg:

Bloomberg’s re-election is good, he says, because it weakens the idea of an imperial mayor. Specifically, Sargent says that Bloomberg’s administration has been a “partial repudiation” of the style of his predecessor, Rudolph GIulian.: Bloomberg, he writes, “showed that a mayor could competently manage the city without building a personality cult at City Hall, without the unsightly histrionics so often unleashed by Giuliani.”

But Bloomberg’s reelection is also bad, he says, because it exposes the fact that the “city’s civic culture is in awfully rough shape.” The mayor’s campaign spending denied the voters a real election, argues Sargent, and civic organizations and the New York Times weren’t able to deal with this effectively:

“The Times editorialized against his spending and the good-government groups tsk-tsked a bit. But they supported Bloomberg anyway, which — let’s face it — made their scattered noises of objection meaningless, particularly given that New Yorkers are less civically engaged than at any time in memory.”

By Joshua Brustein on November 11, 2005, 8:58 am
In category: Electoral Politics | No Comments »

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The NYC War Dead Since Last Veteran's Day
November 11th, 2005

Dimitrios Gavriel, Manhattan (11/19/04)
Brian Grant, Staten Island (11/26/04)
Christian P. Engeldrum, Bronx (11/29/04)
Pablo Calderon, Brooklyn (11/30/04)
Henry E. Irizarry, Bronx (12/03/04)
Joseph Behnke, Brooklyn (12/04/04)
Victor Martinez, Bronx (12/14/04)
Julian Melo, Brooklyn (12/21/04)
Nathaniel Swindell, Bronx (1/15/05)
Francis Obaji, Queens (1/17/05)
Azhar Ali, Queens (3/02/05)
Wai Lwin, Queens (3/02/05)
Angelo Lozada, Brooklyn (4/16/05)
Michael Postal, Queens (5/7/05)
Ramona Valdez, Bronx (6/23/05)
Manny Hornedo, Brooklyn (6/28/05)
Nils Thompson, Staten Island (8/04/05)
Hernando Rios, Queens (8/08/05)
Regilio Nelom, Queens (9/17/05)
Fabricio Moreno, Brooklyn (10/14/05)

By Jonathan Mandell on November 11, 2005, 6:29 am
In category: Gotham City | 2 Comments »

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