At the stock exchange (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on New York City’s core Central Business Districts – particularly Midtown Manhattan and Lower Manhattan – which are home to the businesses and industries that are the biggest drivers of the city’s economy.

The lockdown and stay-at-home orders forced by the pandemic changed the nature of work in the city and beyond, and though the office sector – including the information, financial and real estate, and professional and business services industries that occupy so much of the space

Could the reinvigoration of the New York economy come from public works? (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

Somewhere around a million New Yorkers are out of jobs and billions in tax revenue has evaporated as New York City bears the brunt of possibly the worst disaster in its history. The coronavirus has been devastating the city’s people, their way of life, and their livelihoods. As elected officials and experts look to the future, when the pandemic eventually subsides, they must plot a path out of the crises that will remain.

New Yorkers will need jobs, and

Jay Kriegel, 1940-2019 (photo via ABNY)

Jay Kriegel wasn’t a New Yorker, he was New York. In Jay our city was personified, embodied, embedded, in a being the likes of which we will ever know again.

The architecture of his hair alone—towering, iridescent, and high density—distinguished him from the mere mortals who ply our sidewalks, most of whom he knew. Walking Midtown with Jay was like being Mick Jagger’s wingman. From sales clerks to senators, he knew them all, and they all adored him. Ordering a meal with Jay was theater. By the end we knew everything about our

Announcing the Amazon deal that later fell apart (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

Current and former city officials and veteran city planners met Monday night to discuss the interplay of politics and policy in the notorious demise of the plan to site an Amazon campus in Long Island City.

A central theme of the panel discussion, hosted by the Urban Land Institute in midtown Manhattan, was the balance the city must strike between articulating and acting on its long-term need for growth and the experiences of people

What's The [Data] Point? Episode 66 -- 25,000, the Amazon Deal That Vanished and What It Means, with Vishaan Chakrabarti [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

Amazon was coming to Queens with 25,000 jobs and now it's not -- the mega-deal fell apart and the company backed out amid significant pushback from some local elected