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There were some who opposed the Rockefeller drug laws at the very beginning, when Governor Nelson Rockeller pushed them to passage three decades ago, but most of the opposition to the laws grew steadily over the years. About a decade ago, a consensus emerged among both regular New Yorkers and public officials that the laws were too harsh and needed to be changed. Yet in all that time that virtually everybody agreed, nothing happened.
Then this fall, voters in Albany County organized to defeat the local district attorney, who was a strong proponent of mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders. Shortly after his defeat, the legislature finally got the message and enacted a partial reform of the 30-year-old laws.
Thus was demonstrated the power of a competitive election.
If state officials finally reached agreement to make some changes to the Rockefeller drug laws -- after only ten years of trying -- many other issues of great importance remain unresolved, clear evidence of the inability of the governor and the legislature to get things done.
The litany of dysfunctionis familiar:
Legislation on pressing issues is stalled.To name just a few with daunting financial implications:
The state budget has been late 20 years in a row. A recent bipartisan bill finally to address this delinquency, which was passed unanimously, collapsed two weeks ago when the governor vetoed it and the State Senate refused to overturn his veto.
New York City government is burdened with state requirements that lack adequate funding.
Special interests hold unusual sway over the making of policy.
The failure thus far of the state legislature to implement the Help America Vote Act, (HAVA) – the federal law enacted in 2002 to strengthen the country’s voting systems state by state - shows how partisan gridlock contributes to a failure even to ensure the integrity of each New Yorker's vote.
No wonder fewer and fewer citizens vote in city and state elections -- except when there is a competitive race with a real choice.
2005 is the year that promises change in Albany. The state legislature will convene next week and both the Assembly and the Senate are expected to adopt new rules by which it operates during its 2005-2006 legislative session. Given the recent attention the dysfunction of Albany received in 2004, fueled in part by the Brennan Center for Justice’s report on the state’s legislative process, the new rules promise to make the legislative process more open, accountable, and democratic.
While these reforms are necessary, they will not result in the kind of lasting and far-reaching reform that is needed to make state government more responsible over the long haul.
The real roadblock to meaningful reform in New York is the lack of competitive elections.
Incumbent legislators are routinely elected without any serious challenger. Indeed, last year, 70 percent of New York City state legislators faced no primary challengers at all, and more than a quarter faced no general election challengers. Without competitive elections, elected officials seem to have little incentive to get anything done -- and voters feel helpless in holding them accountable for their inaction.
In order to bring about true reform in how state government operates, New York must change how its elected officials are elected, and how campaigns are run and financed.
Citizens Union, of which I serve as executive director, has been a non-partisan force for good government for more than 100 years and continues to serve as a watchdog for the public interest at City Hall and increasingly again at our State Capitol. It is why this past summer - during our biennial evaluation of state legislative candidates from New York City in which we issue preferences to those we believe would well serve the public interest - we changed the criteria on which we make such decisions. No longer were our decisions to prefer one candidate over another made on the basis of substantive issues, but rather on candidates’ commitment to reform in state government. Much to our surprise, 46 incumbents supported many of the reform measures Citizens Union is advocating. Elected officials are beginning to feel the heat from their constituents and know they need to heed the concerns of the voters.
There are three measures that must be undertaken to ensure that more elections are competitive in the state. They are:
These three proposals are part of a broader reform agenda announced last fall by a group of good-government groups that include the New York Public Interest Research Group, Common Cause/NY, the League of Women Voters, and Citizens Union. Called “Reform New York”, the agenda lays out ten steps on the path to change Albany that would bring greater accountability and transparency to state government, all with an eye toward making government address and solve the many pressing issues it faces. Outlined in the agenda are sweeping changes to the way in which legislative districts are drawn, campaigns are financed, public authorities are governed, lobbying is regulated, state budgets are approved, elections are run, the rules under which the legislature operates, and what ethic rules should exist for public officials and how accessible government information is.
The challenge for the good government cause in New York in the next few years is, and must be, reform of state government in Albany, which has become mired in scandal, corruption, and gridlock that has undermined the public trust and ducked critical issues. When the state legislature convenes next week to adopt its rules changes, an important step will be taken in the fight to bring reform to state government. But it must not stop there.
Dick Dadey is the executive director of Citizens Union and Citizens Union Foundation.
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New York was a city of losers in 2004. Former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik lost a big job - and his reputation - after he had to withdraw from his nomination as U.S. secretary of homeland security. An overwhelming majority of New Yorkers backed the losing candidate in the presidential elections. Hawks Pale Male and Lola lost their posh East Side aerie, at least temporarily. And the New York Yankees suffered perhaps the most ignominious sports defeat of all times when, after leading three games to none, they lost the American League Championship Series to the Boston Red Sox, who went on to win their first World Series in 82 years.
But some New Yorkers had a winning season in 2004. In a year of Republican victories, Democratic Senator Charles Schumer won re-election to the U.S. Senate by the largest margin in state history. Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City finally won Mr. Big (and visa versa) - or so it seemed at the HBO series' final fadeout in February. And baseball star Alex Rodriguez became a New Yorker, playing for the losing Yankees but capturing $252 million in the process.
Here, in more or less chronological order, are the Top Ten Stories of 2004.
1. Construction at Ground Zero
In early January, a panel of experts selected "Reflecting Absence," by architect Michael Arad from among some 5,200 proposals for the 9/11 memorial, setting off a year of progress at Ground Zero. To address criticisms that the design, which featured two sunken pools, was too austere, Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker revised it to include a garden.
Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava did not have to make any such adjustments about a week later when he unveiled his design for the downtown transportation hub. His proposal - an oval of glass and steel with wings rising from it - met almost universal acclaim.
Many questions about financing, as well as design, remained unanswered on July 4 when Pataki presided over the ceremonial laying of the cornerstone for the Freedom Tower, the twisting skyscraper that has been the center of redevelopment plans.
Also in 2004, work continued on the building to replace 7 World Trade Center, which collapsed late in the afternoon of September 11, 2001. The 52-story structure is scheduled for completion in 2005.
The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation selected occupants for a new arts and museum complex downtown: The Joyce dance theater, the Drawing Center, Signature Theater, and the new Freedom Center. And a jury ruled that the attacks on the twin towers were two separate incidents. This could mean that Larry Silverstein, who holds the lease on the World Trade Center, will collect at least a billion dollars more than had this jury ruled the attack was a single incident (though this is neither the first nor the last word in this complicated case.)
Five Years of StoriesIn 1999, the economy was booming, Amadou Diallo was shot, and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani called an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum sick and offensive. It was also the year that Gotham Gazette began -- and began covering the top NYC stories of the year. On our fifth anniversary, we offer a selection from our past end-of-year lists: 1999 Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant, is shot and killed by four police officers as he leaves his Bronx apartment building, sparking widespread outrage and eventual elimination of the New York Police Department's Street Crime Unit. The "Sensation" exhibition at the Brooklyn museum, particularly a depiction of the Virgin Mary dappled with elephant dung, so appalls Mayor Rudolph Giuliani that he tries, but fails, to stop funding for the museum. 2000: Tensions between police and many New Yorkers continue after an Albany jury acquits four officers accused of murder in Diallo's death and a police officer on an undercover operation kills Patrick Dorismond, an unarmed security guard, on Manhattan's West Side. Howard Safir resigns as commissioner, and Giuliani appoints Corrections Commissioner Bernard Kerik to replace him. New Yorkers cheer as a Subway Series pits the Yankees against the Mets in the World Series, but the joy soon fades for Met fans as the Yankees win, four games to one. 2001 With term limits forcing the retirement of all three city-wide elected officials, four of the five borough presidents and 35 of the 51 city council members, there are some 420 candidates vying for the positions. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire media mogul with no experience in public office, spends almost $70 million of his own money and is elected mayor. A New York State Supreme Court justice rules that New York's system for funding schools deprives some students of the sound, basic education they are guaranteed by the state constitution. 2002: The state legislature gives Bloomberg almost complete control of the city's troubled school system an authority his predecessors had long sought but failed to get. Work begins on rebuilding Ground Zero. After the public and critics overwhelmingly reject six plans for the World Trace Center site, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation unveils nine other, more designs from major architects and invites the public to comment on them. 2003 On August 15, New Yorkers find themselves in the midst of the largest blackout in U.S. history. Power will not be completely restored in New York until the next day, but most city residents take the event in stride. New York City Councilmember James E. Davis is shot and killed on July 23 by a gunman inside City Council chambers during the council's regularly scheduled meeting. A police officer then shoots and kills the assailant, a political rival of Davis's who had accompanied him to City Hall. |
2. Tale Of Two Stadiums
While many New York sports teams failed on the playing field, they scored successes in the political arena. New York drew closer to building new facilities for two major league teams that could dramatically affect the futures of large parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn.
In January, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor George Pataki announced plans to build a $1.4 billion stadium for the football Jets on the far West Side of Manhattan, with the taxpayers picking up $600 million of that. The stadium is part of the mayor's overall plan for the area, which includes extension of the Number 7 subway line, enlarging the Javits convention center and opening the area to new office buildings and apartment houses.
Much of that has widespread approval - but not the Jets stadium. Bloomberg and other backers present it as vital to the West Side plans, New York's economy and the city's hopes of landing the 2012 Olympics. Critics deride it as a poor use of public money, question the funding mechanism, and want the mayor to submit the plan to the City Council. As the year ended, the State Legislature approved much of the West Side plan, but remained silent on the stadium.
Brooklyn, meanwhile, wants the Nets basketball team, now in New Jersey, to play in a proposed arena on Brooklyn site Walter O'Malley spurned before taking his Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles. In January, real estate developer Bruce Ratner, who now owns the Nets, presented a plan for an arena for them, designed by Frank Gehry. The plan for the area around Flatbush and Atlantic avenues also includes office space, residences and retail. Much of the opposition centers on the displacement of an estimated 1,000 area residents and businesses as well as concern about increased traffic in the neighborhood.
3. Gay Marriage
Last winter, as gay couples in San Francisco and New Paltz, N.Y., received marriage licenses, dozens of gay and lesbian couples in New York City lost in their attempt to marry here. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said gay marriage remains illegal under New York State law.
In the spring, the mayor vetoed a bill passed by the New York City Council that would require all businesses doing a significant amount of business with the city to provide domestic partners of employees with the same benefits they give the spouses of employees. Bloomberg said the city should not use its purchasing power to promote social causes. The council overrode the mayor's veto but all indications are that the city has not enforced the new law.
4. Reforming Albany
In April, for the 20th year in a row, the legislature and governor missed the deadline for passing the budget -- and this year it was later than ever. The state's leaders could not agree on how to reform school funding, despite a court order to do so. The "three men in a room" who run Albany -- Governor George Pataki, Senator Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver -- seemed at loggerheads about every major issue, stymieing any action. And a Brennan Center report (in pdf format) called the legislature the least democratic in the nation, making average New Yorkers the losers.
In short, 2004 was the year the state capital became synonymous with dysfunction.
Legislators, often oblivious to criticism, got worried this fall when several incumbents lost their bids for re-election, a virtually unheard of event in the legislature. Everyone -- including those considered responsible for the mess in the first place -- began promoting themselves as champions of reform. This created some momentum in a post-election legislative session that produced changes in the state's harsh Rockefeller drug laws and an increase in the minimum wage. But, as though to prove nothing really had changed, those actions were hashed out in secret by the "three men." And the legislature failed to override Pataki's veto of a bill reforming the budget process.
5. The 9/11 Commission Hearings
In April, the federal 9/11 commission focused on the events leading up to the attacks on the World Trade Center and what had been done since then to help prevent any future disasters. Many relatives of victims were particularly disturbed by accounts of intelligences failures in the months prior to the attacks.
In May, the commission came to New York, looked at whether city officials thought anything could have prevented the death and destruction and what, if anything, the city has done to address possible failures in the rescue operation on 9/11. In the first day of hearings, commission members lambasted three former commissioners in the Giuliani administration, with one calling the city's emergency response system "dysfunctional," and "not worthy of the Boy Scouts, let alone this great city."
But, to the irritation of some families, Giuliani escaped any such opprobrium the next day, as commissioners listened to him respectfully, if not reverentially.
Four days earlier, the impeding hearings had spurred Bloomberg to issue a plan (in pdf format) for coordinating emergency response. But many critics called his policy incomplete and scored it for failing to address long-standing rivalries between the police and fire departments and to designate one agency that would be in charge during an emergency.
6. Velella's Early Release
State Senator Guy Velella pleaded guilty in May to bribery charges, agreeing to resign his seat and serve a year in jail. But almost as soon as he arrived at Riker's Island this summer, Velella had second thoughts - the food was bad, for one thing -- and began trying to persuade the previously obscure Local Conditional Release Commission to let him go. Inundated with appeals from leading New Yorkers, including former Mayor Ed Koch, it did, and Velella walked after three months, seemingly destined to fade into obscurity.
But at a time of rising concern about apparent abuses of power in Albany, the release attracted immediate outrage from all the city's newspapers, and a wide range of New Yorkers including the mayor, even though he had appointed some members of the panel.
Bloomberg, who nevertheless said he had never heard of the panel, replaced its old members with new ones, who ordered the Bronx politician and his two co-conspirators back to Rikers. Velella appealed - his lawyers said he did nothing wrong and besides, he was suffering from prostate cancer - but this week a five-judge panel of the State Supreme Court's Appellate Division unanimously ordered him to return to jail on December 27th.
7. The GOP in NYC
For the first time in its 150-year history ,the Republican Party held its national convention in New York City in Aguust. While many New Yorkers fled the city -- out of fear of terrorists or fear of Republicans -- the city remained safe. Bloomberg, who worked to bring the convention here and donated $7 million for it, called it an "extraordinary" economic engine for the city, though the exact amount it brought in for the city is virtually impossible to come by.
As expected, hundreds of thousand of protestors took to the streets in this overwhelmingly Democratic city to protest the policies of President George W. Bush. After allowing a peaceful protest the day before the convention, on subsequent days police arrested about 1,800 demonstrators -- or people they thought were demonstrators -- and detained many in jail or in a makeshift prison on a Hudson River pier. Reportedly only about 75 of those cases resulted in convictions. Meanwhile, the city faces lawsuits from people who say the police violated their civil rights.
Whatever the opinions of the demonstrators, the convention provided a boost to Bush's re-election campaign, allowing him to focus on the war on terror. Unlike many of their compatriots, New Yorkers were not convinced and voted for John Kerry over the president by a 3- to-1 margin.
8. MoMA Returns to Manhattan
After three years in Queens, the Museum of Modern Art returned to Manhattan in November, opening its new home. The building, designed by Yoshio Taniguchi and costing $425 million to renovate, won wide praise for its large spaces displaying the museum's renowned collection. But art lovers on a budget may feel pangs of loss for the old MoMA. When it opened the new building, the museum raised the price of admission from $12 to $20, making it one of the most expensive museums in the nation.
Despite declines in budgets and attendance since 9/11, arts institutions made some major advances in 2004. Other winners on the New York arts scene in 2004 included Jazz at Lincoln Center which moved to its new home in the Time-Warner Center, and the Joyce Theater, which will have a new performance space in Lower Manhattan.
9. Money for Education
In late November, a court-appointed panel of three mediators found that New York City schools need an additional $5.6 billion a year for operating expenses. In a set of recommendations that many said could make students winners but taxpayers losers, the panel said it will take $18.25 billion a year - up from the current $12.6 billion -- to provide the 1.1 million city students with the "sound basic education" they are guaranteed in the state constitution. The three lawyers also called for a five-year $9.2 billion capital plan to build new schools, maintain existing ones and purchase computers and other technology.
The finding was the latest turn in a case brought by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity in 1993 challenging the way Albany funds education in the city. The court ruled for the campaign in 1991, but the state government failed to take steps to comply with the decision. That prompted appointment of the panel. But while the mediators set out dollar amounts, they did not say how much should come from the fiscally strapped city and how much from the state, which is widely considered to be in even worse financial shape. Many said the ruling, if implemented, would make tax hikes inevitable. And so continued political battles and a possible appeal by Pataki could keep the school funding case in the courts at least well into 2005.
But not all city education battles took place in Albany. In January, Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein announced that they would end so-called "social promotion" -- passing a child to the next grade regardless of academic performance. Now, youngsters will have to score above a certain level on standardized math and reading tests to advance from third to fourth grade.
The proposal set off a furor unlike any since Bloomberg gained control of the schools in 2002. Some people supported tougher promotion standards but argued that third grade was too late to take such action or that a test should not provide the sole basis for making that kind of decision. Others (in pdf format) said that retention can backfire, demoralizing children and making them less likely to do well in school. In his zeal to make the policy a reality, Bloomberg engineered the ouster of three members of the city's Panel For Educational Policy who opposed the proposal.
In the end, the new policy may have made less difference than anticipated - when school opened in September, 2004, less than 5,000 students were repeating third grade, about as many as the previous year and before all the controversy. But the way Bloomberg rammed through his plan, with little advice from professional educators, gave ammunition to an increasing number of critics who charge that Bloomberg and Klein run the school system in an autocratic way, paying little heed to the concerns of parents, teachers or political leaders.
10. The Fall of Bernard Kerik
Like the Yankees, Bernard Kerik turned almost certain victory into humiliating defeat in 2004. The onetime head of the Department of Corrections, who came to national attention as New York City's police commissioner on 9/11, won acclaim from the president of the United States and, on December 3, a nomination as secretary of the federal Department of Homeland Security. A week later, Kerik suddenly withdrew from consideration, citing questions about "the immigration status of a nanny."
But whatever the truth about the nanny - whose identity and nationality remain unknown - it unleashed a spate of stories about Kerik. While a city employee, he accepted expensive gifts from people doing business with the city and did not report them. He had ties to people linked to the mob (though, as Kerik's patron, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani noted, none have been convicted). A New Jersey judge had issued an arrest warrant for him after he failed to pay condo fees. He reaped millions in profits on stock options in a company that makes stun guns - without ever having invested a penny. And to the delight of tabloid readers Kerik enjoyed a complicated love life - while married and living in New Jersey, he had a Manhattan "love nest" frequented by two girlfriends. And then an ex-wife surfaced whom no one knew about.
Despite all this, Kerik had the enthusiastic backing of Giuliani, who named him police commissioner, hired him for Giuliani Partners and lobbied hard for his appointment as homeland security secretary. Beyond the titillation, the Kerik controversy raised concerns about vetting processes in New York and Washington and seemed certain to tarnish Giuliani's reputation. "The real satisfaction of the flameout lies not in Kerik's fall but Rudy's chagrin, " Tina Brown wrote in the Washington Post, adding, "The city has become just a tad cranky about Rudy's naked branding of 9/11 for his own political and pecuniary ends."
In addition to 9/11, Giuliani and Kerik have benefited from the decrease in city crime rates during their time in office here. But recent figures indicate the city can win the war on crime without Giuliani et al. In 2004, reports of serious crimes fell by 4.8 percent, continuing an 11-year decline and making New York the safest of America's 10 largest cities.
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When Bob Dylan moved to New York to make it as a singer-songwriter, he was acknowledging something that he helped define – the city was where pioneering musicians had to be. But if Dylan were starting out today, would he stay in Minnesota?
For decades, the city nurtured the alternative music scene and the artists who bloomed – and crashed – here, in famed locales like CBGBs, the punk club on the Lower East Side, and the corridors of the Chelsea Hotel. The names of past heroes rattle off the pierced tongues of the cognoscenti: It was here that Iggy Pop held court, here that John Cale, after studying with Aaron Copeland, settled down on Ludlow Street and formed the Velvet Underground with Lou Reed. Patti Smith dropped out of teacher’s college in New Jersey and got her start reading poetry here at St. Mark’s Church. And it is here, of course, where Dylan sets his new bestselling book Chronicles Vol. 1.
Neither the music scene nor the music industry has completely disappeared from the city. The major music publications Rolling Stone, Spin, Punk Magazine and newcomer Blender Magazine are all based here. The major bands still routinely perform in the many music venues here. For the past 24 years, the College Music Journal Network has sponsored its annual Music Marathon in the city, unleashing 10,000 artists, professionals, fans, and even some public officials onto daytime panels and nighttime concerts at over 50 clubs and local concert halls.
But, even panelists at the latest Music Marathon itself made it clear they do not think New York is what it used to be, thanks in part to changes in the music industry as a whole.
Consolidation
Recent trends in consolidation of music-related industries have made it more difficult for emerging artists to break through.
With this year’s partnership between Sony and BMG, just four companies (Sony-BMG, Vivendi Universal SA, Warner Music Group and EMI Group PLC) control 80 percent of the recording industry, and 95 percent of the top 100 sales. The increasing corporate control means increasing profit pressure, with the result that record labels, which are cutting staff and jettisoning even somewhat-established artists, are less inclined to take on the expense and the risk of untested new acts.
At the same time, massive radio deregulation began with the 1996 Telecommunications Act and was furthered by the Federal Communications Commissioner (FCC) under Chairman Michael Powell. Radio was the first victim of the deregulation wave, which has since affected other media as well.
Now, companies can own more stations in each market and as many as they want nationwide. Today, just three companies (Clear Channel, Infinity Broadcasting and Cumulus Radio) dominate the market. While the industry leaders before the Telecommunications Act owned 65 stations, Clear Channel alone owns 1,245 stations. In New York City, just four companies control 79 percent of all revenue from the radio.
Radio station formats are carefully controlled by their corporate owners. Research by the Future of Music Coalition has found that though more “formats” are on the radio, such as “Adult Contemporary” and “Hot Adult Contemporary,” the supposedly distinct formats are playing up to 76 percent of the same songs.
While the courts are beginning to assert the primacy of the public interest over the right for corporations to consolidate, and there are a few holdouts such as college radio stations and WFMU, the truth is that these barriers to access are harming New York City’s local music industry. Artists coming to New York to break into the business are finding record labels less interested and the radio less open.
The Internet
Shut out from these traditional routes, up-and-coming artists are turning to a new medium to be heard. The Internet is doing for the underground music scene what blogging has done for political advocacy – provided a more level playing field. The Internet gives both pop stars and struggling bands access to listeners.
Independent rock music has a world-wide venue thanks to the World Wide Web. Musicians no longer need to rely exclusively on the press and personal contact to announce their tours and album releases. Music nerds in 65 cities around the world, for example, can get to know other fans of Omaha’s punk-folk Bright Eyes at local meetups, the artists’ Web site, and even on Friendster where lead singer Connor Oberst has a “profile.” Today, online music sites – with names like Pitchfork, Fluxblog and Epitonic.com -- have flourished. Yes, the major magazines continue to reside in New York City, but music Web sites exist in every town. Pitchfork has, as The New York Observer recently observed, “captivated New Yorkers more than any other” music news site, even though it is based in Chicago.
You need not be based in New York, in other words, to define even New Yorkers’ tastes in music.
And the music scenes in other cities, such as Omaha, are flourishing. Small cities have contributed to rock and roll before, but now the Internet has helped Omaha rock artists like Bright Eyes and Cursive reach a national audience without leaving the Midwest. In the song “The Execution of All Things,” Los Angeles band Rilo Kiley sings “we’ll go to Omaha to work and exploit the booming music scene,” and they did, releasing their 2002 album on Saddle Creek Records and touring extensively with other bands from the same Omaha-based label.
Is It Really Dead?
Given these new complexities of the music business, it might be easier to cope from Omaha than to move to New York City and get priced out.
A satirical feature in New York Magazine “Will the Last Hipster Please Turn out the Lights: New York Cool Dies a Thousand Deaths,” perpetuates the notion that New York City’s trendsetters are increasingly frustrated with the declining creative scene and increasing cost of living, and as Gavin McInnes of Vice (a NYC magazine and record label) puts it, true city hipsters are being replaced by “lawyers who just learned to snowboard.”
In what may be the clearest sign that something has died, New York University is currently converting what used to be the Bottom Line – which for thirty years was a hot club for live music -- into new classrooms.
But it may not be time for the funeral dirge just yet.
For one thing, there is an emerging scene in Brooklyn . In a Daily News article “BROOKLYN ROCKS! Cutting-edge rockers discover a hot music scene just over the bridge,” music critic Isaac Guzman chronicles the dozens of new music clubs in Brooklyn, from Park Slope to Red Hook, several of which -- Northsix, Warsaw and Southpaw – compete with the major clubs in Manhattan. "I got sick of going out in New York City and I got sick of corporate venues and huge, stupid clubs,” said Jeff Golden, one of the owners of The Hook. “In Brooklyn, people go to a club to see music on purpose, and people have to go out of their way to come here. But when you go to the club, there’s a sense of community inside. We’ve had bands who just walked their amps over from the neighborhood.” Just over the border, Long Islanders are building their own rock and roll community, as profiled in a recent New York Magazine article “L.I.R.R. (Long Island Rock â€n’ Roll).”
And even Manhattan has not turned completely repellent. The truth is, it was never easy in New York. Dylan himself was under few illusions about the city. In “Hard Times in New York Town” he sings “They'll kick you when you're up and knock you when you're down/It's hard times in the city,/Livin' down in New York town.” Yet it’s New York that he chronicles in Chronicles.
Have things really changed that much? However appealing the Omaha music scene, one of its stars, Connor Oberst, has apparently relocated to New York City; when he performs at Town Hall next month, it'll be as a new New Yorker. In "Train Underwater," a song in his forthcoming album, he explains he wanted to “keep up with the moon on an all night avenue.” Â
Each year since it began in 1999, Gotham Gazette has asked New Yorkers - from Susan Sontag to Marty Markowitz, from Moby to Mnookin, from members of Congress to the cast of Saturday Night Live - to predict what the big stories will be in New York City in the new year.
Now for our fifth anniversary, we carry on the tradition, which has gotten completely out of hand; what started as succinct lists from a handful of policy wonks has grown to thousands of words from dozens of bold faced names.
Still, looking back, our contributors have been fairly accurate. Subway fares have risen. Budget battles did rage at City Hall. A West Side stadium was proposed for the Jets. Massive civil disobedience did greet delegates at the Republican National Convention. And a "dark horse" named Mike Bloomberg did become mayor.
But sometimes hopes and dreams for the city cloud the view of the future - and our predictions have been a little off the mark. New York still does not have a commuter tax. Bus service has not improved. Governors Island will not become a Frank Gehry-designed garbage dump. And no one "put a retractable dome over the city and pumped in fragrances like apple pie or vanilla," as actor David Cross hoped last year.
Browse through past predictions for 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 - and below, read the latest predictions, for 2005.
Then make your own predictions on our Message Board.
David Dinkins, former New York City mayor: New York City is the greatest city in the world and in 2005, it will become even greater.
Jose Torres, former light heavyweight boxing champion and chairman of the New York State boxing commission: More people will discover that New York is the place where different groups can come together, work together, and love each other.
Edward T. O'Donnell, New York historian:
1. After 70 years of heroic effort, the city will admit that the campaign to get people to call Sixth Avenue the Avenue of the Americas has failed and that corporate naming rights will be auctioned.
2. Massachusetts-born Mayor Bloomberg will announce that he really is a Red Sox fan and that he's not going to seek re-election.
3. Full-wrap advertising now seen enveloping city buses will be extended to the Staten Island Ferries.
4. The City Council launches anti-superstition campaign by passing an ordinance requiring that all buildings renumber their floors to include the number 13.
Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City: As long as I'm mayor, we will keep crime down in the city.
Gifford Miller, Speaker of the New York City Council: Our city is at a crossroads: do we follow the path that puts pressure on Washington to provide New York with its fair share, or do we follow the path of Mayor Bloomberg and thank President Bush for his non-existent support?
Elizabeth Kolbert, writer for the New Yorker magazine: Predicting that New York politics will be dominated by intractable financial problems is about as risky as forecasting that the swallows will return to Capistrano. That being said, 2005 promises some particularly contentious -- and consequential -- fights, one over the MTA capital plan and another over school financing. The debate over the future of the West Side will also dominate the news. And at the end of it all will be the mayoral election. With Jon Corzine running for governor in New Jersey, and Michael Bloomberg seeking reelection in the city, it promises to be a very good year for political ad buyers.
Bill Thompson, New York City Comptroller: I forecast continued recovery and modest growth for both the New York City economy and its jobs market in 2005. Potential risks to the city's economy and recovery are high interest rates, higher oil prices, Wall Street decentralization and outsourcing. The weak U.S. dollar could slow the growth of imports and increase the foreign demand for American goods over the next year.
Eddy Tatum, Santa Claus bell ringer in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral: For the average New Yorkers, it's going to be tough. Rents and subway fare are going high. I'm working this job so I can get a little stipend. I am homeless, but the city is wasting $2,000 a month putting homeless people in hotel rooms, when for $600 or $800, I could live in an apartment.
Jami Bernard, film critic, New York Daily News: It's been a long time since the Moonies sold pencils on every corner, but with the country's turn toward the religious right, combined with the erosion of citizen privacy ("for security reasons!"), New York will succumb to a blizzard of sidewalk-blocking advice, soapbox rhetoric, bridge-crossing pat-downs and pamphleteering. Some of it's religious, some just plain intrusive. It's the beginning of the end to personal space where you can hear yourself think.
Naked Cowboy, street performer at Times Square (real name Robert Burck): Naked Cowboy will come to Times Square everyday in 2005. He's the biggest thing happening in the world!
Jeff Zucker, president of NBC/Universal: A pilot for a new drama set in the 1970's, called "NY70," will be filmed here in New York City. Four of the five Law & Order shows are filmed in New York, and we are considering bringing the fifth one here.
Lonnie Youngblood, singer and musician: New music venues are coming in and I just say 'Wow.' The renaissance in Harlem refuses to die.
Gregory Meeks, New York representative to U.S. Congress: The big story is going to be that we begin to build a new stadium on the West Side of Manhattan. That is going to create thousands of jobs, and thereby help improve the economy of New York City and lower the unemployment rate, and is going to be a tremendous success story for New York.
Kevin Baker, author of Dreamland and Paradise Alley: The real estate bubble will burst. The smug little mayor will get his stadium, wasting billions in needed tax dollars and continuing to wreck the West Side skyline begun so ably by Donald Trump. Transit fares will go up again. Public schools will go begging. New York will continue to be run, as it has been for nearly all of the previous 381 years, by self-interested men with little care or vision for preserving its greatness. Nonetheless the city will remain impervious to all the most dedicated attempts to destroy it, still far and away the most interesting single place in America.
Harold Levy, former schools chancellor: Kaplan buys Cornell University. Guy Vellela is nominated to the state parole board.
John Sexton, president of New York University: Everybody in New York City pays attention to the "F.I.R.E." sector: finance, insurance, and real estate. I think in the coming year we will pay more attention to the "I.C.E." sector: the intellectual, cultural, and educational strength of the city. We have more students in higher education per capita than any other American city. Too few of us know and celebrate that New York is the leading importer of college students from the other 49 states. This concentration of intellectual activity displays itself vividly in science: over 100 Nobel Laureates in science; 45 active members of the National Academy of Sciences in bioscience alone; the highest concentration of science students and post doctoral students; and more Ph.D.s granted in life science than 48 states. In short, we are the educational capital of the world.
James Oddo, Republican City Council member from Staten Island:
1.The big story is the mayor's race and everything that occurs locally will be filtered through that lens. An incumbent mayor running against the City Council Speaker will affect the budget negotiations.
2. Medicaid will continue to be a black hole that sucks up millions of tax dollars.
3. On the issue of NASCAR coming to Staten Island, I have trouble believing that supporters will see the checkered flag.
Nadia Bernic, owner of Terrace in the Sky restaurant on 119th Street: I think we will see more promotion uptown, celebrating the gorgeous buildings and culture and name recognition of Harlem.
Lloyd Williams, president of the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce: I think the big story for 2005 is going to be the unanticipated election of a new mayor. Some think it's a foregone conclusion that Mayor Bloomberg will win, but I don't think that's going to happen. Also, New York City will not receive the bid for 2012 Olympics.
Syl Tang, CEO of HipGuide, Inc.:"I predict that in 2005 a subway ride will cost $8 except if you want to carry a blue deli cup of coffee on board, in which case it will be $3008 (the fine plus your fare) and the train will only be on time during Yankee games. Also New York will be declined for the Olympics (New Yorkers will celebrate) and a computer glitch will cause all computer systems to suffer a system fault on Midnight, December 31st, and the city will be plunged into stone-age darkness... Oh wait... Uh..."
Russell Pergament, publisher, AM New York: I predict a real resurgent New York City economy, especially in restaurants and entertainment. It's happening already, and I think it is going to be accelerated, especially downtown.
Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn Borough President: 1. In late summer, the inaugural cruise will set sail from Brooklyn to the Caribbean, marking the start of a major new industry and encouraging more tourism.
2. The new Target and Lowe's Brooklyn stores will outsell all their other American locations.
3. Steiner Studios in Brooklyn will challenge Hollywood's claim to fame as the most creative and exciting center of film production in America.
4. The Brooklyn Cyclones will once again
crush the Staten Island Yankees and keep the Borough President's Cup where it belongs — in the County of Kings.
5. Affordable housing will be included as part of any new housing built with public assistance in Brooklyn.
6. Brooklyn's waterways will host a regatta that will attract competitive sailing enthusiasts from around the globe.
7. Trader Joe's and Cracker Barrel will finally make it to the big time and arrive in Brooklyn.
8. The Parachute Jump at Coney Island will be a world-class source of light.
9. The Mets will have a championship season because they are now managed by Brooklynite Willie Randolph.
10. Brooklyn's Restaurant Week will grow even faster than its Borough President and the Lighten Up Brooklyn Campaign will be needed more than ever.
Andrew Heyward, president, CBS News: Everyone who can should make a New Year's resolution to pick a warm weekend and cycle or walk along the New York City waterfront greenway from Washington Heights to the Battery. Try the whole 13-plus miles or pick a section. You will rub elbows, sometimes literally, with fellow New Yorkers of every stripe, and you will see the waterfront pulsing with life and change and the spirit of the city.
Leslie Cagan, head of United for Peace and Justice:
1. More of our tax dollars will be pulled out of programs our communities depend on as the costs for the war in Iraq mount.
2. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers to fill the streets on May 1st to mark the 60th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a call for complete, global nuclear disarmament. Will the mayor and parks commissioner learn from their mistakes and this time issue the permit being sought for a rally on the Great Lawn in Central Park that day? Only time will tell.
3. New Yorkers will make a strong statement of their rejection of the Bush administration's policies by sending the current Republican mayor on his way.
Gene Russianoff, senior attorney for New York Public Interest Research Group: I'm hoping the mayor will wake from his slumber and join the MTA in proposing ways to meet the $11 billion the agency needs to fix the existing subway system. And I wish him no luck ramming a West Side stadium down our throats.
Jonathan Bowles, research director for Center for an Urban Future: Governor Pataki's approval ratings plummet to new lows, due to mounting frustration over the poor performance of the upstate economy and his handling of the New York City school funding issue. Pataki will escape to a post in the Bush administration just as New Yorkers begin to compare him to recalled California governor Gray Davis.
New York will lose its bid for the Olympics, but city taxpayers will still be saddled with the costs of subsidizing a new stadium for the Jets after Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver agrees to sign off on the plan.
Kathryn S. Wylde, President and CEO Partnership for New York City:
1. Next year promises to bring continued economic growth across the five boroughs, with increases in private sector employment across such consumer-oriented sectors as education, health services, leisure and hospitality. New construction activity will also increase, fueled by sustained demand for additional housing and early starts on major infrastructure projects in Lower Manhattan and around the boroughs. On the flip side, the city's and state's fiscal problems will grow more challenging, with increased spending on Medicaid, pensions and public education outpacing revenue growth. There are some hard choices facing us in 2005.
2. This may be the year that we take a step to legalize gambling and capture some of the billions in revenues that Connecticut and New Jersey are generating as New Yorkers travel out of state for entertainment.
Dan Cantor, executive director of the Working Families Party: The movement to stop Wal-Mart from opening stores in New York City will generate more grassroots energy, but less media attention, than the fight against the Nets Arena or the Jets Stadium.
Health care will begin to surface as the dominant issue of the 2006 election cycle.
Eric Adams, co-founder of 100 Blacks In Law Enforcement Who Care:
1. Ex-NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik will make a comeback. He is use to rising from adversity and this is just another chapter in the real life drama of his life.
2. The mayor will give public school teachers a contract that dramatizes that our most important commodity is our children.
3. MTA will raise fares and vote to extend their free riding privileges to their children and grandchildren.
4. Jennifer Lopez will marry her fourth husband, Mayor Bloomberg.
5. My nephew and cousin will leave Iraq safely and we will all say and mean the words "peace on earth."
Joseph Crowley, New York representative to U.S. Congress: Because of term limits, you're going to see a lot of changes politically in the city's landscape. The man with $4 billion is a tough opponent, but I think the Democrats are going to come together with a solid candidate and I think in the end will be successful.
Vito Fossella, New York representative to U.S. Congress: I hope the big story is that New York City continues to rebound and continues to grow from 9/11, and that it will remain the envy of the world. That should be the big story; New York City should be the place to be. And if Mike Bloomberg gets his record out in terms of what he has been able to do for New York, he will prevail. And I hope he does.
Jill Chaifetz, executive director for Advocates for Children: This year should be the year that New York City receives the funds from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit. If things go right with the world, the first billion will actually start flowing by September, along with some portion of the 9 billion meant for school facilities.
Leonie Haimson, education advocate for Class Size Matters: I predict that next year the attention will shift away from how much additional funding the New York City schools will receive as a result of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case to the need for more accountability in how this money will be spent.
Also, one of the major issues in the forthcoming mayoral elections will be how to reinstate the public voice in public education, as opposed to the autocratic style and priorities of the current administration.
I also predict that New York will not get the nod for the Olympics -- which will make it more unlikely that the Jets Stadium on the West side of Manhattan will ever materialize."
Brian Lehrer, WNYC public radio host:
1. In the New York City mayoral race, a "draft Bill Clinton movement" will inevitably spring up, draw one news cycle of a flirtatious comment from him, and then die when he quickly rules out a run. Bloomberg's money will loom large, but nevertheless, the Democratic primary campaign will be chock full of big names early: Gifford Miller, Anthony Weiner, Fernando Ferrer, Charles Barron, C. Virginia Fields. Fields will tout herself as the only woman in the race, but drop out for lack of funds. The remaining candidates will blast Bloomberg on various issues, prominently education reform. The primary will result in a runoff between Ferrer and the stronger of Miller and Weiner, probably Weiner, who will run a bit to everyone else's right. The runoff will echo some of the racial tensions of Ferrer-Green. Ferrer will win.
But no matter who the Democratic nominee is, Mayor Bloomberg will be easily re-elected. The same working and middle class property taxpayers who he became so unpopular with from the tax hike will come home to him as still more tax-averse than the Democrat, in an unusual coalition with liberal Manhattan "goo goo" voters who just think Bloomberg is an honest guy, even if he is buying the election. Education reform will be a net plus for Bloomberg among voters.
2. The State Legislature will finally pass a Campaign for Fiscal Equity compromise, phasing in $4.4 billion per year extra for New York City schools, while spreading the wealth statewide, including to suburban areas that don't need it, to cover the asses of the politicians who will vote for it rather than see a court-imposed system that only funds the city. Most of the new money will be promised for the later years of a five-year deal, exempting the 2005 mayoral candidates and 2006 gubernatorial candidates from taking much heat for the new tax burden.
3. The Jets Stadium will get approved after Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver extracts city funding for his support - maybe even as part of a education funding deal. The Nets Stadium will be approved after Bruce Ratner further reduces use of eminent domain, and makes black community leaders interested in jobs his poster pols. New York City will not get the 2012 Olympics. Madrid probably will get the games, as a way to rub it in the faces of both Al Qaeda and Bush.
4. Governor Pataki will become really unpopular on both left and right as the chickens of his decade-long borrowing spree come home to roost. But the year will end with him seriously considering making a difficult run against Hillary Clinton in 2006, because hey what the heck?
Clarence Norman, member of the New York State Assembly and indicted political boss of Brooklyn: Expect the unexpected.
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Every two weeks the New York City Council meets for its Stated Meeting to introduce and pass legislation. As a regular feature, Searchlight covers these meetings and posts a summary of the bills passed.
Quote of the Day:
"Some of the industrial jobs we have had in the past we just don't have anymore. But film production is a 21st century manufacturing industry, in which New York City is perfectly positioned to grow and grow very rapidly." - Brooklyn Councilmember David Yassky.
Meeting Summary:
Responding to concerns that New York City needs to do more to make itself attractive to filmmakers, the City Council voted to give a 5 percent tax credit (Intro 454-A) to film and television companies who film in New York City.
The film industry will recoup up to $12.5 million in city taxes, while also getting a state tax credit of 10 percent credit worth up to $25 million. NBC is expected to announce a new pilot that will be filmed in New York City instead of Toronto, thanks to the financial benefits the network will gain as a result of the film tax credit. Both credits are set to expire in 2008.
Supporters said that the measure will generate billions of dollars for the city's economy and create thousands of jobs. But several council members who voted for the bill still voiced concern that it might not benefit New Yorkers who need the jobs most.
"Clearly we are concerned that this is an industry that has a long history of discrimination," said Councilmember Bill Perkins. "Very often this council has passed legislation was ostensibly supposed to provide jobs for the city, was ostensibly supposed to create jobs for people of color, and in fact it doesn't actually happen."
Perkins said that there must be a continued effort to make sure that new jobs benefit a diverse swath of the population.
The bill passed 48 to 1. Staten Island Councilmember Mike McMahon, cast the sole "no" vote.
"There are many industries that can make the same case for getting special privileges," said McMahon, adding that government often regrets giving particular industries such credits.
The council also overrode mayoral vetoes on three bills concerning campaign finance reform. The legislation will aid opponents of billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who spent $74 million of his own money in 2001. City Council Speaker Gifford Miller is considered a possible candidate in next year's mayoral race.
One bill (Intro 124-A) increases the maximum amount of public matching funds to $6 for every $1 a candidate raises. It passed 43 to 6, with Councilmembers Tony Avella, Simcha Felder, Dennis Gallagher, Andrew Lanza, Madeline Provezano, and James Oddo voting against it.
The other two bills (Intro 371-A and Intro 466-A) concern disclosure on money raised for campaigns. The legislation will require self-financed candidates who choose not to be part of the voluntary public financing system to abide by the same limits on contributions and spending as those who join the program. Candidates who are not part of the program would also have to comply with disclosure requirements.
Intro 371 passed by a margin of 44 to 5, with Avella, Felder, Lanza, Lopez and Provezano voting "no"; Intro 466 passed by a margin of 45 to 4 with Avella, Felder, Lopez, and Provezano Lopez voting "no".
The council also passed a bill (Intro 114-A) doubling the fines for landlords who don't provide heat and hot water for their tenants from $250 a day to $500 a day. Landlords who have already been fined in a calendar year will be fined $1000 a day for violations in the same building. The bill passed 49 to 0. Â
Related: • Online Shopping and Sales Taxes • A Mall Grows in Brooklyn |
Somebody used pepper spray at the biggest Toys â€R’ Us in the world, the one in Times Square, and since this anti-riot chemical, made from cayenne peppers, can cause temporary blindness, some 3,000 shoppers were evacuated. Many did not stay out for long. “I was scared,” a nine-year-old told the Daily News. “Now I want to go back in for toys.”
The incident occurred, after all, on the weekend after Thanksgiving, the busiest shopping weekend of the year, in the city where people come from around the world just to go shopping.
Then last week, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer and a symbol to its critics of all that is wrong with the big chain stores, announced plans to open its first outlet in New York.
Shopping has long been recognized as a quintessential New York activity, but it is far more important to the city's economy than most New Yorkers realize. Only Wall Street, some say, is as central to the city's financial health as the retail industry, which provides billions in tax revenue and an increasing percentage of the city's jobs.
But the arrival of chain stores, along with the rise of Internet shopping (see related story), have altered the retail industry in New York. Wal-Mart is not planning to open its New York store until about 2007, but many other chains have already established a very visible presence, including Target and Home Depot, and a giant Ikea has been approved for the Brooklyn waterfront.
New York City has been a shopping capital for a century and a half. Department stores were invented here; the first one debuted in 1862 at Astor Place. Retailers such as F.A.O. Schwarz and Tiffany's later moved north to the area from Union Square to 23rd Street, which became known as Ladies Mile and featured such opulent stores as Siegel-Cooper, with its marble staircases and a pet department that sold panther cubs. By the 1890's, a tourist guide could proclaim, "all America goes to New York for its shopping," and this became even more true at the turn of the century, when R.H. Macy moved further uptown to 34th Street, with a half dozen grand emporiums to follow.
The era of the city department store lasted until the middle of the 20th century. That is when a new form of shopping emporium was invented – the suburban shopping mall, which killed downtown shopping districts across the country, and helped put many New York department stores out of business.
New York recovered in the 1990s, with the advent of expensive boutiques in Soho, on Madison Avenue and in the Upper West Side; a much-publicized 1990 guidebook was entitled "New York On $1,000 A Day/Before Lunch." In 2000, according to the Independent Budget Office, stores in New York grossed $21.9 billion in sales.
Following a sharp decline after September 11, 2001, Soho has rebounded this year, with the opening of a Bloomingdale's and an Apple store that some liken to a singles bar, others to a theme park. A new shopping mall -- the Time-Warner Center -- brought an array of chain stores for the affluent to Columbus Circle.
If some of the new stores seem specifically tailored for New York, most reflect what could be considered the third wave of New York emporiums -- transplants from suburbia.
More than 260,0000 New Yorkers worked in the retail industry (excluding bars and restaurants) in 2003, accounting for about one-twelfth of all workers in the city.
Retail workers tend to be less educated than city workers as a whole, and years ago might have found employment in manufacturing. But factory jobs in the city have declined sharply, while the number of retail jobs has risen.
The average retail worker in New York, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute, earned a little less than $30,000 a year in 2003. Nearly two thirds of full-time retail workers do not have health insurance benefits provided by their employers.
And these retail jobs pay less and less. (pdf format)
While the figures do not distinguish between chain stores and others, the drop in wages coincides with the move of chains to the city. About 70 percent of metropolitan supermarkets are unionized, providing workers with health benefits and pensions, but most big retail stores, such as Target, K-Mart, and CVS, are not.
"The quality of jobs in retail is really spotty," said Bruce Herman of the Center for Workforce and Economic Development.
While some entrepreneurs launch their own businesses -- Fifth Avenue and Smith Street in Brooklyn, for instance, have both seen a spate of new stores selling fashion and unusual home accessories -- chain stores account for much of the expansion in New York's retail industry.
Many shoppers hail the chain stores, saying they offer the kind of products and prices that consumers once had to go to the suburbs to get. But others fear these multinational businesses have destroyed local establishments that once formed the economic backbone of the city and gave it much of its character. Book chains, for example, have helped wipe out cherished local independent bookstores such as Rizzoli's and the Endicott. Rents in malls, as well as demanding specifications written into leases, tend to exclude local businesses of all kinds in favor of chains.
Over the past decade, chain stores have replaced locally owned shops on the Upper West Side. "Midtown Manhattan keeps creeping further north. The big-box stores are replacing the mom-and-pop stores that were our mainstay," Assemblymember Scott Stringer told the Post.
Home Depot has opened two branches in Manhattan, complete with escalators and a concierge. Not even sex shops are locally owned. The first U.S. branch of Myla, an upscale British chain selling erotic wares, opened on Madison Avenue this fall.
There is a surreal aspect to the mushrooming of the chains. Often two Starbucks sit a block from one another. In 2002, Cingular Wireless announced plans to open 200 stores in the New York area. "It's a branding issue more than anything else," Bradley Mendelson, a real estate broker working for Cingular said at the time. "Everybody knows AT&T, and everybody knows VoiceStream. Why do they know them? Because they have stores on the street."
Along with high rents, chain stores seeking to enter Manhattan face community opposition and the search for suitable space. To make things easier, Mayor Rudy Giuliani in 1996 proposed changes to city zoning that would have allowed stores under 200,000 square feet, the size of the average Ikea, to be built in manufacturing zones without approval from the City Council. But the City Council overwhelmingly rejected the proposal.
The council has approved individual big box stores, including the Brooklyn Ikea. And some of the stores do not need the council's acceptance. In response to Wal-Mart's possible move to New York, Councilmember Christine Quinn announced that she will propose a bill requiring that the council review plans for any big box store above a certain square footage.
While most big retailers dream of Manhattan, many settle in the boroughs, where there is more space, less cost, and lots of eager shoppers. Last year, real estate broker Chris Conlon estimated that there might be one mall for every 50,000 people on Long Island, compared to one for every 300,000 people in the boroughs. While the figures are rough, they do indicate a gap that stores want to fill.
Shopping malls already thrive in Staten Island, Queens and Brooklyn. The Queens Center, which opened in 1973, has had sales per square foot that are triple the national average for malls. The Old Navy at Atlantic Center in Brooklyn has been among that chain's most successful stores. In its first weeks of operation, the new Target at Atlantic Terminal (see related story in the Community Gazettes) "far exceeded our expectations," a store manager told the Times.
Seeing such results, more retailers are coming to the boroughs, including the Bronx. This summer, River Plaza in Marble Hill opened, bringing the Bronx its first Target and its first Starbucks. The borough is "not a well known market, but retailers are beginning to figure it out," David Rosenberg, a real estate broker, told Newsday.
Michael's, a Texas-based chain of crafts stores, will open in Woodside Queens early next year -- and then move on to Manhattan. "Our approach has been to gradually push in further and further to the city," Douglas Sullivan, Michaels's executive vice president for development, told the Times. "That's how Wal-Mart used to describe the strategy . . . surrounding a city and then entering it."
And now Wal-Mart itself is preparing its foray. The retailer reportedly confirmed last week that it wants to open a New York store in an area of Rego Park that already includes a Target and BestBuy. For years, Wal-Mart had tended to stay away from big, expensive cities because of high labor expenses and the cost of space for its sprawling one-story stores and huge parking lots.
But that did not stop many New Yorkers from forming an opinion about the store. Wal-Mart, with its non-unionized workforce, inexpensive imported merchandise, and willingness to sell guns and ban books, symbolizes what many people dislike about giant chain stores. Opposition emerged almost immediately.
Assemblymember Brian McLaughlin, the president of the Central Labor Council, said the store would come to Queens "over my dead body." An aide to Queens borough president Helen Marshall reportedly expressed concern over gun sales and allegations of sex discrimination by the company. And some community leaders worried that the stores could destroy existing businesses.
Critics charge that Wal-Mart keeps prices low by underpaying its workers and not giving many of them health benefits. This, some groups charge tends to drive down wages and benefits in other businesses.
That helps explain why urban communities sometimes rise up against Wal-Mart as David against Goliath. Earlier this year, the Chicago City Council vetoed one planned Wal-Mart. While supporters trumpeted the new jobs they said the store would bring to the city, opponents said the jobs would not be good ones. And opponents blocked a Wal-Mart in Inglewood, California, near Los Angeles, when they got the issue put on the ballot.
It remains unclear what Wal-Mart will have to do to get its New York project approved. Whether the New York City Planning Commission and City Council get to review the store depends on the zoning of the site and Wal-Mart's specifics plans, such as parking facilities, according to the Department of City Planning.
Not all chain stores succeed. The Wiz electronics chain closed. In 2001, the Gap shut six Manhattan stores. A Waldenbooks and a Gap on Montage Street in Brooklyn Heights are now abandoned storefronts, though other chains may move in. The proposed merger of K-mart and Sears, both with outlets in the city, could result in stores being closed.
And some individual merchants will always strive to offer something different. Unusual stores remain dotted throughout the city, with many in ethnic neighborhoods that serve as magnets to people eager for that spice, vegetable or piece of clothing that reminds them of their heritage."New York is a place of specialty shops," said Joshua Russ Tupper, a member of the fourth generation to run Russ and Daughters, which sells smoked fish, caviar, exotic cheeses and other treats on Houston Street.
Jamaica, Queens, once a victim of decline, now lures shoppers, most of them African American or Caribbean, from as far away as Detroit. They like the clothing, the prices, the crowds, and the stores that sell products geared to the black community that they may find hard to get at home. Of course, Jamaica could fall victim to its own success. Last year both Old Navy and The Gap opened in the neighborhood.
For More Information:
Retail Council of New York State. Represents 5,000 stores throughout the state
NYC Retail Trade Sector: Labor Market Profile Fiscal Policy Institute
Unionization and Poverty The Case of New York City Retail Workers (in pdf format)
The Economic Impact of Wal-Mart: An Assessment of the Wal-Mart Store Proposed for Chicago's West Side Center for Urban Economic Development, University of Illinois at Chicago
New York's Missing Megastores City Journal
Erica Pearson contributed to this article.
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Mayor Michael Bloomberg's development plan will remake neighborhoods like Long Island City, Throgs Neck, and downtown Jamaica. Articles in this Feature: |
When we think about development and planning in New York, we need to remember that ours is a boom and bust economy. Since the days of the Dutch, New York has consistently moved in great cycles of enormous prosperity that eventually give way to bad times. Our most recent catastrophically bad times were the 1970s. On April 1, 1975, Standard and Poor's withdrew the credit rating on the city’s bonds, which nearly led to the city’s declaring bankruptcy. We are in boom times now and it is hard to grasp that they are not going to last. We need policies in New York that will work in the bad times as well as the good.
The most important thing we can do in New York to secure our future in housing and development is to bring down construction costs.
New York City is the uncontested holder of the nation’s “Building Cost Heavy-Weight Championship title.” Nationally, the average hard cost per square foot for a high-rise building is $113. That same building in New York costs $154, or 36 percent more. A building in Chicago would cost about $125 per square foot or about 19 percent less than New York. Think about that differential as a subsidy. We wouldn’t need building subsidy programs in New York if we didn’t have enormous differential in building costs.
We have to bring building costs down. I say “we” because public policies are part of what have driven these costs up.
Recently, the City Council held a hearing on the Bloomberg administration’s proposal to adopt International Building Codes in place of the city’s 700-page, voluminous, idiosyncratic, and arcane building code. Everybody who studies housing and development in New York knows that we have to reform the building code, and that the easiest way to do that is to adopt the International Building Code, which is already operational in 44 states.
This should be a slam-dunk. But at 6:30 in the morning the day of the hearings the plumbers union and a few housing advocates lined up to pack the City Council chambers because they objected to the International Building Code, which would eliminate some arcane, uncompetitive, and ludicrously costly measures. One is “plumbers home rule,” which requires that plumbing be done by firms owned by New York licensed master plumbers. I bring this up because it is just one of many thousands of factors that push New York’s building costs up.
Another factor that will drive up building costs is the political campaign against what the mayor calls overdevelopment. For many reasons, new private-market construction in older neighborhoods tends to be homelier housing than what is already there. But it’s also housing that new homeowners can afford.
Most of the housing that the mayor has been condemning in Staten Island, Bay Ridge, Bayside, and Throgs Neck is fully occupied, which is an indication of the housing demand we have in New York. And all of it is occupied by people who are spending a great deal of money to live there. In other words, the housing that is being denigrated as overdevelopment is supplying housing to households who choose it happily. These are also hard-working, tax-paying people - frequently immigrants - whom we want to keep in New York. Without affordable housing - including what’s called overdevelopment - they will cross the bridges to New Jersey.
Except on the issue of the overdevelopment, this particular mayoral administration is the best administration on the subject of housing since the second Koch administration.
Julia Vitullo-Martin is director of the Manhattan Institute's Center for Rethinking Development
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This week the City Council is very proud to announce the launching of our new Website www.nyccouncil.info, a tool that we hope will promote both greater transparency and greater citizen participation in city government. Building a stronger city in the 21st century means taking advantage of the technology that can bring more people into the governing process. It also means that we have to work to bridge the “digital divide” and ensure that everyone has access to the advantages that the web provides.
This is the latest City Council effort to utilize new technologies in the service of better government. We started two years ago by putting the current voting record of each council member on-line and, since then, we’ve partnered with NYC.gov to broadcast Stated Council Meetings and show council votes on crucial legislation live through the web. We’ve launched advocacy initiatives that allow New Yorkers to speak out on behalf of New York City to federal and state elected officials on issues like fair funding for our schools and homeland defense. We’ve secured millions in funding to give every New Yorker better access to the Internet at schools, libraries and community center
And New Yorkers are responding enthusiastically – last year we received 12,000 emails in just two weeks calling on the City Council to restore funding to keep city zoos open in Brooklyn and Queens. Every week I receive more than 5,000 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. on subjects varying from laws governing sidewalk cafes to the allocation of New York City’s $46 billion budget. Web organizing and email have empowered small community groups, neighborhood associations, and volunteer organizations to raise their voices and fight for their causes.
As more and more New Yorkers gain access to the web, they will take advantage of the high-tech tools that enable them to play a more active role in civic affairs.
This week the City Council is taking another big step forward in providing New Yorkers with those tools. While www.nyc.gov has become a great resources for information about city agencies and resolving constituent problems, I want to provide New Yorkers with the ability to pro-actively have input into the city’s policies and guidelines.
The City Council is launching www.nyccouncil.info to replace our old web site, www.council.nyc.ny.us. In addition to the new easy-to-remember name, our new site allows users to:
1. Speak out with the click of a mouse by emailing every sponsor of a bill or resolution.
2. Receive weekly emails on the location and topics of City Council hearings, meetings and events, and on "hot topics" on the council side of City Hall.
3. Use the council member finder to find out who their council member is and how to contact them.
4. Navigate to the information they want easily and intuitively, with improved accessibility for disabled users.
5. Access constituent resources in Spanish.
And we won’t stop there.
In addition, the Council is finding ways to apply technology to make government more efficient and cost-effective, measures which benefit every New Yorker by allowing us to do more with less.
We are investigating how technology can make our schools better, both through providing computers and resources in our schools and ensuring our kids get the technology skills they need to succeed. Also, by investing in programs like “HIP (Helping Involve Parents)Schools”, a program that provides state-of-the-art. 24 hour communication between parents, teachers and students via Internet or telephone, we are bringing the same kinds of accountability and participation to our education system that www.nyccouncil.info brings to municipal government.
We are bringing competitive online bidding to the procurement process, which both allows the city to purchase services and goods in a more cost-effective and timely manner, but also allows locally-owned small businesses to compete for city contracts. We are investing in facilities like the Biotech center at State University of New York downstate. By encouraging the growth of emerging technologies, we are seeding a field whose benefits we will reap for years to come.
This week, on the “Speakers Page” at www.nyccouncil.info, I will have information about these technology-related achievements and proposals for our online users. I invite all New Yorkers to use our new website and, of course, to provide me with the feedback, comments and suggestions that our new website is designed to facilitate.
Gifford Miller is the Speaker of the New York City Council.