City Comptroller John Liu— the man who oversees the city’s financial ledger—says that revelations about phantom donors, bundled contributions and other irregularities in his fund-raising practices do not require the services of an outside auditor. Would he say that same about, say, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, one of Mr. Liu’s favorite targets? Hardly. So why Read More
Sometimes the best confrontations are those that fail to materialize. That was what happened last weekend when the rag-tag rebels associated with the Occupy Wall Street movement were preparing for a violent clash with police over plans to clean up the mess piling up in Zuccotti Park. The park’s private owner, Brookfield Properties, and Mayor Read More
Oscar Handlin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who died a few weeks ago at the age of 95, famously wrote a half-century ago that he set out to write a history of immigrants in American, and then realized that “the immigrants were American history.” All the more so in New York City. From the gang planks Read More
After raising fares on its tunnels and bridges, the Port Authority now says that it simply can’t afford to build a bus garage near its bus terminal on Eighth Avenue. Never mind that the garage would provide buses with a place to park while awaiting the next run—a move that would save fuel and improve on-time performance. The agency simply can’t afford the garage.
Of course, like so much else about the Port Authority, the price tag for the garage seems, well, just a little questionable. The Authority estimates that it will cost some $800 million to build the facility on the West Side. We’d like to know how the agency arrived at that extraordinary figure. Read More
City Hall and the teachers’ union worked together to avert catastrophic layoffs of teachers a few months ago. Too bad the union representing support staff in the schools couldn’t figure out a way to repeat that success.
As a result of District Council 37’s short-sightedness, some 672 people are out of work. They received layoff notices a few days ago. Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott expressed his sorrow over the plight of the laid-off workers, but he made it clear that the union was not so sympathetic. Had its leaders tried harder to find other savings, the layoffs would not have been necessary. Read More
Certain elementary facts about the way we live now appear to have escaped the notice of some members of the City Council. That much was evident the other day when they questioned Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly about published reports concerning police intelligence-gathering in the city’s Muslim neighborhoods.
Here are the facts that the Council members chose to ignore as they in essence accused Commissioner Kelly of racial profiling: Read More
If you heard people at the United Nations talking about a land deal, you might assume that they were referencing a plan to bring peace to some troubled region in the world. But the land deal in question is playing out on the peaceful banks of the East River. And it’s a good thing.
Folks at the U.N. have been gazing longingly at a humble, one-acre playground named for Robert Moses just south of its headquarters. They’d like very much to build a new building on the site, at First Avenue and 41st Street. In the meantime, the city has been trying to figure out how to pay for the completion of a greenway along the East Side waterfront.
In the finest traditions of diplomacy, there may be a deal on the table that will benefit all parties. Read More
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn wants to be mayor in two years. The man who holds that job now, Michael Bloomberg, has made it clear that he thinks Ms. Quinn would be a suitable successor.
That’s all very nice, but ambition and endorsements alone do not make a credible candidate. Leadership matters, as two successive mayors have demonstrated. Ms. Quinn is about to get a chance to show whether or not she is a leader. Read More
It’s hard to know what to make of the ongoing protests on Wall Street, in part because the protesters themselves haven’t been able to send a clear, coherent message. They are angry, that much is certain. And perhaps some have reason to be angry. But hard times have tested the tempers of many New Yorkers, most of whom have resisted the temptation to block traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Any large protest against the so-called establishment, whatever that may mean, is bound to attract a motley crew of aging baby boomers and feckless hipsters who fancy themselves revolutionaries. But the protesters also include many innocent victims of the terrible downturn, from college-educated young people with few if any job prospects to middle-aged parents who wonder if they’ll ever work again. Read More
Governor Cuomo promised to make Albany, including the governor’s office, more transparent and accessible. With the introduction of a new website, publication of his daily schedule and on-line chats, he is fulfilling that promise—although full transparency in Albany remains an elusive but necessary goal.
Mr. Cuomo hosted his first on-line chat on Sept. 24 (with the help of his fast-typing press aide, Josh Vlasto), answering questions from citizens on a range of political and personal topics, from the future of the Indian Point nuclear plant to his affection for the Executive Mansion on Eagle Street. The session may not have produced any startling exchanges, but it did show that Mr. Cuomo is serious about embracing 21st-century technology to keep in touch with his constituents. Read More
Just a few days ago, it seemed as though Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg might be headed for a first-class political row. The mayor was pushing for state approval of a plan to allow livery cabs to pick up street hails in the four outer boroughs plus Manhattan north of Central Park. But the governor was sending signals that he might not sign such a measure, saying that support for the plan was “dissipating.”
Fortunately, the mayor and governor now appear to be on the same page. Read More
Most people heave a sigh of resignation when the calendar turns from August to September. But Manhattan residents have a special reason to dread the approach of summer’s end. As routines return to normal, as the pace of commerce resumes its hectic pace, as deadlines loom once again, the world descends upon Manhattan for the annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly.
The result: Extreme chaos, frustrating delays, jagged nerves and wasted time. Portions of midtown and downtown are turned into armed camps to accommodate the schedules of the world’s leaders, a fair portion of whom attend the session just for the sheer fun of insulting the U.S., Israel and the West.
This is the burden of being the capital of the world. For the most part, Manhattanites understand that sharing their island with the globe’s leaders requires patience, sacrifice and a certain degree of resignation. Read More
It is certainly possible to read too much into the results of a special election. Voters, after all, don’t come out in droves. Parties have trouble cranking up their get-out-the-vote apparatus. Even dependable volunteers often take a pass.
In the case of Bob Turner’s recent victory over heavily favored David Weprin in the campaign to replace the disgraced Anthony Weiner, however, pundits are correct when they insist that the results show that President Obama has a big problem on his hands. Read More
And now for some good news. Extraordinary news, really. According to a survey conducted by the City Department of Health, only 14 percent of city residents are smokers. That’s below the national average of about 19 percent. But wait—there’s even better news. Only 7 percent of the city’s high school students are smokers. Seven percent!
Cigarettes are on their way to becoming artifacts of another time in New York history, and all of us are the beneficiaries. Read More
The Central Intelligence Agency is barred from spying on Americans on U.S. soil. Fair enough. (The Federal Bureau of Investigation, however, is allowed to conduct domestic surveillance.)
In the years following the attacks of 9/11, however, civil liberties organizations have complained about the C.I.A.’s working relationship with the New York Police Department’s intelligence unit, especially in light of the N.Y.P.D.’s surveillance of the city’s Muslim community. Read More
