If the defining characteristic of modern-day New York is how damn expensive everything is, then the silver lining should be that the city would be rolling in more dough than it knows what to do with. New York City gets … Continue reading
A parable: A man walks into a bar, and orders a drink. “That’ll be ten dollars,” says the bartender. The man hands over nine one-dollar bills. “Hey buddy,” says the bartender. “You’re a dollar short.” “But if I never came … Continue reading
Four billion dollars, I think we can all agree, is a lot of money. It’s more than the combined annual budgets of Barbados, Bermuda, and Belize. It’s enough to buy a few dozen private Caribbean islands. It’s two Giancarlo Stantons, … Continue reading
For everyone wondering when we would find out how much boodle Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio offered to Amazon in exchange for coming to Long Island City, the answer is now: As part of its official announcement designating New … Continue reading
Monday’s bombshell revelation that Amazon might be ready to split its new second headquarters in two and locate one half in Long Island City, initially reported in the Wall Street Journal but later repeated by the Times, let loose a … Continue reading
When we reported last month on the approximately $4.5 billion that city taxpayers are spending on the “dynamic neighborhood” of Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s West Side, eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that our breakdown of the costs featured a tilde … Continue reading
As the massive stalagmites of Hudson Yards intrude upon the Manhattan skyline, it’s easy to focus just on the impact on the streetscape of the onetime no-man’s land between Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen: Out with the diners and gas stations, … Continue reading
There are many, many reasons to want to avoid making purchases from Amazon. The company is owned by an anti-union zealot, is largely responsible for the death of brick and mortar stores by selling products at a loss to undercut … Continue reading
Today is deadline day for bids to become the home of Amazon’s new second headquarters, and New York City is among the dozens of cities and states throwing welcome mats into the ring. A joint production of the New York … Continue reading
When the D.C.-based subsidy watch group Good Jobs First released its analysis recently of the $1.2 billion that New York State hands out in tax breaks to private industries each year, one item stood out: $621 million in subsidies for … Continue reading