The dangerous hypocrisy of overbuilding in Bloomberg’s New York.
This same event occurred a short while ago a few blocks down from Yorkville in the Beekman Place section of the city. And it will happen again and again because it is now a familiar part of Mayor Bloomberg’s New York where a crane hangs dangerously over the world below every few blocks. Indeed, it is a direct result of the policies in place in the city. Build! Build! And build more until they have wiped out the sky altogether. This is the way it is in Hedge Fund Heaven – a/k/a New York City.
The trick for the rest of us is not to get killed or driven from our homes by the reckless overbuilding that has overtaken New York since Bloomberg became Mayor, which coincided with the great building bubble here and elsewhere. An impotent, toothless, realty based (not reality based) Landmark Commission has done little to protect the environmental, esthetic, or plain safety of the city and its citizens. A building inspection commission designed to encourage building and turn a blind eye to infractions in existing laws is embedded into the culture of the city.
It is a city that is constantly trumped by the Trumps. A major financial institution will twist the arm of the city by threatening to leave it if it is not allowed to build yet another mega-tower to Mammon – tax free – or it will move elsewhere. My answer would be move! You guys have already screwed up the city and the world with your lending policies and your insatiable greed so take a nice hike. As of today there is no one to discourage such promiscuous building, or call a moratorium on new building until the city can get its failed act together.
Peking, smog and all, here we come.
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Contributing writer, Sherman Yellen, screenwriter, playwright, and lyricist, has won two Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award, first for his drama John Adams, Lawyer in the PBS series The Adams Chronicles, and later for An Early Frost, a groundbreaking drama about AIDS in America. His Beauty and the Beast was nominated for an Emmy and won the Christopher Award. Yellen was nominated for a Tony Award for his book for the Broadway musical, The Rothschilds. Yellen's other plays include Strangers, December Fools and Josephine Tonight! Sherman Yellen received a lifetime achievement award in Arts and Letters from Bard College.
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Labels: Business, Construction, Environment, Living, Michael Bloomberg, New York, Sherman Yellen