Hard Times/Time Square

I met up with an associate last week who works in Times Square. We were talking about the broken economy. She pointed out the old Lehman Brothers building, which is now draped in neon proclaiming "Barclays" as the new occupant.

"Yeah, I knew about that," I said. She then pointed out the LED stock quote zipper running around the Morgan Stanley building. "And look at those numbers," she said. "What about them? That's been there for years," I said. "The prices used to be three numbers long," she replied. "Now they're all two."

Goodbye, Frozen Cup, I Never Knew Thee

Queens Crap alerts me to the disappearance of a City landmark that I never experienced, but know I would have loved—if only for its name, Frozen Cup, and its appearance, seen above.

The Jericho Turnpike business was in operation for more than 50 years. A developer will replace it with a Days Inn. My guess is it won't offer "Hard and Soft Ice Cream."

Boss Bloomberg Spreads the Wealth

It is regrettable and infuriating that, in a time of political and economic insecurity, times in which anxiety and concern for the future are daily spiking in the average heart, the City at large is forced to channel its energy, resources and attention on the selfish needs of one crybaby billionaire's need for extended personal power.

Boss Bloomberg tells us he's selflessly going for a third term as mayor because the City, in a state of turmoil, needs his sober judgment and the comfort of a familiar face in City Hall. Yet he inflicts untold additional stress on the apparatus of government, not to mention countless civic institutions he's pressured to support him, to achieve this extra term. The time City Council and many private citizens spent last week examining his would-be power grab—the machinations of the New Yorker who has the least reasons to worry what would happen to him if he lost his job in today's climate—could have been spent addressing the City's economic woes.

Further evidence of the widespread corruption underpinning Boss Bloomberg's bid came in the New York Post today. Seems Mike, by some coincidence, decided to use his now-defunct slush fund last year to reward City Council members who will have a great say in whether the term limits extension sails through or goes down. Doesn't it feel like were living in the days of Tammany Hall again? Here's the piece:

Mayor Bloomberg showered cash on key City Council members with the power to kill a term-limits extension bill in the last year.

Members of the council's Government Operations Committee have received millions from Hizzoner's slush fund, a once-secret pot of taxpayer money the mayor doles out to favored lawmakers for their pet causes.

All the members are Democrats who will decide whether the change in term limits - which the mayor needs in order to run for a third term - goes before the council for a full vote.

Five members of the committee secured $3.1 million from the $5.3 million stash in Bloomberg's 2008 budget. Only three other council members received funds from the mayor in the last year. Two are Republicans, and the third, Councilman James Vacca, received a considerably smaller amount, $20,000, than the other beneficiaries.

Government Operations Committee chairman Simcha Felder (Brooklyn) received $1.9 million from the mayor's fund, far more than any of his council colleagues. He has received funds from Bloomberg's fund every year since 2003, in which time the allocations have doubled. It is widely believed Felder supports a term-limits change.

Fellow committee members Domenic Recchia, Helen Sears, Erik Dilan and Peter Vallone Jr. each received between $50,000 and $625,000 from the mayor's fund..

"I think it's obvious that Bloomberg was trying to curry favor here. What else are discretionary funds for?" said one councilman against extending term limits. "Term limits is the most important issue out there, period . . . I think this is one way he laid the groundwork."

Bloomberg's slush fund was discontinued in June, after The Post revealed the existence of a separate City Council slush fund. Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser said the funding handed out a year ago had no connection to today's term limits debate.

Meanwhile, the committee members were favored with some of the most generous handouts from Council Speaker Christine Quinn - Bloomberg's closest ally in the fight to extend term limits - in this year's budget.

Recchia saw his council funding soar 19 percent, Dilan's rose 14 percent, Larry Seabrook's 25 percent, and Inez Dickens' 20 percent. The average council member's funding rose only 9 percent this year.

All but Dickens - whose public stance on term limits is undecided - have said they'll vote yes on allowing incumbents to run for a third four-year term.

Vallone and Sears, who are undecided on term limits, didn't see their allocations spike. But they still collected a combined $1.5 million for their causes. Felder received $432,000, a 5 percent increase.

A Quinn spokesman said that when you take into account the entire $30.7 million funding pool, the allocations to committee members were "insignificant."

But some speculate it was part of a heavy-handed campaign to entice lawmakers to support a term-limits extension, the aggressiveness of which came to light last week as:

* Union brass have personally lobbied council members to support term limits. According to a source, some unions have met with the mayor's office in hopes of getting perks in exchange for their support.

* City-funded arts groups have also pressed city legislators. One member said she received "dozens" of calls from "groups I really respect."

* Committee chairmanships have been promised by Quinn to several council members - at least two of whom have been offered the finance chair in exchange for a yes vote.

* A councilwoman was "offered the world. . ..rec centers, parks, affordable housing and more discretionary money" in a meeting last week urging her to support term limits.

Political shuffling in the spring also raised eyebrows.

Sears, who has backed Bloomberg on hotbed isSues in the past, was appointed to the Government Operations committee in May, replacing term-extension foe Councilman Joe Addabo Jr.

In June, as Bloomberg mulled a third-term run, Felder abandoned his city comptroller aspirations - which, if limits are extended, may have put him in a tough race against incumbent Bill Thompson. The mayor then endorsed Felder for a state Senate run.

"[Felder] respects the mayor but he doesn't vote the way the mayor tells him to vote," Eric Kuo, the councilman's spokesman, said.

Mayor spokesman Loeser said "absolutely no quid pro quos have been offered," but said the mayor's office has met with "all kinds of people who we've worked with" to "make our case and get the votes we need to pass it."

Oh, and the Mayor's push to remain in power? You're paying for it.

Parade of Bought Voices

From City Room's live coverage of the City Hall hearing on a change to the term limits law that would allow Bloomberg to run again, an account of purchased and coerced opinions being congratulated by the Mayor's flunkies for falling in line. Among the cowards: Peter Gelb, artistic director of the Met Opera.

"Mayor Bloomberg has always been a great champion of opera and of all the cultural activities of New York,” Mr. Gelb said. He joked that while "it’s no secret that Mayor Bloomberg finds opera slow at times," all "kidding aside, the mayor understands the vital role that arts institutions play in the lives of our citizens."

Mr. Gelb spoke of the Met’s efforts to "bring opera to the people," and said, "Mayor Bloomberg’s unwavering support of the city’s cultural institutions has enhanced the image of New York across the nation and around the world, resulting in more visitors to our city than ever before."...

Outside the hearing, after Mr. Gelb testified, he told City Room that Mayor Bloomberg had been a supporter of the arts and of the Met, in particular. Asked whether there had been any coordination with the mayor’s office, he said, "I have an ongoing dialogue with the people in the mayor’s office. I made it known that I would be happy to testify on the mayor’s behalf." He had been waiting about 45 minutes, he said. "Of course, there has to be some kind of communication in terms of schedules regarding the hearing."

On the way out of the hearing room, he was greeted by a member of the mayor’s staff, who said to him: "Good job. Thanks so much for your help."

That same aide turned to a group of students and faculty from the Democracy Prep School in Harlem who had just testified in favor of the extension of term limits. Leading them down the stairs, the mayor’s aide said, “OK guys, good job, follow me this way.”

Once in the Council rotunda, the aide thanked the students and the principal. “You guys did a great job,” he said. “Thanks so much for coming.”

And, for the entertainment value, a kook:

Mariana Mohylyn Blume, a Republican from Brooklyn: “With all my heart and knowledge, I believe that Mayor Bloomberg is truly indispensable.” She called him a “professional” who “from childhood,” has worked hard for his wealth and success.

Ms. Blume began shouting loudly at Councilman Larry Seabrook, who was leading the hearing, after he pointed out that she had exceeded her two-minute limit. For several minutes, she shouted at the assembled lawmakers, while the sergeants-at-arms — and, finally, a plainclothes police officer — stood by politely and urged her to move on.

Do yourself a favor and read City Room's entire account of the term limit debate. It's a fascinating study in free speech, corruption and idealism. If I didn't completely resent Mayor Richie Rich for putting the City through this ordeal, I'd say it was great political theatre.

Bloomberg Forces Charity to Begin at Home

His out-and-out villainy continues.

One of the best things about Bloomberg was always that way he quietly gave millions in charitable gifts to worthy city organizations and causes. Now, he is tossing his reputation as a philanthropist in the dustbin by coercing recipients of his past largess to come out in favor of his term limit increase.

Read this from the Times and prepare to pick your jaw off the floor.

Bloomberg Enlists His Charities in Bid to Stay

By MICHAEL BARBARO and DAVID W. CHEN

Michael R. Bloomberg, who says he strictly separates his philanthropy from his job as mayor of New York, is pressing many of the community, arts and neighborhood groups that rely on his private donations to make the case for his third term, according to interviews with those involved in the effort.

As opposition mounts to his plan to ease term limits, those people said, the mayor and his top aides have asked leaders of organizations that receive his largess to express their support for his third-term bid by testifying during public hearings and by personally appealing to undecided members of the City Council. Legislation that would allow him to run for another term is expected to come up for a Council vote as early as next week.

The requests have put the groups in an unusual and uncomfortable position, several employees of the groups said. City Hall has not made any explicit threats, they said, but city officials have extraordinary leverage over the groups’ finances. Many have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mr. Bloomberg’s philanthropic giving and millions of dollars from city contracts overseen by his staff.

An official at a social service group that receives tens of thousands of dollars from Mr. Bloomberg and has a contract with the city was startled to receive a call in the past few days from Linda I. Gibbs, the deputy mayor for health and human services. Ms. Gibbs asked whether the organization’s leaders would be willing to call wavering council members to argue for Mr. Bloomberg’s term limits legislation.

“It’s pretty hard to say no,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of upsetting the mayor. “They can take away a lot of resources.”

A spokesman for the mayor, Stu Loeser, said that many of the organizations that have publicly supported the extension “are groups that we have been working with over the last seven years to move New York forward, and the reason we are asking for the opportunity for another four years is to keep New York moving forward.”

Mr. Loeser said Mr. Bloomberg took pains to separate his charitable giving from his day-to-day management of the city.

Nevertheless, public hearings on Thursday and Friday and interviews with council members revealed the extent to which the mayor is relying on those who have received donations from him as he pushes for the legislation, which would permit officials elected citywide and council members to serve 12 years rather than 8. Several administration officials confirmed that top mayoral aides, including Deputy Mayors Edward Skyler and Kevin Sheekey, have encouraged groups to join the effort.

Officials from five groups that have received significant charitable contributions from the mayor testified on behalf of his bill — the Doe Fund, the Harlem Children’s Zone, the Public Art Fund, the Alliance of Resident Theaters and the St. Nicholas Neighborhood Preservation Corporation. In addition, other recipients of his philanthropic funds, including Safe Space, a charity that works to keep children out of foster care, and Jazz at Lincoln Center, have been lobbying council members behind the scenes.

None of the officials disclosed their financial ties to the mayor’s charity when they testified.

Mr. Bloomberg routes the money to the groups through large and technically anonymous donations to the Carnegie Corporation, but it is an open secret that he is a source of the gifts, which generally range from $10,000 to $150,000.

Since he was elected, for example, Mr. Bloomberg has given the Harlem Children’s Zone more than $500,000, according to records and interviews with those familiar with the process. The group’s president, Geoffrey Canada, vigorously endorsed Mr. Bloomberg’s legislation in testimony on Thursday.

Mr. Canada said that “if I thought it mattered to the Council, I would have disclosed” the contributions from Mr. Bloomberg. He said he supported the mayor’s campaign to remain in office because of his record as a manager and his courage to raise property taxes to strengthen the city’s finances.

Officials from other groups also said they would have backed Mr. Bloomberg’s plan whether or not he had given them money or solicited their support.

Susan K. Freedman, who heads the Public Art Fund, which has received more than $500,000 from Mr. Bloomberg, testified for his bill and praised his record of promoting projects like Olafur Eliasson’s “Waterfalls,” the East River cascades that were dismantled this week. “The mayor believes in what I believe in,” she said.

The Doe Fund, a homeless-services organization, has received about $150,000 from Mr. Bloomberg since he took office. At the request of the mayor, the group’s founder and president, George McDonald, testified for the mayor’s proposal.

Ken Frydman, a spokesman for the Doe Fund, said that Mr. McDonald “would have shown up to testify in any case, as a longtime politically active resident of the city, who cares deeply about extending term limits.”

At least 11 Doe Fund employees, including several senior officials, testified in favor of the mayor’s plan, but most of them did not identify their employer, describing themselves only as residents of their neighborhoods.

Mr. Frydman said there was no coordination by the Doe Fund, but he declined to answer further questions.

Kenneth Sherrill, a political science professor at Hunter College, said it was inappropriate for the mayor to be asking the groups that are so dependent on his good graces to take a position on his legislation.

“It’s distasteful. And what’s distasteful about it is leaning on weak people — people who are vulnerable,” Mr. Sherrill said. “The problem is in the implicit threat that if you don’t help, we’re going to remember.”

The mayor remains broadly popular, and many of those who testified before the Council over the past two days, including a former Time Warner chief executive, Richard D. Parsons, argued that Mr. Bloomberg’s experience was needed to help the city deal with an economic crisis that could be "frightening, perilous or even dangerous."

Still, the opposition Mr. Bloomberg has encountered over the bill has been more intense than anticipated. Despite the intense efforts of his staff to turn out a favorable crowd, a solid majority of the nearly 250 who testified during the two days said they opposed it, according to a tally by The New York Times.

Fred Siegel, a professor of history at Cooper Union who has studied New York City politics for decades, said Mr. Bloomberg had cynically “reversed the flow of money” in politics to build the illusion, if not the reality, of widespread support.

“The traditional politicians are bought by special interest groups, but Bloomberg buys special interest groups,” he said.

Mr. Bloomberg, in his radio program on Friday, said he remained “cautiously optimistic” that the Council would pass his bill, and he was pleased to see “democracy at work” during the two days of hearings.

Juicy Anti-Term-Limit-Repeal Comments

Good job, City Room! The New York Times blog is reporting live as City Council hears testimony on a change to the term limits law that would allow Mayor Bloomberg to run again—thus providing me with access to some wonderfully negative comments about the Plutocrat-in-Chief. Here are a few:

Rick Herman Hackshaw compared Mayor Bloomberg to President Robert G. Mugabe of Zimbabwe... In four years, he predicted, “I guess 16 is the new 12, and 20 will be the new 16,” he said.

Laura Altschuler, co-chairwoman of the League of Women Voters of the City of New York, said "Your proposed action violates our basic principle of being a nation ruled by laws and not by men. We have a law which the voters enacted. It should not be bypassed by the very men and women who would benefit from changing it."

State Senator Eric Adams, a Brooklyn Democrat, said "You had enough time to discuss this," Mr. Adams said, reprimanding the Council. "You waited until the midnight hour to sneak it through the process. You’re all aware in legislative-land that it takes longer than two hearings to give the voters a choice." He called the process a “masquerade.” Mr. Adams likened Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Lauder to schoolyard bullies. "We are in a position to tell billionaire bullies that we are not going to be victims of child’s play and let our democracy be eroded.” He continued, "All across America people looked to the resilience of New Yorkers after Sept. 11. Even after Giuliani attempted to hijack democracy, we stood firm. And the irony is that many of you are here because of that." Mr. Bloomberg "woke up one day and realized he couldn’t be president or vice president or anything else," and only then decided he wanted a third term, Mr. Adams said. (HA!)

Cathryn Swan, an environmental activist who blogs about Washington Square Park, said that "term limits are only coming up now because Mayor Bloomberg has decided he wants to stay in office." The financial crisis is merely a rationale advanced by the mayor’s "P.R. machine," she said, pointing to an opinion essay in The Wall Street Journal that raised critical questions about the mayor’s failure to prepare the city for the downturn. "Frankly, I don’t think our city can survive with him."

Thank you, Cathryn. Finally, someone agrees with me about Bloomberg's culpability in the City's current financial crisis.

New York Times Gets Around to Tin Pan Alley Story

More than a week after the Tin Pan Alley sale story broke here, the New York Times has finally addressed the issue, both in City Room blog and in the City Section. Only oblique mention of Lost City breaking the story in the former, none at all in the latter. Oh well. As long as it helps the cause. Here's the City Section piece (written by some guy—sorry, I really don't have time to mention his name):

STAND for a minute on West 28th Street, east of Avenue of the Americas, and listen. The sounds on the street are of hawkers selling bootleg movies and knockoff perfumes, and trucks backing up and beeping steadily — the usual urban noise of South Midtown.

Near the middle of the block on Wednesday afternoon, sitting on a stoop in the shade of new scaffolding, a Korean man who owns a second-floor cellphone store recalled the street’s recent history. A decade ago, he said, it was home to a row of florists. A luxury apartment tower went up on the corner around that time, the delivery trucks started getting more parking tickets, and most of the florists moved away.

The man was sitting in front of No. 49, one of the buildings that once helped the block earn its reputation for a different kind of commerce, and a different kind of clangor. It was there, in 1893, that the music publisher M. Witmark & Sons set up shop, and soon, the ringing, tinkling sound of an army of pianos was echoing from windows all along the strip as other music companies opened. The sound, legend holds, earned the stretch of West 28th Street between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas the nickname Tin Pan Alley.

That was before the cellphone vendor’s time. “Never heard of it,” he said.

But Tin Pan Alley’s golden age, in which the careers of songwriting titans like George Gershwin and Irving Berlin began, has been back in the news this month, with the revelation that five of its buildings — 49 West 28th and four adjacent — are up for sale, presumably to a developer who will tear them down and build a tower.

Last week, as tenants and preservationists geared up for a fight, it was still possible to stand back, look up at the crumbling facades and picture their heyday, a time, historians remind us, when the march of commerce was as insistent as it is today.

“It was a wild place, because all of the publishers’ representatives used to hang out on the sidewalks to try to rope in the performers to hear the latest songs,” said David Freeland, the author of a forthcoming book titled “Automats, Taxi Dances and Vaudeville,” about New York’s lost cultural places.

The environment of the gambling houses and brothels in a larger district that was known as the Tenderloin was aggressive, Mr. Freeland said, a place for go-getters. With all the publishers side by side, he added, “they probably had a relationship that bordered on the malevolent, because it was such a competitive business, and everyone was trying to get an edge. It was pretty intense.”

What emerged, in the height of industrialization at the beginning of the 20th century, was an environment in which songwriting was industrialized, too: Songs were written for categories — sentimental ballads, patriotic songs, comedic ones — and marketed, then shipped on sheet music to department stores. That, Mr. Freeland said, was a product of hardscrabble 28th Street — not that the listeners could tell.

The songs the street produced, and those later produced by writers who got their start there, live on today, on the radio, at weddings and — like “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” — in the seventh-inning stretch.

“The melodies are beautiful and the lyrics are literate and passionate and the rhymes are pure,” Jonathan Schwartz, the radio host and music historian, said of the songs that the street’s brightest lights would go on to produce. “It’s just spellbinding, it’s absolutely beautiful, and nothing like it has followed.”

The roots are there, improbably, on 28th Street. “Look at the second-story windows,” Mr. Freeland said. “You can see where songwriters toiled, knocking out these songs and hoping for a hit.”

UPDATE: OK, I've calmed down. Jake Mooney wrote the above article. What can I say? All writers, even bloggers, crave credit. Plus, I had a really bad day. But Tin Pan Alley's the thing here. The fight to save it goes on.

The Holiest Business in Brooklyn

Vinnie's Iron Works in Cobble Hills has a little extra something going for it. Not location, not customer loyalty, not lucrative contracts. It's God!

Many places in South Brooklyn have little shrines or icons somewhere outside or on the premises. But Vinnie's is huge: an iron-framed, glass-enclosed display case holding a life-size statue of Jesus. Little cross on top, and a flood light in front. God Bless the Iron Mongers! They've also got a couple weathervanes up there. But when you got Jesus on your side, who cares which way the wind blows?

A Good Sign: Starlite Deli

The Starlite, on W. 44th between Broadway and Eighth, is one of the older small businesses to be found on the sidestreets of Times Square. The interior is fairly modern and new, but the sign's stayed the same over the years. No doubt the name, when first conjured, had something to do with the various Broadway attractions in the surrounding area; quaint to think of stage actors as stars these days.

Oh, the opportunities to "Eat-In," as the sign offers, are fairly minimal, unless you like to stand while you lunch. And why "Eat-In" requires a hyphen, while "Take Out" does not, I have no idea. Actually, I think the other way around would make more sense.

Scary

Skeleton? Or a real estate broker trying to sell you a $2,200-a-month, second-floor studio "with balcony" in "Carroll Gardens West"?