'The Nature of New York Is Change,' Dissected

This is a very naive take on Change.
In a Capitalist society commerce is the engine that propogates a large portion of change.
Money motivates innovation, research, new products, new projects and yes... new development.

Havana is a probably a good example of a city where the commercial interests are suborinated and development is not a priority.

Nice place to visit, but...

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 11:17 AM

Phew, saw the picture and thought you were going to ramble on about OBama.

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 11:22 AM

"But tell us why your change is good, why it will profit the City (and not just you). Don't just tell us it is good because it is change."

Exactly what I am waiting to hear from all of the current presedential candidates.

"Change" does not always mean good or better. So far what I have heard from all three of these Yokels does not sound like any realistic or positive change.

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 11:35 AM

...and conversely:

"But tell us why this change is bad, why it will harm the City (and not just you). Don't just tell us it is bad because it is change."

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 11:41 AM

"It is a gigantic and insulting shrug that shows you don't care a whit for the City, and aren't willing to lift a finger on its behalf."

Since the "City" so clearly cares so little about all of us, why exactly should we?

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 11:58 AM

While I agree that you could probably substitute the word "money" for "change" I don't think that that's a good rebuke for people who are trying to change the City. The very historic relics that preservationists are trying to preserve were built for the same reason - to make money!!! New York has always been about money. You could say that tearing down old buildings in order to build something new that will make someone lots of money is a more historically accurate thing to do in NYC than preserving old buildings.....

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 12:06 PM

It's true that NYC has always been about money. Unlike other American cities it was not founded by religious people seeking a new Eden. It was founded by the Dutch to make money. It has always been a commercial city therein lies its greatness and its weakness. Turning its back on the beautiful waterfornt, creating an ugly and crowded urban environment for most of the inhbitants, quality of life has never been one of the strengths of NY. It is a city to work in.
The past fifty or so years, some residents have started to think more about aesthetic and quality of life issues. Those things should be compatible with commerce. Beware those who claim 'Change is good" because it may be, or it may not be. Balance is good. and that is, I think, what preservationists, at least the sane ones, are seeking.

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 12:31 PM

Let's preserve the MTA subway system, JFK and LaGuardia Airports, the Port Authority bus terminal. These are worth keeping.

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 12:51 PM

"New chain store branches that will make their corporations money."

Never mind that the chain stores might provide better products, at lower prices, in a cleaner, nicer environment.

Defenders of local-for-local's-sake would have us all suffer from inferior service if it means keeping chains out. The nice thing about markets is they let people vote for what they want with their dollars. If small guys can't find a way to get customers to volunarily hand over their money in exchange for something then they won't be around for long. If chain stores are able to do it, then they will make money for corporations and great for that. Given the choice, if most consumers choose local over chains, especially if in spite of inferior service, then they have expressed their preference. Either way, money changing hands is the true test.

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 1:03 PM

Lost City, Why should any PRIVATE property owner justify to a loser like yourself any reason for their changes? This is not China or Cuba, people have a right to make whatever profit they can. If these "valuable businesses" were so valuable they would earn enough to pay their rent, or buy their building. If it too late now for some blame it on their short sighted business practice. Any business that is closing now probably had at least a 10 year lese if not more, that puts us back in 1998, look at what you could have bought in '98. Why don't you steer your own blog away from the whining NIMBY you are toward something more profitable? Oh, then I guess your parents would have an excuse to kick you out of the basement.

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 1:14 PM

12:31--It's true that New York City was founded to make a buck, but that's historically been a strength as well as a weakness. Because it existed for strictly mercantile reasons, New Netherland was more egalitarian and open than other colonies, which were founded on more high-minded but more exclusionary principles. (E.g, the freedom to practice one's religion--and frequently to persecute others.)

This largely became the model for the United States after independence, which made the country more money-oriented and willing to sweep away the past, but also more willing and able to absorb different cultures and assimilate different points of view, because the main determinant of value was financial success. (The glaring exception, of course, being slavery, another thing that devotion to the almighty buck made possible.)

Culturally, it's hard to separate the good aspects of these attitudes from the bad. Across the world, the countries that tend to be best about preserving their history and cultural patrimony also tend to be the ones that are the most culturally homogeneous, hostile to foreigners and intolerant of outsiders.

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 1:28 PM

1.14PM;

Well said! It seems that there is no satisfying these losers. Zoning laws, landmark preservations, ULRP, rent control, affordable housing mandates, community boards, etc. doesn't seem to be enough for these would-be socialists. They want complete control over the decisions made by a private property owner, all at the same time taking none of the risk.

Folks from Lost City, Forgotten NY and the rest of them really ought to get out and get some fresh air.

Benson

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 2:00 PM

More NIMBY whining from people who wish for the glory days of New York, when violent crime was rampant and people frequently compared it to such lovely cities as Detroit.

Can it, NIMBY's. If you want to keep your lease, pay your rent or buy the building. Despite what you may think, your landlord is not running a charity.

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 2:59 PM

What about landlords/corporations who let apartments and storefronts sit empty when they can't get inflated rents? What do they do, write it off as a loss? Big chain stores can often afford to pay a much higher rent than a mom & pop store, no matter what the community around them prefers. How is that fair competition?

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 3:06 PM

3.06 PM;

Re your comment: "What about landlords/corporations who let apartments and storefronts sit empty when they can't get inflated rents? " What about it? It's THEIR property, let them do what they want. How about thinking of this concept for a change: PRIVATE property.

Your other comment is incredible: "Big chain stores can often afford to pay a much higher rent than a mom & pop store, no matter what the community around them prefers." Have you taken a poll of a neighborhood, where folks indicated that they wanted lower commercial rents in the area??

Here's another idea for you to think about: you buy the building, and rent it out at a lower rent than the market will bear. Show us the way.

Benson

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 3:26 PM

I cannot afford to buy the building because I have chosen to work for social justice! It is encumbent on the owner, who otherwise does nothing for the greater good, to forgo some potential income as recompense.

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 4:02 PM

The hateful soul of the landlord on full display here. Thank god that it isn't in any way a representative sample of NYC's population.

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 4:03 PM

Yes, we landlords are full of hate. Well said, comrade!!! Karl would be so proud.

Only one thought to trouble your mind: we hateful landlords are a growing breed. In recent years, the percentage of NYC's population that are owner-occupants has grown from something like 25% to 33%. In 2007 a record number of condos were built, and the trend continues. At this rate, within a decade the majority of NYC residents will be owners. Think the winds are blowing the wrong way now? Just wait until we get to that tipping point.

Benson

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 4:40 PM

Just curious to know if those posters who are such ardent "PRIVATE" property rights advocates (such as 1:14 and 3:26) are also adamant defenders of those fighting eminent domain abuse.

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 5:00 PM

I am an "ardent Private property rights advocate" and I think eminent domain is one of the worst abuses of the constitition and individual liberties the government has unleashed on its citizens.

Dont get me wrong, I am not just using it to oppose new development or protest some project because i dont want to lose my home or am a Nimby. I just think the government has no right to interject itself into private real estate matters. If you want my home for a development, you had better pay me. If my request for a price is unreasonable - too bad, everyone has a price and that is part of the beauty and ugliness of private property.

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 5:16 PM

Attention idiots, morons, and cretins: stop calling various people who don't even come close to fitting the definition of a *Nimby* "NIMBYS". You don't sound clever or cute; you sound retarded, because your usage of the term couldn't be more far off base or illiterate. It's like you started using the term because you "liked how it sounded", so now you're babbling it incessantly, much like a baby babbles a word he just learned, because it's fun for him to use.

GET IT STRAIGHT: A NIMBY is a hypocrite who doesn't mind the building of certain structures and developments as long as it isn't in his neighborhood. In other words, this is a person who sees the value of prisons, mental institutions, highways, homeless shelters, etc., being built-- and may even welcome their development-- but suddenly cries foul when he learns that it's going to be built within walking distance rather than another part of town.

Got it? Good! And next time you come across a word that "sounds cool", at least Google the damned word or look it up in the dictionary so that you know exactly what it means before you add it to your vocabulary, lest you look like an illiterate fool.

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 5:28 PM

Um, I fail to see why you are so aggrevated 5:28. I see the usage as completely appropriate in the above postings.

Not in My Back Yard. Duh.

I think people use NIMBY because it is alot easier to type. Just like, OMFG, IMHO, LMFAO, etc.

Who made you the acronym police?

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 5:51 PM

Carol Gardens;

Did your post have a point??? If so, it was lost on me. No one told you to go anywhere, did they?

As to your claim that things are changing at a "rapid" pace: yesterday's paper reported that something like 31,000 units of housing were built in NYC last year. In a city of 3,000,000 units, that hardly qualifies as "rapid" change. Buy heck, why let the facts get in your way? We understand you "care" about our city, and this entitles you to "speak" on our behalf.

Benson

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 6:46 PM

5:16 needs to move to texas and get himself a big ole gun. He will need it when he starts whining and moaning down there.

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 7:10 PM

Brooks of Sheffield;

Are you patronizing Carol?

As to your point: I make no bones about it - I'm pro-private property, pro-development. I believe that private property is the basis of liberty.

I have no problem with folks criticizing the aesthetics of a developer's work. As I said, I believe in liberty, and I think criticsm is a healthy thing.. What I do have a problem with are folks who want to create laws to tell a developer the types of aesthetics they should implement on a property, or to whom they should rent or sell. As I said above, for these folks, zoning is not enough. Just look at the controversy regarding the development on Court St for proof of this. These folks want to go further, and dictate every facet of the building's design. The apotheosis of this mentality was a recent "Forgotten New York" diatribe by Mr. Walsh, in which he stated that he would like to spit on any person who buys a "Fedders" building.

I'll be around again, defending liberty and the rights of private property!

Benson.

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 7:29 PM

what a disgusting reaction is coming from the real estate community in this thread. Unbridled capitalism related to housing is going to bring us all down. Time for a correction in all matters. SOCIALISM ROCKS it could surely improve things by getting a little closer to it - thanks to the post calling for balance. Balance the good of the many instead of the profits of a few. And by the way, New York City has always been vital and changing yes but it used to have character and was different from the rest of the country - some change is really loss.

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 8:29 PM

There is really no way to stop change. We are just humans and change is just built into the universe and it is always a part of our short lives. Controling change a little while evrything and everyone changes around us (think SoHo or DUMBO) is all that preservationists are seeking to achieve. It is sad to hear, as people get older, their complaints about "lost character". What they are bemoaning is that the character of their own youth is dying out or has died out and been replaced by something new, which in turn will be replaced when youngsters today get long in the tooth. Preservation is all about change, it is just about preserving some of the old things that form the framework of our visual environment as our lives and our culture transform themselves in ever new ways. Saving old works of art or old works of architeceture has nothing to do with resisting change. I wish more people understood this about the modern preservation movement.

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 8:46 PM

test

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 9:33 PM

Polemicist, that last piece is beneath your usual standard. It is not well considered, you do not chose your words carefully, and I don't really know what you are gatting at.
Many socialist countries are very advanced. Take for instane Sweden, Norway, France to a cetain extent. The most promising emerging economies are lead by socialists take for instance Brazil and Chile. If you want a country where preservation plays no part look at China. The last traditional neighborhoods full of lovely tiled roof houses in Beijing were recently cleared for Olympic housing. I don't see why you suppose socialists are particularly enamored of their heritage, on the contrary, most wish to overthrow the old and discredit the bourgeoise society who built the great houses and collected the fine art, I think you are muddled. You should bone up on preservation and culural patrimony. it is not the great satan.

Posted by: guest at March 5, 2008 9:47 PM

Right on Benson! Great posts. If the nimby, or asshat, fucknozzle (whichever you prefer) loosers would get off of their asses and leave their parents basements, rent controlled apartments etc. and get a job they might be able to purchase a building so we could see how they would charge below market rent for the social good -until their mortgage was due. Unfortunately this will never happen. If the mom and pop stores are being forced out by big business its their fault. They should be able to provide more personal service, however usually they give less of a shit than the big stores. If you loosers like lost city were so concerned you would patronize the establishments you are always whining about closing so they didn't have to. As to eminent domain these folks at AY were offered 2-3 times the value of their property to sell, i only wish my house was in the footprint, my only question would be do you want me to take all my shit out or just leave it?

Posted by: guest at March 6, 2008 2:04 AM

9:47, I think your examples of "good" socialist countries don't quite cut it. Brazil and Chile might be socialist in name, but they are very capitalistic in practice. If you really want to see true socialist asthetics, check out Moscow's apartment towers, the suburbs of Paris or the housing projects of East New York.

Posted by: guest at March 6, 2008 8:18 AM