Brooklyn's Financial Class and the Condo Boom
That’s the subject of a NY Observer piece, which asks what effect Wall Street’s downturn will have on the portion of our population that works in the financial industry, and thus our high-end housing boom; those are the folks responsible for snatching up a lot of the inventory, apparently. “Brooklyn may not be where the…
That’s the subject of a NY Observer piece, which asks what effect Wall Street’s downturn will have on the portion of our population that works in the financial industry, and thus our high-end housing boom; those are the folks responsible for snatching up a lot of the inventory, apparently. “Brooklyn may not be where the top executives or VPs live,” worries one financial industry worker, “but a ton of back office employees live in the borough and will be out of jobs.” Still, the article assumes a relatively optimistic tone. Brooklyn is still a bigger bargain than Manhattan; contractors still maintain a backlog of work; big projects have a long enough time line that the economy could pop back up by the time they get to the offering phase. And apparently we’ve learned our lessons from the city’s last serious downward spiral. As one fellow put it, “I can’t see New York going into this huge kind of 1970s-city-going-to-shit type of thing.”
Wall Street Views From Another Bank [NY Observer]
Keap/Ainslie. Photo by kenyee.
How does Wall Street pay one third of advertising? Tombstones in papers are not worth that much, and I see very little advertising of Goldman, Alliance Bersntein or American Funds in print or TV. How Can Wall Street buy one third of the food when they comprise less than 10% of population? Everybody eats.
11217, How exactly is the the thinking that the financial criss willd affect Brooklyn RE in any way similar to supporting the war in Iraq??? I am baffled.
The point everyone is making is that the crisis on Wall Street is far broader than 64,000 jobs. Who pays 1/3 of the lawyers in NYC? Wall street. Who pays a third of the advertising agencies? Wall street? Who buys a third of the food? Wall Street? Who builds a third of the buildings and hires a third of the architects? Who hires a third of the graphic designers? Who hires a third of the tech people?
11217, How exactly is the the thinking that the financial criss willd affect Brooklyn RE in any way similar to supporting the war in Iraq??? I am baffled.
The point everyone is making is that the crisis on Wall Street is far broader than 64,000 jobs. Who pays 1/3 of the lawyers in NYC? Wall street. Who pays a third of the advertising agencies? Wall street? Who buys a third of the food? Wall Street? Who builds a third of the buildings and hires a third of the architects? Who hires a third of the graphic designers? Who hires a third of the tech people?
“We will survive and go on, just like they did after the Great Depression.”
Problem is, we don’t get to fast-forward through this mess. We actually have to live through it. Slow death, slow resurrection. Not a piece of cake.
I totally understand the severity of the crisis, gkw. It’s really, really bad.
But people like you who are unable to look at the big picture are the same people that tried to scare everyone into Iraq also.
Try to understand that this is not the end of the world. The finance industry will lose 64,000 jobs in NYC over the next few years. We will survive and go on, just like they did after the Great Depression.
And even become a better country for it in the end, if all goes well.
11217 – you yourself are so weirdly naive if you think this meltdown in the financial industry won’t effect other industries. I’ll spell it out for you: advertising (which obviously effects tv and print media), movies (no more wall street financing), interior design and architecture (employed by finance people), public services (education etc – huge cuts from losses in tax revenue) etc etc etc.
Some of you are really naive if you think the only people buying condos these days are in the financial sector.
Most of my friends have bought within the last few years (mostly Williamsburg, Downtown and Park Slope) and only one I can think of works in the financial industry….for a hedge fun where he is still dutifully employed and paid cash for his place, as most of these guys did.
It won’t take much to find a new job which pays the maintenance and taxes on these places, many of which were paid for in all cash.
denial is a beautiful thing….
Yeah I am sure that the melt down of our countries financial institutions (wall st) – which is anticipated to wreck havoc on the entire planet will only be a small blip here in Brooklyn even though we are only 1mi from the epicenter, have thousands of people directly employed within the industry, rent a large portion of our office buildings to these very companies and where a huge portion of our city and state tax revenues are derived from said industry……