Wednesday Links
Beer Distributor Makes a Deal for Red Hook Piers [NY Times] Gehry’s Software Keeps Buildings on Budget [NY Times] Paterson Still Considering Tax on Wealthy [NY Post] Council Considers Nixing Pull-Down Store Gates [NYDN] A Chance for the Non-Rich to Buy [NY Observer] 109 Montague Sells for $3.7 Million [Brooklyn Eagle] River Cafe Owner Expanding…
Beer Distributor Makes a Deal for Red Hook Piers [NY Times]
Gehry’s Software Keeps Buildings on Budget [NY Times]
Paterson Still Considering Tax on Wealthy [NY Post]
Council Considers Nixing Pull-Down Store Gates [NYDN]
A Chance for the Non-Rich to Buy [NY Observer]
109 Montague Sells for $3.7 Million [Brooklyn Eagle]
River Cafe Owner Expanding to Red Hook [Brooklyn Paper]
NYPD Forced To Cut 2010 Police Class [NY1]
Photo by ultraclay in the Brownstoner Flickr Pool
re 109 montaque: In the early 90’s the store front contained a pharmacy. The owner of the pharmacy was also the landlord. I used to clean floors for a living and he was one of my contracts. I was in my early 20’s at the time and he told me how during the mid 70’s they (he had a partner in the pharmacy) were offered the building for $50k. His partner was not interested, so he bought the building. Soon after he bought his partner out.
He told me that it got to the point where the apartments above the pharmacy (9 studio apartments from what i remember) have been bringing in more money then the pharmacy. So he decided to close the pharmacy (since daune reade was opening in the area soon) and just rent the space to the book store.
Before he left he said to me “If you ever get a chance, invest in real estate…it was the best thing that ever happened to me”. A few years later I sold my buisness and bought a commercial/residential building in an area full of vacant store fronts and run down apartments. It was the only area I was able to afford at the time. The area…5th avenue in center park slope. The old man was right….best thing that ever happened to me.
“semi-retirement”
Aha–I see that pre-fix sneaking in there. Nice to see you muffett.
OK, another comment despite my semi-retirement from this blog:
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/2009/02/11/segments/123525
Listen to this Leonard Lopate show about how NYC market is likely to go down by at least 30%….
“…I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that 99% of the Times article is total BS. The software models are riddled with errors, are worse than useless for generating reliable estimates, and are no better at picking out conflicts than Autocad.”
That’s what I was thinking when I read the link, GorBlimey. Managing a building project budget is more art than science. No algorithm can swing that.
***Bid half off peak comps***
Clinton increased taxes. Bush reduced them. Thus, the disappearance of the budget surplus.
All of which points out a painful lesson taught in my college statistics classes- you can do anything with numbers. One reason why I am so skeptical usually of statistical analysis-
that graph is a little vague. Was the big spike the Clinton surplus? And I think there was a great surplus for a lot of reasons besides the internet boom. But that drop off when Bush took office- omigod.
“You can’t include Queens in the data for Manhattan given the disparate costs of living (primarily housing) and expect to get any valid number. It’s just plain stupid.”
– but you must include all together if you want NYC stats.
Very misleading to take a wealthy section of 1 city and compare to entire 2nd city. We don’t take Pacific Hts stats from SF and then compare Detroit. Makes no sense to say what you need to be ‘middle-class’ and live in rich neighborhood. TO take to extreme – what does it take to be middle class and live are Park and 68th?
Well, as long as we’re talking about controversial income levels and such, what about the federal deficit and AMT? It seems to me that when times are good, we spend the windfall on all sorts of projects and when times are bad, we borrow and spend billions (trillions) in deficit spending.
Look at this chart:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/FYFSD
Someday we’re going to have it run surpluses people! I haven’t looked at a chart like this before but can this be correct that we’ve only had meaningful surpluses during the internet boom madness?!
And re: AMT, a tax that was meant to ensure ultra-wealthy didn’t escape tax, why does someone that’s middle-class (Center for an Urban Future study) have this tax (and not the normal graduated tax system) as the tax they have to pay?!
Now that I’m on a roll … If what the Center for an Urban Future study says is true and its over 2x more expensive to live in NYC than Houston, why aren’t the federal tax brackets adjusted for this disparity?!?!
I’ve worked on Gehry projects that were designed with “his” software (it’s really just a modification of Dassault’s plane design software) and I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that 99% of the Times article is total BS. The software models are riddled with errors, are worse than useless for generating reliable estimates, and are no better at picking out conflicts than Autocad. And as for his statement about the Beekman skin being no more expensive than a typical building envelope: if you believe that I’ve got a bridge to sell you.