The City Council Speaker once stood with the angry masses against the West Side stadium and the Stuy Town sale. Now, she cuts back-room deals and collects hefty campaign checks from developers.Christine Quinn, Real Estate Insider
A rough tally by The Observer of her latest campaign filings show that Ms. Quinn has raised at least $262,745 from the real estate industry since last October, about 20 percent of the $1.4 million she’s received in private contributions. By comparison, just $5,760 out of the total $138,717 that Ms. Quinn reported for her 2003 council re-election appears to have come from real estate professionals.
Photo from NY Observer
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"A lot of our belief in preservation comes from our fear of what will replace buildings that are not preserved; ALL TOO OFTEN we fight to save not because what we want to save is so good but because we know that what will replace it will be no better."
-- Paul Goldberger, Preservation : toward an ethic in the 1980s.
Sounds like another screw job from our elected officials!
Pinky and the rest of them.....what crap!
Power corrupts !
Absolute power corrupts absolutely !
The mighty Quinn.....properly anointed by the NYC real estate industry has now joined their ranks !
Her divine right as Queen has now been sanctified !
And it's the royal screw for all her subjects !
Well what the hell do you expect if you need the Queens machine to get you in.
As someone on this board said before, you should care what happens in Astoria because what they try out on those poor people will be in your back yard next month.
As is usual, Observer reporter Matthew Schuerman, gets is ass-backwards (he's the same reporter who did a puff piece on notorious landlord Baruch Singer, which is like calling Mussolini all fuzzy and warm).
He says several times that Quinn cozied up to real estate AFTER she became speaker. In reality, she became speaker BECAUSE she had cozied up to real estate. Those who watch this stuff closely know this, but an analysis of her campaign contributions since she was elected shows a trend to landlords and developers, she refused to stand with community groups against Hudson Yards and the stadium on the steps of City Hall in 2002, and her willingness to sell-out the West Side to further her career goes back many years. It was in 2001 that Quinn took money under the table from a skyscraper developer and lied to community members about taking the money as she supposedly negotiated on their behalf.
So Quinn's connection to real estate is nothing new -- other than in the mind of this reporter.
Also citing John Raskin ... who heads up the Astroturf group Quinn created. What else is he going to say? He's having orgasms over 20% affordable housing (which would have happened anyway with 421(a) and he thinks it's simply wonderful in his eyes that the West Side will get another 40 million SF of buildings. Of course he's going to say that. His salary comes from funding from City Hall ... from Quinn!
But as usual, Schuerman and the Observer continue to lose whatever street cred they might have ever had.
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