The Blaz diverts federal stimulus funds to tourist ad campaign

 

NY Post 

 New York City is launching a $30 million tourism advertising campaign — the largest in Big Apple history — to revive an industry that’s been gutted by the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday.

“We need to let people know we’re open for business. It’s safe to come here. Join this amazing moment. Come to this city that’s been so heroic during this crisis,” de Blasio said during a City Hall press briefing.

The campaign aims to boost Gotham’s hotel, restaurant, arts, entertainment and taxi industries and bring back the 400,000 jobs that were connected to tourism pre-pandemic.

It’s the “largest campaign ever to promote tourism in New York City and it will remind people this is the place to be,” de Blasio said. “There is no place like it in the world.”

The campaign is being funded through federal stimulus money, according to City Hall. Typically, the city spends around $3 million annually in tourism advertising.

“Tourism has been an important part of life for this city, an important part of our economy — hundreds of thousands of jobs depend on tourism,” said Hizzoner, who insisted the 400,000 jobs in the city supported by the tourism industry “will come back.”

“We are absolutely certain,” the mayor said. 

 Fred Dixon, president and CEO of the city’s tourism bureau NYC & Company, explained during the briefing that the “major comprehensive marketing and advertising campaign” will kick off in June with the message that “all five boroughs are open, vibrant and ready to safely welcome back visitors and business events.”

Impunity City 

There should be no more fucking doubts about who Mayor Big Slow de Blasio prefers to serve, besides himself and his running gag political career. This dumbass decided to devote 30 million dollars from President Biden’s stimulus recovery bill for an ad campaign begging tourists to come back to New York City. Showing once again that he is more concerned for the leisure of visitors than for services for his constituents who still go wanting.

Although this ludicrous boondoggle city p.r. campaign is supposed to start in June, it’s clear that this money was already wasted before the Blaz announced it in the most surreal daily briefing he has done so far during the still existing pandemic for a video produced by the city’s office of tourism, NYC And Company (a city government bureaucratic agency that really has absolutely no use for the residents of the five boroughs).

This 30 million could be used for the basics of city services. Increasing transit service by hiring more drivers, fixing storm drains and catch basins, restore funds to the sanitation dept and adding more hours for corner trash pickups and all fixing all the fucking potholes and cracks on the streets, avenues and boulevards.

But the most interesting and overlooked thing this 30 million could be used for, especially how often de Blasio speaks about equity, is to implement a Universal Basic Income stimulus for the poorest citizens of NYC until the merciful end of his final term as mayor. Doing this would also put a crimp into Andrew Yang’s own campaign for mayor, since it’s the most recognizable policy of his platform.

Metrocard scammers at Sutphin

From PIX11:

A daily commuter who moves through the Sutphin Boulevard transit hub told PIX11 a troubling situation has been going on there for at least three years.

“Gangs control the front of the turnstiles,” the woman told us. “They don’t let tourists out of the station until they give up their MetroCards.”

The hustlers want the cards to “swipe through” other tourists arriving in the United States, who want to get into the subway system. A guy named Lavell said he’s seen the swipers in action and knows the fee.

“Two dollars, and they give you a transfer.”

When PIX11 decided to investigate on two recent weekdays, we saw several people—men and women—soliciting MetroCards from travelers who were leaving the subway system, pushing their luggage along, on their way to the AirTrain that would take them to JFK airport.

Thank you for your service

From CBS 2:

More than 2,300 sailors, Marines and members of the Coast Guard will be gracing the streets of New York City this weekend. What will the experience will be like? We wanted to find out firsthand and share it with you. CBS2's Vanessa Murdock followed a Marine from shore to shore as he set foot in the city for the first time.

20,000 tourists is considered a lot

From NY1:

"We get about 20,000 visitors a year here. And 20% or so are international visitors and they come from over 50 countries," said Jennifer Walden Weprin, director of marketing for the museum.

The borough's culture and diversity have become big draws. NYC & Company says more than 12 million people visited Queens in 2014 — with more from foreign countries than the U.S.

The city says tourism is helping to boost the borough’s economy, employing about 50,000 people.

Traffic not Uber's fault

From the Daily News:

New York’s traffic troubles aren’t Uber’s fault.

Instead, Mayor de Blasio's long-awaited $2 million congestion study puts the blame on deliveries, construction and New Yorkers themselves.

“Population and job growth, increased construction activity, growth in the number of deliveries, and record levels of tourism have all contributed to the reductions in vehicle speeds,” the report on Uber and the growing for-hire vehicle industry found.

The popularity of car service apps like Uber was only a “contributor to overall congestion,” not a driver of heavy traffic in the city’s central business district, the report said.

De Blasio’s long-awaited traffic congestion study put the blame on “population and job growth, increased construction activity, growth in the number of deliveries, and record levels of tourism.”
The study also found that the total number of miles traveled by all vehicles in the city stayed flat between 2014 and 2015 — so trips in Uber and Lyft appear to be making up the decline in yellow taxi pick ups.

The conclusions in the report fly in the face of Mayor de Blasio's suggestion last summer that Uber’s explosive growth was slowing down traffic in Manhattan.

Major Mark Park is in disgraceful condition

From Cleanup Jamaica Queens:

Such a small park, but such a big mess thanks to our low-class ghetto/third world folks who destroy anything nice in this community, one of the reasons the revitalization of Jamaica will fail (story to follow later on that subject).

So Melinda Katz and crew, want to include this on your Jamaica initiative brochure and highlight this park for your “tourists” to get a taste of a third world park.

Looks like a nice park right?

Bringing tourists to Jamaica: good luck with that

From the NY Times:

A major stop on the AirTrain from Kennedy International Airport has long offered a troublesome first impression for travelers visiting New York.

Scarred by poverty, crime and blighted conditions, that transit hub in Jamaica, Queens, has generally been more of a place to contemplate from train platforms than to stroll through on the ground.

But sweeping plans are being made to rejuvenate the area with new hotels, stores and apartments, with hopes of persuading some of those travelers to step off the platform and stay a while.

“Our area has needed a face-lift for quite some time now,” said Adrienne Adams, the chairwoman of Queens Community Board 12 and a Jamaica resident for more than two decades. “And I think for the most part people will be quite pleased with the results.”

The effort to lure tourists is focused on a small slice of the area, around the intersection of Archer Avenue and Sutphin Boulevard.

Besides the AirTrain, the intersection is served by the Long Island Rail Road, three subway lines and more than a dozen bus routes. One result is the kind of bustling public transportation hub that has become catnip for developers who believe that people no longer want to be so dependent on their cars.

Redbird may fly in a better location

DNA Info suggests 5 better places for the redbird tourism center than borough hall:

Long Island City, JFK, LaGuardia, Times Square and the Flushing Library

Queens Tourism Center shut down

From the Queens Courier:

The Queens Tourism Center is reaching the end of the line today.

The Kew Gardens facility, created out of a retrofitted Redbird subway car that previously ran on the 7 line, will shut its doors Friday afternoon due to lack of use.

According to a New York Post report on Friday, the closure was scheduled for Monday, but a spokesperson for Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, however, informed The Courier that Friday “is the last day the Redbird will be open to visitors at its current site.”

Opened in 2005, the Queens Tourism Center was built through $500,000 in funds secured by then-Borough President Helen Marshall as a way of attracting visitors from across the globe to Queens.

The center operates four hours a day, five days a week. According to a source, it has drawn over 15,000 visitors in the past five years, many of whom are Queens residents.

One possible reason for the light attendance could be its location, as it is on the eastern side of Borough Hall adjacent to the Queens Criminal Court, a long block away from the entrance to the Union Turnpike subway station.

Bill drafted to stop the chop

From the Daily News:

The City Council is preparing a bill to ban helicopter tourism from the five boroughs, saying the flights are so noisy their wings should be permanently clipped.

Councilman Carlos Menchaca (D-Brooklyn) is drafting the bill to nix the business, which employs around 200 people and operates out of the lower Manhattan heliport, his chief of staff confirmed.

The bill has not been introduced, but Council lawyers have already reached out to the industry — which some studies have shown adds about $33 million a year to the city’s economy — to say the ban bill is imminent, tour group representatives say.

And several Council members — including Corey Johnson, Helen Rosenthal and Mark Levine — have said they support a ban on the tourist flights, citing noise concerns from constituents.

Because Governors Island isn't overcrowded enough

From AM-NY:

Governors Island -- open to the public through Sept. 27 and offering free weekend tours, two forts (Castle Williams and Fort Jay) and a bevy of cultural and recreational opportunities -- is the latest "neighborhood" to be featured in NYC & Company's insider guides.

The selection of Governors Island as a featured destination will be announced this week in Shanghai as part of a new initiative to boost Chinese tourism in NYC, already up 250% in five years.

South Jamaica scam artists prey on Manhattan tourists

From A Walk in the Park:

A team of illegal ticket sellers has been preying on unsuspecting tourists for years, NYC Park Advocates has learned.

The ticket scalpers are working in some of the most heavily visited downtown tourist destinations - Statue of Liberty, Staten Island Ferry, and Pier 15, (South Street Seaport)

The unscrupulous scammers sell Statue of Liberty tickets for between $ 80 - 100 dollars: re-sell used Statue of Liberty tickets: Sell people tickets to the Staten Island Ferry and charge people $ 20 just to enter Battery Park, a public park on the tip of Manhattan.

The group wear dark blue official looking tourist operator vests that say, SJQ Sightseeing Tours.

SJQ stands for South Jamaica Queens.

They have been a fixture in lower Manhattan operating in broad daylight for years.

On Wednesday career criminal Gregory Reddick, 54, of 118 Road in Jamaica Queens, was busted after leading park police on a wild chase in lower Manhattan.

Parks Enforcement Patrol officer Jean-Baptist Joseph, 33, saw Reddick on Pier 15 as he was allegedly in the act of conning tourists out of cash.

The PEP officer approached Reddick and ask him for ID. He refused cursed at him and ran away.

The officer called for back up. PEP officers tracked him down a half mile away in Battery Park.

Another officer approached the con and asked him for ID.

"F*ck off off, I ain't givin you shit," he responded, according to an officer at the scene.

He ran, and the officers caught up to him. He resisted arrest and officers maced him twice in order to get him to comply.

A large group of Reddick's associates formed during the arrest, yelling and screaming.

An NYPD officer in the park said that on Monday - two days before Reddick's arrest - he had received a compliant that Reddick had sold two tickets to the Statue of Liberty to a Virginia couple for $ 409 dollars.

Weprin proposes youth hostel legislation

From the Queens Gazette:

Councilmember Mark Weprin has introduced Intro 699 to legalize the construction, regulation and operation of licensed youth hostels in commercial districts within the five boroughs. Presently, New York City does not have a law that legalizes youth hostels.

“Hostels are a popular component of travel all around the world owing to the unique community feel that they offer. A lot of young people do not have the money to stay at luxury hotels,” said Weprin. “We need a place for people on a budget to stay. This is an opportunity to offer young people clean, safe places to stay that are not as expensive as hotels.”

The new legislation would also advance the fight against illegal short-term sublets and rentals of residential facilities that affect residential communities and buildings across the five boroughs.

The Pan Am was supposed to be a youth hostel...

Mark Weprin continues his cluelessness

From Capital New York:

Councilman Mark Weprin announced legislation on Monday that would allow youth hostels in New York City.

The bill, Intro. 699, would allow hostels to operate with four to eight beds in each dormitory-style room and reopen a market targeted for young individuals that are backpacking in New York City.

It would allow licensed hostels to operate in commercial areas and be subject to regulation by the city Department of Consumer Affairs.

Hostels in New York City struggled after a 2010 New York law outlawed renting apartments for less than 30 days.

Weprin, a Queens Democrat, said that the bill will open a new market and won’t compete with hotels because it’ll be marketed towards a younger demographic that doesn’t care for its surroundings and is focused on an affordable stay.

“We want young people to come here and very often they don’t care where they stay,” said Weprin at a press conference outside of City Hall on Monday morning. “They just want to put their heads down on a safe, clean place and the youth hostels offer a great opportunity for this market.”

Yes, we need even more hotels in manufacturing zones. Great idea.

Meanwhile, in California...

From the Daily News:

Shortly after sunrise, dozens of federal agents swarmed an upscale apartment complex in the Orange County city of Irvine, where authorities say a birth tourism business known as You Win USA Vacation Resort marketed to pregnant women who were then charged $50,000 for lodging, food and transportation.

Investigators said women were coached to lie about their travel plans when applying for tourist visas and to wear loose clothing to hide their pregnancies, and they were promised Social Security numbers and U.S. passports for their babies before returning to China.

In one instance, a trainer in China helped fabricate employment and income information for an undercover federal agent posing as a pregnant client to secure a tourist visa. The undercover agent was encouraged to fly through Hawaii, where customs officers were believed to be more lenient than in Los Angeles, according to a copy of an affidavit in support of a search warrant.

The business netted its owners hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past two years and helped Chinese tourists deliver more than 400 American babies at just one Orange County hospital, the court papers said.

Hotels a-boomin' all over

From Crains:

Taking a page from the film Field of Dreams, developers have been lining the city's outer boroughs with a growing number of independent and brand-name hotels, convinced that if they build them, guests will come.

So far, they have: Outer-borough occupancy rates between January and November 2014 ran as high as 81%, according to STR, a hospitality-industry research firm. Most hotel markets operate at 65% occupancy, while Manhattan is "pushing" 83%, said Sean Hennessey, chief executive of Lodging Advisors, a Manhattan-headquartered consulting firm.

"We're in a huge tourism boom, and that echoes across the boroughs," said Rob MacKay, director of the Queens Tourism Council, which is a part of the Queens Economic Development Corp.

With a record number of tourists visiting the city—and an estimated 22.5 million hotel guests among the nearly 56 million visitors to the city last year, according to NYC & Company—hoteliers have turned to the outer boroughs to snag out-of-towners who can't score a reservation in Manhattan's tight hotel market or think it is too pricey.

Over the next 36 months, more than 100 hotels are slated to open across Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx. Still, the future of outer-borough lodging is anything but certain.

"The unanswered question is how deep is the market for people who dream of coming to New York and couldn't because there weren't enough rooms available or in their price points," said Mr. Hennessey.

Moreover, the expansion of the city's hotel sector beyond Manhattan could be threatened by a City Council push for changes that would end hotels' right to open in industrial and manufacturing zones without council approval. Council leaders argue that industrial and manufacturing jobs in Brooklyn and Queens, which represent the strongest outer-borough markets for lodgings, pay workers nearly twice what the hotel, retail and restaurant industries do.

Sorry, but I don't think that having 20% or more of your rooms available on an average night is a good thing for one's business. Hotels in Queens become homeless shelters. And a dirty secret that no one wants to discuss is that even the ones still operating as hotels house the homeless in their empty rooms at night. Who in the borough is saying, "You know what our neighborhood could really use? A hotel!"

Pushing Jamaica as a tourist destination

From DNA Info:

Jamaica could be New York's next tourist hotspot — at least that's the dream of the new head of the neighborhood's Business Improvement District.

Rhonda Binda is planning to organize tours around the neighborhood and launch a series of pop-up installations that would highlight local history and cultural achievements.

Binda, 37, a former White House employee who got her law degree at Georgetown University, became the BID's executive director last month.

A Jamaica native who currently lives in the area, she said she is teaming up with the Queens Tourism Council to organize themed tours around the neighborhood for both locals and travelers who have long layovers at JFK.

“We can have people come for a walking tour or a shopping tour,” she said.

During the tours, participants would be able to learn about places important in jazz and hip-hop history, visit old churches or eat at restaurants serving a variety of ethnic cuisines, she said.

Oh brother. Tourists with layovers at JFK? Concentrate on locals. How about starting with cleaning the place up? People used to travel from Brooklyn, Nassau and all over Queens to shop on Jamaica Ave at one time. Now you couldn't pay them to go there.

Council concerned about AirBnB overcrowding

From the NY Post:

City Council members want to grill the subletting service Airbnb about fears renters could die in a fire while struggling to flee an unfamiliar apartment.

“We need to ensure Airbnb is not putting profit over people by allowing listings that cram too many tourists into apartments far too small to guarantee their safe escape from danger,” said Councilman Ben Kallos (D-Upper East Side).

The council’s Housing and Buildings Committee has scheduled a Jan. 20 hearing over “short-term rentals” arranged through Airbnb and other sites.

In a recent affidavit, an FDNY official said that, unlike hotels, apartments being illegally used for “transient occupancy” don’t offer visitors a “detailed fire-safety and evacuation plan.”

What Katz did while in office for a year

From the Daily News:

It's been anything but a sleepy first year for Queens Borough President Melinda Katz.

Since her January inauguration, Katz has boosted Queens’ status as “The World’s Borough” and helped oust the free-spending head of its library system.

“The library situation just blew up,” said Katz, 49, who was focused on attracting businesses to the borough when problems at the Queens Library came to light.

“It seemed like there was something else in the news every day about what was wrong there.”

In a series of bombshell articles, Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez revealed Queens Library CEO Thomas Galante made almost $400,000 in salary, raked in another $140,000 from a side job and spent tens of thousands of dollars on meals and concert tickets with the approval of the library’s Board of Trustees.

All of it was charged to his library corporate credit card.

The scandal sparked an aggressive campaign by the normally reserved Katz to force the board to open its books after it refused to make its financial records public.

So the only things she's done for the entire year are:

1) Promote tourism (yawn)
2) Remove the library head (because the media exposed it)

Meanwhile, every other pol has publicly expressed their condolences after attending yesterday's funeral, but the last thing on Katz's Twitter feed is a picture of a party for Leroy Comrie.

We saluted Deputy BP @Leroycomrie as he leaves us to join the state Senate on 1/1. He will do a great job in Albany! http://t.co/GuyCK8xj4v

— Melinda Katz (@MelindaKatz) December 26, 2014

This will send tourists flocking here!

From the Queens Courier:

Move over, Manhattan — Queens is the must-see U.S. destination of the coming year, according to a leading travel guidebook company.

The borough has made it to the top of the list of Lonely Planet’s Best in the U.S. 2015. Selected by Lonely Planet’s authors and ranked by its U.S. editors, the list consists of 10 perennial favorites, places with timely reasons to visit and understated destinations that are ready for their time in the spotlight.

“I’ve seen how Queens has transformed from one of the forgotten boroughs to one of the exciting places to visit,” said Regis St. Louis, coordinating author of Lonely Planet’s USA and New York City guidebook.

This year was the first time that Queens made the annual online list, which was released on Wednesday. The rankings expand on Lonely Planet’s “Best in Travel 2015” guidebook, which came out in October, and chose Washington, D.C., and Rocky Mountain National Park as its top city and regional picks among world destinations.

St. Louis, a 14-year New York City resident, who currently lives in Brooklyn, was one of several authors to nominate Queens for the Best in the U.S. 2015 list.

It was clear from our passion and our feedback about Queens that it should be number one on this list,” he said.

Rounding out the top 10 are Western South Dakota, New Orleans, the Colorado River region, North Conway, N.H., Indianapolis, Greenville, S.C., Oakland, Calif., Duluth, Minn., and California’s Mount Shasta region.

To mark Queens topping the Best in the U.S. 2015, Lonely Planet is giving away the Queens chapter from its recently released New York City guide as a free e-book until Feb. 1, 2015. To get the free download, visit www.lonelyplanet.com/queens-ebook.

I suggest you download the chapter if you're up for a good laugh. The same handful of touristy Queens locations is listed that you will find in any NYC guidebook, and the hotels they suggest you stay at are mostly in Manhattan. Yet the Queens press and pols are acting like the borough won the Nobel prize. Well, except for the Chronicle, which had this to say:

Yes, Queens has plenty to offer and we’re glad to see it touted as a place to visit. But whether it’s “the best tourism destination in the United States” is, well, open to question. We doubt the decision-making process here was exactly scientific. Other major travel destinations we bested include North Conway, NH and Duluth, Minn. Awesome! Expect to see this designation milked for all its worth, and then some. And then go about your life as you did before you learned this bit of “news.”