George The Atheist's long awaited Steinway Mansion update...and it's strictly commercial

George The Atheist

We asked 14 months ago - HERE - what was to become of the parcel of land immediately adjacent south of the Steinway Mansion.

 Answer:

 

Photo 1. Schematic of  a 2-story manufacturing building

 with cellar designed by Gerald Caliendo and owned by 

Philip Loria (1839LorLLC) and Sal Lucchese (1839 LuccLLC).

 Photo 2.  Looking east across the extremely narrow 41st Street

at 18-39, the former property of the late owner Armin Urban.

 

 Photo 3.  All's quiet at night as bulldozer "sleeps" for

the next day's foundation excavation work.

 

 Photo 4.  Steinway Mansion to be further hemmed in by additional proximate development.

 

Photo 5.  It's official.  Who's who.  What's what. And where and when.

Commercial targets AirBnB

From PIX11:

The battle against Airbnb continues. For years, housing organizations and local leaders coming together saying big profit companies are taking advantage of New York and allowing the big guys to profit while the little guys lose out. This time that message coming out through an ad that may seem a bit familiar.

A new campaign is out against Airbnb.

“We thought it was very iconic. I think once you are drawn in to the concept you see what airbnb is really about,” said James Freedland of ShareBetter Coalition, the organization behind the new commercial spot.

The group works with local politicians, community leaders and organizations and are telling people to not be duped by Airbnb’s latest friendly homesharing campaign.

Instead the organization says Airbnb is really all about profit for the rich, catering to large commercial real estate brokers. Manhattan Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal said her office uncovered just that during a recent sting operation.

Big city landlords were seen in the Upper West Side and Midtown taking hundreds of units off the market, some even rent regulated ones and instead putting them out to the home-sharing site to earn lucrative fees.

Tax break proposed for new businesses

From CBS 2:

A slick new television ad makes a promise most business owners would jump at: Start-up or expand a business in New York and enjoy a 10-year exemption from property, sales and even state income taxes.

As CBS 2’s Tony Aiello reported Friday, it’s a pet project of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, but can it really live up to the hype?

“It’s one of the most expensive places in the country to do business. And that’s a problem,” Cuomo said.

Cuomo admits the problem and thinks he has part of the solution: a new ad campaign is touting his “Start-Up NY” initiative.

Why not just make it less expensive to do business here instead of spending money on an ad campaign?

Has anyone seen this commercial?

I haven't, but I haven't watched much TV lately.

Capital New York says, The ad is running on cable channels in Queens from today until primary day, according to the campaign.

Commercial advertising not welcome in historic districts

From Brownstoner:

Anti-corporate messages have appeared on Citi Bike stations in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, and some Brooklyn residents are calling for removal of the stations on the grounds that they are inappropriate in historic neighborhoods, or that residents were not consulted about the locations.

Interesting point, they are hideous to begin with and really don't belong in an historic district, but do these folks really think that the plan would come before the LPC and that they wouldn't have approved it?  They do what the mayor wants.

Anybody but Quinn!

From the NY Times:

As a succession of blurbs from newspaper articles suggest that she has waffled on key issues, the narrator concludes, “When Christine Quinn doesn’t support our values, how can you support her for mayor?”

So goes a commercial attacking Ms. Quinn that, starting on Monday, is scheduled to appear on cable television stations like MSNBC and Bravo for three weeks. The 30-second commercial, the first of the mayoral race, comes quite early in the primary season, underscoring the competitive nature of the contest to succeed Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

The commercial is not the work of one of Ms. Quinn’s opponents for the Democratic nomination, but of a coalition of left-leaning labor unions and Democratic activists who say they are not backing anyone in particular.

The organizers have pledged more than $1 million to the campaign and are spending $250,000 for the initial television advertising, said Scott Levenson, president of the Advance Group, which produced the spot. Another commercial is to be released this week, followed by several mailers and radio ads.

The coalition opposing Ms. Quinn is called NYC Is Not for Sale 2013 and appears to be a successor to a group that actively opposed Mr. Bloomberg’s 2009 re-election bid. It also includes an animal-rights group, NYClass, that has long fought with Ms. Quinn over horse-drawn carriages and other issues. But the coalition also includes Democrats who had previously been major donors to Ms. Quinn.

City planning strikes again

From the NY Times:

Though there are plenty of start-ups that favor Williamsburg and Greenpoint, developers, local officials and real estate brokers say there is a dearth of office space. Most landlords, lured by the promise of building lucrative apartments in the increasingly popular residential area, are reluctant to devote space to commercial tenants who can pay little and might wither as quickly as they bloom.

For some longtime residents and younger champions of north Brooklyn, the shortage raises the specter of a creative, economically diverse neighborhood turning into just another bedroom community. Will entrepreneurs follow the lead of Kickstarter, which is renovating an old factory in Greenpoint to serve as its long-term headquarters, or will the area’s booming residential market squeeze out everything but wealthy commuters?

Part of the problem is zoning: though parts of Williamsburg and Greenpoint are zoned for mixed commercial and residential use, the zoning tilts residential. The bigger issue is supply, or as developers might see it, demand.

...it was not uncommon for the owners of old factories or warehouses — the kind of industrial building every developer wants — to refuse to sell because they are holding out for their properties to be rezoned for residential use.

Quinn using taxpayer resources to promote herself

From the Queens Tribune:

The show, the Queens scenes and the food held my interest until around 2:20 p.m. when a “Diversity” commercial was aired. “Hello, this is Council Speaker Christine Quinn” or something like that said the recognizable voice of the council boss and Mayoral wanabe. It was a 30-second, multi-cultural lovefest with terrible production values – as bad as you ever see on network television. But the message of “Love Love” and “Hate Hate” is of course a seller in our great city. At the end of the painfully bad commercial with a solidly good message, was the City’s logo (NYC) taking ownership for the spot.

The Speaker of the City Council was elected by one district out of 51 in the city. She represents 1/51 of our population. She is not our public spokesperson, the Mayor is. She is not to be lavished with promotional funds to spread her name around our city. She should not be the beneficiary of taxpayer funds or City-owned property to elevate her image as she prepares to run for Mayor. Not on our backs, Chris.

Eleven years ago, Queens’ Peter Vallone Sr., then Speaker of the Council, showed up at my office as a Mayoral candidate with more than a half a dozen city staffers – besides a driver. I challenged the use of City resources on a campaign stop. Vallone asserted his right. I opposed him. The people rejected his candidacy – he finished third in a field of four and did not make the run-off.

In 2005, four years later, the story was somewhat the same. Then Council Speaker, Gifford Miller, had used the council mailing budget to put his name and face in the mailboxes of almost the entire city. He caught it from me and many others in the press. The people agreed and Giff finished a poor fourth in a field of 4 (Ferrer, Weiner, Fields, Miller). In the General Election, Bloomberg beat Ferrer again.

Now, we have the third Speaker in a row running for Mayor. She too apparently thinks it’s okay to use City resources to try to get elected. There is still plenty of time for her to recognize she was wrong in using City money to put her name and voice on a TV commercial. She can apologize, reimburse the city and pledge to only use campaign funds outside of her district.

Bye bye Bullpen Shop?

The Bullpen Shop, a small business located in Willets Point, Queens, New York City, on 126th Street opposite the Mets' CitiField stadium.

Under the plan of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, The Bullpen Shop is to be demolished and its property forcibly acquired via eminent domain, to enable the Mayor's controversial $4,000,000,000.00 legacy development project.

(But I thought it was all chop shops?)