Yang's version of Planning Together...

 

 NY Daily News

 Mayoral contender Andrew Yang unveiled an ambitious $32 billion plan to build affordable housing Wednesday, vowing to create and preserve 250,000 units within eight years if elected.

Yang reiterated his intention to make the Big Apple the “anti-poverty” city, but stressed it would be impossible to do that without creating more housing for poor and middle-class New Yorkers “across every neighborhood in all five boroughs.”

Yang plans to spend $4 billion annually on the plan — some of which would come from the approximately $15 billion in federal stimulus money the city expects to receive. The total projected bill, $32 billion, would pay for the creation and preservation of 250,000 new affordable apartments, at a clip of about 30,000 units a year.

“This will be the most since Ed Koch,” said Yang, name-checking the former mayor who cemented his reputation by building up the city’s affordable housing stock. “In many ways, the task ahead for us is tougher than what Mayor Koch faced. He was the first mayor after the fiscal crisis of the mid-’70s, and Ed Koch benefited from lower land prices and a giant store of city-owned properties.”

The current state of play, noted Yang, is much more complicated and challenging.

To simplify the process, Yang is proposing to do away with allowing City Council members informal veto power over new developments in the districts they represent; getting rid of minimum parking requirements often attached to new projects; speeding up the city’s land-use approval process, and bringing back now-illegal single-room-occupancy hotels.

Part of the cash outlay he envisions would go toward converting underutilized hotels and office buildings into affordable apartments and supportive housing for people with extraordinary needs. He also said he’d use vacant city-owned land to build.

Yang made the pitch that he’s the right guy for the job, in part because of his lack of government experience.

“It’s going to take a mayor who is not grown from our bureaucratic machine, who has no ties to special interests to help achieve this,” he said. “It’s going to take a mayor with the courage to challenge our status quo to actually see this through to fruition.”

 Yang is clueless about bodegas, wonder what he thinks would be an affordable amount to rent a studio or room for a month.

 

 

 

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.

2T stimulus package to aid the nation during COVID-19 pandemic is approved.

The Hill

 The White House and Senate leaders reached a deal early Wednesday morning on a massive stimulus package they hope will keep the nation from falling into a deep recession because of the coronavirus crisis.

The revamped Senate proposal will inject approximately $2 trillion into the economy, providing tax rebates, four months expanded unemployment benefits and a slew of business tax-relief provisions aimed at shoring up individual, family and business finances.

The deal includes $500 billion for a major corporate liquidity program through the Federal Reserve, $367 billion for a small business loan program, $100 billion for hospitals and $150 billion for state and local governments.

It will also give a one-time check of $1,200 to Americans who make up to $75,000. Individuals with no or little tax liability would receive the same amount, unlike the initial GOP proposal that would have given them a minimum of $600.

The agreement caps five days of intense negotiations that started Friday morning when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) convened Republican and Democratic colleagues, with talks stretching late into the evening each of the following four days.

“At last we have a deal. ... the Senate has reached a bipartisan agreement," McConnell said during a speech on the Senate floor after 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday, pledging that the Senate would pass the package later in the day.

Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) hailed the legislation as "the largest rescue package in American history." 

“This bill is far from perfect, but we believe the legislation has been improved significantly to warrant its quick consideration and passage,” he said.

The final talks were conducted among McConnell, Schumer, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, White House legislative affairs director Eric Ueland and incoming White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Schumer kept in close touch throughout the process with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who introduced her own $2.5 trillion bill Monday.

"Ladies and gentleman, we're done. We have a deal," Ueland told reporters, breaking the news after one of the final meetings in McConnell's office after midnight Tuesday night.

Ueland noted that staffers would work into Wednesday morning to finish the text of the bill, but that when it came to some of the negotiation's largest sticking points they already have language agreed to "or we know exactly where we're going to land."  

Mnuchin said early Wednesday morning that President Trump was "pleased" with the deal and urged Pelosi to take up the Senate bill and pass it without changes.

"This is a very important bipartisan legislation that is going to be very important to help American workers, American business. ... We couldn't be more pleased. Spoken to the president many times today, he's very pleased with this legislation and the impact this is going to have," he told reporters.
Pressed if that meant Trump would sign it if it reaches his desk in its current form, he added: "Absolutely."

President Donald Trump signs national stimulus package to aid citizens unable to work during pandemic

NY Post


President Donald Trump on Wednesday night signed a coronavirus aid package passed by Congress providing free testing and two-week paid sick leave for full-time workers who fall ill.

The bipartisan, multi-billion dollar relief bill was approved by the House late Sunday and passed in the Senate earlier Wednesday after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin brokered the deal last week.

The bill also provides $1 billion in food aid to the needy and $1 billion in unemployment funds to states as the number of coronavirus cases soared to 7,000 across the country.

Trump, describing himself as a “wartime president” fighting the virus, on Wednesday also invoked the Defense Production Act to step up production of medical supplies; praised FEMA’s response to the fight and said a “self-swab” test is in the works.

“I only signed the Defense Production Act to combat the Chinese Virus should we need to invoke it in a worst case scenario in the future,” Trump tweeted. “Hopefully there will be no need, but we are all in this TOGETHER!”

Amid rising cases, the Trump administration continued to push the idea of allocating $500 billion to issue checks to Americans by April 6 as part of a $1 trillion rescue plan

The president is also sending a floating hospital

NY Post

SOS!

A floating naval hospital with 1,000 beds will soon be dispatched to New York to help combat the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump said Wednesday.

The USNS Comfort, which also boasts 12 fully equipped operating rooms, will anchor in New York Harbor to provide desperately needed hospital space as the state battles the bug.

Neither the president nor Gov. Cuomo, who first announced that the feds were making the ship available, disclosed when it would arrive.

As of Wednesday evening, the Comfort remained moored off Norfolk, Va., according to the vessel-tracking site marinetraffic.com.

Shovel-ready stimulus projects never completed

From NBC:

Three years after President Barack Obama signed the controversial $780 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, projects that were approved for millions of stimulus money in 2009 and 2010 languish in the “not started” category of government data, NBC New York's I-Team has found.

The goal of ARRA was to inject money into the economy, much of it on so-called “shovel-ready” projects, and to ultimately create jobs and reverse or stop the deepening recession.

But as of February 2012, more than 200 approved projects totaling more than $200 million in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are still listed as "not started," according to data analyzed by the I-Team in partnership with ProPublica.

More manufacturing lost under Bloomberg

From the Village Voice:

This month, City Limits magazine reported that under Mayor Bloomberg's watch, manufacturing jobs in the city disappeared twice as fast as in the rest of the country. Almost 64,000 blue-collar positions vanished, a decline of 46 percent. It is the worst eight-year slide in city history, says Sarah Crean, who has kept an eye on these statistics for the New York Industrial Retention Network. Land rezoning is one reason, says Crean. Indifference is another.

Bloomberg skipped this hemorrhage of entry-level jobs in his own economic slideshow last month in Brooklyn, where he insisted that the president should follow his example if he wants to fix the nation's economy. Of course, if not for all the federal stimulus funds pumped into Wall Street banks and investment firms over the past two years, the city would be just as flat on its back as the rest of the country. This fact was also omitted from a presentation intended to stoke more of the mayor's White House dreams.

Cuomo wants electric car infrastructure

From City Hall:

With Chevrolet’s new hybrid electric Volt car set to begin rolling off the assembly line, Governor-Elect Andrew Cuomo’s plan to install electric car-charging stations across the state is receiving a closer look by transportation and environmental advocates.

The response? Nice idea, now how are you going to pay for it.

The initiative, outlined in Cuomo’s last policy book “Greener Cleaner NY,” calls for erecting an unspecified number of charging stations in urban areas, thruways and along the I-95 corridor by the year 2015. New York City began installing charging stations this past summer, but Cuomo says that electric cars will not catch on with consumers unless these plug-in stations exist throughout the state.

Charging stations in New York are to be installed at no cost to the city, paid for in part with federal stimulus funds, but there is no explanation of what to do after that stream dries up. Automakers like Toyota recently announced plans to develop electric cars; the Cuomo plan, though vague, is intended to get out ahead of what transportation advocates see as an expected shift in the way New Yorkers get around.

The plan, like most of Cuomo’s policy books, is vague on details, lacking specifics on how the stations will get built, or who will pay for them.

We're in for a big shock soon

From the Times Union:

For the past two years, finance experts as well as some politicians have warned that once the generosity of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act winds down, New York would face even worse budget problems.

That's because the stimulus money acted as a crutch that allowed the state's two major expenses, education and Medicaid, to grow despite the recession.

With the stimulus ending next summer, those rising costs will have to come from state taxpayers -- unless cuts are made.

The deficit for the current fiscal year could run from $315 million to $1 billion, depending on which branch of state government is doing the analysis. And the 2011-2012 fiscal year, which starts April 1, could begin with a $10 billion deficit -- $1 billion more than previously predicted.

The stimulus program, launched by the Obama administration after the 2008 financial meltdown, included public works money and support for state government functions such as Medicaid and education.

Megna noted that when it ends, New York will be on track to spend an additional $4 billion in Medicaid and $1 billion in education expenses.

Medicaid may be the hardest area in which to control spending because it's so closely tied to the ongoing economic slump. As more New Yorkers lost their jobs or became impoverished during the recession, the Medicaid rolls mushroomed: By the end of the year, analysts expect almost 5 million New Yorkers -- nearly a quarter of the state's population -- will be on Medicaid.

The program was growing before the recession, as former Gov. Eliot Spitzer had initiated a program to get more people who were eligible for Medicaid to use it. All told, the Medicaid rolls have grown by 700,000 during the past three years.

In addition to a growing Medicaid program and the loss of federal money, New York's finances are still groaning under a record 7.2 percent drop in income among state residents last year, and the consequent dip in state tax receipts.

Delayed stimulus for NYC

From the NY Post:

Major city infrastructure projects undertaken as part of the federal stimulus package have yet to generate even a fraction of the thousands of promised jobs, a Post analysis has found.

Meanwhile, about $4.7 billion of the $7.3 billion in stimulus money has been earmarked for "budget relief" -- feeding the city's own payroll and allowing it to continue to fund entitlement programs, such as food stamps.

Hiring for the anticipated, shovels-in-ground projects -- meant to be provide immediate employment to the area's jobless -- is only now beginning, nearly a year after the city got its hands on the dough, according to data compiled on the city's own online Stimulus Tracker.

"We're continuing to put federal stimulus dollars to work, with some projects near completion and others still ramping up," said Andrew Brent, a spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg.

There may yet be a 10th Ave 7 train station

From the NY Post:

The once-doomed 7-line subway stop at 42nd St. and 10th Ave. may be back from the dead — as long as the city and MTA can cough up $550 million.

Initially canceled because the city couldn’t afford it, engineers decided that the station could be redesigned in a way that wouldn’t increase the cost of the rest of the project and wouldn’t interrupt the train’s eventual route to the Javits Center at 34th St. and 11th Ave.

But city and MTA officials admit they’re not sure where the funds will come from.

"We need engineers to confirm that it’s viable, but we’re confident we’ve found a way to keep the prospect of a future Tenth Avenue station alive without delaying the current extension," Mayor Bloomberg said.

"The City is in no position to step in and pay for a Tenth Avenue station too, but it will be good news if we can finish the current extension without closing off the possibility of it happening in the future."

Instead of building one massive station where riders could enter the southbound or eastbound directions from any entrance, the new design would have two exclusive entrances for each direction.

Even if it’s built, the station wouldn’t be ready by the original December 2013 roll-out date.

The new design would allow workers to build the two, smaller stations without having to stop the 7 line’s new route to the west side of Manhattan.

The city will try to nab $3 million in federal funds to study the station idea and make sure it’s possible.

Closure vs. transformation for schools

From the NY Times:

On Friday, the city announced which of 34 schools on a state list of “persistently lowest achieving” schools it would keep open and try to improve — in a process known as transformation – and which it would most likely phase out beginning in the 2011-12 school year.

The 11 schools chosen for transformation can hire two new kinds of teachers — master teachers and turnaround teachers — who will earn up to 30 percent more than their regular salaries for training teachers in addition to their regular duties. Those premiums, and other school improvements, will be financed by $2 million a year in federal stimulus money over the next three years.

The 11 schools selected for transformation are:

* Automotive High School
* Bread & Roses Integrated Arts High School
* Brooklyn School for Global Studies
* Chelsea Career and Technical Education High School
* Cobble Hill School of American Studies
* Flushing High School
* Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School
* Long Island City High School
* Queens Vocational and Technical High School
* Unity Center for Urban Technologies
* William E. Grady Career and Technical Education High School

The additional 23 schools on the state’s “persistently lowest achieving” list that will most likely be phased out and replaced with new schools are:

* August Martin High School
* Beach Channel High School
* Boys and Girls High School
* Christopher Columbus High School
* Fordham Leadership Academy for Business and Technology
* Grace Dodge Career and Technical Education High School
* Grover Cleveland High School
* High School of Graphic Communication Arts
* Jamaica High School
* Jane Addams High School for Academic Careers
* John Adams High School
* John Dewey High School
* John F. Kennedy High School
* Metropolitan Corporate Academy
* Monroe Academy for Business/Law
* Newtown High School
* Norman Thomas High School
* Paul Robeson High School
* Public School 065 Mother Hale Academy
* Richmond Hill High School
* Sheepshead Bay High School
* Washington Irving High School
* W.H. Maxwell CTE High School

Additional schools that the city says it will attempt to close again next year, after having been prevented from doing so because of a lawsuit from the N.A.A.C.P. and the teachers’ union this spring:

* Frederick Douglass Academy III (middle school)
* Global Enterprise High School
* Monroe Academy for Business and Law
* School for Community Research and Learning
* New Day Academy
* Academy of Collaborative Education
* Kappa II
* Academy of Environmental Science High School
* Middle School for Academic and Social Excellence
* Public School 332
* Business, Computer Applications and Entrepreneurship High School
* Choir Academy of Harlem High School

Amtrak chops down hundreds of trees

From the Daily News:

The federal stimulus may be pumping greenbacks into the economy but it's also making a part of Woodside distinctly less green.

Locals are steamed over Amtrak's brush-clearing effort that recently chopped down more than a hundred mature trees along rails running parallel to Northern Blvd.

Homeowner George Olt, 69, whose property on 56th Place abuts the land owned by Amtrak, said he began hearing buzzsaws near his lush backyard on April 30.

By the next day, some 200 trees - more than a hundred of them exceeding about 2 feet in diameter - had been felled, Olt said.

"It's not like the trees were dead," said Olt, a retired transit worker who has lived in the same home for 26 years. "They were in full bloom."

The leafy trees also acted as a noise buffer from passing trains, he and neighbors said.

Most of the felled trees - along a 200-foot section of the railway - were rooted more than 50 feet from the tracks, said Olt, who was skeptical of the railroad's claim that the clearing project would improve safety.

The project was funded by federal stimulus money and is part of a nationwide initiative to upgrade infrastructure, said Amtrak spokesman Cliff Coles.

Coles conceded the trees "may not be located directly on our right of way" but was a precautionary step.

The timing of the project has also stung local environmental groups. The tree-clearing comes as hundreds of others were planted in Woodside as part of the Mayor Bloomberg's MillionTreesNYC initiative.

"We didn't gain anything," said Anthony Gigantello, president of Coalition Helping Organize a Kleaner Environment, or CHOKE, based in Long Island City.

Coles said residents can call Amtrak's hotline to voice concerns about the project's impact.

But that's too little, too late, locals said.

Quinn to beg Biden for stimulus money to help developers

From the Wall Street Journal:

Top New York real-estate executives and the City Council speaker will make an 11th-hour push Wednesday to persuade the White House to back federal funding for a second subway station as part of the extension of the No. 7 line in Manhattan.

Officials from the Real Estate Board of New York, a trade association, and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn will meet in Washington with Vice President Joe Biden's staff in hopes of securing hundreds of millions of dollars to build a station at 10th Avenue and 41st Street.

Ms. Quinn, a Manhattan Democrat who is seen as a potential 2013 candidate for mayor, is leading the delegation to Washington. "We're working to rebuild an entire neighborhood, and an important key to that is having a strong transportation system," she said.

Who's paying for this trip?

NYCHA getting bailed out

From NY1:

Public housing is about to get a big boost from the federal government.

The New York City Housing Authority is set to announce $210 million in private funding, and another $65 to $75 million in annual federal funding.

The money will go toward renovating and maintaining more than 20,000 public housing units in 21 complexes.

As part of the deal, the 21 developments are being sold into a public-private partnership with Citigroup, reports say.

NYCHAS, which will still manage the developments, says the partnership was the only way to obtain the financing, and officials say they will remain low-income housing.

Critics say the move could be the first step toward privatization of the complexes.

Stimulus money down the drain

From the Times Newsweekly:

Does anyone in the neighborhood feel stimulated?

At this time last year, President Barack Obama signed into law a $787 billion stimulus package designed, in part, to create or save millions of jobs across the country. The country was told that the Great Recession would turn into a full-blown depression without such a package.

A large portion of the money was used to save government jobs and social services. Most of the jobs supported by stimulus spending belonged to public employees at the state and local level, including about 325,000 teachers and school staff.

Other than tax credits, there was little aid provided to businesses to bring about a substantial hiring of people in the private sector. Evidence of the lack of job creation can be found in this newspaper or any other publication or Internet classified, none of which seem to be overflowing with help wanted ads.

The stimulus package, instead, extended unemployment benefits and programs like food stamps for the neediest Americans. Those receiving Social Security payments were provided with a one-time bonus of $250. Payroll taxes for middle class workers were also decreased ever so slightly.

As for infrastructure improvements, the stimulus package was to provide money for hundreds of “shovel-ready” jobs across the United States. Yet few seem to get a shovel in the ground, as a number of projects are caught up in red tape and/or union scuffles.

If Americans want to know what a real stimulus package looks like, they should open up the history books and read about the Works Progress Administration (WPA) that helped bring the country out of the Great Depression.

The brainchild of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, WPA was a controversial program. Some thought it was like socialism, others felt it put the country in debt and others still thought it would be just as effective to give money to people and expand welfare payments. Sound familiar?

For all the hemming and hawing in that era, history would show that, in the eight years the WPA operated, nearly onefourth of all families in the U.S. were dependent on wages provided through WPA projects.

The WPA built or improved 651,000 miles of roads, 19,700 miles of water mains, 500 water treatment plants, 24,000 miles of sidewalks, 12,800 playgrounds, 24,000 miles of storm and sewer lines, 1,200 airport buildings, 226 hospitals and more than 5,900 schools.

New York City got things like the RFK (Triborough) Bridge and LaGuardia Airport through the WPA. Nearly every American community benefited in some way from WPA projects with a new park, bridge or school.

What do we have to show for $787 billion in spending last year? So far, not much, as there are still tens of millions of Americans out of work or underemployed, and there are scores of needed infrastructure projects yet to be started.

When it comes to increasing employment for the middle class workers of America, it seems that the present administration seems able to talk the talk, but not walk the walk.

Wake up and smell the coffee, Mr. President.

Stimulus funds for Moynihan Station

From the NY Post/AP:

Sen. Charles Schumer says the federal government will award $83.3 million for a project to transform New York City’s main post office building into a rail gateway.

Schumer said Tuesday the funding will come from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

The senator said the project would create thousands of jobs and kick-start development across the west side of Manhattan.

The new station is to be named after the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

It’s intended to increase capacity and restore some grandeur to the city’s main rail center. The Beaux-Arts landmark that was home to the original Penn Station was demolished in 1963. It was replaced by the Madison Square Garden arena.

And now, folks, you know what your federal stimulus money was really designated for - politicians' pet projects. As the Observer points out:

Taken in isolation, this first phase does not seem a project worth the significant money being devoted to it, and now the concern becomes whether the second phase will indeed ever happen.

Stimulus money creates jobs, jobs, jobs!

On Feb. 13, 2009, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 at the urging of President Obama, who signed it into law four days later. A direct response to the economic crisis, the Recovery Act has three immediate goals:

* Create new jobs as well as save existing ones
* Spur economic activity and invest in long-term economic growth
* Foster unprecedented levels of accountability and transparency in government spending

Freaking awesome! Let's see how many jobs have been created in Queens due to federal stimulus money. Here's a sample:














The data on this map reflects reports submitted in January 2010 by recipients of federal contracts, grants, and loans awarded from October 1 to December 31, 2009. Also included is data on completed and incomplete Recovery projects awarded from February 17, 2009 to September 30. The job numbers reported by recipients are for October 1, 2009 to December 31, 2009 only.

Or maybe they're just fantasy jobs. Because I see a lot of zeroes there.

Check it out here: Map Central

MTA still in the red

From the Daily News:

The already recession-battered MTA is looking at a $400 million budget gap this year - even with the sweeping service cuts it plans to make this summer, the agency said Wednesday.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority learned from the state budget office that revenue from a new payroll tax created as part of the agency's bailout has come up short, again, the authority said.

Since the spring, the projected revenue from the new tax has dropped by $700 million -- from $4.17 billion for 2009, 2010 and 2011 to $3.47 billion, officials said.

This shortfall makes it an even tougher battle for advocates who have been urging the MTA to halt this summer's service cuts, as well as plans to start charging students to commute to school.

The latest grim financial news also raises the possibility the authority may seek to raise bus, subway and commuter train fares beyond the planned 7.5% next year.

It would probably help if they didn't hire crappy contractors. They may use stimulus money to bridge the gap. But Bloomturd suggests another fare hike.

Feds blowing $10M in stimulus funds on an office plaza

From the Architect's Newspaper:

The federally owned plaza where Richard Serra’s controversial Tilted Arc sculpture once stood—and now sprawls landscape architect Martha Schwartz’s composition of planted mounds and bright-green curling benches—is getting another makeover this spring. The General Services Administration (GSA) has confirmed that Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates will redesign the public space in front of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building, working under lead architect Wank Adams Slavin Associates (WASA).

The new design for the plaza, at the intersection of Lafayette and Worth streets in Lower Manhattan, will be the site’s fourth iteration in just over 20 years, taking into account temporary landscaping that occupied the space for eight years between the 1989 removal of Serra’s wall of weathered steel and the construction of Schwartz’s design. The GSA said the work is being principally undertaken to repair the waterproofing of a parking garage beneath the plaza, which makes the project eligible for funds from last year’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The two-year, $5 million to $10 million endeavor entails the demolition of the existing plaza, reinforcement and repair of the parking garage roof, and installation of landscaping, lighting, security features, and other elements.

Wrong focus for stimulus money?

From the Wall Street Journal:

The House has passed a $154 billion jobs bill, and the administration has announced a plan to spend $50 billion of repaid TARP money to "create" jobs—this time its green jobs, "shovel ready" infrastructure projects ($27.5 billion for highway construction and repair) and a tax credit for small businesses.

More infrastructure? Recycling Great Depression-era projects is lame. My advice? Put down that shovel! It's time to try something else.

We're in a knowledge economy now; we use high-tech tools to efficiently and effectively design, make, market and sell. Building roads and bridges willy-nilly won't make us more productive; and without increases in productivity and the associated corporate profits, there can be no sustainable job creation, no increase in standards of living, and no real economic recovery.

Given that real tax cuts are off the table and a new stimulus (even if it isn't called that) is inevitable, the best we can hope for is to use the power of the government to clear a path that private enterprise can't, via one-off projects that end and disband. Stop thinking concrete and massive construction projects. Think small—photons, electrons and proteins.

(Click link to read the suggestions.)