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Robert Ripps book
History of Tribeca Buildings
Seen & Heard: A mayoral candidate among us
MAYORAL HOPEFUL AMONG US
I didn’t realize mayoral candidate Scott Stringer lives in Fidi at 25 Broad. A story in amNY noted that he cast his vote at Fiterman Hall. He and his wife, Elyse Buxbaum, have two sons, Max and Miles, ages 11 and 13, and have been living in Fidi for almost a decade, according to Curbed. “In 2017, the pair signed a nearly $5,500-a-month lease for a gut-renovated two-bed, two-bath icebox in the Broad Exchange Building…today, they pay $6,400 a month for the unit. In an interview with Metro New York about a so-called ‘residential renaissance’ in Fidi, Stringer attributed his family’s downtown relocation to needing more space for their two kids (sounds familiar) and wanting a shorter commute to the office. ‘We have more time as a family,’ he said, ‘which is truly the best perk.'”
FINN SQUARE BENCH
The Parks Department just added a south-facing bench to the newly renovated Finn Square — great spot to watch the world go by.
HUDSON SIDEWALK REPAIR
Not sure what finally inspired this fix, but the former street tree pit that was regularly run over by trucks in front of Morgan’s on Hudson and Reade finally got filled in.
OUR PLAY PATCHES FOR PIERS 25 AND 26
Gianna Abruzzo, a longtime Battery Park City resident, has created Our Play Patches, a series featuring local parks, and just added the Hudson River Park piers to the collection. Order here.
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And I was the agent who got Scott Stringer the Apartment at 25 Broad! ;-)
Per the NY Times coverage of the first mayoral primary debate: “Asked what they pay each month for rent or a mortgage, […] Mr. Stringer went last and appeared miffed: “I’m getting ripped off: $6,400.”
I asked my broker to help me find a 2-bedroom around that price range (even above – not FIDI) earlier in the year and there was practically nothing on the market!!
25 Broad was a great place for Stringer to live and have an easy commute to the Comptroller’s office in the Dinkins Municipal Building. He still required the taxpayers to pick up the tab for an SUV, chauffeur and security guard to pick him up in the morning, drive him less than a mile to the office and wait all day to bring him less than a mile back home.
I’d also point out that the J/Z subway line stops directly underneath Stringer’s residence at 25 Broad and two stops later stops directly underneath the Comptroller’s office on Chambers. The subway wasn’t good enough for him. Care to guess his position on whether YOU should be penalized for driving into Tribeca instead of taking the subway?
Not to pick on Stringer, but the sense of entitlement among NY politicians is absurd and needs to be called out. They’re supposed to work for the citizens but they make the citizens work for them instead.
Thank you for pointing this out. Already had my qualms about him and prefer Lander anyway.
I’m no Stringer fan (see above) but Lander is demonstrably worse.
Both of them were woefully inadequate Comptrollers in their role as the city’s auditors. It beggars belief the neither of them could find any waste, corruption or fraud in the hundred-billion-dollar annual budgets overseen by deBlasio. And Lander can’t find anything wrong with Adams’ spending either.
However, Lander has politicized the city pension fund investments which will cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. His three year performance through 2024 was only 2.8% per year. The target is 7%. It was a tough 3-year stretch but most comparable pension funds averaged around 5.8%. The pension funds are $275 billion so 3% underperformance costs about $8.25bn. Multiplied by three years and Lander has dug a $25 billion hole in the pensions. (And that’s being generous by comparing him to the 5.8% and not the statutory goal of 7%-7.5%!) There’s a “smoothing” function so the $25bn doesn’t all have to be contributed next year but, simplistically, it will drag $2.5 billion per year on the city budget for the next 10 years.
I didn’t make up the 2.8% number. It is in the first table in this report from Lander’s office:
https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/new-york-city-pension-funds-returns/
For perspective, there are 77K teachers in the NYC public schools. The Lander investment incompetence could have given every single one of them a $30K raise every year for the next ten years (with almost $200mm extra spending money left over…annually).
Lander has done a really, really bad job as Comptroller and certainly does not deserve a promotion! The best thing about him running for mayor is it gets him out of the Comptroller’s seat which will stop the immense damage he’s doing to the city’s balance sheet.
I don’t know how you come by your extensive knowledge of the comptroller’s office and record, but I assume you’ve got your eye on the current candidates, and I wonder if you’ve determined that one might excel.
Tom, now I remember the beginning of that three year period — how could I forget? Covid. S&P down around 15% that first year, 6/30/21 to 6/30/22. That 3-year average of 2.8% looks darn good.
Jeff, you are correct that the S&P performed poorly in the first year of the three-year measurement period. However, the S&P performed well the next two years and averaged 7.68% for the three years ended June 2024 (latest fiscal year reported by NYC pensions) which is much better than 2.8%.
But pension funds don’t just buy US public equities so it’s not fair to compare Lander to the 7.68%. Funds invest in bonds, international stocks, private equity, real estate, hedge funds, etc. Depending on the year, these can outperform or underperform the S&P. Over the same period that Lander oversaw the 2.8% annualized returns, comparable endowments/pensions also underperformed the S&P500 and averaged 5.8% annual returns. I did my math comparing Lander to that lower number and he still murdered the city’s balance sheet. There’s virtually no yardstick for measuring his investment performance that makes him look remotely competent.