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In the News: Mamdani will be sworn in underground
SWEARING IN WILL BE UNDERGROUND
Streetsblog reports that Zohran Mamdani will be sworn in tonight at midnight inside the old abandoned City Hall subway station. (I will have a post on it tomorrow! It’s an amazing tour, only accessible through the New York Transit Museum.) From Streetsblog: “Mamdani said he views the station as a symbol for the aims of his upcoming administration, including the transformative politics that built the subway in the first place. ‘When Old City Hall Station first opened in 1904 — one of New York’s 28 original subway stations — it was a physical monument to a city that dared to be both beautiful and build great things that would transform working peoples’ lives,’ Mamdani told Streetsblog in a statement.”
BAD YEAR FOR COUNTERFEIT VENDORS?
Gothamist did a story on the Canal Street counterfeit vendors (they interviewed me — which was weird!) and reported that business is down for vendors — a surprise for me since I thought it looked packed over there. The reported interviewed four vendors, including Jikhaje Oma, who was selling knockoff Fendi bags, who all said business was worse than last year’s holiday. The story added that year-round tourism this year is “effectively flat over 2024, according to New York City tourism officials, with a modest projected uptick in holiday season visitors.”
NATIONWIDE BOOM IN COMMERCIAL CONVERSIONS
The Wall Street Journal has a story on the nationwide boom in commercial to reisdential convesrions, noting that NYC is of course the epicenter. From The Journal: “Over the past two decades, developers in New York have converted nearly 30 million square feet of office space into residential living, with the pace of transformation picking up in recent years. Most office buildings were considered too wide and mechanically complex to repurpose into apartments with kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms. But New York developers are solving those problems with new architectural hacks—cut-through notches, carved light wells, and strategic wall-offs of interior cores that create space for new residential floors.”
‘THE HUNT’ IN BATTERY PARK CITY
The New York Times did one of their “Hunt” features with a couple who wanted a one-bedroom under $600K in Battery Park City. They landed at Liberty View, at 99 Battery Place near the bottom of South End Avenue, paying $555,000. “I never thought we would have central air in New York or a balcony,” Eileen O’Connor told the paper. “These are things we didn’t expect but are thrilled to have.”
interesting that we now get tourist traffic stats and trends from illegal counterfeiters that sell illegal goods and drugs. oh yeah business is down year over year :) what else are they going to say, business is booming and we are not paying even more taxes? We have become so naive its borderline moronic
Well said.
Perhaps you should spend less time snarkily commenting on this website and more time focusing on reading comprehension. The stats about tourist traffic come from an official source, not the vendor. That’s very clearly outlined in the writeup here and on the actual article.
I doubt the vendors pay any taxes.
If business is down for some vendors, that’s because there are probably 2x (or more vendors) this year.
So what is our new mayor planning to do about this lawlessness?
Yes, this horrible lawlessness needs to be stopped!
And this new Mayor must fix what has been happening for decades upon decades on Canal Street. Because those corporations deserve to sell $350 bags for markups of 15–20x without competition from $40 knockoffs. It’s those nasty sidewalk vendors …clearly the greatest threat to public safety, fiscal responsibility, and civic order … who should be Priority #1. Not affordability, housing, not transit, not healthcare, not corruption, not actual violent crime. No, no. A man selling a fake Fendi out of a folding table (and possibly not paying all his taxes, as if he’s the only person doing that) is the real menace undermining our great city.
Surely once Canal Street is “cleaned up,” all our problems will magically resolve themselves. New York will finally be safe from this lawlessness 🙄
The social media king! Illegal vendors selling counterfeit goods?
Apparently in some millenial circles it’s called ‘informal commerce’. And the brands are the evil doers. Fare jumping? Subway should be free in the first place.
Do you think these are important enough to get Mamdani’s attention?
Of course, nothing is free. “Free” subway = higher taxes.
And if the brands are evil, then we should not buy their products, and we should not buy fake versions of their products either. Why even pretend to support the brands if they are evil?
The counterfeit goods vendors have all of the advantages over legitimate businesses. They (illegally) operate tax-free in an all-cash economy. They occupy public spaces and pay no rent or fees.
Somehow, many naive New Yorkers support the tax-free vendors of illegitimate goods and ignore the plight of the honest businesses that are struggling to survive on Canal Street.
Not sure Eileen O’Connor ended up at Liberty View – balcony photo doesn’t look quite right and no central air. Close though!