Vornado Realty Trust, one of the companies intent on destroying our skyline and neighborhoods with grandiose development and corprification, is cutting back on its plans to block out the sky on 125th Street. Apparently, it's having trouble renting out space for its planned 21-story monstrosity that will also house the Major League Baseball cable channel. Now it will only be a 14-story blight.
As City Assemblyman Keith Wright said, "What the political forces couldn't do, economic reality has forced upon them." Most residents of Harlem were against this building. Of course, that didn't stop Mayor Moses, I mean Bloomberg, from steamrolling through that and offering tax breaks and incentives to Vornado and MLB to build this over-the-top hi-rise.
But apparently they are having trouble renting space. Not surprisingly, one of the early tenants of the building is supposed to be Inner City Broadcasting, the small radio operator founded by Percy Sutton, one of the out for himself while he acts like he's out for you political bosses of Harlem. Don't know how many rent controlled apartments he has, but for now at least they haven't signed a lease.
I'm not against all development. Neighborhoods change. But does every new development have to be some John Holmes motherfucker letting everyone know how big his dick is?
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Back from Philly, where they recently completed the Comcast Tower, the tallest in the city. Everyone was afraid that the building would empty out older buildings around it in Center City, as they call it, but Comcast rented enough so it didn't happen.
Philly does not have the luxury New York does in telling people where to develop. The new building is right over the busiest train station; Suburban Station. That's what the market wants.
Those stories on Harlem make me wonder when the bubble will burst, because Harlem is still not the most desirable business address in the city, so I secretly cheer from the cheap seats. And the stories on shady rent control deals only make me shake my head at what a farce the whole quasi-socialist system, right in the heartland of capitalism, is. The Massachusetts Legislature got around rent control in the overwhelmingly liberal and renter areas of Boston, Brookline, and Cambridge. And guess what? You now actually sees "Apt. for Rent" signs and phone numbers there, even in "The People's Republic of Cambridge." And yes, people have been pushed out, but they've founded new hip areas in Davis Square in Somerville, the South End, and Jamaica Plain. What they all share? Though further from the core, they each have excellent, cheap, and reliable transportation to downtown. Hmm. Think the South Bronx fits the bill? (Naah, too many well-intended public housing towers).
And another thing! The normal rental vacancy rate in US cities is 8-10 percent. Guess what it is in Manhattan? Just above 1 percent, which means, statistically, zero percent.
That would be OK if it were only Manhattan, but the outer boroughs are barely above that, mostly because almost all cheap housing is rent controlled in some way.
People will be pushed out! There's no way around it in terms of rent control. The answer lies in cheap but good public transportation to Midtown from newly attractive areas, in NY, NJ, and Conn.
Hispanics have basically done this already. They have colonized the formerly sleepy areas along the NJ side of the Hudson (Fort Lee,W. New York, Cliffside, others I can't think of now. Paterson too) Reason? Cheap rent and constant service into the Port Authority bus terminal.
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