New York City – Page 9 – artdiamondblog.com

The Wall of Wall Street Failed to Repel the Invaders

“New York City’s history begins in the small space below Wall Street.” Source of caption and map: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. 34) Bowling Green was then part of “a parade ground where soldiers practiced maneuvers,” he continued. “That very quickly turned into a market space where farmers in outlying districts brought their produce to sell. It became a famous place for prostitutes to haunt in the evening. And in the early 18th century it was where people played lawn bowling.”

From the start, Mr. Caldwell said, it was a party town, known for its many taverns, “the all-purpose repositories of night life. There were theatrical performances, dancing, gambling and concerts.”
In 1979 and 1980 archaeologists dug for the remains of two famous taverns that had stood on Pearl Street near Coenties Slip. Transparent panels in the plaza along Pearl Street display part of the stone foundation they found of the King’s House tavern (also known as Lovelace Tavern), built in 1670. Light-colored paving stones nearby outline the modest footprint of the City Tavern (Stadt Herbergh), built in 1641. In 1653 it also became the first City Hall, the Stadt Huys. And it contained a jail.
“So you could, in one day, go from sitting on a court case to a drunken debauch to jail, without ever leaving this little place where we’re standing,” Mr. Caldwell noted.
A few blocks north, at what was then the edge of the city, the Dutch built a defensive wall across the island in 1653. Like Fort Amsterdam, it proved of no use when the British seized New Amsterdam in 1664 and renamed it New York.
“It was essentially an earthwork with a wooden palisade on top,” explained Steve Laise, the National Parks Service’s chief of cultural resources for Federal Hall National Memorial, a Greek Revival landmark on Wall Street. Today’s Wall Street follows the dirt lane that was just inside this defense. “When you walk on Wall Street, you’re literally walking in the footsteps of the burghers of New Amsterdam,” Mr. Laise said.

For the full story, see:

JOHN STRAUSBAUGH. “Weekend Explorer; Home on the Corner of Boom and Bust.” The New York Times (Fri., January 2, 2009): C29 & C34.
(Note: the online version of the article is dated Thurs., Jan. 1st.)

Dutch Were Too Busy Trading to Build a Church

“Print of New Amsterdam by Joost Hartgers, 1626.” Source of caption and image: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A15) The financial collapse of 2008 and the Great Recession have had, not surprisingly, a major adverse impact on the economy of the country’s financial center, New York City. There have been over 40,000 job losses in the financial community alone and both city and state budgets are deeply dependent on tax revenues from this one industry. There has been much talk that New York might take years to recover–if, indeed, it ever can.

But if one looks at the history of New York there is reason for much optimism. The city’s whole raison d’être since its earliest days explains why.
The Puritans in New England, the Quakers in Pennsylvania, and the Catholics in Maryland first and foremost came to what would be the United States to find the freedom to worship God as they saw fit. The Dutch–who invented many aspects of modern capitalism and became immensely rich in the process–came to Manhattan to make money. And they didn’t much care who else came to do the same. Indeed, they were so busy trading beaver pelts they didn’t even get around to building a church for 17 years.
Twenty years after the Dutch arrived, the settlement at the end of Manhattan had only about a thousand inhabitants. But it was already so cosmopolitan that a French priest heard no fewer than 18 languages being spoken on its streets.
. . .
Deep within the heart of this vast metropolis–like the child within the adult–there is still to be found that little hustly-bustly, live-and-let-live, let’s-make-a-deal Dutch village. And the creation of wealth is still the city’s dearest love.

For the full commentary, see:
JOHN STEELE GORDON. “Opinion; Don’t Bet Against New York; The financial crisis has been devastating, but the city has reinvented itself many times before..” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Sept. 19, 2009): A15.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

Greenmarket Rules Are “Cumbersome, Confusing and Contradictory”

“Dante Hesse, . . . , of Milk Thistle Farm, thinks Greenmarket rules are too hard on dairies.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below. (Note: ellipsis in caption added.)

(p. D4) The basic aim of the producer-only rules is to ensure that all foods sold at market originate entirely or mostly on family farms within a half day’s drive from New York City. The 10-page document detailing these rules, however, is anything but clear.

“Cumbersome, confusing and contradictory,” was the assessment of Michael Hurwitz, the director of Greenmarket, which operates 45 markets in the five boroughs.
Pickle makers can sell preserved foods such as peppers in vinegar, but not processed foods such as hot sauce. Farmers, on the other hand, can sell processed hot sauce if it is made with their peppers. Dairies may purchase a higher percentage of their milk for cheese if the cheese is made from one type of milk rather than two milks, such as cow and sheep. Cider makers can buy 40 percent of the apples they press from local farmers, whereas wheatgrass juice sellers must grow all their wheatgrass.

For the full story, see:
INDRANI SEN. “Greenmarket Sellers Debate Maze of Producer-Only Rules.” The New York Times (Weds., August 6, 2008): D4.

Women Earn More than Men, in New York City

Source of the graph: online version of the NYT article cited below.

(p. A1) Young women in New York and several of the nation’s other largest cities who work full time have forged ahead of men in wages, according to an analysis of recent census data.

The shift has occurred in New York since 2000 and even earlier in Los Angeles, Dallas and a few other cities.

Economists consider it striking because the wage gap between men and women nationally has narrowed more slowly and has even widened in recent years among one part of that group: college-educated women in their 20s. But in New York, young college-educated women’s wages as a percentage of men’s rose slightly between 2000 and 2005.

The analysis was prepared by Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College, who first reported his findings in Gotham Gazette, published online by the Citizens Union Foundation. It shows that women of all educational levels from 21 to 30 living in New York City and working full time made 117 percent of men’s wages, and even more in Dallas, 120 percent. Nationwide, that group of women made much less: 89 percent of the average full-time pay for men.

Just why young women at all educational levels in New York and other big cities have fared better than their peers elsewhere is a matter of some debate. But a major reason, experts say, is that women have been graduating from college in larger numbers than men, and that many of those women seem to be gravitating toward major urban areas.

For the full story, see:

SAM ROBERTS. "For Young Earners in Big City, a Gap in Women’s Favor." The New York Times (Fri., August 3, 2007): A1 & A16.

Source of the graph: online version of the NYT article cited above.

New York Rent Control Limits Incentives to Build Apartments

“Tryn Collins, left, and Mary Hill share small quarters at a loft building in Brooklyn that was transformed from a factory.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

New York City has had rent control in effect for decades. Economists predict that one effect of rent control is that incentives are reduced to build and maintain apartments. As a result, those seeking living space, have fewer options. (For example, the WSJ a few years ago ran a front page article explaining how some enterprising New Yorkers were living in abandoned elevator shafts.)
The article quoted below, provides additional evidence.

(p. A1) One “room” is a cramped cubby that measures, in all, perhaps 25 square feet, just enough for a full-size mattress and whatever can be stashed beneath. The first-floor rooms, in the basement, are musty and windowless, like caves. The second-floor rooms have plywood walls but no doors, only cut-out windows that overlook a kitchen cluttered with day-old dishes, a chore wheel and the odd paintbrush.
One of the residents likens her home to a “giant treehouse.” Another says it is like “living in a public bathroom.”
“Where the stalls are just superficial sight lines that block the other person, but you can hear everything they do,” said Robyn Frank, a 23-year-old artist. She had just moved in to the McKibbin lofts in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and sometimes they literally become bathrooms. They are known for their giant, raucous parties; revelers occasionally urinate in the halls.
This is life in what some refer to as the McKibbin “dorms,” a landing pad for hundreds of postcollegiate creative types yearning to make it as artists, and live like them too, in today’s New York.
Newcomers marvel that such a place exists: two sprawling, almost identical five-story former factories filled with mostly white hip young things, smack in the middle of a neighborhood that has little in common with Williamsburg proper, its cocktail-mixing neighbor to the west.
Perhaps 300 people live in each building, which face each other and sit, respectively, at 248 and 255 McKibbin Street. Between one and eight people live in each loft. Few were born before the mid-1980s. Rents can range from $375 for one person to roughly $800 for a space.

For the full story, see:
CARA BUCKLEY. “Young Artists Find a Private Space, Only Without the Privacy.” The New York Times (Weds., May 7, 2008): A1 & A17.

Free Market Can Provide Better, Cheaper Health Care

"Eve Linney, 5, who had an infected finger, went with her family last week to a walk-in clinic at a Duane Reade drugstore on Broadway in Manhattan. Her father, John, is at the counter." Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

Clayton Christensen and co-authors in Seeing What’s Next, make a plausible case for the improvement of health care through disruptive innovation. A key aspect of their vision is the increasing role of nurse-practitioners in taking on increasingly routinized tasks, a development they see as generally both effective, and cost-efficient.

The article excerpted below suggests that this trend is promising, if it does not get killed by the government, and by organized medical doctors protecting their turf from competition.

(p. A1) The concept has been called urgent care “lite”: Patients who are tired of waiting days to see a doctor for bronchitis, pinkeye or a sprained ankle can instead walk into a nearby drugstore and, at lower cost, with brief waits, see a doctor or a nurse and then fill a prescription on the spot.

With demand for primary care doctors surpassing the supply in many parts of the country, the number of these retail clinics in drugstores has exploded over the past two years, and several companies operating them are now aggressively seeking to open clinics in New York City.

. . .

More than 700 clinics are operating across the country at chain stores including Wal-Mart, CVS, Walgreens and Duane Reade.

New York State regulators are investigating the business relationships between drugstore companies and medical providers to determine whether the clinics are being used improperly to increase business or steer patients to the pharmacies in which the clinics are located.

And doctors’ groups, whose members stand to lose business from the clinics, are citing concerns about standards of care, safety and hygiene, and they have urged the federal and state governments to step in to more rigorously regulate the new businesses.

. . .

(p. A16) Patients, however, have flocked to the clinics, according to a new industry group, the Convenient Care Association.

“I think it’s great you don’t have to make an appointment. That could take weeks,” said Ezequiel Strachan, 33, who lives in Manhattan and walked into the clinic at the Duane Reade store at 50th Street and Broadway on a recent morning for treatment of a sore throat. “People here value their time a lot.”

The average waiting time for an exam at such clinics nationwide is 15 to 25 minutes, according to the Convenient Care Association.

The association estimated that 70 percent of clinic patients have health insurance and are using the clinics because of convenience. For them, costs may not be much different from those at doctors’ offices, because the same insurance co-payments apply. But uninsured patients could reap substantial savings.

In New York City, one in five residents lacks a regular doctor and one in six is uninsured, according to a recent survey by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and overcrowded emergency rooms are often their first resort for routine care.

. . .

MinuteClinic officials insisted that there was nothing improper in the relationships between providers and the drugstores and that medical care is not being compromised.

“We are transparent with regulators,” said Michael C. Howe, the chief executive of MinuteClinic, which is based in Minneapolis and operates more than 200 clinics nationwide. using the motto “You’re Sick, We’re Quick.”

Mr. Howe said the concerns of doctors’ groups and other critics “are being raised by voices of people who have not really studied the model.”

Preliminary data from a two-year study of claims from MinuteClinic by a Minnesota health maintenance organization, HealthPartners, which was released to The Minneapolis Star Tribune in July, showed that each visit to the retail clinic cost an average of $18 less than a visit to other primary-care clinics, but that pharmacy costs were $4 higher per patient.

Duane Reade, New York City’s largest drugstore chain, which opened four clinics in Manhattan in May, plans to open as many as 60 more across the city in the next 18 months. A key difference at the Duane Reade clinics is that they use doctors, while nurse practitioners and physician assistants typically provide the care at most retail clinics.

For the full story, see:

SARAH KERSHAW. "Tired of Waiting for a Doctor? Try the Drugstore." The New York Times (Thurs., . August 23, 2007): A1 & A16.

(Note: the title of the online version is "Drugstore Clinics Spread, and Scrutiny Grows." Ellipses added.)

"Dr. Maggie Bertisch saw Eve while her mother, Claire, waited." Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

Newfoundland Benefits from Global Warming

"An iceberg as seen off the coast of Twillingate in Newfoundland." Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. B1) Up and down the rock-ribbed coast of Newfoundland in centuries-old fishing villages like this one, Americans and Europeans are taking advantage of a warming climate and a struggling regional economy to buy seaside summer homes for the price of a used SUV.

. . .

In Twillingate, at least 17 inns and bed-and-breakfasts regularly book Americans and Europeans, up from just two a decade ago. The tourists come to watch the shimmering procession of icebergs the size of city blocks that calve off the coast of Greenland and ride the Labrador Current past town between May and July. After the icebergs are gone, the waters fill with humpback, right and fin whales that spend summer feeding offshore.

. . .

Climate change is attracting some of the tourism. The average temperature during the summers in Newfoundland and Labrador has increased by nearly four degrees Fahrenheit over the past 20 years, says David Phillips, the Canadian government’s senior climatologist. From 2001 through 2005, there were an average of 123 days when the weather was 77 degrees or warmer. In 1991-1995, it averaged just 63 days. Over the last 50 years the growing season — the gap between winter’s last frost and autumn’s first — has widened by three weeks.

. . .

Some Americans have begun to try to flip properties. New York artist Brian Byrne (sic) and his business partner bought a waterfront, six-bedroom home two years ago for $72,000. Now they’re asking $170,000. "There’s a lot of potential up there for tourism," Mr. Byrne (sic) says.

For the full story, see:

Douglas Belkin. "Property Report; More Americans Warm Up To Homes in Newfoundland." The Wall Street Journal (Weds., August 8, 2007): B1.

(Note: ellipses added.)

Brian Bryne (sic), a New York City artist, along with a partner, bought this Newfoundland house as a speculative investment. Source of photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited above.

“People Giddy on Hope and Thrilled to Be Changing”

"Emily Prager at her lane house in Shanghai." Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

The centers of dynamism are not set in stone. I once asked the philosopher Alan Donagan why the Scottish enlightenment had occurred where (Edinburgh) and when (in the mid-late 18th century) it did. With his usual good humor he told me that I was asking a bad question–that my question assumed that enlightenments were determined. He instead believed that they were chance occurrences resulting from the free-will choices of individuals.

I think that there was something to what he said. But I also believe that some institutions, and some policies of government, can greatly increase the probability that fruitful dynamism will occur. For instance, free markets tend to tolerate diversity and experimentation, and to reward initiative.

In the past, locations of economic dynamism, also were often locations of intellectual dynamism. I wonder if the connection is still true today, and if not, why not?

Among past centers of dynamism were Miletus, Athens, Florence, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, and New York City. Today, centers of economic dynamism include Las Vegas, Dubai and Shanghai. The article quoted below paints a generally appealing picture of Shanghai.

(p. D1) I decided to move myself and my 12-year-old daughter, Lulu — whom I had adopted as a baby in China — from the old capital of the world to the new: to make a home in Shanghai, a city of the future.

I knew something about Shanghai, having been here on trips several times in the last few years. The city was always so excited it could hardly contain itself. It is a microcosm of the Asian boom, stuffed with people giddy on hope and thrilled to be changing. It recalls the greatness of New York in the early ’70s, except for one thing: Like the rest of China, Shanghai was largely closed to the outside world, and real economic growth, for nearly 50 years after World War II. It is a place where every car on the road is brand new and every pet recently acquired, but the person you just met might trace his family back 70 generations. The modernity and polish that Manhattan learned between 1945 and 1995, Shanghai is cramming for as fast as it can, and it’s fascinating to watch.

. . .

(p. D6) Pets are new to Chinese people and they don’t know very much about them. Dogs are not neutered and they are walked without leashes. Many people are terrified of dogs, particularly given the country’s serious rabies problem.

Twice when I was walking Skippy, young women caught sight of him and screamed in terror at the top of their lungs. Because having a pet is so new, there is a video showing how to pick up after a dog and wash his paws after his walk, which appears many times a day on a huge video screen on Huaihai, the city’s other main shopping street.

For the full story, see:

EMILY PRAGER. "At Home Abroad; Settling Down in a City in Motion." The New York Times (Thurs., July 19, 2007): D1 & D6.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

"On the streets of Shanghai, the author’s injured foot attracts less attention than her pet dog, still a rare sight in the city." Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

The Internet Adds Value for Restaurant Consumers and Efficiency for Restaurant Owners

Source of graph: online version of the NYT article cited below.

(p. C1) SAN FRANCISCO, June 17 — Town Hall, one of the busiest restaurants in this food-crazed city, seems the very model of old-fashioned dining. Patrons who arrive to claim their reserved seats are greeted by a hostess who consults a piece of paper with the day’s reservations and leads her guests to the appointed table.

But upstairs, in the restaurant’s office, a different scene is playing out. In a veritable mission-control setting, a reservationist answers eight phone lines while seated in front of two computers that log reservations and hold an archive of past and future electronic bookings.

The software also reveals the idiosyncrasies of thousands of guests. The restaurant staff knows in advance, for instance, that a regular always insists on a table under a particular piece of artwork. They know about another person’s request for kosher food — but only when dining in certain company. And there is the guest so reliably late that staff members know to add 45 minutes to the reservation time.

After decades of relying on telephones to book tables, and piles of index cards — or a maitre d’hotel’s memory — to collect information about diners and their quirks, the restaurant business has finally gone unabashedly high-tech.

Technology may not make it any easier for diners to get a reservation at the most sought-after spots, like the French Laundry in Yountville, Calif., or Babbo in New York City. But the perseverance of a San Francisco-based company called OpenTable, which has come to dominate the business of online restaurant reservations, is making it much easier for restaurants to manage reservations and improve customer service.

. . .

(p. C5) Making a reservation through OpenTable costs the diner nothing. And it reduces the inconvenience. Say you want a table on short notice at a busy Manhattan restaurant — Danny Meyer’s Union Square Cafe. Placing a phone call there usually requires calling during business hours, enduring loud jazz for hold music, and talking with a reservationist for a while before finding an acceptable time. OpenTable might give you the same results, but it will do the work in 10 seconds.

. . .

Many of the restaurants discovered that they had to surrender to the automation because their popularity suffered if they did not.

“It was a long, long time before that was proven,” said Bill Gurley, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist whose company, Benchmark, has invested $21.6 million in OpenTable over the years.

It took three years for OpenTable to seat its one-millionth diner. But now, the company seats two million diners every month. And Zagat, the restaurant rating service, has adopted OpenTable for reservations made through its site, zagat.com

For the full story, see:

KATIE HAFNER. "Restaurant Reservations Go Online." The New York Times (Mon., June 18, 2007): C1 & C5.

(Note: ellipses added.)

"Doug Washington, left, and Mitchell Rosenthal are partners in Salt House in San Francisco, one of 7,000 restaurants using OpenTable." Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article cited above.

Congestion Pricing in NYC Will Reduce Traffic and Pollution

Traffic congestion on Ninth Avenue in New York City. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article cited below.

(p. A1) ALBANY, June 7 — Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to reduce traffic by charging people who drive into the busiest parts of Manhattan received significant support on Thursday as Gov. Eliot Spitzer endorsed the idea and the Bush administration indicated that New York stood to gain hundreds of millions of dollars if the plan were enacted.

If the measure is approved by the Legislature, New York will become the first city in the United States to impose a broad system of congestion pricing, which was introduced in London in 2003 and has been credited with reducing traffic there.

Governor Spitzer said he would work to ensure passage of the plan, which is a major part of the mayor’s blueprint for improving air quality and traffic flow for the next several decades. The Bloomberg administration has estimated that it could put the program into effect within 18 months of legislative approval.

For the full story, see:

DANNY HAKIM and RAY RIVERA. "New York Bid on Traffic Pricing Draws State and U.S. Support." The New York Times (Fri., June 8, 2007): A1 & A29.

(Note: the online version of the article has the title "City Traffic Pricing Wins U.S. and Spitzer’s Favor.")

Why New York City Needs Wal-Mart

(p. 7) . . . an enduring mystery of the retail economic world: why don’t people in New York City want a Wal-Mart in Midtown?

Manhattan is the most underserved market I have ever seen for retail customers. There really is nowhere for bargains on ordinary household goods and groceries in the whole borough. Yes, I know unions hate Wal-Mart. But not every New Yorker is in a union, and every New Yorker needs food and paper towels. (I, by the way, am a member of three unions: the Screen Actors Guild, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and the Writers Guild of America, West. How many unions is Mayor Michael Bloomberg in?)

Don’t the consumers deserve a break, too? I know Wal-Mart is not hip, slick and cool. It’s for people who have to live within a budget, not for people who see movies with subtitles and have houses on Martha’s Vineyard (or would like to). But don’t working-class people deserve bargains on their daily bread?

To keep Wal-Mart out of New York — or my home, Los Angeles — is simply to inflict a snobby class prejudice on working people. Why they and their representatives put up with this classist, ”let them eat Whole Foods” nonsense is yet another mystery, and one that could be solved if politicians really cared about consumers.

For the full commentary, see:

BEN STEIN. "EVERYBODY’S BUSINESS; Assorted Mysteries of Economic Life." The New York Times, Section 3 (Sun., May 13, 2007): 7.

(Note: ellipsis added.)