I’d say 1925-1935. Not just in Manhattan, but in all the boroughs. A lot of the building stock hails from that time.
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Will the old Metlife Building rebuilt?
https://slgreen.gcs-web.com/static-files/72533973-2d09-479a-94dc-be2a2023daf7
On Page 5
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Um the iron throne made of buildings on the first slide is pretty dope.
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tonight should be telling. I believe New Yorkers are by and large peacefully protesting. It’s the outside provocateurs we need to be worried about right now who started to rioting and looting in the first place.
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oh boy. This could prove to be trouble. We’ll have to see what it affects. If salaries are targeted, things might get ugly. I’m not surprised DeBlasio would fall hook line and sinker for the “defund police” rhetoric.
NYC to cut funds from NYPD budget and give to social programs
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I don’t know much about this topic, but this article explains “defund police” and it makes a lot of good arguments.
“ To fix policing, we must first recognize how much we have come to over-rely on law enforcement. We turn to the police in situations where years of experience and common sense tell us that their involvement is unnecessary, and can make things worse. We ask police to take accident reports, respond to people who have overdosed and arrest, rather than cite, people who might have intentionally or not passed a counterfeit $20 bill. We call police to [roust homeless people from corners and doorsteps, resolve verbal squabbles between family members and strangers alike, and arrest children for behavior that once would have been handled as a school disciplinary issue.
Police themselves often complain about having to “do too much,”including handling social problems for which they are ill-equipped. Some have been vocal about the need to decriminalize social problems and take police out of the equation. It is clear that we must reimagine the role they play in public safety.”
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I don’t think they’re actually moving that much money— it’s mainly lip service. Their budget has increased a lot in the past decade or so so there is room to skim off some cash without causing trouble.
In general, it makes sense that people want police reform but I hope everyone understands why New York City should probably not be the place to be trying out experiments — too much is at stake. Let other cities do this and if it’s okay, then bring it here…
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America’s Economy Can’t Thrive Without New York City
The country’s Covid-19 epicenter starts to reopen today, a much-needed step for the U.S. comeback to begin in earnest.
On its own, the New York City economy would be the 10th largest in the world, bigger than the likes of Canada, Russia, South Korea, Australia and Spain. The metro area has a population of more than 20 million people, bigger than any other region in the U.S., but much smaller than any of those aforementioned countries.
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If there wasn’t such an exploitable political divide between cities and suburbs/rural areas the federal government would be doing a lot more to enhance the infrastructure and economic capacity of NYC for the good of the country. Funding the Gateway Program for example.
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New York simply doesn’t need the police force it has, let alone the terrible culture of the nypd etc etc. It’s a waste of money. If you want to reduce crime, create livelihoods not prisons. If you brought the police budget just back to where it was in the Giuliani years, you get 2.6b! Meanwhile, we will see a huge decrease in affordable development because of covid budget cuts.
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Here’s a fun fact at the intersection of hot news topics: the NIAID - the division of the NIH that funds infectious disease research for the entire US - has a budget of 5.9 billion.
The NYPD, which is the police force for 2.6% of the US population, has a budget of 6 billion.
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I think this is a good discussion to have, and it can bring about positive change, but the timing of it is just not ideal. We’re heading into the Summer, there’s a lot of anger and grief, we’re in recession with ugly unemployment figures, we have no sports to keep us occupied (professional and playground), heck even most of the public restrooms are closed. Its an ugly cocktail for civil unrest and crime. It’s not a time to discourage police forces from doing a good job. Whether or not it’s justified, all this talk of defunding and even abolishing police is another nasty ingredient in an already toxic brew at the current point we find ourselves.
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The NYPD is definitely overfunded but that’s an apples to oranges comparison for sure. Police forces operate through huge numbers of officers, and in a place like New York City where there is a high cost of living, even in the suburbs, salaries must be high to be competitive. Just paying salaries without any equipment or facilities will be billions of dollars. NIAID, as a research institution, has a small number of specialized staff numbering only a few thousand.
People complain about the NYPD budget doubling in the past decades, but most of that is to barely compensate for the cost of living increases here. Only a few hundred million could realistically be cut off the budget without dropping staff
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The NIAID pays grants to researchers across the country and many of those thousands of researchers get paid pennies compared to NYPD, especially for the value they add to society as this pandemic has brought to light. Many researchers also live in high cost areas where large research institutions are. There should be way more then a few thousand people researching these things! The amount of lives lost or severely affected by infectious diseases is already gigantic, and is one of the leading and realistic doomsday scenarios for the future of our species. IMO less militarized cops and military, more people working in education, science, and other domains is where our priorities should be.
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