“If the new $200 million deal goes forward, it would be the first time the state has ever taken money from the B.P.C. Authority for revenue. The authority’s money has historically gone to the city, where it has sometimes been used for affordable housing.”
Ah, haha, ‘sometimes’. The Downtown Express is giving the Mayor for Life (and his predecessors, Mayor of Brooklyn and Herr Mayor) the benefit of a doubt that once in a blue moon the BPC throws off more than cash for a couple more scrabbled over parks for high income tykes or unnecessary security. ‘Housing’ — tee hee — it’s almost like the city handed over some of the most lucrative real estate downtown and expected something in return.
But, also, wow! Paterson is doing his best to garner support from his natural downstate constituency, ain’t he? They spent two months not being able to pass a budget (or, you know, even gaveling in), the pension issue can’t even be made comestible by a long-winded blogger, and his answer to a robust re-election campaign is taking money from the one place in the city that ostensibly (again, see above) seeks to alleviate a housing crisis entering it’s seventh decade.
This is going to look really good in a couple weeks when Stuy Town goes pear shaped. Well, okay, it already is. To switch from vegetable to meat metaphors, belly up. I mean, really, we’re talking about a $5 billion dollar fuck-up, one where you can’t really take the ‘stick it to the vampire squid’ approach because who is on the other side of a lot of those really really bad securitization bets? Yeah, more pension funds. One of which is Florida, whom New Yorker’s, dutifully pulling the lever for the worst fiction writer since, oh, some really bad writing (Tom DeLay wrote a book, right?), still like to point fingers for the eventual successes of Dubya in 2000, have very little love for. To their credit, the pension fund managers wisely have valued their investment at $0, so no one is going to score points with the ‘stick it to the rednecks’ line. They’ve already been stuck.
Meanwhile, we get stories about abandoned PE apartment complexes in the Bronx where banks don’t want to do work-outs on the mortgage because they are carrying bad paper, a situation so absurd the mother of all useless theatre, the U.N. felt they could step in and look reasonable. And even though all the inclusionary housing that was supposed to spring up in Williamsburg hasn’t really materialized, there is something like 6,000 unsold condos (and some claim that is conservative). Given the metrics at work when the purchases were made (if you have any question of they were skewed, look at what’s up with some prime Kent Avenue property), it could easily be years before these deals make sense. By then of course, sense will be something entirely different, so there’s no real chance we will see something interesting come of all this. Just deferring the arriviste hordes to parts of Brooklyn it’s not worth really visiting.
So you go, Hizzoner. Take $200 really large to help out the most ineffectual state government in the country (okay, that’s mean — there is always California). It’s not like we really figured out any decent mechanism for doing any better ourselves, save those committed souls who think (only) of the children.
Congrats to Jennifer Siebel Newsom on the selection of her film Miss Representation for Sundance 2011. If you are looking for more information, please visit her site. (NB: I am not affiliated in any way with the film). Below is a text from a recent announcement.
We are thrilled to share the news that Miss Representation has been selected to premiere in the documentary film competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival! Read the official press release from Sundance. Miss Representation will premiere throughout the 10 day festival from January 20-30th. We invite you to come support us! And since we have our sights set on winning the audience award, please come to one of the screenings during the week (final schedule to be announced on the Miss Representation and Sundance Web sites soon).