June 16th, for many of us, is Bloomsday, the day James Joyce’s novel, Ulysses, is set – from sometime in the dark morning hours until well past midnight and, technically, into the 17th. The term refers more specifically to the day experienced by the novel’s main character, Leopold Bloom, and the day he lives.
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New York certainly looks good. As reported last week, the Mayor’s office glorified an FBI report which placed New York as the safest big city in the United States. Anyone who grew up watching New Jack City or The Warriors or Seven can remember New York to be the dirtiest, cruelest, most dangerous city imaginable. (My father recalls our family trip from the upstate NY sticks to Manhattan, where my siblings and I rolled up all the windows of the car on a hot August day to avoid pedestrians.)
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Construction in New York is ubiquitous, and mysterious. Sure, the Department of Transportation (DOT) issues press releases about upcoming and in progress projects. But try to find out what is going on in any place of interest, and you enter a dead zone.
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The present condition of the city’s real estate market seems schizophrenic. At one end, Brooklyn is suffering through the consequences of the huge pre-recession boom, with abandoned lots all over the borough. The Brooklyn Paper reports that “North Brooklyn has been hardest hit by the downturn,” with over 25% of stalled sites; while the NYTimes reports that Aptsandlofts.com was forced ask “developers to turn their condos into rentals or cut prices” to find residents.
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Mayor Bloomberg’s new Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, Robert Steel, is the current chair of the board at Duke University – which, even though they won me the pool in March, does not strike immediate affection within me.
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For reasons I cannot fully articulate, I thought that, upon my visit last weekend, the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant would be crowded with the curious who, like myself, came to see what they will let you see at the sewage plant.
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Vacancy decontrol has been a hot topic throughout the Bloomberg years in New York, during which almost 1/5 of the city’s lots were rezoned. S2237 (Full Repeal of Vacancy Decontrol) and several other bills seeking to prevent vacancy decontrol, are presently sitting in the NY Senate, awaiting the political support to be voted on; or not.
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There are always flowers in the middle median of McGuinness, which are advice enough to stay put on the sidewalk and wait for the walk sign. The most frequent accidents in my neighborhood almost always involve McGuinness Boulevard, a four-lane road stretching to the Pulaski Bridge into Queens to the north, ending abruptly at the BQE. Drivers on McGuinness seem to lose their minds and any sense of conscientious driving as they hurtle to and from the BQE.
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The Daily News is reporting that state attorney Andrew Cuomo, who recently announced his candidacy for Governor, received more than $300,000 from lobbyists in the previous two years.
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The Mayor’s office announced recently that New York remained “the safest big city in America.” Taking their notes from the FBI’s preliminary 2009 report, Crime in the United States, the Mayor’s office boasted, “The NYPD and their partners in law enforcement continue to prove they can find ways to further drive down crime.” Elsewhere there is talk of “suppress[ing] crime.” Crime, like some sort of yeast or phoenix, rises – and must be pushed down.
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