Thursday, September 29, 2005
Harvest in the Square, New York's version of the Country Fair
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
On this, sweetest of days in the balmiest of Septembers in many years, some 1200 New Yorkers gathered in the white tent that sprang up overnight in the Union Square's Greenmarket plaza, to celebrate the 10th Annual Harvest in the Square, our cityites’ version of the County Fair. In an urban style, it is our expression of thanks for the bounties of the season, not forgetting its perils - remembering that Hurricanes Floyd and Isabel, smaller cousins of Katrina and Rita now torturing our southern states, caused the postponement of our Harvests on the Square in 1999 and 2003.
The host of the event, the Union Square Partnership, has dedicated the proceeds to the improvement of the park and other neighborhood initiatives. If you find this jarring, in an era of nature’s and man-made destruction, let’s keep in mind that the parents of the Partnership were the original bootstrap organizations that also sprung out of disaster. Residents and businesses of 14th Street and Union Square area, starting in 1976, pulled out of the doldrums a disaster zone of shuttered storefronts, abandoned buildings, drug dealers and dens of iniquities. The names of 14th Street/Union Square Business Improvement District and Local Development Corporation gained national and local prominence, inspiring other neighborhoods to follow suit. No neighborhood is doomed when dedicated people take a hand.
The providers of the harvest were some 45 local restaurants, paired with an equal number of wineries, to give us generous sample tastings of seasonal fare, their finest.
Upon arrival, the visitors were greeted with offers of Laurent-Perrier champagne and Vente chardonnay (or pinot noir), and canapés from Chipotle Mexican Grill (about to open its 12th Manhattan location), grilled hunks of T-bone with black truffle vinaigrette from Knickerbocker Bar and Grill, and miniature goat cheese tarts and smoked salmon aux ficelle from Ora. The guests then crowded into the big tent, with tables along the walls, food alternating with paired wines, and three huge islands with more of the same. While the more leisurely eaters took their first selections to the tables outside, along the 17th street side (noted was a group of 15 faithfuls from P.C Richards, celebrating their 95th) anniversary, with patriarch CEO Gary in charge), others just wandered from one stand to the next, cheerfully chatting and matching selections.
The offerings were enthusiastically received, as proven by our own informal annual survey. Top favorites were Malaysian style lobster profiteroles with lemon-grass glaze from Blue Water Grill, involtini di pesce spada Salmoriglio (swordfish, a protected species, tsk, tsk) from Union Square Café, and Todd English’s Olives NY pastrami baby back ribs (his black cherry ice cream float may even have been more popular).
Fleur de Sel’s gaufrettes au chocolat, which received at least two “to die for” nominations, and the chocolate caramel tart from Eleven Madison were other top deserts. Beppe’s Tuscan seven bean salad, National Arts Club’s chili, Republic’s noodle salad with a fried wonton ball. Sous-chefs crowded The Coffee Shop’s lamb carnitas and soft shell tortillas stand, interested in its poblano mola, a chocolate coffee sauce.
Soups and vegetable dishes were plentiful. Candela offered yellow bell pepper soup with basil, Devi had cauliflower pinwheel samosas with their masala soup, Sushisamba stepped forward with coups of lobster moqueca (like bouillabaisse). Enjoyable seasonal salads, many corn-based, were everywhere. Arezzo had a three-squash salad, Pure Food and Wine offered spicy Thai lettuce wraps, Galaxy Global Eatery splurged with Japanese chameh melon wheel and vegan kale cream and roe, Union Square ballroom served a Swiss chard phyllo with goat cheese and a premium, candied lady apples, while Whole Foods Market offered a wild mushroom ragout over thyme-scented pastry.
Seafood lovers had a feast, tasting Black Duck’s shrimp ceviche with plantain chips, chorizo with pickled peppers and marinated calamari from Casa Mono y Bar Jamon, City Crab’s Mid-Atlantic blue crab and corncake with tomato relish, perch-pike quenelles with crayfish coulis (sauce) from L’Express and lump crabcake mini-balls from Metrocafe & Wine Bar. All seafood items came in for special mention from satisfied customers.
Meat and poultry fanciers were not less vocal, praising Angelo & Maxie’s filet mignon sandwich with sautéed onions, Blue Smoke’s herb-marinated hanger steak corn cake and corn-cherry tomato salad included, Dos Caminos’ chipotle (smoked jalapeno) barbecued Niman (famous West Coast ranch) ribs with pickled cabbage; also sliced magret (breast) of duck with smoked peach chutney at Steak Frites, short ribs with tomato and corn salad from Strip House, and chicken tikka masala from Tamarind. Daphne Mahoney’s Blue Mahoe, formerly Bamboo, had her Jamaican jerk chicken skewers, a specialty; Gramercy Tavern featured a braised rabbit with roasted shallots, garlic sausage, vinegar and salsa verde, Duke’s served up some slo’ cooked Carolina pulled pork, corn bread and chipotle sour cream, Kitchen 22 had soy-glazed duck’s breast, soba noodles and ponzu sauce, and Lucy’s Latin Kitchen offered lamb burger pan de bono (Columbian cheese bread) with foie gras terrine.
Local coffee houses and brewers, 71 Irving Place, had rugelach for instant use and house blend coffees for home consumption, TSalon offered cups of Sunrise in Tibet and Ocean Breeze for immediate relief, ditto the famed Heartland Brewery with its pumpkin ale and root beer. Bottles of Brooklyn Brewery’s Oktoberfest, Stella Artois, Gus Soda, Izze Sparkling Juice and Fiji Water (drawn from a mid-Pacific aquifer) were there for the taking, as was espresso coffee, full-strength and decaf, from Dallis Coffee.
Now to the wines, everybody’s interest. Union Square Wines and Spirits, a Harvest stalwart, had a number of offshore varietals to offer, complementing the products of vintners and distributors paired with the restaurants. This was a year for the Rieslings, sweet to dry, with seven wineries from the Germany to the Finger Lakes, with Long Island a major player. Richter Estate, from Mosel (green bottles), the birthplace of the Riesling grape, represented the fruity, sweet Kabinett product, the Long Island (Martha Clara, Peconic Bay, and Finger Lakes (Dr Konstantin Frank, a classic, Heron Hill, Ravines Wine Cellar, a favorite) and upstate (Anthony Road, a Greenmarket familiar) represented degrees of dryness, flavorsome to thin.
Chardonnays and their relatives were around, Corey Creek, Sherwood House, Lenz Winery LI, an Italian pinot grigio from Candoni, another, a viognier from Circus (Languedoc) and a vouvray from Remy Pannier (Loire Valley), Lieb Family Pinot Blanc and Sauvignon Blancs form Osprey’s Dominion, Jamesport and Raphael Vineyards on LI. Ironstone Symphony, a curious California creation.
Red and pink wines were more plentiful – chianti classicos from Ruffino and Viticio, a rioja from Marquis de Riscal: red zinfandel from Francis Coppola and a pink one from Gnarly Head, all California; Long Island merlots from Paumanok, Shinn Estate and Raphael Vineyards and Peconic Bay Winery, shiraz from Razor’s Edge and a pink cabernet franc from Jamesport, LI
Some more long travelers: Nando Fragolino, an Italian sparkler; Sanchez Romate sherry from Spain, Trapiche malbec, a dry red from Argentina, a fruity white, Sella & Mosca Vermentino di Sardegna, and Momkava saki.
Thanks are due to the Partnership’s chair Eugene McGrath, and Karen Shaw, Christina Brown, Henry Choi and Joseph Tango, the Honorary Chairs Danny Meyer and Eric Petterson, Restaurant Chair Michael Romano, Wine Chair Garry Tornberg, the young professionals from New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, and Joyce Appelman of Bear Dallis Associates.
On this, sweetest of days in the balmiest of Septembers in many years, some 1200 New Yorkers gathered in the white tent that sprang up overnight in the Union Square's Greenmarket plaza, to celebrate the 10th Annual Harvest in the Square, our cityites’ version of the County Fair. In an urban style, it is our expression of thanks for the bounties of the season, not forgetting its perils - remembering that Hurricanes Floyd and Isabel, smaller cousins of Katrina and Rita now torturing our southern states, caused the postponement of our Harvests on the Square in 1999 and 2003.
The host of the event, the Union Square Partnership, has dedicated the proceeds to the improvement of the park and other neighborhood initiatives. If you find this jarring, in an era of nature’s and man-made destruction, let’s keep in mind that the parents of the Partnership were the original bootstrap organizations that also sprung out of disaster. Residents and businesses of 14th Street and Union Square area, starting in 1976, pulled out of the doldrums a disaster zone of shuttered storefronts, abandoned buildings, drug dealers and dens of iniquities. The names of 14th Street/Union Square Business Improvement District and Local Development Corporation gained national and local prominence, inspiring other neighborhoods to follow suit. No neighborhood is doomed when dedicated people take a hand.
The providers of the harvest were some 45 local restaurants, paired with an equal number of wineries, to give us generous sample tastings of seasonal fare, their finest.
Upon arrival, the visitors were greeted with offers of Laurent-Perrier champagne and Vente chardonnay (or pinot noir), and canapés from Chipotle Mexican Grill (about to open its 12th Manhattan location), grilled hunks of T-bone with black truffle vinaigrette from Knickerbocker Bar and Grill, and miniature goat cheese tarts and smoked salmon aux ficelle from Ora. The guests then crowded into the big tent, with tables along the walls, food alternating with paired wines, and three huge islands with more of the same. While the more leisurely eaters took their first selections to the tables outside, along the 17th street side (noted was a group of 15 faithfuls from P.C Richards, celebrating their 95th) anniversary, with patriarch CEO Gary in charge), others just wandered from one stand to the next, cheerfully chatting and matching selections.
The offerings were enthusiastically received, as proven by our own informal annual survey. Top favorites were Malaysian style lobster profiteroles with lemon-grass glaze from Blue Water Grill, involtini di pesce spada Salmoriglio (swordfish, a protected species, tsk, tsk) from Union Square Café, and Todd English’s Olives NY pastrami baby back ribs (his black cherry ice cream float may even have been more popular).
Fleur de Sel’s gaufrettes au chocolat, which received at least two “to die for” nominations, and the chocolate caramel tart from Eleven Madison were other top deserts. Beppe’s Tuscan seven bean salad, National Arts Club’s chili, Republic’s noodle salad with a fried wonton ball. Sous-chefs crowded The Coffee Shop’s lamb carnitas and soft shell tortillas stand, interested in its poblano mola, a chocolate coffee sauce.
Soups and vegetable dishes were plentiful. Candela offered yellow bell pepper soup with basil, Devi had cauliflower pinwheel samosas with their masala soup, Sushisamba stepped forward with coups of lobster moqueca (like bouillabaisse). Enjoyable seasonal salads, many corn-based, were everywhere. Arezzo had a three-squash salad, Pure Food and Wine offered spicy Thai lettuce wraps, Galaxy Global Eatery splurged with Japanese chameh melon wheel and vegan kale cream and roe, Union Square ballroom served a Swiss chard phyllo with goat cheese and a premium, candied lady apples, while Whole Foods Market offered a wild mushroom ragout over thyme-scented pastry.
Seafood lovers had a feast, tasting Black Duck’s shrimp ceviche with plantain chips, chorizo with pickled peppers and marinated calamari from Casa Mono y Bar Jamon, City Crab’s Mid-Atlantic blue crab and corncake with tomato relish, perch-pike quenelles with crayfish coulis (sauce) from L’Express and lump crabcake mini-balls from Metrocafe & Wine Bar. All seafood items came in for special mention from satisfied customers.
Meat and poultry fanciers were not less vocal, praising Angelo & Maxie’s filet mignon sandwich with sautéed onions, Blue Smoke’s herb-marinated hanger steak corn cake and corn-cherry tomato salad included, Dos Caminos’ chipotle (smoked jalapeno) barbecued Niman (famous West Coast ranch) ribs with pickled cabbage; also sliced magret (breast) of duck with smoked peach chutney at Steak Frites, short ribs with tomato and corn salad from Strip House, and chicken tikka masala from Tamarind. Daphne Mahoney’s Blue Mahoe, formerly Bamboo, had her Jamaican jerk chicken skewers, a specialty; Gramercy Tavern featured a braised rabbit with roasted shallots, garlic sausage, vinegar and salsa verde, Duke’s served up some slo’ cooked Carolina pulled pork, corn bread and chipotle sour cream, Kitchen 22 had soy-glazed duck’s breast, soba noodles and ponzu sauce, and Lucy’s Latin Kitchen offered lamb burger pan de bono (Columbian cheese bread) with foie gras terrine.
Local coffee houses and brewers, 71 Irving Place, had rugelach for instant use and house blend coffees for home consumption, TSalon offered cups of Sunrise in Tibet and Ocean Breeze for immediate relief, ditto the famed Heartland Brewery with its pumpkin ale and root beer. Bottles of Brooklyn Brewery’s Oktoberfest, Stella Artois, Gus Soda, Izze Sparkling Juice and Fiji Water (drawn from a mid-Pacific aquifer) were there for the taking, as was espresso coffee, full-strength and decaf, from Dallis Coffee.
Now to the wines, everybody’s interest. Union Square Wines and Spirits, a Harvest stalwart, had a number of offshore varietals to offer, complementing the products of vintners and distributors paired with the restaurants. This was a year for the Rieslings, sweet to dry, with seven wineries from the Germany to the Finger Lakes, with Long Island a major player. Richter Estate, from Mosel (green bottles), the birthplace of the Riesling grape, represented the fruity, sweet Kabinett product, the Long Island (Martha Clara, Peconic Bay, and Finger Lakes (Dr Konstantin Frank, a classic, Heron Hill, Ravines Wine Cellar, a favorite) and upstate (Anthony Road, a Greenmarket familiar) represented degrees of dryness, flavorsome to thin.
Chardonnays and their relatives were around, Corey Creek, Sherwood House, Lenz Winery LI, an Italian pinot grigio from Candoni, another, a viognier from Circus (Languedoc) and a vouvray from Remy Pannier (Loire Valley), Lieb Family Pinot Blanc and Sauvignon Blancs form Osprey’s Dominion, Jamesport and Raphael Vineyards on LI. Ironstone Symphony, a curious California creation.
Red and pink wines were more plentiful – chianti classicos from Ruffino and Viticio, a rioja from Marquis de Riscal: red zinfandel from Francis Coppola and a pink one from Gnarly Head, all California; Long Island merlots from Paumanok, Shinn Estate and Raphael Vineyards and Peconic Bay Winery, shiraz from Razor’s Edge and a pink cabernet franc from Jamesport, LI
Some more long travelers: Nando Fragolino, an Italian sparkler; Sanchez Romate sherry from Spain, Trapiche malbec, a dry red from Argentina, a fruity white, Sella & Mosca Vermentino di Sardegna, and Momkava saki.
Thanks are due to the Partnership’s chair Eugene McGrath, and Karen Shaw, Christina Brown, Henry Choi and Joseph Tango, the Honorary Chairs Danny Meyer and Eric Petterson, Restaurant Chair Michael Romano, Wine Chair Garry Tornberg, the young professionals from New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, and Joyce Appelman of Bear Dallis Associates.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Viewing the Primary from 14th Street and 3rd Avenue
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
I spoke too soon. About the candidates in the primaries sparing us the vision of poster pollution, that is. In the weekend preceding the Tuesday September 13th primary, the lampposts and traffic lights on Third Avenue from 14th Street north suddenly spouted stacks of large colorful posters. They were actually not bad looking and came easily off the next day, compared to the little Xeroxed signs of yore that would plague us for months. The posterers were Darren Bloch, Mike Beys and Gur Tsabar for City Council District 2, Scott Stringer for Borough President, and a few C. Virginia Fields for Mayor, while 14th Street in Alphabet City, Margarita Lopez for BP and Bob Morgenthau for District Attorney signs were stacked on every post for four blocks, with a few Gur Tsabars surviving from an early poster attack (not so Carlos Manzano for BP signs, noted torn and left on the ground.) Darren Bloch workers and the candidate himself had taken two corners of 16th Street and Third for some last minute handshaking ("I've been doing this for seven months, why should I stop on the last day?"), and had a woman volunteer worker handing out signs on 20th and Second Avenue, greeting voters on their way to the polls at PS 40.
The polling place was quite empty at 8 PM, with 120 votes cast at my Election District, "a real low, " per one of the workers who had manned the post for decades.
The scant turnout was not for lack of propaganda. The weekend's direct mail was another surprise, 35 mailing pieces, nearly all on letterhead size stiff glossy board with gorgeous photographs, For the CC2 seat, Mike Beys had one, Darren Bloch sent three, Joan J. Brightharp - one, Gur Tsabar - two. None from confident Rosie Mendez, the winner (36% of votes 5,113 voters) and from second - placer Brian Kavanagh (19%).
Borough President is where the action was, with three pieces in favor of Scott Stringer the winner (26%, 37,719), and one against, from Stan Michaels (4%), the tenant advocate, 24 years on City Council and looking for a new career at 72, accusing Scott of accepting donations of some $74K from developers. The real mail flurry enveloped Eva Moskowitz (2nd, 17%), with two messages from the Working Families Party accusing her of not protecting wages, one in support, explaining that she's been targeted by the UFT for defeat, and two praising her.
By contrast, the non-controversial Councilmember Bill Perkins, who runs in Marathons (11%), had three mailing pieces, and Carlos Manzano (3%), immigrant from Coli, Columbia and an administrator for the city's Beacon Schools, had a four-page endorsement from Chelsea's McManus Democrats. Margarita Lopez (13%) had two, including endorsements by Mario Cuomo and Gloria Steinem, and Keith Wright (5%), endorsed by Percy Sutton, had one.
Betsy Gotbaum, the incumbent Public Advocate, won big (two mailings, 48%, 180,933) against the well -known ACLU leader Norman Siegel (30%) and four others (no mailings). And then there was the forever Manhattan District Attorney Bob Morgenthau (59%, 73,908), and a surprisingly heavily campaigned Surrogate battle, with the eventual 51% winner Kris Glen (two pieces) battling the negatives from the camp of Eve Rachel Markewich (one piece). As for the media-advertising mayoralty candidates, there was only a lonely letter from senator Liz Krueger, endorsing last-placed Gifford Miller, the neighborhood's favorite.
A couple of asides about the local races - as to the Mayoralty, you can find all you want in the Paper of Record and on TV.
First, what about the Working Family Party, enemies of Moskowitz? It is a coalition of labor union locals, upstate rural groups, ethnic groups, immigrant and religious interests. It acquired ballot standing by collecting over 50K votes for former City Council President Peter Vallone in the 1998 Gubernatorial race. Their big accomplishment was rallying a protest, as leaders of a coalition named $5.15 Is Not Enough, against Gov. Pataki's veto of the increase of $2 to the NYS minimum wage. The State Senate eventually overrode it. No Naderites they, WFP have been endorsing Democrats, maxing at 158K votes for Senator Schumer in 2002, with 17K in Manhattan and under 70K in NYC overall.
A remembrance about City Councilmember Stan Michaels, a 24-year veteran. I ran into him in the later 1980s, while testifying in a City Council hearing, against the proposed move the Police Academy to the Bronx. The closing, proposed by a citizens' commission in 1986, was eventually withdrawn by Mayor Edward Koch, based upon the scarcity of funds a much as the cost-benefit analysis by our Committee to Save the Police Academy. Bronx BP Ferrer seized this opportunity to offer a vacant space near the 149th Street Hub for a new Academy, $400 million job. My suggestion was "not to fix what isn't broken," and to use the vacant space to bring in a major tax-paying tenant. "I will pass your recommendation to Borough President Ferrer," Mr. Michaels commented, dryly.
As of the mayoral election four years ago, Ferrer still had expectations of a Police Academy for the Bronx. I have no idea what his current plans are.
I spoke too soon. About the candidates in the primaries sparing us the vision of poster pollution, that is. In the weekend preceding the Tuesday September 13th primary, the lampposts and traffic lights on Third Avenue from 14th Street north suddenly spouted stacks of large colorful posters. They were actually not bad looking and came easily off the next day, compared to the little Xeroxed signs of yore that would plague us for months. The posterers were Darren Bloch, Mike Beys and Gur Tsabar for City Council District 2, Scott Stringer for Borough President, and a few C. Virginia Fields for Mayor, while 14th Street in Alphabet City, Margarita Lopez for BP and Bob Morgenthau for District Attorney signs were stacked on every post for four blocks, with a few Gur Tsabars surviving from an early poster attack (not so Carlos Manzano for BP signs, noted torn and left on the ground.) Darren Bloch workers and the candidate himself had taken two corners of 16th Street and Third for some last minute handshaking ("I've been doing this for seven months, why should I stop on the last day?"), and had a woman volunteer worker handing out signs on 20th and Second Avenue, greeting voters on their way to the polls at PS 40.
The polling place was quite empty at 8 PM, with 120 votes cast at my Election District, "a real low, " per one of the workers who had manned the post for decades.
The scant turnout was not for lack of propaganda. The weekend's direct mail was another surprise, 35 mailing pieces, nearly all on letterhead size stiff glossy board with gorgeous photographs, For the CC2 seat, Mike Beys had one, Darren Bloch sent three, Joan J. Brightharp - one, Gur Tsabar - two. None from confident Rosie Mendez, the winner (36% of votes 5,113 voters) and from second - placer Brian Kavanagh (19%).
Borough President is where the action was, with three pieces in favor of Scott Stringer the winner (26%, 37,719), and one against, from Stan Michaels (4%), the tenant advocate, 24 years on City Council and looking for a new career at 72, accusing Scott of accepting donations of some $74K from developers. The real mail flurry enveloped Eva Moskowitz (2nd, 17%), with two messages from the Working Families Party accusing her of not protecting wages, one in support, explaining that she's been targeted by the UFT for defeat, and two praising her.
By contrast, the non-controversial Councilmember Bill Perkins, who runs in Marathons (11%), had three mailing pieces, and Carlos Manzano (3%), immigrant from Coli, Columbia and an administrator for the city's Beacon Schools, had a four-page endorsement from Chelsea's McManus Democrats. Margarita Lopez (13%) had two, including endorsements by Mario Cuomo and Gloria Steinem, and Keith Wright (5%), endorsed by Percy Sutton, had one.
Betsy Gotbaum, the incumbent Public Advocate, won big (two mailings, 48%, 180,933) against the well -known ACLU leader Norman Siegel (30%) and four others (no mailings). And then there was the forever Manhattan District Attorney Bob Morgenthau (59%, 73,908), and a surprisingly heavily campaigned Surrogate battle, with the eventual 51% winner Kris Glen (two pieces) battling the negatives from the camp of Eve Rachel Markewich (one piece). As for the media-advertising mayoralty candidates, there was only a lonely letter from senator Liz Krueger, endorsing last-placed Gifford Miller, the neighborhood's favorite.
A couple of asides about the local races - as to the Mayoralty, you can find all you want in the Paper of Record and on TV.
First, what about the Working Family Party, enemies of Moskowitz? It is a coalition of labor union locals, upstate rural groups, ethnic groups, immigrant and religious interests. It acquired ballot standing by collecting over 50K votes for former City Council President Peter Vallone in the 1998 Gubernatorial race. Their big accomplishment was rallying a protest, as leaders of a coalition named $5.15 Is Not Enough, against Gov. Pataki's veto of the increase of $2 to the NYS minimum wage. The State Senate eventually overrode it. No Naderites they, WFP have been endorsing Democrats, maxing at 158K votes for Senator Schumer in 2002, with 17K in Manhattan and under 70K in NYC overall.
A remembrance about City Councilmember Stan Michaels, a 24-year veteran. I ran into him in the later 1980s, while testifying in a City Council hearing, against the proposed move the Police Academy to the Bronx. The closing, proposed by a citizens' commission in 1986, was eventually withdrawn by Mayor Edward Koch, based upon the scarcity of funds a much as the cost-benefit analysis by our Committee to Save the Police Academy. Bronx BP Ferrer seized this opportunity to offer a vacant space near the 149th Street Hub for a new Academy, $400 million job. My suggestion was "not to fix what isn't broken," and to use the vacant space to bring in a major tax-paying tenant. "I will pass your recommendation to Borough President Ferrer," Mr. Michaels commented, dryly.
As of the mayoral election four years ago, Ferrer still had expectations of a Police Academy for the Bronx. I have no idea what his current plans are.
Friday, September 16, 2005
About the Primary, 9/11 Anniversary, WTC and New Orleans
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Let me say this about the Democratic primary, which will be history by the time you read these lines. I have been truly impartial. I hung up on the irritating recorded telephone messages even before establishing the identities of the callers - some vaguely sounding like Senator Clinton and ex-Governor Cuomo -and their favored candidates, before letting the intrusive calls prejudice me against the politicos they touted. That's fair, isn't it? I have also carefully refrained from counting the television commercials of each candidate, to avoid feeling resentful about the wasting of the taxpayers' money in simplistic messages aimed to influence my vote. The mailing pieces were fine, much more substantial and descriptive of the programs than the TV sound bites, and the photography was more meaningful, particularly the Moskowitz family photographs. One also applauds the relative scarcity of posters decorating neighborhood lampposts, although this might be due to the candidates' realization of the short street -life of this form of campaign literature, neither cost-effective nor neighborhood -friendly. As to the results, may we all win.
The other significant scheduled event was the fourth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 outrage. I postponed my annual visit to the site; no major changes there, and I can pray for the deceased and for the survivors whose lungs were impaired by the fumes from other venues.
The lack of physical activity in bringing the former World Trade center back to life can be traced to a labyrinth of factors. First, the owners' interest in restoring the property and cash flow has been impacted by the insurance squabble, still unresolved, to determine whether the payout should be for one or two events (there are two insurers for the site, each with documentation at a different state of completeness, each producing a different interpretation of intent). Next, the contest between the governmental authorities, the victims' families and owners to determine the scope of honoring the dead of 9/11 with a memorial and one or more museums; and whether there will be a shopping center and what about the Freedom Tower, and how the office center will be laid out. The demolishing of the damaged Deutsche Bank skyscraper at 130 Liberty, site of the future fifth tower, has yet to begin.
Alas, the security aspect. Will a 1776 ft. tower be an invitation for terrorists? Will people be willing to work there, will companies rent, or will the property be dependent on government offices filling the space with civil servants who have no choice, and must work wherever, to protect their pensions. How high will be the insurance costs, and will commercial tenants be able to afford the coverage?
Finally, the design. The Libesknecht winner was a general, non-detailed concept, and needed to be filled in. For that, owner-chosen David Childs of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill took over. Lawsuits followed. Then NYPD chimed in with security concerns. A redesign turning the ground floors into a fortress came forth, ugly as sin and not a tourist attraction, but maybe somewhat secure. I still wonder whether the Donald Trump idea (I have no admiration for the showboat, but he is a quick problem-solver) might not suit the best - replicate the original towers, with modern security, not making any chutzpah waves but giving the world the understanding that we will not be beaten.
The future aspects of whether we can be beaten, by terrorists, Iraqi insurgents or nature, look a bit brighter. The New Orleans catastrophe, thanks be, has been less deadly than feared. This still means that the US must invest a huge amount of our national fortune in defending our coasts against nature. It may be doable budget-wise, unless the GOP tax cutters, intent on securing the PAC donations of get-rich-quick plutocrats by inheritance tax and top-bracket income tax cuts, manage to get their way of pushing the government into inactivity by plunging the country to bankruptcy.
A reader has twitted me about misquoting Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, top GOP tax manipulator, about cutting taxes, driving up deficit and choking government to death; His actual words were "I don't want to abolish government, I simply want to reduce it to size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Norquist, a former Philip Morris lobbyist, was a Bush fund raiser and outreach man to the Muslim community, founder of an Islam Institute that shared quarters with ATR (its website has not a word about condemning terrorism), and has been close to American Muslim Council and Council on American-Islam Relations, supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah "except when they attack civilians." Now he has steered the president into suspending the law paying union wages to federally funded rescue workers. This person gives the creeps even to some Conservative commentators.
Let me say this about the Democratic primary, which will be history by the time you read these lines. I have been truly impartial. I hung up on the irritating recorded telephone messages even before establishing the identities of the callers - some vaguely sounding like Senator Clinton and ex-Governor Cuomo -and their favored candidates, before letting the intrusive calls prejudice me against the politicos they touted. That's fair, isn't it? I have also carefully refrained from counting the television commercials of each candidate, to avoid feeling resentful about the wasting of the taxpayers' money in simplistic messages aimed to influence my vote. The mailing pieces were fine, much more substantial and descriptive of the programs than the TV sound bites, and the photography was more meaningful, particularly the Moskowitz family photographs. One also applauds the relative scarcity of posters decorating neighborhood lampposts, although this might be due to the candidates' realization of the short street -life of this form of campaign literature, neither cost-effective nor neighborhood -friendly. As to the results, may we all win.
The other significant scheduled event was the fourth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 outrage. I postponed my annual visit to the site; no major changes there, and I can pray for the deceased and for the survivors whose lungs were impaired by the fumes from other venues.
The lack of physical activity in bringing the former World Trade center back to life can be traced to a labyrinth of factors. First, the owners' interest in restoring the property and cash flow has been impacted by the insurance squabble, still unresolved, to determine whether the payout should be for one or two events (there are two insurers for the site, each with documentation at a different state of completeness, each producing a different interpretation of intent). Next, the contest between the governmental authorities, the victims' families and owners to determine the scope of honoring the dead of 9/11 with a memorial and one or more museums; and whether there will be a shopping center and what about the Freedom Tower, and how the office center will be laid out. The demolishing of the damaged Deutsche Bank skyscraper at 130 Liberty, site of the future fifth tower, has yet to begin.
Alas, the security aspect. Will a 1776 ft. tower be an invitation for terrorists? Will people be willing to work there, will companies rent, or will the property be dependent on government offices filling the space with civil servants who have no choice, and must work wherever, to protect their pensions. How high will be the insurance costs, and will commercial tenants be able to afford the coverage?
Finally, the design. The Libesknecht winner was a general, non-detailed concept, and needed to be filled in. For that, owner-chosen David Childs of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill took over. Lawsuits followed. Then NYPD chimed in with security concerns. A redesign turning the ground floors into a fortress came forth, ugly as sin and not a tourist attraction, but maybe somewhat secure. I still wonder whether the Donald Trump idea (I have no admiration for the showboat, but he is a quick problem-solver) might not suit the best - replicate the original towers, with modern security, not making any chutzpah waves but giving the world the understanding that we will not be beaten.
The future aspects of whether we can be beaten, by terrorists, Iraqi insurgents or nature, look a bit brighter. The New Orleans catastrophe, thanks be, has been less deadly than feared. This still means that the US must invest a huge amount of our national fortune in defending our coasts against nature. It may be doable budget-wise, unless the GOP tax cutters, intent on securing the PAC donations of get-rich-quick plutocrats by inheritance tax and top-bracket income tax cuts, manage to get their way of pushing the government into inactivity by plunging the country to bankruptcy.
A reader has twitted me about misquoting Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, top GOP tax manipulator, about cutting taxes, driving up deficit and choking government to death; His actual words were "I don't want to abolish government, I simply want to reduce it to size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Norquist, a former Philip Morris lobbyist, was a Bush fund raiser and outreach man to the Muslim community, founder of an Islam Institute that shared quarters with ATR (its website has not a word about condemning terrorism), and has been close to American Muslim Council and Council on American-Islam Relations, supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah "except when they attack civilians." Now he has steered the president into suspending the law paying union wages to federally funded rescue workers. This person gives the creeps even to some Conservative commentators.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Dr. Paranoia: Hurricane Katrin writes a requiem for New Orleans
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Dr. Paranoia writes: Adrianne, an Acquisitions and Mergers lawyer with Sherman and Sterling, was at the NYU Law Careers center early on Friday, the fifth day of the Katrina disaster, stuffing teachers' recommendations into the envelopes of her applications for out-of-town federal court clerkships.
A native of New Orleans, six years a New Yorker, she had reached her decision to leave the city well before the disaster. She had not been at work all week, trying to reestablish connections with her widespread family in South Louisiana, and just that morning had located her grandfather, in a shelter. She told stories of cousins whose homes in the Garden District were defunct, now housed in Fairmount Hotel in the center of NO, locked in their room, fearful of going out because of the day-time looters and night-time robbers roaming the streets.
There was much bitterness in her tales about the abandonment of her below sea level city by the national tax-cutting politicians, and of the corruption of the local officials, school boards, FEMA administrators and state legislators. She was going to go back to NO and help her city recover. Another young lawyer commented wryly that NO will need a lot of lawyers. I held my tongue, having the memories of jailed Louisiana governors, Long to Edwards, and of prior reformers failing to budge the old boy system in the Big Easy.
It is really incomprehensible that in this era of national preparedness and recent history of hurricane disasters and nature changes, official Washington has steadily cut the funds for the Army Corps of Engineers, levy construction and emergency evacuation. It demoted FEMA from a near cabinet level to just another agency in the basket of the Department of Homeland Security's 22 entities, with a non-professional political appointee Michael Brown, a failed horse show administrator for 11 years, designated to run it into the ground. Or so it would appear, if one were a conspiracy theorist, watching the "cut taxes, drive up the deficit and choke government to death" doctrine, as preached by Rowe's confidant and GOP strategist Grower Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, being implemented in the actions of such administrators as rhose for Pure Air and Pure Water Acts, killing emission controls in coal-firing power plants, and of the White House official who rewrote the findings of scientists about greenhouse effects (not unrelated to the growth of viciousness of hurricanes).
This time even the red states may protest, despite the President's expressed satisfaction with Washington's reaction to the disaster, although he is "dissatisfied with the results." What is adequate about picking up the phone on Monday, if the National Guard is not sent until Friday? Maybe it is, by Bush standards - after the first viewing of the disaster he too took off the next day, to play golf. Now we are potentially facing the death of a great city, a ruin without housing and jobs. Refugees needing paychecks are scratching for employment in Houston, and banks are re-quartering in their Baton Rouge offices. Washington will blame the locals, but the Feds who cut the levy and ACoE money are the major culprits. And now Bush is planning another tax cut.
Hurricane preparation is simple in principle; people of the Florida Keys have had it pegged since the 1992 Andrew. Give people advance notice to evacuate and arrange emergency lodgings, negotiate school, public building, military base and tent city space on high grounds for others, use school buses and public transportation to pick up indigents, reverse road directions, mark up sources of emergency supplies, food and water, rally emergency workers ahead of time. New Orleans is more complex, a city of 200 sq. miles, a half-million population, 70% black, with 30% of the population on a sub-poverty income level. No tax money for the poor is part of the Norquist mantra.
New Orleans was a fun town, playgrounds for Super bowl and jazz fans, Presidents (before they swore off booze) and conventioneers. It is a horror to find that this hospitable city has turned violent, just like a Third World tribal country, with the Superdome sanctuary turning into a scene of death for unattended hospital patients and the old, shootings and violence towards others. Katrina is 9/11-like nightmare, with thousands of Americans drowning, and more dying of thirst, hunger and lack of care for five days. The NYTimes Friday cover of a dead woman floating past the embankment where another is feeding her cat will haunt our consciences forever, like the stacks of the dead in Burundi and the naked child running in Vietnam. Can this be America, not a weird country that can be forgotten as we retract into the US Open and other oblivion-makers?
We can donate money for relief, and try to rebuild a great city, God bless the effort, but the odds are high. Will we re-build in the flood plain? Create a Holland, with dikes? I do not expect to breathe in the total darkness of the night on the Punchtrain Causeway again, nor eat at another Commander's, nor visit Restoration Hall , not in this incarnation. [Ed.: Punchtrain is local for Pontchartrain.]
Dr. Paranoia writes: Adrianne, an Acquisitions and Mergers lawyer with Sherman and Sterling, was at the NYU Law Careers center early on Friday, the fifth day of the Katrina disaster, stuffing teachers' recommendations into the envelopes of her applications for out-of-town federal court clerkships.
A native of New Orleans, six years a New Yorker, she had reached her decision to leave the city well before the disaster. She had not been at work all week, trying to reestablish connections with her widespread family in South Louisiana, and just that morning had located her grandfather, in a shelter. She told stories of cousins whose homes in the Garden District were defunct, now housed in Fairmount Hotel in the center of NO, locked in their room, fearful of going out because of the day-time looters and night-time robbers roaming the streets.
There was much bitterness in her tales about the abandonment of her below sea level city by the national tax-cutting politicians, and of the corruption of the local officials, school boards, FEMA administrators and state legislators. She was going to go back to NO and help her city recover. Another young lawyer commented wryly that NO will need a lot of lawyers. I held my tongue, having the memories of jailed Louisiana governors, Long to Edwards, and of prior reformers failing to budge the old boy system in the Big Easy.
It is really incomprehensible that in this era of national preparedness and recent history of hurricane disasters and nature changes, official Washington has steadily cut the funds for the Army Corps of Engineers, levy construction and emergency evacuation. It demoted FEMA from a near cabinet level to just another agency in the basket of the Department of Homeland Security's 22 entities, with a non-professional political appointee Michael Brown, a failed horse show administrator for 11 years, designated to run it into the ground. Or so it would appear, if one were a conspiracy theorist, watching the "cut taxes, drive up the deficit and choke government to death" doctrine, as preached by Rowe's confidant and GOP strategist Grower Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, being implemented in the actions of such administrators as rhose for Pure Air and Pure Water Acts, killing emission controls in coal-firing power plants, and of the White House official who rewrote the findings of scientists about greenhouse effects (not unrelated to the growth of viciousness of hurricanes).
This time even the red states may protest, despite the President's expressed satisfaction with Washington's reaction to the disaster, although he is "dissatisfied with the results." What is adequate about picking up the phone on Monday, if the National Guard is not sent until Friday? Maybe it is, by Bush standards - after the first viewing of the disaster he too took off the next day, to play golf. Now we are potentially facing the death of a great city, a ruin without housing and jobs. Refugees needing paychecks are scratching for employment in Houston, and banks are re-quartering in their Baton Rouge offices. Washington will blame the locals, but the Feds who cut the levy and ACoE money are the major culprits. And now Bush is planning another tax cut.
Hurricane preparation is simple in principle; people of the Florida Keys have had it pegged since the 1992 Andrew. Give people advance notice to evacuate and arrange emergency lodgings, negotiate school, public building, military base and tent city space on high grounds for others, use school buses and public transportation to pick up indigents, reverse road directions, mark up sources of emergency supplies, food and water, rally emergency workers ahead of time. New Orleans is more complex, a city of 200 sq. miles, a half-million population, 70% black, with 30% of the population on a sub-poverty income level. No tax money for the poor is part of the Norquist mantra.
New Orleans was a fun town, playgrounds for Super bowl and jazz fans, Presidents (before they swore off booze) and conventioneers. It is a horror to find that this hospitable city has turned violent, just like a Third World tribal country, with the Superdome sanctuary turning into a scene of death for unattended hospital patients and the old, shootings and violence towards others. Katrina is 9/11-like nightmare, with thousands of Americans drowning, and more dying of thirst, hunger and lack of care for five days. The NYTimes Friday cover of a dead woman floating past the embankment where another is feeding her cat will haunt our consciences forever, like the stacks of the dead in Burundi and the naked child running in Vietnam. Can this be America, not a weird country that can be forgotten as we retract into the US Open and other oblivion-makers?
We can donate money for relief, and try to rebuild a great city, God bless the effort, but the odds are high. Will we re-build in the flood plain? Create a Holland, with dikes? I do not expect to breathe in the total darkness of the night on the Punchtrain Causeway again, nor eat at another Commander's, nor visit Restoration Hall , not in this incarnation. [Ed.: Punchtrain is local for Pontchartrain.]
