Thursday, August 23, 2007
What’s going on in the stock market and why?
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
On a mid-August day, fetching my lunch, I ran into a portfolio manager, on the same mission. “Crazy day, hnh?” “Crazy sixteen days, you mean!” We finished our short elevator ride in silence, lexchanging unhappy glances..
At that hour the DJIA was down 300, the lowest point of the current “market adjustment.” The Dow miraculously recovered, completing the day down 14, and the market kept rising. Apparently the heavy short sellers, hedge funds, private equity players and other masters of the universe, had decided to cover before a complete collapse of the world economy, and we were saved.
Everyone knows why the market panicked, this time. It seems that too many people bought their homes sweet homes without regard to their ability to pay, abetted by reckless mortgage brokers & low interest rates. The mortgage lenders bundled up on risks, good and bad, and sold the paper to wholesalers who packaged the mortgages by risk category and sold the packages (strips, tranches) to investors. When many of the high-risk homeowners failed to make their payments, the values of the packages dropped, particularly those of subprime risk mortgage bonds. Some over-leveraged mortgage companies filed for Chapter 11, losing operating funds when their concerned lenders decided to make margin calls. Many investors in the bonds tried to sell, but no one would buy, and the wholesalers had to dump other properties to raise the money. Some bond funds failed, such as Bear Stearns, and in France the Paribas bank ceased trading in others. That snowballed into the world-wide market price drops.
Federal Reserve and national banks, recognizing the dangers to the world market, tried to save the market makers, mostly legitimate banks and dealers, by lending them money at low rates (subsequently also lowering bank loan interest). They provided $200 billion of support funds world-wide in mid August 2007, to stop the dumping, but the sellers’ pressure continued. And that was just to help the ordinary markets, pension funds and such. Hedge funds and their ilk, recognizing the risks of sudden price drops, have investors signed up on long terms, such as seven years, and do not permit them the right of redemption except at long-notice time windows, thereby reducing the pressure. Hedge fund investors must eat much of their losses, with a hope of recovery as the selling pressures reduce. Some majors, such as Goldman-Sachs and Maurice Greenberg, put some of their billions in the funds, to reduce the pressure and protect their investments. These mechanisms have been developed over time to stop stock market catastrophes, since 1929, the classic event of snowballing price drops. Now new speculation techniques and vastly increased funds invested in the market have made them less secure. A lot of market price advances are prompted by new money, as well-heeled people and countries, local and foreign, push more dollars across the counter. The pressure to buy shares creates artificial price advances, until a segment of the market, recognizing that the price/earnings ratio is too high, decides to sell.
In recent decades, the Panic of 1979 was caused by the Iranian Revolution and the temporary loss of Iranian oil in the world market. The Panic of 1987 (“Black Monday”), created a stock price loss of nearly 23%, almost double that of 1929, largely prompted by a rush to switch to bonds when the return on a 30-year Treasury reached nearly 10%. It was accelerated by program selling, a system that created automatic sell orders at certain price levels, which in turn depressed prices and prompted more sell orders. with the technological snowball fixed by inserting stop-sales “brakes,” the market recovered in two years.
The subsequent exuberant market of the Internet era collapsed in March 2000 when people finally realized how artificial the market values were. Typically, Red Hat gave away Linux systems and yet attained a market value in millions.The Longterm Capital Management hedge fund crisis was based on market models by Nobel Price winners. These incredibly leveraged investments in currency and other safe securities first blew up when the Russian ruble devalued. Other threats? The leveraged buyouts of the 1980s, linked to Michael Milken of Drexel Burnham Lambert, were painful, particularly for employees. Financiers made high offers to privatize companies, paying for them by bonds issued on the newly purchased firm’s book values, selling less productive units and doing tricks with retirement funds, then reselling the companies. Some failed when the restructured companies could not produce profits. The LBOs have returned, in the form of the currently prevalent private equity buyouts.
We can hope that we are safe from primitive frauds like the pst-WWI Ponzi scheme, persuading people to buy International Postage Coupons impervious to currency price fluctuations, combined with repaying early investors from the deposits of later investors, but you never know. Is today’s pyramiding threat a new credit derivative that builds leverage on top of leverage? Can an Enron accountants’ scam recur? Is the subprime threat over? Not by a long chalk, it says here, not when the subprimes sold in 2005/6 alone amount to $1.2 trillion.
On a mid-August day, fetching my lunch, I ran into a portfolio manager, on the same mission. “Crazy day, hnh?” “Crazy sixteen days, you mean!” We finished our short elevator ride in silence, lexchanging unhappy glances..
At that hour the DJIA was down 300, the lowest point of the current “market adjustment.” The Dow miraculously recovered, completing the day down 14, and the market kept rising. Apparently the heavy short sellers, hedge funds, private equity players and other masters of the universe, had decided to cover before a complete collapse of the world economy, and we were saved.
Everyone knows why the market panicked, this time. It seems that too many people bought their homes sweet homes without regard to their ability to pay, abetted by reckless mortgage brokers & low interest rates. The mortgage lenders bundled up on risks, good and bad, and sold the paper to wholesalers who packaged the mortgages by risk category and sold the packages (strips, tranches) to investors. When many of the high-risk homeowners failed to make their payments, the values of the packages dropped, particularly those of subprime risk mortgage bonds. Some over-leveraged mortgage companies filed for Chapter 11, losing operating funds when their concerned lenders decided to make margin calls. Many investors in the bonds tried to sell, but no one would buy, and the wholesalers had to dump other properties to raise the money. Some bond funds failed, such as Bear Stearns, and in France the Paribas bank ceased trading in others. That snowballed into the world-wide market price drops.
Federal Reserve and national banks, recognizing the dangers to the world market, tried to save the market makers, mostly legitimate banks and dealers, by lending them money at low rates (subsequently also lowering bank loan interest). They provided $200 billion of support funds world-wide in mid August 2007, to stop the dumping, but the sellers’ pressure continued. And that was just to help the ordinary markets, pension funds and such. Hedge funds and their ilk, recognizing the risks of sudden price drops, have investors signed up on long terms, such as seven years, and do not permit them the right of redemption except at long-notice time windows, thereby reducing the pressure. Hedge fund investors must eat much of their losses, with a hope of recovery as the selling pressures reduce. Some majors, such as Goldman-Sachs and Maurice Greenberg, put some of their billions in the funds, to reduce the pressure and protect their investments. These mechanisms have been developed over time to stop stock market catastrophes, since 1929, the classic event of snowballing price drops. Now new speculation techniques and vastly increased funds invested in the market have made them less secure. A lot of market price advances are prompted by new money, as well-heeled people and countries, local and foreign, push more dollars across the counter. The pressure to buy shares creates artificial price advances, until a segment of the market, recognizing that the price/earnings ratio is too high, decides to sell.
In recent decades, the Panic of 1979 was caused by the Iranian Revolution and the temporary loss of Iranian oil in the world market. The Panic of 1987 (“Black Monday”), created a stock price loss of nearly 23%, almost double that of 1929, largely prompted by a rush to switch to bonds when the return on a 30-year Treasury reached nearly 10%. It was accelerated by program selling, a system that created automatic sell orders at certain price levels, which in turn depressed prices and prompted more sell orders. with the technological snowball fixed by inserting stop-sales “brakes,” the market recovered in two years.
The subsequent exuberant market of the Internet era collapsed in March 2000 when people finally realized how artificial the market values were. Typically, Red Hat gave away Linux systems and yet attained a market value in millions.The Longterm Capital Management hedge fund crisis was based on market models by Nobel Price winners. These incredibly leveraged investments in currency and other safe securities first blew up when the Russian ruble devalued. Other threats? The leveraged buyouts of the 1980s, linked to Michael Milken of Drexel Burnham Lambert, were painful, particularly for employees. Financiers made high offers to privatize companies, paying for them by bonds issued on the newly purchased firm’s book values, selling less productive units and doing tricks with retirement funds, then reselling the companies. Some failed when the restructured companies could not produce profits. The LBOs have returned, in the form of the currently prevalent private equity buyouts.
We can hope that we are safe from primitive frauds like the pst-WWI Ponzi scheme, persuading people to buy International Postage Coupons impervious to currency price fluctuations, combined with repaying early investors from the deposits of later investors, but you never know. Is today’s pyramiding threat a new credit derivative that builds leverage on top of leverage? Can an Enron accountants’ scam recur? Is the subprime threat over? Not by a long chalk, it says here, not when the subprimes sold in 2005/6 alone amount to $1.2 trillion.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Storm reveals New York City’s vulnerabilities
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
It is surprising how much of New York’s infrastructure problems a sudden three-inch rainfall will reveal. Obviously, the MTA drainage system cannot cope with a sudden flood, not at a time when the city’s sewer pipes are also overfilled. Hurricane Frances in September 2004 caused the sewers to backwash into the subways. That has been corrected, and the MTA’s 289 pump rooms have been rehabilitated (the last 18 due to become state of art by 2010), and the city spends $300 million a year to redo the sewage pipes and build a new storm water drainage control, which currently may overflow if a storm drops more than 1 ½ inches of water over a short period of time (that’s my estimate of the sewer pipe capacity). Meanwhile, problems of subway maintenance neglect have also surfaced – such as trash accumulations in the roadways that clog the filters and flood the rails. The recent history of storms disrupting subway service – three in the past seven months - obviously raises the fear that the greenhouse effect on climate, as evidenced by increasingly stronger storms in 2005, and particularly the destructive surges of waves, as Katrina and Wilma, might flood and heavily damage New York, the city built on rock and thought to be impervious, at least to earthquakes. There is a plan proposed by a group of scientists led by Prof. Malcolm Bowman of SUNY’s Stony Brook, to build massive surge barriers across the Narrows, East River and Staten Island, on the models of Netherlands, London (the one across the Thames has been used 70 times since 1982) and Venice. These are true barriers that will be closed when a storm approaches, not just deflectors in the Atlantic that would take away from the impact of the leading wave. The overall rise in the ocean level cannot be avoided, according to the reputable scientists at Columbia’s Center for Climate Systems Research, who conservatively estimate a rise of sea levels of five inches by 2030 and 10 inches by 2050 (there are more dramatic numbers cited by other sources).
NYC takes the threat seriously, as evidenced by a pamphlet from the city’s Office of Emergency Management that identifies three levels of evacuation zones for New Yorkers, depending on the strength of storm, and suggests that those threatened keep Go Bags and Emergency Supply Kits (include duplicate keys, copies of documents), and think of places and people to stay with during major floods. The threatened areas include all of the business and residential districts in Lower Manhattan, the East and West side areas three and four blocks from the rivers, and much of Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island waterside, as well as Long Island. In T&V Country, the threatened area at maximum exposure extends from East River to Park Avenue South. More detailed analysis will follow. As to the events of the subway floods of August 8, your reporter was lured into the underground by reports of good downtown service on the BMT Line. Surprise, the R train’s PA system at Lafayette and Canal Street station declared that the next stop would be De Kalb Avenue in Brooklyn, throwing us downtown-bounds in a tizzy as we exited and walked up the steps. Canal Street looked forbiddingly truck-bound, but, swiftly running through the traffic into Centre Street, then walking some long blocks and hopping an iron dog fence I got through, eventually to the Municipal Building, where volunteer informed passersby that only Brooklyn-bound trains were available. Uptown was closed off. Across the street, City Hall looked forbiddingly deserted and bleak in the full sunlight, and I asked a guard whether the workers had heeded Mayor Bloomberg’s warning and stayed out. His diplomatic answer led us into discussing ecologically sound driving habits. Escaping that, and moving along Park Row and past the JR Electronics empire (their streetside pamphlet racks advertising computer gear were completely washed out), I reached Fulton Street. The usual curbside tee-shirt and purse vendors were out in full strength, most of them also offering specials on umbrellas. The usual crowds were thin. A right turn into Williams Street brought me to Maiden Lane and the Fed Reserve building, with the three-story Louise Nevelson black metal statuary guarding it. Asking the policewoman on duty for the park’s name, I learned that she did not know nor care, since the sculptures were Chase bank property. A couple Chasians standing nearby pointed to a Legion Memorial sign but had no clue of the sculptor. What happened to the Nevelson Plaza? Walking east on Maiden Lane, the Chipotle Mexican Grill on corner of Pearl Street had a sign of 12 AM belated opening. It had attracted a line of white-shirted and necktied office workers. The everyday informal office apparel season of the dot.com era seems to have had its run, Wall Street has clamped down on casual gear. That’s my sociological observation of the day. The trip home was normal, the subway had recovered.
It is surprising how much of New York’s infrastructure problems a sudden three-inch rainfall will reveal. Obviously, the MTA drainage system cannot cope with a sudden flood, not at a time when the city’s sewer pipes are also overfilled. Hurricane Frances in September 2004 caused the sewers to backwash into the subways. That has been corrected, and the MTA’s 289 pump rooms have been rehabilitated (the last 18 due to become state of art by 2010), and the city spends $300 million a year to redo the sewage pipes and build a new storm water drainage control, which currently may overflow if a storm drops more than 1 ½ inches of water over a short period of time (that’s my estimate of the sewer pipe capacity). Meanwhile, problems of subway maintenance neglect have also surfaced – such as trash accumulations in the roadways that clog the filters and flood the rails. The recent history of storms disrupting subway service – three in the past seven months - obviously raises the fear that the greenhouse effect on climate, as evidenced by increasingly stronger storms in 2005, and particularly the destructive surges of waves, as Katrina and Wilma, might flood and heavily damage New York, the city built on rock and thought to be impervious, at least to earthquakes. There is a plan proposed by a group of scientists led by Prof. Malcolm Bowman of SUNY’s Stony Brook, to build massive surge barriers across the Narrows, East River and Staten Island, on the models of Netherlands, London (the one across the Thames has been used 70 times since 1982) and Venice. These are true barriers that will be closed when a storm approaches, not just deflectors in the Atlantic that would take away from the impact of the leading wave. The overall rise in the ocean level cannot be avoided, according to the reputable scientists at Columbia’s Center for Climate Systems Research, who conservatively estimate a rise of sea levels of five inches by 2030 and 10 inches by 2050 (there are more dramatic numbers cited by other sources).
NYC takes the threat seriously, as evidenced by a pamphlet from the city’s Office of Emergency Management that identifies three levels of evacuation zones for New Yorkers, depending on the strength of storm, and suggests that those threatened keep Go Bags and Emergency Supply Kits (include duplicate keys, copies of documents), and think of places and people to stay with during major floods. The threatened areas include all of the business and residential districts in Lower Manhattan, the East and West side areas three and four blocks from the rivers, and much of Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island waterside, as well as Long Island. In T&V Country, the threatened area at maximum exposure extends from East River to Park Avenue South. More detailed analysis will follow. As to the events of the subway floods of August 8, your reporter was lured into the underground by reports of good downtown service on the BMT Line. Surprise, the R train’s PA system at Lafayette and Canal Street station declared that the next stop would be De Kalb Avenue in Brooklyn, throwing us downtown-bounds in a tizzy as we exited and walked up the steps. Canal Street looked forbiddingly truck-bound, but, swiftly running through the traffic into Centre Street, then walking some long blocks and hopping an iron dog fence I got through, eventually to the Municipal Building, where volunteer informed passersby that only Brooklyn-bound trains were available. Uptown was closed off. Across the street, City Hall looked forbiddingly deserted and bleak in the full sunlight, and I asked a guard whether the workers had heeded Mayor Bloomberg’s warning and stayed out. His diplomatic answer led us into discussing ecologically sound driving habits. Escaping that, and moving along Park Row and past the JR Electronics empire (their streetside pamphlet racks advertising computer gear were completely washed out), I reached Fulton Street. The usual curbside tee-shirt and purse vendors were out in full strength, most of them also offering specials on umbrellas. The usual crowds were thin. A right turn into Williams Street brought me to Maiden Lane and the Fed Reserve building, with the three-story Louise Nevelson black metal statuary guarding it. Asking the policewoman on duty for the park’s name, I learned that she did not know nor care, since the sculptures were Chase bank property. A couple Chasians standing nearby pointed to a Legion Memorial sign but had no clue of the sculptor. What happened to the Nevelson Plaza? Walking east on Maiden Lane, the Chipotle Mexican Grill on corner of Pearl Street had a sign of 12 AM belated opening. It had attracted a line of white-shirted and necktied office workers. The everyday informal office apparel season of the dot.com era seems to have had its run, Wall Street has clamped down on casual gear. That’s my sociological observation of the day. The trip home was normal, the subway had recovered.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Spitzer and Bloomberg on a learning curve
For the last few weeks, this column has closed its eyes to the harsh realities of New York politics, indulging in parks and other summer pleasures. Governor Spitzer’s problems were just a nagging aberration initially, then building up to career busting potential catastrophe. Does not everyone know by now that character accusations against old politicos must be crystal-clear and provable, else they will backlash?
Well, Spitzer’s staff, used to easy corporate victories, - with clear–cut cases of backdated stock options, after-hours trading and price rigging, resulting in the plutocrats caving in and paying penalties and agreeing to reforms - were not expecting backfire. There is a theory that Spitzer may have let the freelancing staff people go ahead, hunting among the Republicans, with the proviso that whoever gets caught has to assume the responsibility and pay the penalty. This may account for the sickening results of his Director of Communications, Darren Dopp’s fiasco in accusing NYS Senate majority Leader Bruno in using state airplane facilities for campaign fundraising trips (and now another Spitzer aide resigning over accusation of threats regarding a Con Ed blackout hearing). What chutzpah! Would anyone expect the wily Bruno not to have covered himself with conducting concurrent state business? I find that theory hard to believe, knowing of Spitzer’s proclivity to micro-manage projects, but there it is.
Well, the staff idiots failed, but Bruno did not. The Majority Leader, currently under investigation for something serious by the FBI, such as alleged major contracts to friends and family corporations, is turning the inquiry around, and will be investigating Spitzer and staff, via the NYS Senate’s investigative committee, and the Albany County DA’s (a Democrat) authority. This can be escalated, as a publicity campaign leading nowhere legally, except undermining Spitzer as Governor and national aspirant. Not bad PR work for a 77-year old politico who is about to lose his gerrymander-backed two-seat majority in the State Senate.
Well, he has had legal support. The Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, whose investigators found the dirty works in collecting and playing up Bruno’s trips and declared the trips not illegitimate but based on a loophole that should be closed, is a early-running candidate for Governorship, rumored to be motivated to downsize Spitzer. That’s according to insiders, notably Prof. Alan S. Chartock, head of the Northeast Public Radio network and a political commentator, who knows his Cuomos. His “Me and Mario” radio program had discussions of the family’s ambition to move the ex-Governor’s son, then an ex-HUD Secretary and a former Kennedy in-law, into Governorship. Chartock’s take is not unique.
Another interesting player is the third member of the Triumvirate ruling NYS, Assembly Speaker Stanley Silver, who after a period of diplomatic abstention has come out favoring Governor Spitzer. That will carry a price in concessions. After all the Speakership may be at stake in these decisions.
That becomes most observable in such matters as recommending Michael Bloomberg’s plan for a $8 fee for entering NYC, past 86th Street southbound. A terrific proposal to limit gasoline sue, improve NYC’s air quality and pay for necessary improvements in Mat’s services, it would have been good for us midtowners, but Silvers diddled past the deadline. His speakership is on the line – should the assembly members from Westchester, Putnam, Nassau, Suffolk and the four outer Burroughs revolt – the Speaker’s heavy hand makes his head lie uneasy - well, there have been revolts before, one cannot suppress them all.
But being headstrong is not limited to the heady young winners riding the Governor’s coattails. Mayor Bloomberg’s staff did not research the $8 entry fee project sufficiently, beyond figuring that it will take some years to install the necessary E-ZPass gear on the key streets and equip cars (a cost) and provide tollgates for unequipped entrants (a huge cost).. The devil is in the details, and they were not analyzed and broken down to the essentials and most importantly, not sold to the players. This is where all of Bloomberg’s inventive projects have failed. Bloomberg has young hotties up the wazoo, all working hard, aspiring for glory. Put them into boot camp, learn practical political analysis. Typical questions: would teachers, cops and necessary emergency workers be charged? What’s the “go free” arrangement? Are the unions on board?
It is scaresome. An ordinary management analyst type like me sees overt instances of arrogance overriding competence, in state if not in city governance, reminding one of the early 2000’s in Washington. It hurts, Democrats. Mentorship, on “this is how politics (management, human relations, persuasion vs. imposition) works,” may be of great value. I will rephrase the Professor again. He notes that Spitzer advocates like Assemblyman Mark Weprin after the election found themselves viewed as the enemy. Chartock suggests that Spitzer surround himself with some Dutch Uncle senior advisors and shed the shnooks. These rules you learn in public high school, and Spitzer may not have met them at Horace Mann.
Well, Spitzer’s staff, used to easy corporate victories, - with clear–cut cases of backdated stock options, after-hours trading and price rigging, resulting in the plutocrats caving in and paying penalties and agreeing to reforms - were not expecting backfire. There is a theory that Spitzer may have let the freelancing staff people go ahead, hunting among the Republicans, with the proviso that whoever gets caught has to assume the responsibility and pay the penalty. This may account for the sickening results of his Director of Communications, Darren Dopp’s fiasco in accusing NYS Senate majority Leader Bruno in using state airplane facilities for campaign fundraising trips (and now another Spitzer aide resigning over accusation of threats regarding a Con Ed blackout hearing). What chutzpah! Would anyone expect the wily Bruno not to have covered himself with conducting concurrent state business? I find that theory hard to believe, knowing of Spitzer’s proclivity to micro-manage projects, but there it is.
Well, the staff idiots failed, but Bruno did not. The Majority Leader, currently under investigation for something serious by the FBI, such as alleged major contracts to friends and family corporations, is turning the inquiry around, and will be investigating Spitzer and staff, via the NYS Senate’s investigative committee, and the Albany County DA’s (a Democrat) authority. This can be escalated, as a publicity campaign leading nowhere legally, except undermining Spitzer as Governor and national aspirant. Not bad PR work for a 77-year old politico who is about to lose his gerrymander-backed two-seat majority in the State Senate.
Well, he has had legal support. The Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, whose investigators found the dirty works in collecting and playing up Bruno’s trips and declared the trips not illegitimate but based on a loophole that should be closed, is a early-running candidate for Governorship, rumored to be motivated to downsize Spitzer. That’s according to insiders, notably Prof. Alan S. Chartock, head of the Northeast Public Radio network and a political commentator, who knows his Cuomos. His “Me and Mario” radio program had discussions of the family’s ambition to move the ex-Governor’s son, then an ex-HUD Secretary and a former Kennedy in-law, into Governorship. Chartock’s take is not unique.
Another interesting player is the third member of the Triumvirate ruling NYS, Assembly Speaker Stanley Silver, who after a period of diplomatic abstention has come out favoring Governor Spitzer. That will carry a price in concessions. After all the Speakership may be at stake in these decisions.
That becomes most observable in such matters as recommending Michael Bloomberg’s plan for a $8 fee for entering NYC, past 86th Street southbound. A terrific proposal to limit gasoline sue, improve NYC’s air quality and pay for necessary improvements in Mat’s services, it would have been good for us midtowners, but Silvers diddled past the deadline. His speakership is on the line – should the assembly members from Westchester, Putnam, Nassau, Suffolk and the four outer Burroughs revolt – the Speaker’s heavy hand makes his head lie uneasy - well, there have been revolts before, one cannot suppress them all.
But being headstrong is not limited to the heady young winners riding the Governor’s coattails. Mayor Bloomberg’s staff did not research the $8 entry fee project sufficiently, beyond figuring that it will take some years to install the necessary E-ZPass gear on the key streets and equip cars (a cost) and provide tollgates for unequipped entrants (a huge cost).. The devil is in the details, and they were not analyzed and broken down to the essentials and most importantly, not sold to the players. This is where all of Bloomberg’s inventive projects have failed. Bloomberg has young hotties up the wazoo, all working hard, aspiring for glory. Put them into boot camp, learn practical political analysis. Typical questions: would teachers, cops and necessary emergency workers be charged? What’s the “go free” arrangement? Are the unions on board?
It is scaresome. An ordinary management analyst type like me sees overt instances of arrogance overriding competence, in state if not in city governance, reminding one of the early 2000’s in Washington. It hurts, Democrats. Mentorship, on “this is how politics (management, human relations, persuasion vs. imposition) works,” may be of great value. I will rephrase the Professor again. He notes that Spitzer advocates like Assemblyman Mark Weprin after the election found themselves viewed as the enemy. Chartock suggests that Spitzer surround himself with some Dutch Uncle senior advisors and shed the shnooks. These rules you learn in public high school, and Spitzer may not have met them at Horace Mann.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Stuyvesant Square Park, again, Harry Potter and Albania Mania
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Disaster struck in the Stuyvesant Square East Park just about a week after I suggested that everyone visit the shady center fountain and enjoy the cleome plantings surrounding it. The giant elm tree providing the shade spontaneously lost a large limb. It came crashing down and injured a neighbor enjoying a day in the park. I have no names or details, except that the lady was taken to the neighboring emergency room, and, as of as week later, has returned home. The park talk was of a concussion, broken leg and ribs. We wish her a speedy recovery, and request that the city do its job of looking after its treasures, people and trees. Parkside telegraph reports more suspect trees.
In a speedy reaction, to make up for years of neglect, the Forestry Department arborists descended on the park with their cherry picker truck and took down the elm, carefully sawing off its branches and lowering them down. Then they took down some more old trees in both parks, including a silver maple, overgrown with creepers, next to the big elm. The latter was 300 years old, according to the men with the saw, with a totally dead trunk. The huge stump – you can visit it the fountain area – is not quite three by four feet, nearly rectangular. People with time and historic interests may enjoy counting the year rings, to calculate its true age, and identifying dry and wet years, associating them with events in the city’s history. A minor sliver of the stump that I found shows 118 rings. There was (and maybe still is) a stump in the Tompkins Square Park, with little plaques over rings associated with events such as the attack of the Dutch elm disease in 1931.
It came from French elm logs, brought to Cleveland for furniture manufacture, and killed 77 million elm trees, 90 percent of the magnificent elm alleys that graced Main Streets all throughout our country. The tree we just lost was a survivor, as are others in Central Park, and the individual giants that grow in Madison Square Park, Riverside Park, and a particularly large on in Washington Square, according to my cherry picker truck informant. Since then arborists have developed ways of eradicating the guilty elm bark beetles, of injecting medication and of developing some resistant strains, notably the Princeton elm, from cuttings from a tree that grows in that town’s cemetery.
There have been other outbreaks of the disease, in Europe and the US, particularly in 1970, affecting the English elm, cloned from a Roman elm, called Atinian, that grew in vineyards of ancient antiquity, used to train the wandering vines. These outbreaks, in part, have moved the city arborists to plant such street trees as the Callery pear, a flowering tree that has its own problems, tending to split as it grows older.
Back in Stuyvesant Square Park, some good news. The gardener, Christie Daley, has done a nice job of transplanting and decorating the surroundings of the Antonin Dvorak statue by Ivan Mestrovic, a major work of art, with hostos and flowers. She praises the Stuyvesant Park Neighborhood Association (Carol Schachter, President) for getting the funds together
Next, Harry Potter. You have read about the Harry Potter madness world-wide and in the Big Apple, now let me tell you about the provinces. In an economically struggling agricultural community the CVS drugstore had ordered 10 copies, and nine were sold in a day, by Sunday AM. When I spotted the lone leftover and commented, the girl behind me in line reached our and with a “may I” grabbed it, explaining that as a part-timer at the drugstore she got a discount. Still magic. At the Safeway supermarket the stock clerks were kidding about Harry, so I asked the manager. “We bought 32 and have four left. Want them, they are only $18.99?” she laughed as I backed out. A checkout clerk, a high school weekend worker, quietly shook her head when I asked whether she bought a copy, and none of the solemn clerks and shoppers commented. Money is tight, make no mistake about it. The NYC CVS people are greedy, asking a full $34.99 for the book, and so are the book’s publishers.
Albania Mania? Well, if you were at the Union Square Greenmarket last Thursday, you would have seen a quartet of emaciated wild-eyed kids play and sing their hearts out, with unusual Klezmer-like tunes, playing long trombone groans accompanying an accordion, with a clarinets and mandolin providing the background. The unusual language sung turned out to be Romany, and their spokesman explained that the tunes were Romanian and Mediterranean. The Gypsy kids had traveled up from their native Tennessee, singing on street corners all the way, and Union Square was their debut stage in Big Apple. Or so they said. But the music stopped traffic in the market, and applause was spontaneous. If you see the Albania Mania players anywhere, slow down to listen, they are unusual and worthwhile.
Disaster struck in the Stuyvesant Square East Park just about a week after I suggested that everyone visit the shady center fountain and enjoy the cleome plantings surrounding it. The giant elm tree providing the shade spontaneously lost a large limb. It came crashing down and injured a neighbor enjoying a day in the park. I have no names or details, except that the lady was taken to the neighboring emergency room, and, as of as week later, has returned home. The park talk was of a concussion, broken leg and ribs. We wish her a speedy recovery, and request that the city do its job of looking after its treasures, people and trees. Parkside telegraph reports more suspect trees.
In a speedy reaction, to make up for years of neglect, the Forestry Department arborists descended on the park with their cherry picker truck and took down the elm, carefully sawing off its branches and lowering them down. Then they took down some more old trees in both parks, including a silver maple, overgrown with creepers, next to the big elm. The latter was 300 years old, according to the men with the saw, with a totally dead trunk. The huge stump – you can visit it the fountain area – is not quite three by four feet, nearly rectangular. People with time and historic interests may enjoy counting the year rings, to calculate its true age, and identifying dry and wet years, associating them with events in the city’s history. A minor sliver of the stump that I found shows 118 rings. There was (and maybe still is) a stump in the Tompkins Square Park, with little plaques over rings associated with events such as the attack of the Dutch elm disease in 1931.
It came from French elm logs, brought to Cleveland for furniture manufacture, and killed 77 million elm trees, 90 percent of the magnificent elm alleys that graced Main Streets all throughout our country. The tree we just lost was a survivor, as are others in Central Park, and the individual giants that grow in Madison Square Park, Riverside Park, and a particularly large on in Washington Square, according to my cherry picker truck informant. Since then arborists have developed ways of eradicating the guilty elm bark beetles, of injecting medication and of developing some resistant strains, notably the Princeton elm, from cuttings from a tree that grows in that town’s cemetery.
There have been other outbreaks of the disease, in Europe and the US, particularly in 1970, affecting the English elm, cloned from a Roman elm, called Atinian, that grew in vineyards of ancient antiquity, used to train the wandering vines. These outbreaks, in part, have moved the city arborists to plant such street trees as the Callery pear, a flowering tree that has its own problems, tending to split as it grows older.
Back in Stuyvesant Square Park, some good news. The gardener, Christie Daley, has done a nice job of transplanting and decorating the surroundings of the Antonin Dvorak statue by Ivan Mestrovic, a major work of art, with hostos and flowers. She praises the Stuyvesant Park Neighborhood Association (Carol Schachter, President) for getting the funds together
Next, Harry Potter. You have read about the Harry Potter madness world-wide and in the Big Apple, now let me tell you about the provinces. In an economically struggling agricultural community the CVS drugstore had ordered 10 copies, and nine were sold in a day, by Sunday AM. When I spotted the lone leftover and commented, the girl behind me in line reached our and with a “may I” grabbed it, explaining that as a part-timer at the drugstore she got a discount. Still magic. At the Safeway supermarket the stock clerks were kidding about Harry, so I asked the manager. “We bought 32 and have four left. Want them, they are only $18.99?” she laughed as I backed out. A checkout clerk, a high school weekend worker, quietly shook her head when I asked whether she bought a copy, and none of the solemn clerks and shoppers commented. Money is tight, make no mistake about it. The NYC CVS people are greedy, asking a full $34.99 for the book, and so are the book’s publishers.
Albania Mania? Well, if you were at the Union Square Greenmarket last Thursday, you would have seen a quartet of emaciated wild-eyed kids play and sing their hearts out, with unusual Klezmer-like tunes, playing long trombone groans accompanying an accordion, with a clarinets and mandolin providing the background. The unusual language sung turned out to be Romany, and their spokesman explained that the tunes were Romanian and Mediterranean. The Gypsy kids had traveled up from their native Tennessee, singing on street corners all the way, and Union Square was their debut stage in Big Apple. Or so they said. But the music stopped traffic in the market, and applause was spontaneous. If you see the Albania Mania players anywhere, slow down to listen, they are unusual and worthwhile.
