Recent Comments
Re: “Aqueduct, Colgate worry preservationists”
Spending at least $250,000 a year to maintain the Broad Street Bridge and extension tunnel (Genesee Transportation Council budget allots money every year) and keep it from collapsing onto the Erie Canal bed is not a long term plan, but has been necessary for the decades in which the subway tunnel and aqueduct bridge have sat dormant.
While the Roc The Riverway concepts are aggressive and jarring for that area, I see more upside than cause for concern. Losing a traffic bridge across the river, when there are three others within walking distance let-alone driving distance is a minimal consolation to creating a destination space focusing on pedestrians between two of our biggest city destinations for visitors (Blue Cross Arena and the Convention Center).
I welcome anyone to look into North Shore in Pittsburgh or Prospect Ave District in Cleveland to see the positive affects of creating these kinds of pedestrian spaces. I also submit to the jury the Highline in NYC and Riverwalk in Chicago as ways to re-utilize our existing infrastructure and promote our natural resources.
And let's bury the ferry, that debacle happened twelve years ago; no one died, I think we can move forward.
Re: “Amazon's HQ2: New York pays to buy love”
25,000 to 50,000 new employees from Amazon, earning average salaries around $100,000 a year (according to payscale.com). This will be a second corporate office, these won't be warehouse workers so we can better understand the $100,000 salaries are going to specialists and corporate roles.
So keeping that in mind, that is $2.5 to $5 billion in salaries coming to NYC. That's $2.5-5 billion in taxable income subject to property, income, and sales tax. Yes the $1.56 billion in tax breaks seems steep, but looking at ALL the numbers, it doesn't seem to be as absurd.