Canning Cathie

This post is guest-blogged by author Julian Brash.


A lot could be said about the recent demise of schools Chancellor Cathie Black, but one point that I make in my book is that Mayor Bloomberg's corporate approach to governing the city has major political weaknesses, as demonstrated by the administration's failure to build the West Side stadium and its inability to pass its congestion-pricing plan passed. One of these weaknesses is what I call the "anti-politics" of the Bloomberg Way: the denial of the legitimacy (and at times the existence) of conflicting interests within the city.

However, as of 2005 or so, in response to the West Side stadium fiasco, the Mayor began tempering his anti-politics and engaging directly with various interest groups using a variety of means (philanthropy, bargaining, city contracts, etc.). By Fall of 2009, Michael Bloomberg's dominance of the city's politics had reached its zenith: the CEO Mayor had become a master politician.

However, it's obvious in retrospect that at the same time, Bloomberg was seriously overplaying his hand. The amount he (over)spent in the 2009 election, his "Wall Street Welfare" plan, his defense of various embattled CEOs, and, of course, his hiring of Cathie Black: all these things were indications that Bloomberg had crossed the line separating political noblesse oblige from class entitlement.

The balance between the upper-class project inherent in the Bloomberg Way and the need to maintain the perception of being dedicated to the good of the city as whole was too difficult to sustain. Black's short and inglorious career as schools chancellor is a reminder of this--and of the fact that the Bloomberg Way is not invulnerable.

*Everyday Chatter

Live from Greenpoint's homeless shelter town meeting--lots of yelling promised. [NYS]

Check out this week's New York magazine, with stories about apartment life from Luc Sante and David Rakoff, what the sale of the Chelsea Hotel means for the residents, and the tale of a New York character named Freeman Gunter.

The city's trying to take the Astor Place newsstand away from the man who's run it for 24 years. [NYDN]

MTA cracks down on Metrocard art--what does this mean for "Single Fare"? [EVG]

Writing an oral history of the Lion's Head bar. [NYT]

"...old New York and new New York remain in conflict, and old New York is losing." Dust forcibly removed from McSorley's--and Minnie the Cat, too. [NYT]

Sunshine Hotel hit with another injustice. [BB]

"Gentrified Minds is one man’s primal scream from the 'transformed' sidewalks of New York City, an ode to the days before obnoxious hipsters, Lady Gaga’s monsters and all other pop-culture perils turned New York and its five boroughs into the sub-Urban incarnation it is today." [GMs]

Reading Ginsberg's Moloch. [P&W]

Not So Big Apple

This post is guest-blogged by author Julian Brash.


The news that New York City has not grown as fast since 2000 as was expected has produced consternation and disbelief among a number of prominent New Yorkers, including Chuck Schumer, Marty Markowitz, and (of course) Mayor Bloomberg. The reaction is interesting for a couple of reasons.

First, it's clear that much of the sputtering is driven by a specific sort of New York City chauvinism: the idea that New York is the biggest, the best, and the most grand (if not grandiose), city in the country if not the world. That is to say, that New York City's identity rests on its larger-than-life characteristics.

There's something to this. Clearly, it's New York City's size and diversity that gives it many of its distinctive characteristics and which makes it a draw for people of all sorts from around the country and the world. But is the growth of New York City's population beyond its already large size necessarily a good thing?

There's a bunch of things to think about here. Granted, the Bloomberg administration's PlaNYC 2030 is an attempt, no matter how flawed, to at least grapple with population growth. But is there any evidence that the region's political elite can do what's necessary to maintain and create the infrastructure necessary to support growth in the future? The fate of ARC and the Second Avenue Subway would suggest not. Moreover, New York City, thanks to economic and financial crisis, along with the bipartisan national embrace of austerity and upward redistribution of wealth, is facing years of fiscal crisis. Without major new sources of revenue, it's not at all obvious how the city will be able to do anything other than watch its physical and social infrastructure rot--despite the (as of now, unmet) promises that the Bloomberg Way would set the city on the path to fiscal stability.

But what I want to highlight here is one simple juxtaposition. On the one hand, it is fairly well-established (pdfs in links) that city size is correlated with inequality: basically, the larger a city's population, the more likely it is that it will attract "global city" economic functions, which tend to bifurcate into very high and very low paying jobs.

On the other hand, as I have documented in earlier posts, the Bloomberg administration has vigorously pursued a development strategy that has exacerbated inequality in the city, by privileging the attraction and retention of high-end professionals and business executives. As perhaps is too obvious to even be worth saying, the Luxury City is an unequal city.

Barring the unlikely event of a drastic shift in development policy, one that makes major strides towards ameliorating, if not reversing inequality, the bigger New York City that Chuck Schumer, Marty Markowitz, and Michael Bloomberg long to see will also be a less equal New York City.

Yaffa Cafe

Yaffa Cafe on St. Marks is not a place I go to very often, now and then, but a recent craving for their pancakes brought me in and reminded me that this is truly one of the last remaining "old school" East Village spots. (No, it's not vanishing.)



The particular East Village here is less punk and more 1980s fashion--Madonna in her stained overcoat, thrift-shop chic, Love Saves the Day--when "decor" meant finding a mannequin in the trash, taking it home, painting it hot pink, and using it as a hat stand.



Yaffa was opened around 1982 by an Israeli named Amir. Five years later, he married a woman named Lika and she redecorated. The place hasn't really changed since 1987. The booths are upholstered in leopard and zebra print, the fabric rotting from years of wear. The walls are covered in various wallpapers--fruit, vegetables, flowers. Plastic grapes hang from the ceiling. And there's also this.



Lika Ramati described her decorative tastes to Gotham Gazette, "it’s a kitschy and pop look with some humor. Kitsch is usually negative—but here the kitsch has harmony and everything works together nicely. My decoration is instinctive, not planned. If you collect what you like, in the end, everything comes together nicely... I loved the old hotels in Europe, I have a strong connection to Rome, and I am inspired by Andy Warhol, so I guess it is a combination of different things."

As for the mural on the wall outside, originally completed in 1993, that's all Lika, too.

Back to Show Follies

Inspired by my 2006 discovery of the secret peep theater abandoned in the basement of a Times Square gift shop, once the Show Follies XXX center, the intrepid Marty Wombacher of the blog Marty After Dark decided to go on his own quest to seek and find the lost treasures of this forgotten porn palace.

He lived to tell the tale--and came back with photos.


photo: Marty Wombacher

In Marty's own words...

I got to the store, found the mirrored diamonds on the outside that you wrote about, and went in. There was a guy up front and one in the back behind a glass counter. I picked up a shirt and kept glancing over at him. I kept inching closer to the stairway. Finally, he bent over to get something out of the counter and I walked downstairs as quietly as I could. At first I was disappointed and wondered if maybe they had dismantled the theater. Then I looked to my left and there it was in all its glory. I snapped a photo and someone yelled out from the top of the stairs. I jumped inside and took another shot of the seats. I heard footsteps running down the stairs.

"What are you doing down here?" the guy screamed, grabbing my arm. "No pictures!"

I told him to let go of me. He said I had to go upstairs. Once upstairs I asked about the theater. Another guy told me to go next door and talk to Mohammed.


photo: Marty Wombacher

I talked a kid folding t-shirts and asked to speak to Mohammed. He looked really strange when I asked and said, "Why do you want to see Mohammed?" I told him I wanted to take a picture of the theater. Two guys in back started shaking their heads "No."

One of them screamed at me, "No pictures!"

"Why do you care if I take a picture of the theater?" I asked.

"There's no theater!"

"Yes, there is, I was just looking at it," I answered back.

Then they ordered me out of the store.

They should rename this place Mystery Science Theater 711 after their address and attitude. Two different people denied the theater even existed, one of them after I had just seen it. And why the anger over the photos? What are they hiding down there besides "I Heart New York" T-shirts? Are they really that ashamed of this building's porno past?

I don't have the answers, all I know is a small chunk of this block's past is being held hostage in the basement. Stop by and sneak a look if you can, it's worth the effort. And if you have a camera, snap a photo and pass it along to Jeremiah. Let's keep the memory alive.


photo: Marty Wombacher

The Bloomberg Way 3

Welcome to Part 3 of the Bloomberg Way, guest-blogged by author Julian Brash:

In my first two posts, I said that the Bloomberg approach to urban governance is both deeply ideological and about class rather than about one extraordinary individual. If we put those things together, we see a third key aspect of this approach, one that contradicts the conventional wisdom that Bloomberg's mayoralty embodies a rejection of politics.

In fact, the Bloomberg Way is deeply political. It may be non-partisan, in the sense that the mayor and many of his fellow postindustrial elites are neither loyal to nor advancing the interest of a major political party. But the Bloomberg Way is a class project with two clear aims, both of which had profound implications for politics (and life) in New York City.



First, the Bloomberg Way aims to legitimate the leadership of the postindustrial elite, especially those of its members drawn from the highest levels of global business. Essentially, the corporate approach to government I outlined in my last post represents a claim that the experience, skills, and expertise of those who moved from the private sector to City Hall are absolutely necessary to address the city's problems and lead it towards a prosperous future. These people make the post-9/11 claim that "the city needed us."


With Marc Jacobs, Fashion Night Out

Second, the Bloomberg Way sought to transform the city in line with the interests and the desires of the postindustrial elite. The attraction, retention, and satisfaction of high-level white-collar professionals and corporate executives became a central goal of development policy, since, it was argued, it was their entrepreneurialism, smarts, and creativity that could best drive the city's economy.

Whether it was making sure that so-called "black cars" had direct access to midtown office buildings, building mountain bike paths on Staten Island, encouraging cutting-edge architecture, or protecting "neighborhood character" in certain upscale neighborhoods, the Bloomberg administration made "the best and the brightest" the target market of the new New York City brand. This was who the Luxury City was for.


Eataly Grand Opening

These two aims might seem contradictory. The first addresses the needs of the city as a whole, of all the city's residents, while the second addresses the needs of a small sliver of the city's population. But this contradiction is fundamental to the Bloomberg approach to governance and the class project it aims to advance, serving as both its great potential strength and its great potential weakness.

If the Bloomberg approach to urban governance, both by placing the leadership of the city in the hands of the postindustrial elite and by doing everything possible to support their needs and desires, could deliver on its promises to provide benefits to a broad swathe of the city's populace, the postindustrial elite would have taken major steps towards legitimating its dominance of the city's politics and economy. But, if it could not deliver these benefits, the Bloomberg Way would appear as little more than a self-interested ploy to enrich and empower the city's wealthiest residents, an exercise in entitlement rather than what we social scientists call hegemony, a form of class leadership based on the ability to deliver broad-based social and economic benefits.


Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic

Which of these two possibilities will be realized remains to be seen. Right now, it seems like New Yorkers are viewing the Mayor and his mayoralty in terms of entitlement and self-interest rather than of leadership and widespread benefit. Yet just a few short years ago, from about 2005 to 2009, it seemed that the Mayor and his approach to governance had been successful in winning over, by one means or another, a great number of New Yorkers.

Will Bloomberg represent the emergence of a new, sustained form of class leadership in the city? Or will his mayoralty be remembered as a demonstration of the power of money to buy elections and as paradigmatic of the self-indulgence of the city's entitled new wealthy? Whatever the answer, these are the political stakes of the Bloomberg Way.

Previously:
Bloomberg Way 1
Bloomberg Way 2
Interview with Julian Brash

The Bloomberg Way 2

Welcome to Part 2 of the Bloomberg Way, guest-blogged by author Julian Brash:

Central to the political mythology of Michael Bloomberg is his supposed rejection of ideology. The Bloomberg administration, we are told, represents a new and pragmatic approach to urban governance, one that transcends the old ideological nostrums of both the left and the right. In a partial sense, this is true--the Bloomberg Way can't be neatly slotted into the typical categories of liberal and conservative.

Nevertheless, the Bloomberg Way is far from a moderate, pragmatic approach to governance. In fact, it is based on a rather radical set of suppositions that have quite far-reaching and transformative impacts, suppositions that are embedded in the Bloomberg Way's corporate roots.


The CEO Mayor

As I demonstrate in Bloomberg's New York, central to the Bloomberg approach to governance are the ideas that Mayor is a CEO, city government is a business, residents are customers, businesses are clients, and the city is a product--a luxury product, to be specific.

Far from being the corporate window-dressing that previous NYC mayors had used to associate themselves with the supposedly efficient and hardheaded private sector, this ideology formed the DNA of the Bloomberg Way. As such, it had profound implications for several aspects of urban governance--implications that we have seen play out over the past decade, three of which I'll mention here.

Rezonings in NYC, 2002-Present

First, the notion that the city government should be run as a corporation had profound implications for the structure and capacity of city government, especially in regard to those agencies responsible for economic and urban development. Corporate-inspired management and marketing techniques--PowerPoints, strategic plans, retreats, the use of "industry desks" (typically used in investment banks and advertising agencies) in economic development agencies, and the use of branding--helped create a coherent organizational apparatus that in turn regenerated the capability of the local government to guide development in a coherent and strategic way. This was crucially important to the development and implementation of the administration's ambitious citywide development agenda.

Second, the notion that the city was a luxury product had (as readers of this blog are doubtlessly aware) enormous impacts on development policy and thus the city's social, cultural, and physical landscape. In short, the creation of the luxury city required major interventions that aimed to make the city more competitive to the clients that made up its "niche market": businesses in the postindustrial sectors of finance, media, and business services and their elite employees.

The sun shines on the luxury city

Finally, the idea of the CEO Mayor has led to the (attempted, at least) curtailment of the space for democratic decision-making. Businesses are not democracies, and CEOs have the prerogative to act in accordance with their judgements of what will achieve "results"; in turn, they are accountable for those results. When imported into City Hall, this model clashed with norms of democratic decision making, especially those concerning process and citizen input. While the citizenry's judgement of the CEO Mayor could be exercised at electoral "accountability moments," during the time in between, it was an unwelcome incursion on the CEO Mayor's ability to, in Bloomberg's words, be "the ultimate risk taker and decision maker."

Previously:
Bloomberg Way 1
Interview with Julian Brash