Seriously. His personal story at the end of his speech brought a bit of mist on my cynical eyes. I thought he was great. Please, someone tell me, who is this guy?!?!

Scott Stringer raised eyebrows when he described how small his ____________ is compared to Carl McCall's and ... aaaah ..... hmmmmm ... Betsey Gotbaum's ?!?!

Find out what Stringer was talking about after the jump :  read more »

[via The Daily Gotham - Chuck Schumer at Stuy-Town Press Conference]

Upon reviewing these video clips, there's one thing that I just realized about Schumer's shpiel : He's calling out MetLife's possible use of public land for free due to eminent domain as a playing card in the negotiations.

Does this mean, if it is true they did not pay for the land, that there are potential grounds for demanding from the company to pay what is owed to the city and with interest? Could there actually be any repercussions to MetLife's weaseling out of paying for the land they used to develop Stuy-Town?

More importantly, what effects, if any, could this have on development projects like Atlantic Yards and Williamsburg?

Hmmmmm.

You can find this clip at YouTube as well.

Location

[via YouTube - The Daily Gotham - Stuy Town Press Conference - Dan Garodnick]

An anonymous tipster alerted me of this press conference and so, I was part of ... ahem ... New York City's media taping the whole thing. It was fun to see Dan in all his incumbent glory dealing with the heavy issue of the selling of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper.

Dare I say he sounds ... ahem ... mayoral. This is a guy NYC Democrats ought to keep an eye on for taking back City Hall in 2009.

Can you find the bureaucrat in the quote?

[via New York Daily News - Home - A neighborhood goes up for sale]:

Since 2002, MetLife has removed dozens of units from rent regulation as the leaseholders have died or moved on --making the requisite capital improvements where necessary to justify the rent hikes.

If MetLife sells the buildings, current tenants in rent-stabilized apartments would be protected if the buildings remain rentals -- and be offered an insider's price if it goes condo. If they refuse to buy, they can still remain in their apartments under rent-stabilization laws.

"It's not the owner, it's the apartment" that's rent-regulated, said Peter Moses, a spokesman for the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal.

Peter Moses is an idiot.

Apartments are not living things. They don't sign leases nor do they negotiate them. People do. This is the kind of talk that takes complete responsibility off the shoulders of landlords and takes away complete bargaining power from tenants. And is representative of the tactics of corporate politicians. Take away all resposibility from the capitalists deed by transferring it to capital itself.  read more »