The author notes: "Judge Jonah Goldstein, a 1940s Republican from New York, said famously, 'The Jews have three veltn (worlds): di velt (this world), yene velt (the next world) and Roosevelt.'”
Tag: Eliot Spitzer
Wonderpets
|Dateline: Engelwood, Colorado-/8/24/08– 12:55 AM–Mountain Time
The phone, the phone is ringing–there’s an animal in trouble somewhere (trust me, if you have child five or under, it’s an hilarious reference to the show named in this piece's title) or maybe it's an international crisis (where is Hillary when you need her?) or another of those text messages.
Sound asleep, it is minutes before I realize it is a phone and where I am, as I slowly wake up from a drunken stuper. Contrary to the dream I was having, I am alone (although, if it were otherwise, I would still be saying the same), I reflect that, on the whole, this is probably a good thing, although Chelsea was having the time of her life.
No Room At The Inn
|Word came recently that a $2 billion expansion of the Javits Convention Center may not be good enough, and that only a $4 billion expansion will do. Per the New York Times “the Spitzer administration quickly concluded that the existing plan would have little economic effect and would provide only a modest amount of new exhibit space, while underestimating the potential costs by $1 billion. But even as the Spitzer administration’s review was under way, construction costs in the city were rising rapidly; city officials said delays were costing $17 million a month.” It has probably been about a decade since I was asked to write a memo on the convention business and NYC’s role in it while at a former job, but I suspect that what I found then continues to be true today. The biggest impediment New York City has in attracting virtually all conventions, and tourists in general, is the number, availability and cost of hotel rooms. At the time, New York City had fewer hotel rooms than Chicago, a city half the size. Last year New York City accounted for 2.7% of total national employment, but just 2.1% of total accommodations (hotel, motel, etc.) employment.