Amazon is coming to NYC

[John F]

Specifically, Long Island City in Queens. This is to be their second headquarters. I don't know that I'll benefit from this, and most likely it will cause rents to rise even further as thousands of Amazon workers look for housing in the outer boroughs, such as Brooklyn.

Before a Deal, Amazon Had to Know: Could Cuomo and De Blasio Get Along?
By Karen Weise and J. David Goodman
Nov. 13, 2018

On a late October day, Amazon executives flew to New York to answer a final question before they committed to opening a massive technology center in Queens: Could Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio stop bickering long enough to see the project through? “They wanted to just trust-but-verify that everybody was on the same page,” said Alicia Glen, a deputy mayor who was at the meeting with Mr. de Blasio.

After meeting with both men separately that day, the Amazon officials decided the two Democrats could put aside their longstanding differences. Soon after, documents were exchanged, and re-exchanged, ironing out details of a package worth more than a billion dollars in tax incentives and state grants. The politicians even agreed to a plan to circumvent the City Council to prevent future roadblocks.

The deal for the Queens development, in Long Island City, was announced on Tuesday, after Amazon concluded a 14-month, countrywide search for a location for a second headquarters for some 50,000 well-paid tech workers. The company, which ended up picking two sites and dividing the new workers between them, is also opening a huge corporate site in Arlington, Va., in an area across the Potomac River from Washington. Amazon said the new developments, both to be called headquarters, would require $5 billion in construction and other investments...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/tech ... rters.html

[jbuck919]

Outer boroughs such as Brooklyn? That's a laugh. As John F well knows, if Brooklyn were separated from the rest of NYC it would still be something like the third largest city in the US. Its inclusion in greater New York has always been a bit controversial. "The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame" from the famous sonnet by Emma Lazarus which marks the Statue of Liberty refers not to Manhattan and, say, Newark, but to Manhattan and Brooklyn.

[John F]

Hey, I live in Brooklyn, and I know well that Manhattan is the center and the parts that surround it are outer. If it weren't so, then the Met would be performing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (as it sometimes used to do) rather than Lincoln Center.

[jbuck919]

Hey, I live in Brooklyn, and I know well that Manhattan is the center and the parts that surround it are outer. If it weren't so, then the Met would be performing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (as it sometimes used to do) rather than Lincoln Center.

Yes, but we're making the same point. You come into Manhattan nearly every day via subway, an impossibility if New York was not united in this way. Also, Brooklyn has a borough hall that used to be city hall, quite beautiful if I am to believe the accounts, which is almost unused because the mayor of New York at some time didn't want there to be a separate seat of power. Do expand or correct as you find necessary. The miracle is that five boroughs work at all. No other city in the world can claim such a distinction.

[lennygoran]

Outer boroughs such as Brooklyn? That's a laugh.

John we were just in Long Island City a few weeks-had an absolutely superb weather day--we left from Pier 13 south of the South St. Seaport and took the ferry to the Long Island stop at Gantry State Park-it's our second visit over there--we walked along the water and checked out some restaurants one block in-amazing the number of nice looking residential buildings-I'm sure Amazon's move here will raise rents. The views that day from the ferry were just sensational! Regards, Len

[jbuck919]

Many years ago, I was working toward an MBA at Johns Hopkins. Of course, it ended up that I had not the slightest interest in having an MBA, but the point is that they allowed one out-of-area elective, which was the first course that I took, and it was art. For some reason that I did not understand, the instructor, an obvious New Yorker, devoted a lesson to NYC architecture. Well, I could recognize every slide he posted, and the entire rest of the class could not recognize any of them. You would think, wouldn't you, that everyone recognizes the Brooklyn Bridge. No, not at all. I even had to identify that.

[lennygoran]

You would think, wouldn't you, that everyone recognizes the Brooklyn Bridge. No, not at all. I even had to identify that.

John I love viewing the Brooklyn Bridge-I also love when you look out at it and also see the Manhattan Bridge and behind that the Williamsburg Bridge-just yesterday was watching a PBS show on great structures in the US and Roebling's bridge 9 years earlier in Cincinnati was shown-didn't know about that one! Regards, Len