Hi
The single most important thing that I try to do first every day is prepare my 4 or 5 meals for the day. I start with a big breakfast of oatmeal and a ½ of a banana. Then I cut up some fresh cauliflower; broccoli; fresh fruit; and about a fistful size of different chicken &/or turkey salads, and put them all into a Tupperware container (which I re-use), put them in my lunch box with a couple of Evian bottles of half frozen water (a/k/a ice).
I try to be ecological.
I lived in Amherst Massachusetts for 4 years in the early ‘70’s.. I was a “Nader’s Raider” (Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). Bill Cosby was at U Mass at the same time getting his EED, but that’s a story for a different email. I worked at the Amherst food co-op (100 families who bought their fruits and vegetables together each week); the natural food store called the equinox (where I used to make the trail mixes out of nuts and dried fruits); and I learned to recycle: (we used to separate the glass by color- brown glass, green glass, clear glass). Once you become environmentally conscious you tend to stay that way. These days I still recycle, but now I bring my empty bottles and cans to the processing place behind Pathmark, and give it to one of the people that pick up the bottles on the street for a living. It is one of the ways that I like to give charity. Silently and anonymously (until now I guess).
These days I shop at Whole Foods Market. I bring my own whole foods bag each time. My different bags say things on them like “I used to be a plastic water bottle.” At Whole Foods I buy my fresh fruits, vegetables, and salads for my lunch, (and chicken wings for dinner, but that’s another story).
In the movie Harold & Maude, (which I first saw while I was in Amherst) Maude (Ruth Gordon) is a 79 year old woman and Harold, a rich 17 year old kid share an obsession with death and funerals meet and have a little fling (If this sounds a bit strange, it is, but you should really see the movie if you never have). Anyway, at one point Maude turns Harold on to wine explaining that it has no nutritional value, but stating that “….consistency is not a human trait…”
On some days though, I am not in the mood to make oatmeal. Don’t know why, maybe the banana isn’t ripe enough. Or I just want to get out of the house quicker, whatever the reason.
On these days I go to Starbucks and get the Breakfast Spinach roasted tomato feta with egg Wrap (270 calories) and a triple tall 2% cappuccino w ½ a sweet and low, in my own mug (saves a tree); or sometimes I’ll go to Dunkin Donuts and get fluffy egg whites, peppers, onions, mushrooms and melted reduced–fat cheddar cheese served on a delicious multigrain flatbread (less than 300 calories) I don’t like Dunkin Donuts coffee, so I’ll still go to Starbucks and get a cappuccino or finish the coffee I brought from home; and sometimes I have a Myoplex protein shake, which I buy at the health food store, which is what weight lifters use (not that I will ever be confused with a weight lifter) - protein whey that tastes like an Oreo cookie.
The other day while I was at Whole Foods I saw this new product, a small purple plastic bottle, smaller than a tall coffee cup, called Sambazon Acai5- Antioxidant Superfood. I’ve been getting a lot of junk emails about Acai being this new super food, so I figured I’d try it, and I put it into my shopping basket.
The next day, on my way to work, in the car, I looked at the nutritional information and it said that it was 1.3 servings.
This was this little thing. 1.3 servings.
How can it be 1.3 servings?
I am a fairly educated person. I went to school for the first 25 years of my life I have a doctorates degree. I am into weight loss and nutrition. I always read the nutritional information when I buy things. The only explanation I can think of is that I quickly glanced at the calories (110) per serving, and assumed it was one serving.
Assume nothing: He who assumes makes an ass out of u and me.
But I had good cause to assume- I grabbed this tiny little bottle, in a health food supermarket, thinking, (stupid me) that this was one serving.
Okay, so I drank the whole thing. All 1.3 servings. No bells or alarms went off, and I didn’t feel all that guilty because I drank an extra .3 servings. Being in touch with my feelings I realized that I felt more anger than guilt. Why didn’t they just say that it was one serving and it had 143 calories? I probably would have bought it anyway, but then I wouldn’t have had a subject to write about today.
Because then it dawned on me- another solution !!!!!!!!
……………………… to be continued
Friday, March 27, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Why does Staten Island have so many foreclosures and who owns the real estate anyway?
This is a continuation of the first email that I wrote, last September, where I told the story about how I called an old friend at Merrill Lynch, after they had just written down $7.2 Billion in losses due to bad mortgages (and that was when a Billion Dollars was still a lot of money), and I asked him if I could help them with their Staten Island Real Estate, at which time he told me that Merrill Lunch didn’t own any real estate and that they only had bonds. I followed up with another email which discussed servicing companies that run the whole mortgage industry servicing the bonds from Wall Street. Later I spoke about organized crimes role with Straw Buyers. In November I wrote that the financial crisis was a ploy by Wall Street so they could trim off the fat, fire their older employees, and insure that they had money for end of the year bonuses. Anyway, this is the next installment of that series.
Today the big story is all about AIG’s bonuses, although we are still talking about Merrill Lynch’s. Can you imagine the unmitigated gall of these people?
So what did these geniuses do to earn these fantastic bonuses in the first place?
Well it all goes back to the mortgage business. As credit eased, everyone wanted a piece of the pie. Everyone was making money and the values of property kept going up so it was a win/win situation- even if people couldn’t pay their mortgages, they could refinance them. They even went so far as to create products that didn’t require re-payments. That’s old news.
Merrill Lynch decided to get into the mortgage business because they saw others making big profits, but they were pigs about it.
As a way to squeeze extra dollars in profit, for themselves, Wall Street created layers of the same thing. Wall Street has to grab not only the cream, but the fat, and grizzle, and then suck the bones dry.
They did this by coming up with a type of modern financial engineering known as derivatives. Derivatives are a combination of financial instruments that are used to limit risk (ha ha). An amalgam (a combination of two or more characteristics) of “collateralized debt obligations (CDO’s- pools of loans bundled for investors) and credit-default swaps. Their value is derived by the amount of the underlying asset.
What does all of this mean?
In order to reduce the risk of losing money, Morgan Stanley came up with these CDO’s bundling various obligations (stock, bonds, notes) of their prime customers (IBM, GE, GM, etc.,) along with riskier loans (junk bonds), unsecured loans, and including some insurance from AIG to secure the bonds against losses. Then they would put a value on this package, charge a fee for putting it together, maybe charge fees for “servicing the loans” and maybe earn a commission by re-selling the package to a different investor (foreign investors, foreign governments, city, state, and local government) or for the un-used portions of bond issues that they haven’t used yet, etc.
Originally when you bought a CDO, there could be hundreds or thousands of original notes, mortgages, stocks or bonds, included in the CDO.
Now Merrill Lynch figured out how they could do it electronically, via computer, and no longer have to deal with the physical paper of the documents. This begat electronic reporting services. This is why the owner of the mortgage on a house could be Deutche Banque as trustee of a series of bonds # 1-200, etc. etc.
But good old greed reared its ugly little head into the picture again.
Originally, these bundles, packages or “derivatives” were safe. After all we were dealing with real estate mortgages, stock certificates, corporate bonds, etc.
Merrill Lynch wanted to be the biggest player in mortgages. Bigger even than Lehman Brothers, and so they bought their own banks around the world, to be able to make more fees and commissions on originating the mortgages, servicing them, bundling them, and making their own derivatives. They were the biggest players in the game at the end.
And all was good for a while. The economy was good, the real estate market kept going up, and there were no losses, because even with bad credit you could refinance your loan, and take out the payments for another year or so. They were all performing, and since they were bonds, they weren’t even regulated. (Not to be political, but thank you Bill Clinton and George Bush).
But big surprise, Merrill Lynch got sloppy. They started bundling the loans together without regard for risk factors. Their risk profile at the end was non-existent.
There used to be a mortgage banker in Brooklyn that had the best deals. Only thing was that they closed all of their loans, in large amounts of mortgages together ($25 Million, $50 Million) whatever it was. (This always created problems to buyers and sellers who needed a closing, but the bank wasn’t ready, always just another day, just another piece of paper, where what they were doing was buying time to get them all together at once. This was so that they wouldn’t have to pay for warehousing (holding) the money. If they closed all of the loans and they always resold the package the same couple of days, then it was all profit.) Smart for them.
In order to sell this portfolio of mortgages, they had to comply to certain formulas. The vast majority was owner occupied 75-80% loan to value; a small percentage was even lower risk, and a small percentage was higher risk (5-10% down). These packages or bundles were packaged according to industry standards at the time. The percentage of risk was known and the prices for the bundles based upon risk factors.
The geniuses that were making the money for Merrill Lunch, and don’t forget, we are talking about making Billions of Dollars in profits here, these guys were getting multimillion dollar bonuses. To make the loans faster, and reap larger profits, they stopped doing too much due diligence, stopped risk management (translation - looked the other way), at the quality of the loans, or mortgages, or paper contained inside. If someone complained, they got fired, or told to shut up. But not too many people complained because they were all making so much money.
But then AIG stopped insuring the Merrill Lynch derivatives, because they were too risky, Merrill Lynch wrote down $7.2 Billion in losses, and that’s where my story began.
And where are these geniuses now? Huge paying jobs with hedge funds or other monetary funds, making fortunes by picking up the pieces, for huge fees, and selling them to other investors’, for huge fees. God Bless America!
So what happened to AIG?
Well the former Secretary of The Treasury, Henry Paulson, who was also the former head of Goldman Sachs, always had a rivalry with the head guy at Lehman Brothers, Richard Fuld. So while the economy was melting down, he told Lehman that we weren’t going to bail them out, “get thyself sold.” Of course the arrogant former head of Lehman Brothers, who became the poster boy for Wall Street greed when he defended the $484 million he received in salary, bonuses and stock options when he terrified before Congress in October, before the fall of Lehman. waited until it was too late, and couldn't find a buyer for Lehman. Paulson said we weren’t going to bail out Lehman Bros, and we let it fail. And of course that was the mistake that almost brought down the entire world, and which is why AIG got bailed out so quickly. Perhaps if Lehman Brothers had been bailed out the melt down might not have happened? Who knows?
But Lehman Brothers did fall. Problem was, AIG, the huge insurance company, who was in the business of collecting fees, basically insured that the world wouldn’t end. Whenever Lehman Brothers did a bond issue, or some sort of other financial derivative or whatever, AIG got a piece for insuring that Lehman Brothers would be there. AIG sure sounds like a scam.
All of a sudden, “poof” no Lehman Brothers! AIG has to pay out Billions in claims, and we found out in today’s news, that besides paying themselves bonuses, they used the bailout money to pay: Goldman Sachs $12.9 Billion; Merrill Lynch $6.8 Billion; Bank of America $5.2 Billion, etc. These are the same people that we had to bail out because they had losses, but then they collected for their losses again, from more money that we paid out.
Life sure is good here in America except that when the US gets a fever, the rest of the world gets the flu!.
SNAFU means- Situation Normal- All Fouled Up- this was created during the battle of the bulge during WW II. It's sort of irrelevant to anything I’ve written, but I just found it out, and thought that it was interesting, and worth passing along. (there is another less politically correct meaning… Situation Normal – All F---d up).
Today the big story is all about AIG’s bonuses, although we are still talking about Merrill Lynch’s. Can you imagine the unmitigated gall of these people?
So what did these geniuses do to earn these fantastic bonuses in the first place?
Well it all goes back to the mortgage business. As credit eased, everyone wanted a piece of the pie. Everyone was making money and the values of property kept going up so it was a win/win situation- even if people couldn’t pay their mortgages, they could refinance them. They even went so far as to create products that didn’t require re-payments. That’s old news.
Merrill Lynch decided to get into the mortgage business because they saw others making big profits, but they were pigs about it.
As a way to squeeze extra dollars in profit, for themselves, Wall Street created layers of the same thing. Wall Street has to grab not only the cream, but the fat, and grizzle, and then suck the bones dry.
They did this by coming up with a type of modern financial engineering known as derivatives. Derivatives are a combination of financial instruments that are used to limit risk (ha ha). An amalgam (a combination of two or more characteristics) of “collateralized debt obligations (CDO’s- pools of loans bundled for investors) and credit-default swaps. Their value is derived by the amount of the underlying asset.
What does all of this mean?
In order to reduce the risk of losing money, Morgan Stanley came up with these CDO’s bundling various obligations (stock, bonds, notes) of their prime customers (IBM, GE, GM, etc.,) along with riskier loans (junk bonds), unsecured loans, and including some insurance from AIG to secure the bonds against losses. Then they would put a value on this package, charge a fee for putting it together, maybe charge fees for “servicing the loans” and maybe earn a commission by re-selling the package to a different investor (foreign investors, foreign governments, city, state, and local government) or for the un-used portions of bond issues that they haven’t used yet, etc.
Originally when you bought a CDO, there could be hundreds or thousands of original notes, mortgages, stocks or bonds, included in the CDO.
Now Merrill Lynch figured out how they could do it electronically, via computer, and no longer have to deal with the physical paper of the documents. This begat electronic reporting services. This is why the owner of the mortgage on a house could be Deutche Banque as trustee of a series of bonds # 1-200, etc. etc.
But good old greed reared its ugly little head into the picture again.
Originally, these bundles, packages or “derivatives” were safe. After all we were dealing with real estate mortgages, stock certificates, corporate bonds, etc.
Merrill Lynch wanted to be the biggest player in mortgages. Bigger even than Lehman Brothers, and so they bought their own banks around the world, to be able to make more fees and commissions on originating the mortgages, servicing them, bundling them, and making their own derivatives. They were the biggest players in the game at the end.
And all was good for a while. The economy was good, the real estate market kept going up, and there were no losses, because even with bad credit you could refinance your loan, and take out the payments for another year or so. They were all performing, and since they were bonds, they weren’t even regulated. (Not to be political, but thank you Bill Clinton and George Bush).
But big surprise, Merrill Lynch got sloppy. They started bundling the loans together without regard for risk factors. Their risk profile at the end was non-existent.
There used to be a mortgage banker in Brooklyn that had the best deals. Only thing was that they closed all of their loans, in large amounts of mortgages together ($25 Million, $50 Million) whatever it was. (This always created problems to buyers and sellers who needed a closing, but the bank wasn’t ready, always just another day, just another piece of paper, where what they were doing was buying time to get them all together at once. This was so that they wouldn’t have to pay for warehousing (holding) the money. If they closed all of the loans and they always resold the package the same couple of days, then it was all profit.) Smart for them.
In order to sell this portfolio of mortgages, they had to comply to certain formulas. The vast majority was owner occupied 75-80% loan to value; a small percentage was even lower risk, and a small percentage was higher risk (5-10% down). These packages or bundles were packaged according to industry standards at the time. The percentage of risk was known and the prices for the bundles based upon risk factors.
The geniuses that were making the money for Merrill Lunch, and don’t forget, we are talking about making Billions of Dollars in profits here, these guys were getting multimillion dollar bonuses. To make the loans faster, and reap larger profits, they stopped doing too much due diligence, stopped risk management (translation - looked the other way), at the quality of the loans, or mortgages, or paper contained inside. If someone complained, they got fired, or told to shut up. But not too many people complained because they were all making so much money.
But then AIG stopped insuring the Merrill Lynch derivatives, because they were too risky, Merrill Lynch wrote down $7.2 Billion in losses, and that’s where my story began.
And where are these geniuses now? Huge paying jobs with hedge funds or other monetary funds, making fortunes by picking up the pieces, for huge fees, and selling them to other investors’, for huge fees. God Bless America!
So what happened to AIG?
Well the former Secretary of The Treasury, Henry Paulson, who was also the former head of Goldman Sachs, always had a rivalry with the head guy at Lehman Brothers, Richard Fuld. So while the economy was melting down, he told Lehman that we weren’t going to bail them out, “get thyself sold.” Of course the arrogant former head of Lehman Brothers, who became the poster boy for Wall Street greed when he defended the $484 million he received in salary, bonuses and stock options when he terrified before Congress in October, before the fall of Lehman. waited until it was too late, and couldn't find a buyer for Lehman. Paulson said we weren’t going to bail out Lehman Bros, and we let it fail. And of course that was the mistake that almost brought down the entire world, and which is why AIG got bailed out so quickly. Perhaps if Lehman Brothers had been bailed out the melt down might not have happened? Who knows?
But Lehman Brothers did fall. Problem was, AIG, the huge insurance company, who was in the business of collecting fees, basically insured that the world wouldn’t end. Whenever Lehman Brothers did a bond issue, or some sort of other financial derivative or whatever, AIG got a piece for insuring that Lehman Brothers would be there. AIG sure sounds like a scam.
All of a sudden, “poof” no Lehman Brothers! AIG has to pay out Billions in claims, and we found out in today’s news, that besides paying themselves bonuses, they used the bailout money to pay: Goldman Sachs $12.9 Billion; Merrill Lynch $6.8 Billion; Bank of America $5.2 Billion, etc. These are the same people that we had to bail out because they had losses, but then they collected for their losses again, from more money that we paid out.
Life sure is good here in America except that when the US gets a fever, the rest of the world gets the flu!.
SNAFU means- Situation Normal- All Fouled Up- this was created during the battle of the bulge during WW II. It's sort of irrelevant to anything I’ve written, but I just found it out, and thought that it was interesting, and worth passing along. (there is another less politically correct meaning… Situation Normal – All F---d up).
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Solutions
You know it’s easy to find things that are wrong, and point them out, complain about them, bitch about them; get depressed about them.
It’s quite another to find things that are right, talk about them and think about them, but that doesn’t sell newspapers (remember when the Staten Island Advance used to run a column called good news? Didn’t last very long.
Today I am going to do something that is really unusual- I am going to suggest solutions, answers, ideas that might fix things that are wrong, or make things better.
First: Staten Island has this huge traffic and transportation problem. It is probably too late, and too costly, to build a subway system; there isn’t a whole lot of room for new highways, the cost of widening Victory Blvd. as proposed during the depression, is cost prohibitive.
I have a solution that is attainable, doable, and realistic. I propose that we build and create a few transportation hubs on Staten Island. The first one already exists, in St. George at the ferry, where trains, buses, taxi’s, cars, parking lots, and ferry boats all meet. Fine.
How about: Let’s create a few more strategically located transportation hubs, where we can also have all of these various modes of transportation to meet. Perhaps one at each bridge, as well as a couple of more where appropriate. Let some of the hubs be located along the perimeter of the Island, (you know we are an island, surrounded by water, yet water transportation is limited to the ferry and private boats) so that smaller boats/ferries can be included, and a train can be run to the location also. If it is on the north shore or west shore, where there are no trains, perhaps a mono rail system to fill in where there are no trains to connect the hubs, and no-where else (except perhaps parking lots)- similar to Newark airport and Disney world. Disney World has a transportation center where they all meet called the transportation center- duh.
Now after we have these hubs, then the city planners, or transportation experts, can figure out bus routes that make sense, to service the areas between the hubs, efficiently, both convenience wise & ecologically. Smaller bus’s (van’s) can service even smaller areas around the hubs. At night, they wouldn’t even need to have routes, they could act like taxis or we could have taxis for the last mile or so. I admit that its been a very long time since I road on a bus, but I remember when I was a kid, waiting for the 106 down Watchogue road, and it was this huge bus, and I would be the only passenger, or me and a few others. No reason why we need to burn gasoline or diesel fuel to power a huge bus at night- when smaller more efficient buses could work. (Change the size of bus’s right now). In addition to busses we can add boats, water taxi’s, monorails and other passenger trains that could be used to connect the hubs.
The concept is that we would have these transportation hubs, or centers, where when you want to get someplace, you figure out where you need to land (Ferry, one of the bridges) - to transfer to the next type of transportation which might be a boat, or a train to take you off the island, or to take you to the final leg of the trip, where you transfer to either a bus a van or a taxi or a car or walk.
There is a train that runs from Grand Central Terminal to Bayonne. There is no reason why that train cannot be extended to go over the Bayonne Bridge to the hub there.
There is also a train that ends in Elizabeth that could be extended somehow to the Goethals Bridge, or to a place near the water where a boat could run to the Goethals Bridge hub. Get the picture?
To go from point A to point B might require more than one means of transportation, so it won’t be the most convenient as such, but the most efficient, resulting in the least amount of pollution, traffic, etc. Ultimately the result would be mass transportation for Staten Island.
Think about it.
And speaking about Islands, How about let’s take a cruise around our island? Good idea for a charity that needs something different to do- we can look for hubs, or we can hire a band, and make it a dance, or hire a caterer and make it a dinner cruise or just go site seeing. Anyone with a boat who wants to take me - I’m game; pick a nice beautiful day and I’ll bring my camera (I inherited the camera bug gene from my father).
Second Idea for Today:
Amongst our problems these days include the fact that we are now having trouble hiring cops etc. or the better candidates are going elsewhere- entry level cops, and firemen (people), start off at first 5 years at ridiculously low salaries. Teachers are underpaid, as are all city and state workers. Incentives to do good work are nice talk, but rarely put into action. Plus we are talking about furloughs so that employees lose more pay. Our potentially best candidates’ are taking jobs elsewhere for much more money. And of course another one of our big problems was the collapse of the real estate market, and its effect on the rest of the economy.
How about: The SONYMA (State of New York Mortgage Agency) offers below market mortgages for people in certain areas, first time home buyers, and probably others. Fanny and Freddie make loans too.
I propose a bunch of different below market mortgages.
1. Cops, firemen, city workers etc., who are in their first 5 years of employment and making lower incomes. For these people, the mortgage qualification would be based upon their income to be paid in their 6th year of employment, but the payments (which should be taken from their pay) will be based upon their current income percentage of their take home). It could even be interest only, or negative amortization, and if they stay with the city/state job, then they don’t pay back the negative amortization. This should be for all employees, for their primary residences.
2. Cops, firemen, other uniformed services, teachers, etc., who wish to supplement their incomes by buying real estate- as either investment properties or fixer uppers, can qualify for a workers mortgage which will be a commercial loan but with a deal that they can afford- this means that they don’t have to lie and say they are going to live there, and they don’t have to put down 35-45% (which is what commercial loans are calling for these days). The lender will make a determination as to loan to value based upon what is going to be done to the premises (if a fixer upper), and based upon potential income if an income producer (two family). Now if they rent the property to one of the available programs that exist through the city/state/federal governments, then the rent will be paid directly from section 8 or whomever to SONYMA or whomever directly, and the balance put into the employees pay check. The interest payments will also be based upon ability to pay, and in the case of re-sales, SONYMA is a partner, and receives a percentage of the profits, after it receives back its principal.
3. Employee ownership and government programs for renting apartments will be coordinated.
4. Since mortgage payments are to be taken from the employees’ pay check, then even employees with bad credit can still apply for and qualify for the same good deals as everyone else.
5. Incentives for meritorious service, especially for teachers, could be loans for improvements/additions’ to homes, via low cost second mortgages, which could even include clauses where repayment may be waived partially or fully, or no interest etc., as rewards/incentives for extraordinary services.
6. Foreclosures are inevitable – (remember bad things can happen to good people too), can also be sold directly to the employees with favorable terms.
I think that this is enough for one sitting. If anyone has any ideas that they want to bounce around, or put out there, let me know.
Notes:
Thank you to all the people who told me what a whipper snapper is. One of them is: whip⋅per⋅snap⋅per –noun an unimportant but offensively presumptuous person, esp. a young one.
The weight group isn’t working. No one is coming anymore. So I am going to make arrangements for a dinner meeting, at a restaurant, that will be healthy, and taste good. If interested, let me know- I will require RSVP’s for the chef.
I received a number of emails regarding whether or not there really was a fire at the building department in 1938. Perry White a/k/a Jon Salmon (my editor) and I discussed the various theories prior to dissemination, and agreed that the fire is the commonly believed story, although often questioned. One of these days I will go to the advance and search their files. Perhaps the “fire” was just a “barbecue” by a few people involved and only involved a few folders. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many people still alive who were around then.
Reminds me of a joke: two old guys are talking: how’s business the first guy asks? Terrible says the second guy, we had a flood, but the insurance company paid me for all the inventory that I had in the basement that I couldn’t sell – Oh that’s terrible says the first guy…so tell me, how do you start a flood?
I hope someone takes me up on the boat ride.
…………………….to be continued
It’s quite another to find things that are right, talk about them and think about them, but that doesn’t sell newspapers (remember when the Staten Island Advance used to run a column called good news? Didn’t last very long.
Today I am going to do something that is really unusual- I am going to suggest solutions, answers, ideas that might fix things that are wrong, or make things better.
First: Staten Island has this huge traffic and transportation problem. It is probably too late, and too costly, to build a subway system; there isn’t a whole lot of room for new highways, the cost of widening Victory Blvd. as proposed during the depression, is cost prohibitive.
I have a solution that is attainable, doable, and realistic. I propose that we build and create a few transportation hubs on Staten Island. The first one already exists, in St. George at the ferry, where trains, buses, taxi’s, cars, parking lots, and ferry boats all meet. Fine.
How about: Let’s create a few more strategically located transportation hubs, where we can also have all of these various modes of transportation to meet. Perhaps one at each bridge, as well as a couple of more where appropriate. Let some of the hubs be located along the perimeter of the Island, (you know we are an island, surrounded by water, yet water transportation is limited to the ferry and private boats) so that smaller boats/ferries can be included, and a train can be run to the location also. If it is on the north shore or west shore, where there are no trains, perhaps a mono rail system to fill in where there are no trains to connect the hubs, and no-where else (except perhaps parking lots)- similar to Newark airport and Disney world. Disney World has a transportation center where they all meet called the transportation center- duh.
Now after we have these hubs, then the city planners, or transportation experts, can figure out bus routes that make sense, to service the areas between the hubs, efficiently, both convenience wise & ecologically. Smaller bus’s (van’s) can service even smaller areas around the hubs. At night, they wouldn’t even need to have routes, they could act like taxis or we could have taxis for the last mile or so. I admit that its been a very long time since I road on a bus, but I remember when I was a kid, waiting for the 106 down Watchogue road, and it was this huge bus, and I would be the only passenger, or me and a few others. No reason why we need to burn gasoline or diesel fuel to power a huge bus at night- when smaller more efficient buses could work. (Change the size of bus’s right now). In addition to busses we can add boats, water taxi’s, monorails and other passenger trains that could be used to connect the hubs.
The concept is that we would have these transportation hubs, or centers, where when you want to get someplace, you figure out where you need to land (Ferry, one of the bridges) - to transfer to the next type of transportation which might be a boat, or a train to take you off the island, or to take you to the final leg of the trip, where you transfer to either a bus a van or a taxi or a car or walk.
There is a train that runs from Grand Central Terminal to Bayonne. There is no reason why that train cannot be extended to go over the Bayonne Bridge to the hub there.
There is also a train that ends in Elizabeth that could be extended somehow to the Goethals Bridge, or to a place near the water where a boat could run to the Goethals Bridge hub. Get the picture?
To go from point A to point B might require more than one means of transportation, so it won’t be the most convenient as such, but the most efficient, resulting in the least amount of pollution, traffic, etc. Ultimately the result would be mass transportation for Staten Island.
Think about it.
And speaking about Islands, How about let’s take a cruise around our island? Good idea for a charity that needs something different to do- we can look for hubs, or we can hire a band, and make it a dance, or hire a caterer and make it a dinner cruise or just go site seeing. Anyone with a boat who wants to take me - I’m game; pick a nice beautiful day and I’ll bring my camera (I inherited the camera bug gene from my father).
Second Idea for Today:
Amongst our problems these days include the fact that we are now having trouble hiring cops etc. or the better candidates are going elsewhere- entry level cops, and firemen (people), start off at first 5 years at ridiculously low salaries. Teachers are underpaid, as are all city and state workers. Incentives to do good work are nice talk, but rarely put into action. Plus we are talking about furloughs so that employees lose more pay. Our potentially best candidates’ are taking jobs elsewhere for much more money. And of course another one of our big problems was the collapse of the real estate market, and its effect on the rest of the economy.
How about: The SONYMA (State of New York Mortgage Agency) offers below market mortgages for people in certain areas, first time home buyers, and probably others. Fanny and Freddie make loans too.
I propose a bunch of different below market mortgages.
1. Cops, firemen, city workers etc., who are in their first 5 years of employment and making lower incomes. For these people, the mortgage qualification would be based upon their income to be paid in their 6th year of employment, but the payments (which should be taken from their pay) will be based upon their current income percentage of their take home). It could even be interest only, or negative amortization, and if they stay with the city/state job, then they don’t pay back the negative amortization. This should be for all employees, for their primary residences.
2. Cops, firemen, other uniformed services, teachers, etc., who wish to supplement their incomes by buying real estate- as either investment properties or fixer uppers, can qualify for a workers mortgage which will be a commercial loan but with a deal that they can afford- this means that they don’t have to lie and say they are going to live there, and they don’t have to put down 35-45% (which is what commercial loans are calling for these days). The lender will make a determination as to loan to value based upon what is going to be done to the premises (if a fixer upper), and based upon potential income if an income producer (two family). Now if they rent the property to one of the available programs that exist through the city/state/federal governments, then the rent will be paid directly from section 8 or whomever to SONYMA or whomever directly, and the balance put into the employees pay check. The interest payments will also be based upon ability to pay, and in the case of re-sales, SONYMA is a partner, and receives a percentage of the profits, after it receives back its principal.
3. Employee ownership and government programs for renting apartments will be coordinated.
4. Since mortgage payments are to be taken from the employees’ pay check, then even employees with bad credit can still apply for and qualify for the same good deals as everyone else.
5. Incentives for meritorious service, especially for teachers, could be loans for improvements/additions’ to homes, via low cost second mortgages, which could even include clauses where repayment may be waived partially or fully, or no interest etc., as rewards/incentives for extraordinary services.
6. Foreclosures are inevitable – (remember bad things can happen to good people too), can also be sold directly to the employees with favorable terms.
I think that this is enough for one sitting. If anyone has any ideas that they want to bounce around, or put out there, let me know.
Notes:
Thank you to all the people who told me what a whipper snapper is. One of them is: whip⋅per⋅snap⋅per –noun an unimportant but offensively presumptuous person, esp. a young one.
The weight group isn’t working. No one is coming anymore. So I am going to make arrangements for a dinner meeting, at a restaurant, that will be healthy, and taste good. If interested, let me know- I will require RSVP’s for the chef.
I received a number of emails regarding whether or not there really was a fire at the building department in 1938. Perry White a/k/a Jon Salmon (my editor) and I discussed the various theories prior to dissemination, and agreed that the fire is the commonly believed story, although often questioned. One of these days I will go to the advance and search their files. Perhaps the “fire” was just a “barbecue” by a few people involved and only involved a few folders. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many people still alive who were around then.
Reminds me of a joke: two old guys are talking: how’s business the first guy asks? Terrible says the second guy, we had a flood, but the insurance company paid me for all the inventory that I had in the basement that I couldn’t sell – Oh that’s terrible says the first guy…so tell me, how do you start a flood?
I hope someone takes me up on the boat ride.
…………………….to be continued
Thursday, March 5, 2009
More than you ever needed to know about zoning
Once upon a time, there were no building codes, no zoning laws. If you owned land and wanted to build something, you just built it.
Restrictive covenants were put in place to protect neighborhoods and/subdivisions. The most common restrictions on Staten Island are/were: no slaughter houses; no alcohol can be distilled (Prohibition Park, a/k/a Westerleigh), etc. Houses must be 10 feet back, or must cost at least $1,000 to build, etc.
Zoning Story # 1: In the middle ages in Florence, Italy, the Medici family (who were the richest family in Europe) built a tunnel above the buildings in Florence to connect their main residence (palace) in Florence, to the Petit palace, across the Arno River (so that they wouldn’t have to use the streets and mix with the riff raff), by also going over the Ponte Vecchio (which is the oldest and most famous of the six bridges in Florence). There were always shops on the bridges, and in the 15th century these shops on the Ponte Vecchio were greengrocers, butchers, fishmongers. But then perhaps because of their bad smell, and the rat problem caused, Ferdinando I, at the behest of the Great Catherine Medici, replaced them with the Goldsmiths. Smart zoning resulted in one of the finest places to buy Gold jewelry in the world (On and around the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy).
Wikipedia says that the first specific State statute was enacted in the 1860’s that prohibited all commercial activities along Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn.
As early as the 1870’s and 1880’s, New Yorkers began to protest the loss of light and air as tall residential buildings began to appear in Manhattan. In response, the state legislature enacted a series of height restrictions on residential buildings, culminating in the Tenement House Act of 1901, rules that required one window per room to insure air and light.
The whole world was shocked when 148 people died, trapped inside the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Manhattan on March 25, 1911 which brought reforms to sweat shops; factories; the labor movement; the growth of the importance of the ILGWU; and many attribute it to the creation of the fire code.
In 1916, New York City adopted the first zoning regulations to apply city-wide as a reaction to construction of The Equitable Building (which still stands at 120 Broadway).
During the depression, FDR put lots of people to work, which is what President Obama is trying to do now. Artists’ were hired to draw murals; photographers’ were hired to take photos’, ditch diggers’ were hired to dig ditches, unskilled laborers were hired to build roads, dams, bridges, buildings, etc.
Surveyors, engineers “map makers” were also hired. Parcels of land on Staten Island, (and every where else) were cut up into blocks and lots, 20x100 lots, and drawn onto “filed maps” which were filed at the County Clerks Office. Much of the land was just woods on Staten Island, but now had paper streets with blocks and lots on maps
An example of no zoning is the 3 or 4 bungalows on a single tax lot remaining to this day in some of the beach areas.
Many deeds, especially older deeds still contain descriptions based upon the filed map. Lots # whatever on the map of Keiber Farm, section 2………… although these days the banks require new surveys at every closing, thus new metes and bounds descriptions are prepared.
Prior to the filed maps, descriptions of properties were more basic- ……….to the “row of trees” or the magnolia tree separating the property belonging to Brown and formerly belonging to green; or to the fork in the road, or the edge of the creak, or to the post in the road, etc.
I recently sold a property where the description has as one of its courses- ……and thence 112 feet to the spike in the fence…….. Problem is that the fence and the spike are long gone.
In 1938, there was a fire in the Staten Island building department. Some said that it was arson, to cover up irregularities being investigated involving several lawyers, developers, builders, politicians, where supposedly a couple of guys took the fall, one of whom was rewarded with a big job. The fire wiped out the Certificate of Occupancies records, and that is why on Staten Island, houses built prior to 1938 do not require a Certificate of Occupancy (although many buildings built prior to 1938 do).
Pre-1938 multiple dwellings are quite the headache for the lawyers representing buyers these days and off Island banker’s who don’t understand. Sometimes banks will not lend on them because there is no C of O, although you can get a letter of no objection from the DOB, but even that is insufficient to some lenders. (These are the loans made by local banks that don’t sell their mortgages, like Northfield Savings- to owner occupiers. Are there any other lenders left? (United Brethrens?) that lend Staten Island and don’t sell the loans?).
(When I write these questions, they aren’t meant to be rhetorical, I am really asking- if any one knows, please let me know. I still don’t know what a whipper snapper is- does any one know? Someone who snaps whips?).
Anyway, in the late 50’s, after the post war building boom, we realized that we needed a comprehensive zoning rule for the city. The 1961 Zoning Resolution was a product of its time, created primarily to regulate the high rises in Manhattan, but also to coordinate use and bulk regulations, parking requirements, and emphasized the creation of open space.
For Staten Island, the 1961 zoning dramatically reduced achievable residential densities, by creating and attaching zoning classifications. Now we were regulated with minimum requirements: minimum lot sizes, rear yards, front yards, side yards, height limitations, and zoning districts where you could have attached housing; high rise housing; mid rise housing; commercial uses, etc. Prior to 1961, you could build anything you want, wherever you wanted subject to Covenants, Restrictions, and light and air requirements.
Under the zoning laws, there are minimum lot size requirements for various zones. An R1 lot requires a minimum of 100 feet width; R2 - 40 feet R 3 a– 25 feet; R 3x - 35 feet. Now if you have a lot that has existed separately owned from any other lot next to it, since prior to 1961, then you can still build on it as a pre 1961 zoning law lot.
Staten Island had a couple of rapid growth spurts.
Lots of homes were built after WW2, continuing into the late 50’s, and early 60’s. Lots of Cape’s, then ranches, then the match boxes. How the old Staten Islanders hated them, and complained about them- all of the match box houses being built that all looked alike.
(And now the politicians scream when a builder wants to knock down an old cape, to prevent the construction of new houses.)
Then the bridge opened in 1964.
A lot of people bought land on the South Shore thinking that they were going to make a killing, but there were no sewers. And they sat with their land, many people lost their land, (stopped paying taxes and let the city take the land back) and nothing really happened again until the boom of the mid 70’s (before Carter), and then the boom of the 80’s, and then the boom of the 90’s.
It was very advantageous for land developers to be active in politics in the 50’s and 60’s. A politician might be able to get a small sewer project approved dragging a sewer along another several blocks, or piping some brooks a few blocks. Knowing where these projects were being laid out, you could then buy the land nearby and make a killing. In the 50’s a sewered 40 x 100 in Westerleigh sold for $200. (And maybe you could pick it up for back taxes, or buy the tax lien).
And then came the zoning panic of the early 2000’s. All of a sudden, the politicians got on their soap boxes and tried to make up for all of the years of not doing anything to try to make sense out of the zoning laws. Blocks and blocks, entire communities were rezoned to a lesser density. Of course the knee jerk response was an over reaction, and consequently the new zoning laws are cranking out these skinny houses on 25’ lots, with 0 or 2’ side yards.
So after a lot of noise, and rezoning of Staten Island, construction has come to a halt, partly because the new zoning law doesn’t make sense.
The skinny houses on 25’ lots- some of which are built on stilts to access parking- does this make more sense then semi’s or townhouses?
Sure- parking rules are important but it would be nice if they made sense.
How about this one- no more two family homes in Westerleigh?
But how about a bonus to a builder (to be enjoyed by the eventual home owner) who builds 3 or more houses, and changes them so that they don’t all look alike- with extra floor area? No way.
So we spent all of this time reducing our zoning density, fighting the builders, jumping up and down on soap boxes, and this is what I’ve discovered.
Commercial districts- overlays. This means that although there is residential zoning, if there is a commercial overlay, then you can’t built residential units on the first floor, has to be commercial.
But Forest Avenue, in its busiest commercial spot, -is residentially zoned.
Recently I was attempting to sell the March of Dimes Building on Forest Avenue, to someone who wanted to use it as a law office- but guess what- can’t. Many of the law offices and real estate offices along Forest Avenue are grandfathered in as pre-zoning law commercial usage, or are illegal and ignored.
Why don’t the politicians and the planners look at Forest Avenue, Victory Blvd, Hylan Blvd, etc., and realize that these are commercial shopping areas, and rezone them accordingly?
I was trying to create a Medical building on Victory Blvd, in a building that had always been a medical office since it was built in the 50’s, across the street from a dozen medical offices on Doctor’s row on Victory Blvd. from Clove Road to PS 29. Doctors’ offices are legal in most zones on Staten Island, but the zoning was changed recently along this strip, so that you can’t open a new doctor’s office there, or expand an existing one.
I could understand making it 100 feet back from Victory Blvd. My guess is that they were trying to prevent Royal Oak Road from becoming doctors’ offices, fine- but Victory Blvd?
There must be some real good city planners out there who are out of work these days. Perhaps the next public works stimulus programs hires these people to try to really make sense out of the zoning laws, without regard to the politics of it all.
…………………………to be continued
Restrictive covenants were put in place to protect neighborhoods and/subdivisions. The most common restrictions on Staten Island are/were: no slaughter houses; no alcohol can be distilled (Prohibition Park, a/k/a Westerleigh), etc. Houses must be 10 feet back, or must cost at least $1,000 to build, etc.
Zoning Story # 1: In the middle ages in Florence, Italy, the Medici family (who were the richest family in Europe) built a tunnel above the buildings in Florence to connect their main residence (palace) in Florence, to the Petit palace, across the Arno River (so that they wouldn’t have to use the streets and mix with the riff raff), by also going over the Ponte Vecchio (which is the oldest and most famous of the six bridges in Florence). There were always shops on the bridges, and in the 15th century these shops on the Ponte Vecchio were greengrocers, butchers, fishmongers. But then perhaps because of their bad smell, and the rat problem caused, Ferdinando I, at the behest of the Great Catherine Medici, replaced them with the Goldsmiths. Smart zoning resulted in one of the finest places to buy Gold jewelry in the world (On and around the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy).
Wikipedia says that the first specific State statute was enacted in the 1860’s that prohibited all commercial activities along Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn.
As early as the 1870’s and 1880’s, New Yorkers began to protest the loss of light and air as tall residential buildings began to appear in Manhattan. In response, the state legislature enacted a series of height restrictions on residential buildings, culminating in the Tenement House Act of 1901, rules that required one window per room to insure air and light.
The whole world was shocked when 148 people died, trapped inside the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Manhattan on March 25, 1911 which brought reforms to sweat shops; factories; the labor movement; the growth of the importance of the ILGWU; and many attribute it to the creation of the fire code.
In 1916, New York City adopted the first zoning regulations to apply city-wide as a reaction to construction of The Equitable Building (which still stands at 120 Broadway).
During the depression, FDR put lots of people to work, which is what President Obama is trying to do now. Artists’ were hired to draw murals; photographers’ were hired to take photos’, ditch diggers’ were hired to dig ditches, unskilled laborers were hired to build roads, dams, bridges, buildings, etc.
Surveyors, engineers “map makers” were also hired. Parcels of land on Staten Island, (and every where else) were cut up into blocks and lots, 20x100 lots, and drawn onto “filed maps” which were filed at the County Clerks Office. Much of the land was just woods on Staten Island, but now had paper streets with blocks and lots on maps
An example of no zoning is the 3 or 4 bungalows on a single tax lot remaining to this day in some of the beach areas.
Many deeds, especially older deeds still contain descriptions based upon the filed map. Lots # whatever on the map of Keiber Farm, section 2………… although these days the banks require new surveys at every closing, thus new metes and bounds descriptions are prepared.
Prior to the filed maps, descriptions of properties were more basic- ……….to the “row of trees” or the magnolia tree separating the property belonging to Brown and formerly belonging to green; or to the fork in the road, or the edge of the creak, or to the post in the road, etc.
I recently sold a property where the description has as one of its courses- ……and thence 112 feet to the spike in the fence…….. Problem is that the fence and the spike are long gone.
In 1938, there was a fire in the Staten Island building department. Some said that it was arson, to cover up irregularities being investigated involving several lawyers, developers, builders, politicians, where supposedly a couple of guys took the fall, one of whom was rewarded with a big job. The fire wiped out the Certificate of Occupancies records, and that is why on Staten Island, houses built prior to 1938 do not require a Certificate of Occupancy (although many buildings built prior to 1938 do).
Pre-1938 multiple dwellings are quite the headache for the lawyers representing buyers these days and off Island banker’s who don’t understand. Sometimes banks will not lend on them because there is no C of O, although you can get a letter of no objection from the DOB, but even that is insufficient to some lenders. (These are the loans made by local banks that don’t sell their mortgages, like Northfield Savings- to owner occupiers. Are there any other lenders left? (United Brethrens?) that lend Staten Island and don’t sell the loans?).
(When I write these questions, they aren’t meant to be rhetorical, I am really asking- if any one knows, please let me know. I still don’t know what a whipper snapper is- does any one know? Someone who snaps whips?).
Anyway, in the late 50’s, after the post war building boom, we realized that we needed a comprehensive zoning rule for the city. The 1961 Zoning Resolution was a product of its time, created primarily to regulate the high rises in Manhattan, but also to coordinate use and bulk regulations, parking requirements, and emphasized the creation of open space.
For Staten Island, the 1961 zoning dramatically reduced achievable residential densities, by creating and attaching zoning classifications. Now we were regulated with minimum requirements: minimum lot sizes, rear yards, front yards, side yards, height limitations, and zoning districts where you could have attached housing; high rise housing; mid rise housing; commercial uses, etc. Prior to 1961, you could build anything you want, wherever you wanted subject to Covenants, Restrictions, and light and air requirements.
Under the zoning laws, there are minimum lot size requirements for various zones. An R1 lot requires a minimum of 100 feet width; R2 - 40 feet R 3 a– 25 feet; R 3x - 35 feet. Now if you have a lot that has existed separately owned from any other lot next to it, since prior to 1961, then you can still build on it as a pre 1961 zoning law lot.
Staten Island had a couple of rapid growth spurts.
Lots of homes were built after WW2, continuing into the late 50’s, and early 60’s. Lots of Cape’s, then ranches, then the match boxes. How the old Staten Islanders hated them, and complained about them- all of the match box houses being built that all looked alike.
(And now the politicians scream when a builder wants to knock down an old cape, to prevent the construction of new houses.)
Then the bridge opened in 1964.
A lot of people bought land on the South Shore thinking that they were going to make a killing, but there were no sewers. And they sat with their land, many people lost their land, (stopped paying taxes and let the city take the land back) and nothing really happened again until the boom of the mid 70’s (before Carter), and then the boom of the 80’s, and then the boom of the 90’s.
It was very advantageous for land developers to be active in politics in the 50’s and 60’s. A politician might be able to get a small sewer project approved dragging a sewer along another several blocks, or piping some brooks a few blocks. Knowing where these projects were being laid out, you could then buy the land nearby and make a killing. In the 50’s a sewered 40 x 100 in Westerleigh sold for $200. (And maybe you could pick it up for back taxes, or buy the tax lien).
And then came the zoning panic of the early 2000’s. All of a sudden, the politicians got on their soap boxes and tried to make up for all of the years of not doing anything to try to make sense out of the zoning laws. Blocks and blocks, entire communities were rezoned to a lesser density. Of course the knee jerk response was an over reaction, and consequently the new zoning laws are cranking out these skinny houses on 25’ lots, with 0 or 2’ side yards.
So after a lot of noise, and rezoning of Staten Island, construction has come to a halt, partly because the new zoning law doesn’t make sense.
The skinny houses on 25’ lots- some of which are built on stilts to access parking- does this make more sense then semi’s or townhouses?
Sure- parking rules are important but it would be nice if they made sense.
How about this one- no more two family homes in Westerleigh?
But how about a bonus to a builder (to be enjoyed by the eventual home owner) who builds 3 or more houses, and changes them so that they don’t all look alike- with extra floor area? No way.
So we spent all of this time reducing our zoning density, fighting the builders, jumping up and down on soap boxes, and this is what I’ve discovered.
Commercial districts- overlays. This means that although there is residential zoning, if there is a commercial overlay, then you can’t built residential units on the first floor, has to be commercial.
But Forest Avenue, in its busiest commercial spot, -is residentially zoned.
Recently I was attempting to sell the March of Dimes Building on Forest Avenue, to someone who wanted to use it as a law office- but guess what- can’t. Many of the law offices and real estate offices along Forest Avenue are grandfathered in as pre-zoning law commercial usage, or are illegal and ignored.
Why don’t the politicians and the planners look at Forest Avenue, Victory Blvd, Hylan Blvd, etc., and realize that these are commercial shopping areas, and rezone them accordingly?
I was trying to create a Medical building on Victory Blvd, in a building that had always been a medical office since it was built in the 50’s, across the street from a dozen medical offices on Doctor’s row on Victory Blvd. from Clove Road to PS 29. Doctors’ offices are legal in most zones on Staten Island, but the zoning was changed recently along this strip, so that you can’t open a new doctor’s office there, or expand an existing one.
I could understand making it 100 feet back from Victory Blvd. My guess is that they were trying to prevent Royal Oak Road from becoming doctors’ offices, fine- but Victory Blvd?
There must be some real good city planners out there who are out of work these days. Perhaps the next public works stimulus programs hires these people to try to really make sense out of the zoning laws, without regard to the politics of it all.
…………………………to be continued
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)