Remote work isn't a fringe benefit. If we're playing this "everything is the same" game, give every office worker overtime eligibility.

Or, if they really want to work remotely they should change professions.

I remember the last time billionaire developers tried to build a Ferris Wheel in NYC surrounded by commercial and entertainment development.

I also remember this similar venture, also featuring an artistic central attraction surrounded by entertainment and commercial development

But by all means let try this again.

Wanting cash because they are angry that their physical labor job they chose doesn't allow them to work remotely is ridiculous. Ask for more $$ because you deserve it, but demanding it because their work can't be remote is childish. And the only people egging on this apples to oranges garage are the bosses.

>anti-worker

It's anti-worker to pretend all jobs need to be equalized in this very silly way. What the administration is actually doing here by setting up this ridiculous comparison between different kinds of jobs, is pitting workers against each other hoping they won't look up top. That is anti-worker. Different jobs are different. Why are we sitting here pretending they aren't? Blue collar city jobs have always had overtime options that administrative workers never had. This "equalizing" has already occurred because of that.

Why? Different jobs are different. If you chose to be an electrician or a contractor instead of someone who works primarily on a computer and phone why should you get a special gift in salary (when you already get overtime that most office workers don't get) because you obviously can't work remotely? The city shouldn't be setting wage expectations based on the possibility of sour grapes.

>Remote work will draw NYC salaries down and low wage places up. There will be a national salary for a lot of jobs

You say that as if remote work hasn't been the rule for the past 3 years. This isn't theoretical anymore we've already seen it in action and this didn't happen.

I guess we'll just (checks notes) round up all of the homeless people in the city and "disappear" them so then we can install public bathrooms. Sounds like a great final solution you have there.

>The five Portland Loo toilets, made by an Oregon-based metal firm, cost roughly $185,000 each, according to a Parks Department spokesperson. 

>But the overall budget to buy and install five Portland Loos, in one pilot location in each borough, starting as early as summer 2024, could reach as much as $5.3 million. 

It's $185k to buy. The rest is the operation and maintenance. They need to run electric and plumbing to them.

You'd rather people shit and piss on the street?

It's funny because the "solution" companies have come up with is to have "hotel" desks where you not only still work in a cubicle farm, but you share an empty desk with other staffers on your off days.

Lucky for them, the city is cutting corners in enforcement left and right thanks to Eric Adams. They'd be fine trying out whatever they want and crossing their fingers.

Us: Maybe you could lure back some tenants by reducing the rents and cutting the offices into smaller sections to attract small businesses!

Them: NO. ERIC ADAMS, GO INSULT REMOTE AND HYBRID WORKERS UNTIL THEY COME BACK AND EVERYTHING IS THE SAME AS IT WAS IN 2019!!

Yes, I read it. And it's almost as if we had a pandemic since these were first proposed and inflation has been nuts, in addition to supply chain issues. Oh, also we got a new mayor with new priorities and new Commissioners in every agency. Of course it was delayed. Of course it costs more now.

>when one of them angrily called and asked why the firm wasn’t providing the potties.

Who called? An elected official? Someone at NYC Parks? This anecdote doesn't mean anything unless they specify that the agency managing and buying the Loos made the call. And based on the fact that he didn't say an official at NYC Parks, I bet some slack jawed City Council member or Borough President called. As a rule, they don't know anything except when the next public event with a podium will be.

Look forward to everyone being angry about these bathrooms that have been demanded to be put into city parks for years.

PUT IN MORE BATHROOMS. NO, NOT LIKE THAT!

Other cities with even worse issues with homeless populations have successfully implemented these bathrooms. There's nothing so special about NYC that they wouldn't work here. What is unique is our stubbornness and inability to try.

Parks.

Most food spots still close at 4pm/5pm in FiDi. It's still a ghost town after the 9-5. The businesses here refuse to adapt and make an attempt to service the few people who actually live here.

They can keep wishing and praying things go back to the status quo pre-covid but it's not happening. At the very least these owners could reduce the rent significantly to make it easier for large and small offices to get smaller amounts of space. They won't even do that.

So why are we taking these people seriously when they won't even make the most basic choices to lure people back to office spaces, if they truly don't think conversion is an option?

>Prosecutors on Friday charged Lulzim “Luis” Shabaj, 41, in New York State Supreme Court with scheme to defraud, saying that he and his twin brother Gzim “Jimmy” Shabaj had stolen thousands of dollars from the Spanish-speaking workers by declining to pay them for their work at a site in Harlem.

>Prosecutors said that Gzim Shabaj, who was charged earlier this week, had responded to one worker’s early September request to be paid by pulling out a knife and, with his other hand, repeatedly punching the worker in the head until his ear bled.

A couple of cheap scumbags. I'm sure they'll get a slap on the wrist and before you know it Eric Adams will be one of their good friends helping to give them a second chance.

Dude was a parking lot security attendant in Virginia before his brother promised him a $200k security job in the NYPD. Then they got called out by the press and he had to eat crow and take. $1 salary. I'm guessing whatever $ his brother was throwing at him with his old NYPD pension wasn't cutting it.

Maybe they'll scale back all the office space they planned, but I doubt it. Look forward to.them going ahead and building a bunch of office buildings that will be almost entirely empty and rat infested in the first years they open.

Isn't it insane we let privately owned arenas and massive event spaces move anywhere they want in New York City almost entirely public-funded at nearly tax-free forever?? We expect more financial fealty for poor and middle class New Yorkers than from people who have more personal wealth than they could ever spend in a lifetime.

Ydanis by all accounts seems like a kind and likable man. But he's laughably dumb on the topic of transportation and does nothing of value but show up at events to be "the face" of DOT.

They have a super majority and could overtake most of what Adams does. Do they? No. They don't even try. They basically do nothing most of the time and once in awhile vote for a bunch of new "task forces" that accomplish nothing and waste everyone's time.

His role is to undermine the NYPD commissioner and make sure every single "public safety" action is directly filtered down from the Mayor. That's the answer.

Eric Adams runs this city directly, he undermines and overrules everyone else he appointed or who otherwise leads the city agencies. He demands city agencies and employees override protocol and the rules to give him what he wants. He seeks extreme levels of power even Bloomberg didn't try to grasp for himself.

Good luck getting the Brooklyn Heights/DUMBO NIMBYs to allow any project to fix the BQE to go forward. They'd let the cantilever collapse totally before they agree to make any small sacrifice to fix it.