Reminder: G Train Rally Today

The rally for the G-train will be tonight at 6:30 p.m. at Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church. The church is located at 85 S. Oxford St., and can best be reached by taking the G-train to Fulton St., and walking up Fulton to S. Oxford, or taking the C train to Lafayette, and walking up Lafayette to S. Oxford. The church is on the corner of Lafayette and S. Oxford, with the entrance that we will be using on the S. Oxford St. side of the building.

Attending the rally will be Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, Councilwoman Letita James, Councilman David Yassky, Councilwoman Diana Reyna, as well as representatives from Assemblyman Joe Lentol and Assemblywoman Joan Millman's offices, representing a broad swath of both city and state leaders whose districts rely on the G train.

Yours truly will be there representing CGNA.

It's not enough to merely demand better G service . . . a line that sorely needs improvement in terms of longer cars, stations served, and timeliness. Our state officials, having failed to pass congestion pricing, need to step up to the plate and come up with funding for the mass transit improvements and expansion this city desperately needs.

NY-13: Fossella Not Running; Recchia Out?

Swing State Project has a post up with speculation on candidates . . . potentially one or more Staten Island Dems will challenge Steve Harrison for the Democratic nomination and speculation that Domenic Recchia will drop out, while the GOP is looking for a successor to Fossella, who announced he will not stand for reelection. (Ya think?)

Another interesting race this year, as the national Republican party implodes.

Toll Brothers CEO: Traffic is "worst we've ever seen"

It looks like Manhattan is still one of their stronger markets, plus Westchester and CT, but overall the housing crunch is taking its . . . Toll. I'll be here all week.

In its release, Toll Brothers said the average price of contracts signed in the quarter was $590,000, down from $711,000 a year earlier and $634,000 in the fiscal first quarter.

Robert Toll said current customer traffic is "the worst we've ever seen," but noted that potential buyers are well-qualified, with an average credit score of 747.

That's a hell of lot of price chopping, with more to come. We will soon see a marked slowdown in residential and commercial building, and we need to start planning for infrastructure projects to help smooth out the disruption in the jobs market. We really, really need to start investing in our transit and utility infrastructure, and soon we're going to need the jobs too.
H/T Calculated Risk (best finance and economics blog on the planet).

UPDATE: Brooklyn market has "faded". I saw in comments elsewhere that the Toll CEO had given the Brooklyn market an "F", but I haven't been able to confirm that yet so please take it with a grain of salt.

Toll gave most U.S. home markets poor grades, saying Southern California and Illinois are `F-,' Arizona an `F,' and New Jersey a `C.' He said the New York exurbs earned a grade ``B+'' and that sales in the city borough of Brooklyn have ``faded.''

Please, God, Let It Be Williamsburg

MTV's The Real World is coming to Brooklyn . . . Smith Street is one of the locations being floated by the Observer, along with Bedford Ave.

Please, God, let it be Williamsburg.

Photo of past Real World luminaries Ruthie and Puck and some other dude from www.mm-agency.com

Future of the Gowanus Forum(s)

Last week, in all the Wednesday meeting madness, Councilman Bill deBlasio hosted a "Future of the Gowanus" event at the foot of Second Street on the Gowanus. deBlasio had on hand representatives from DEC, DEP, Army Corps, the NYPD, the Fire Department, the MTA and Parks, as well as the Gowanus Canal Conservancy/GCCDC and the Gowanus Dredgers.

The upshot of the meeting was an announcement that experts from the various agencies would be on hand for a series of community "town hall" meetings to share information and take input on plans for the Gowanus.

And it looks like it starts May 29th, as Tom Gray sent out this reminder for the upcoming CB6 Land Use Committee meeting today:

May 29 6:00 PM Landmarks/Land Use


Update and presentation by representatives for the Department of City
Planning on the next phase of the Gowanus Land Use Framework planning
being developed by the department. For background on the work done to
date visit: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/gowanus/index.shtml

P.S 32 Auditorium
317 Hoyt Street
(at Union/Hoyt Streets)
Brooklyn, NY 11231

Image of deBlasio and Army Corps DEP official courtesy of my Blackberry

Cory Booker: Revitalizing Newark Around Transit

Downtown Newark and University Heights (my old law school stomping grounds) have excellent access to transit facilities. Cory Booker, Newark's reformer Mayor, is working to expand growth in Newark around these terrific assets.

Growing dorm populations for Rutgers and NJIT should help to provide a critical mass on some of the blocks which were, as of 2005 anyway, still desolate at night. Of course, since then, the light rail connection to Broadway was completed and dorms have been springing up. I've got to make a pilgrimage back to see how progress is moving.

Image borrowed from the Tri-State Transportation Campaign blog linked above.

One Last Post On Fossella

Commenter Slappy over at Gothamist had this to say on the latest news on Fossella:

So tired of hearing about the sex lives of politicians. Its their political, not personal actions that are important. If there was more expose about what they are doing that really affects all of us, it might be more interesting. But I don't really care about their personal lives.

Ben Franklin contracted syphilis. Poor guy. So what.

It's a good point. I take some glee when real family values hypocrites like Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Ted Haggard, or others flame out. And I'll be glad to see Fossella lose his seat in the election later this year. But it's HYPOCRISY that makes me angry, not who's shtupping who or has engaged in some stupid drunken behavior.

Excessive prying into people's private failings is corrosive, and ultimately, the calls on Fossella to resign his job are overblown. What if your banker, insurance agent, personal trainer, doctor, or other professional exhibited the same failings? Should they be forced to quit as penance? Wear a scarlet letter?

Fossella will almost certainly lose his seat in November. He's damaged his family life, perhaps irreparably. But nowhere has it been said that these failings had anything to do with his job performance. The people can choose to turn him out of office in November, or he can decide not to run again. But resignation? Let's keep some perspective here.

I say this as a staunch Democrat who is eagerly looking forward to picking up that seat. But let's keep our fairness and humanity intact. I wonder how perfect are those who are piously calling for Vito Fossella's head right now.