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yobaba30 · 5 years ago

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Soon after the sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein died in August, a mysterious man met with two prominent lawyers.

Towering, barrel-chested and wild-bearded, he was a prodigious drinker and often wore flip-flops. He went by a pseudonym, Patrick Kessler — a necessity, he said, given the shadowy, dangerous world that he inhabited.

He told the lawyers he had something incendiary: a vast archive of Mr. Epstein’s data, stored on encrypted servers overseas. He said he had years of the financier’s communications and financial records — as well as thousands of hours of footage from hidden cameras in the bedrooms of Mr. Epstein’s properties. The videos, Kessler said, captured some of the world’s richest, most powerful men in compromising sexual situations — even in the act of rape.

Kessler said he wanted to expose these men. If he was telling the truth, his trove could answer one of the Epstein saga’s most baffling questions: How did a college dropout and high school math teacher amass a purported nine-figure fortune? One persistent but unproven theory was that he ran a sprawling blackmail operation. That would explain why moguls, scientists, political leaders and a royal stayed loyal to him, in some cases even after he first went to jail.

Kessler’s tale was enough to hook the two lawyers, the famed litigator David Boies and his friend John Stanley Pottinger. If Kessler was authentic, his videos would arm them with immense leverage over some very important people.

Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger discussed a plan. They could use the supposed footage in litigation or to try to reach deals with men who appeared in it, with money flowing into a charitable foundation. In encrypted chats with Kessler, Mr. Pottinger referred to a roster of potential targets as the “hot list.” He described hypothetical plans in which the lawyers would pocket up to 40 percent of the settlements and could extract money from wealthy men by flipping from representing victims to representing their alleged abusers.

The possibilities were tantalizing — and extended beyond vindicating victims. Mr. Pottinger saw a chance to supercharge his law practice. For Mr. Boies, there was a shot at redemption, after years of criticism for his work on behalf of Theranos and Harvey Weinstein.

In the end, there would be no damning videos, no funds pouring into a new foundation. Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger would go from toasting Kessler as their “whistle-blower” and “informant” to torching him as a “fraudster” and a “spy.”

Kessler was a liar, and he wouldn’t expose any sexual abuse. But he would reveal something else: The extraordinary, at times deceitful measures elite lawyers deployed in an effort to get evidence that could be used to win lucrative settlements — and keep misconduct hidden, allowing perpetrators to abuse again.

Mr. Boies has publicly decried such secret deals as “rich man’s justice,” a way that powerful men buy their way out of legal and reputational jeopardy. This is how it works.

7 men and a headless parrot

The man who called himself Kessler first contacted a Florida lawyer, Bradley J. Edwards, who was in the news for representing women with claims against Mr. Epstein. It was late August, about two weeks after the financier killed himself in a jail cell while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.

Mr. Edwards, who did not respond to interview requests, had a law firm called Edwards Pottinger, and he soon referred Kessler to his New York partner. Silver-haired and 79, Mr. Pottinger had been a senior civil-rights official in the Nixon and Ford administrations, but he also dabbled in investment banking and wrote best-selling medical thrillers. He was perhaps best known for having dated Gloria Steinem and Kathie Lee Gifford.

Mr. Pottinger recalled that Mr. Edwards warned him about Kessler, saying that he was “endearing,” “spooky” and “loves to drink like a fish.”

After an initial discussion with Kessler in Washington, Mr. Pottinger briefed Mr. Boies — whose firm was also active in representing accusers in the Epstein case — about the sensational claims. He then invited Kessler to his Manhattan apartment. Kessler admired a wall-mounted frame containing a headless stuffed parrot; on TV, the Philadelphia Eagles were mounting a comeback against the Washington Redskins. Mr. Pottinger poured Kessler a glass of WhistlePig whiskey, and the informant began to talk.

In his conversations with Mr. Pottinger and, later, Mr. Boies, Kessler said his videos featured numerous powerful men who were already linked to Mr. Epstein: Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister; Alan Dershowitz, a constitutional lawyer; Prince Andrew; three billionaires; and a prominent chief executive.

All seven men, or their representatives, told The New York Times they never engaged in sexual activity on Mr. Epstein’s properties. The Times has no reason to believe Kessler’s supposed video footage is real.

In his apartment, Mr. Pottinger presented Kessler with a signed copy of “The Boss,” his 2005 novel. “One minute you’re bending the rules,” blares the cover of the paperback version. “The next minute you’re breaking the law.” On the title page, Mr. Pottinger wrote: “Here’s to the great work you are to do. Happy to be part of it.”

Mr. Pottinger also gave Kessler a draft contract to bring him on as a client, allowing him to use a fake name. “For reasons revealed to you, I prefer to proceed with this engagement under the name Patrick Kessler,” the agreement said.

Despite the enormities of the Epstein scandal, few of his accusers have gotten a sense of justice or resolution. Mr. Pottinger thought Kessler’s files could change everything. This strange man was theatrical and liked his alcohol, but if there was even a chance his claims were true, they were worth pursuing.

“Our clients are said to be liars and prostitutes,” Mr. Pottinger later said in an interview with The Times, “and we now have someone who says, ‘I can give you secret photographic proof of abuse that will completely change the entire fabric of your practice and get justice for these girls.’ And you think that we wouldn’t try to get that?”

A victim becomes a hacker

Mr. Pottinger and Mr. Boies have known each other for years, a friendship forged on bike trips in France and Italy. In legal circles, Mr. Boies was royalty: He was the one who fought for presidential candidate Al Gore before the Supreme Court, took on Microsoft in a landmark antitrust case, and helped obtain the right for gays and lesbians to get married in California.

But then Mr. Boies got involved with the blood-testing start-up Theranos. As the company was being revealed as a fraud, he tried to bully whistle-blowers into not speaking to a Wall Street Journal reporter, and he was criticized for possible conflicts of interest when he joined the company’s board in 2015.

Two years later, Mr. Boies helped his longtime client Harvey Weinstein hire private investigators who intimidated sources and trailed reporters for The Times and The New Yorker — even though Mr. Boies’s firm had worked for The Times on other matters. (The Times fired his firm.)

By 2019, Mr. Boies, 78, was representing a number of Mr. Epstein’s alleged victims. They got his services pro bono, and he got the chance to burnish his legacy. When Mr. Pottinger contacted him about Kessler, he was intrigued.

On Sept. 9, Mr. Boies greeted Kessler at the offices of his law firm, Boies Schiller Flexner, in a gleaming new skyscraper at Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s West Side. Kessler unfurled a fantastic story, one he would embroider and alter in later weeks, that began with him growing up somewhere within a three-hour radius of Washington. Kessler said he had been molested as a boy by a Bible school teacher and sought solace on the internet, where he fell in with a group of victims turned hackers, who used their skills to combat pedophilia.

Kessler claimed that a technology executive had introduced him to Mr. Epstein, who in 2012 hired Kessler to set up encrypted servers to preserve his extensive digital archives. With Mr. Epstein dead, Kessler boasted to the lawyers, he had unfettered access to the material. He said the volume of videos was overwhelming: more than a decade of round-the-clock footage from dozens of cameras.

Kessler displayed some pixelated video stills on his phone. In one, a bearded man with his mouth open appears to be having sex with a naked woman. Kessler said the man was Mr. Barak. In another, a man with black-framed glasses is seen shirtless with a woman on his lap, her breasts exposed. Kessler said it was Mr. Dershowitz. He also said that some of the supposed videos appeared to have been edited and cataloged for the purpose of blackmail.

“This was explosive information if true, for lots and lots of people,” Mr. Boies said in an interview.

Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger had decades of legal experience and considered themselves experts at assessing witnesses’ credibility. While they couldn’t be sure, they thought Kessler was probably legit.

A chance to sway the Israeli election

Within hours of the Hudson Yards meeting, Mr. Pottinger sent Kessler a series of texts over the encrypted messaging app Signal.

According to excerpts viewed by The Times, Mr. Pottinger and Kessler discussed a plan to disseminate some of the informant’s materials — starting with the supposed footage of Mr. Barak. The Israeli election was barely a week away, and Mr. Barak was challenging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The purported images of Mr. Barak might be able to sway the election — and fetch a high price. (“Total lie with no basis in reality,” Mr. Barak said when asked about the existence of such videos.)

“Can you review your visual evidence to be sure some or all is indisputably him? If so, we can make it work,” Mr. Pottinger wrote.

Kessler said he would do so. Mr. Pottinger sent a yellow smiley-face emoji with its tongue sticking out.

“Can you share your contact that would be purchasing,” Kessler asked.

“Sheldon Adelson,” Mr. Pottinger answered.

Mr. Adelson, a billionaire casino magnate in Las Vegas, had founded one of Israel’s largest newspapers, and it was an enthusiastic booster of Mr. Netanyahu. Mr. Pottinger wrote that he and Mr. Boies hoped to fly to Nevada to meet with Mr. Adelson to discuss the images.

“Do you believe that adelson has the pull to insure this will hurt his bid for election?” Kessler asked the next morning.

Mr. Pottinger reassured him. “There is no question that Adelson has the capacity to air the truth about EB if he wants to,” he said, using Mr. Barak’s initials. He said he planned to discuss the matter with Mr. Boies that evening.

Mr. Boies confirmed that they discussed sharing the photo with Mr. Adelson but said the plan was never executed. Boaz Bismuth, the editor in chief of the newspaper, Israel Hayom, said its journalists were approached by an Israeli source who pitched them supposed images of Mr. Barak, but that “we were not interested.”

‘These are wealthy wrongdoers’

The men whom Kessler claimed to have on tape were together worth many billions. Some of their public relations teams had spent months trying to tamp down media coverage of their connections to Mr. Epstein. Imagine how much they might pay to make incriminating videos vanish.

You might think that lawyers representing abuse victims would want to publicly expose such information to bolster their clients’ claims. But that is not how the legal industry always works. Often, keeping things quiet is good business.

One of the revelations of the #MeToo era has been that victims’ lawyers often brokered secret deals in which alleged abusers paid to keep their accusers quiet and the allegations out of the public sphere. Lawyers can pocket at least a third of such settlements, profiting off a system that masks misconduct and allows men to abuse again.

Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger said in interviews that they were looking into creating a charity to help victims of sexual abuse. It would be bankrolled by private legal settlements with the men on the videos.

Mr. Boies acknowledged that Kessler might get paid. “If we were able to use this to help our victims recover money, we would treat him generously,” he said in September. He said that his firm would not get a cut of any settlements.

Such agreements would have made it less likely that videos involving the men became public. “Generally what settlements are about is getting peace,” Mr. Boies said.

Mr. Pottinger told Kessler that the charity he was setting up would be called the Astria Foundation — a name he later said his girlfriend came up with, in a nod to Astraea, the Greek goddess of innocence and justice. “We need to get it funded by abusers,” Mr. Pottinger texted, noting in another message that “these are wealthy wrongdoers.”

Mr. Pottinger asked Kessler to start compiling incriminating materials on a specific group of men.

THERE IS A SHITLOAD MORE INFO - CLICK N THE LINK

#frauds and swindling

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viranlly · 5 years ago

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I love New York. I love drinking. I abso-fuck*n-lutely love drinking in New York. I love it so much I went to New York just to drink - caution: this trip is not, and I repeat, not for everybody. I mean, what’s not to love about drinking in New York?! The endless supply of bars; the attractive, charming and talented bar staffs, and let’s not forget the beyond delicious libations they serve up ‘til 3 (even 4) AM on a Monday - astounding, especially when you come from a small town where last call is 12.45, if you’re lucky. Before our trip, we agreed on the ‘one-drink-one-bar-rule’ - a rule that we slowly abandoned as the night progressed. After what felt like a 12 hour commute from YVR, I arrived in Penn Station, starved and parched. A quick change and a touch up later, I finally made it to dinner at WildAir: a hip, trendy, wine-focused Lower East Side restaurant from the boys who opened the Michelin-starred Contra. The food menu is a fairly simple: tartare, mushrooms, clams, and allegedly out-of-this-world fried squid. The wine list, on the other hand, is extensive and edgy. If you’re into the whole natural, skin-contact wine situation like we are, you’ll probably see us there again with a bottle of Susucaru, snacking on some fried squid. A couple blocks down from Wildair, is Bar Goto. A cozy Japanese bar with a MOOD AF lighting, brought to you by Kenta Goto, a Pegu club alumn. The man himself made me a plum Sazerac the last time I was in. It easily became one of those cocktails you crave over and over again. So naturally, I got one, and another one for good measure. The whisky finally kicked in. With a little buzz and a much better mood, we made it to Death and Company and put our name on the list. Wait time was about an hour and 30 mins, enough for a cocktail or two at Angel’s Share – or so we thought. It’s another 45 mins wait for us, but luckily, they have a sister bar next door that’s much less crowded, a little brighter, and slightly more peaceful. Our new friend Ryan, who’s bartending that night made me a ‘Bewitched’, a riff on Old Fashioned with grilled and spiced truffle-infused whisky, cognac, Kokuto syrup, bitters and Kaffir lime leaf. It’s as decadent as it sounds. Stunning mixture of flavour, texture, and aroma on each indulgent sip. It was on point. It’s finally time for us to get to Death and Co. Their Manhattan’s been calling my name since September last year. Everything about Death and Co’s Manhattan is perfect: the bourbon, the vermouth, the ratio, the temperature, just everything. Say what you want (I actually got into an argument on this) but this, is the best Manhattan in Manhattan. The night spiralled down the rabbit hole after the next drink, a Boulevardier - I remember we had two more cocktails there, but I can’t, for the sake of me, remember what they were. I know there was gin, somewhere, somehow. I won’t bore you with the details of our challenging journey home so let’s skip to the morning after - two bottles of Pedialyte, two advils, and a hot shower later. Our mind was focused on a bougie-ish scrambled eggs and caviar at Buvette, and so was the whole West Village apparently. “50 minutes” - the cute European host said. Other people would typically take this time to walk around, maybe get an oat-mylk latte and a croissant. Since we’re no ordinary people, and it just so happened that their sister bar ‘Pisellino’ just opened down the street (what a coincidence), we kinda had to stop by for a drink. It’s 1145, and in front of me was a full, frosty glass (and a mini carafe) of dry martini with olive and twist on the side. What a perfect West Village morning: sunny, breezy, and boozy. By the time we sat down for breakfast, I was a little buzzed, again. But nothing a plate fluffy scrambled eggs and caviar, waffle with berry compotes, croque madame, and another bottle of bubbly rosé can’t fix. We then spent the afternoon roaming around Soho, shopping for all the things we convinced ourselves we desperately needed - Hello new Thom Browne fragrance! It’s a quarter to eight, we were dressed to the nines, ready for a 10/10 night out in New York City. Our plan to have a chic pre-dinner cocktail at Polo Bar was cancelled because someone (aka me) forgot to call and make a reso, and it was packed there. We had to settle for the King Cole Bar across the street where the drinks were meh and the price tag was awfully expensive (no more $25, bland, overly spicy Red Snapper for us) - I went in purely to relive my Andy Sachs’ Harry Potter unpublished manuscript moment and nothing more. Dinner tonight was at the hyped up Korean steakhouse Cote in Flatiron. The one Michelin-starred restaurant is all about high quality meat, delectable side dishes, and impressive wine list (Their beverage director is such a star!). Here’s the thing, if you can make a hanger steak taste so succulently delicious, you’re doing something right. That’s exactly what they do at Cote. The steak (aside from the Galbi) is prepared in the simplest fashion: heat and salt, no marinade, no spices, no nothing - it was perfect. The service was impeccable, the timing of each dish was flawless. With a tummy filled with steak, scallion salad, and rice, we decided to walk our way back to the West Village - seemed crazy far, but at that point, it was necessary. We made it to Dante, who recently crowned #1 bar in the world, so naturally it was very busy. The apero-focused bar is famous for their ‘Negroni Sessions’, which is impressive and can be adventurous. From the most classic, to the most unexpected variation with tequila, banana and pineapple shrub, they do it, and they do it well. If you’re in the mood to splurge (we weren’t lol), their vintage martini is absolutely worth the $65 price tag (the Plymouth gin from ‘60s alone is drool-worthy). I, decided to go for the Olivette: a savoury, brine-y, less serious cousin of the vesper. We then visited Katana Kitten. Another bar in the village that scored a spot in this year’s 50 Best Bars, number 14 to be exact. It’s a fun (the owner Masahiro Urushido is also quite a legend), non pretentious neighbourhood bar with playful and whimsical cocktails. I obviously started with a Hinoki martini, yet another variation of the vesper, while Handika was having a slushy, boozy, crushed-icy ‘dessert’ (didn’t count as a drink, apparently). It was difficult to have just one drink here: would you skip on a yuzu-sisho daiquiri? how about a genever-based negroni with umeshu? or a calpico swizzle? Ya I don’t think so either. We had one of each, plus a another sisho G&T, and the classic highball. YOLO. For the sake of settling our argument on the best Manhattan in Manhattan, I invited Doris to join us at Employees Only across the street from Katana Kitten, conveniently. By the time we saw each other, my Manhattan was gone, and I was drinking a Monkey 47 martini yet again. That’s about all I can recall from that night. Oh wait, there was a tequila shot and another Manhattan - the end. Monday morning - not enough Pedialyte, water nor Advil in the world to bring me back to life. I, somehow, managed to meet Patrick for coffee, had a bite of a mushroom toast, and stayed alive. I made it back to the hotel just in time for a much-needed nap before check out and a trip to Williamsburg for lunch. It was rough. I kept telling myself another lie of “I’m never drinking again” for the 30 minute subway ride to Peter Luger. Peter Luger is a classic: steak (yes, another one), burger, with a side of onion, tomatoes, and fries. We then gathered enough energy to get to DUMBO for a picture of two (hundreds) before saying goodbye to each other - sad. I zipped back downtown for a meeting. A VERY EXCITING MEETING. I got the pleasure to visit the Bon Appetit test kitchen, thanks for the my lovely host Chris Morocco (Yes - we’re friends now HA!). it’s only appropriate that I wore my ‘Thirsty for Andy’ t-shirt - Andy was there, and we obvs. bonded over my OOTD. Claire was doing her ‘Gourmet Makes’, Carla was there, Molly too, Oh I also got to meet Alex Delany and Em Scultz too. It’s a casual Monday afternoon at BA test kitchen. It’s now cocktail hour and the one man I got to meet this time was the man everyone needs in their life: mister Steven Huynh himself. An instagram-turned-real-life-friend that I’ve known for 7 years. We met for the first time that night and we got along over dry martini-inspired cocktails and crudité at Thomas Keller’s TAK room (in the Hudson Yards). Sitting at the bar at TAK room feels luxurious but not intimidating. The bar team was friendly, interactive, and passionate about amaro. They even took us downstairs to check out the vintage amaro collections at their speakeasy, Bookbinder. After a snack break, we visited David Chang’s new restaurant Kawi downstairs. Steven had a pineapple rum daiquiri, I, had a ‘New Fashioned’ - a play of the classic Old Fashioned with coconut-washed Japanese whisky, sencha and bitters. It was delicious. The buzz is back on, and I felt so much better (HA!). Our next stop was The Nomad Hotel - our absolute favorite. We felt like we’re home right away, especially after a delicious Monkey 47 martini (Nobody’s counting, right?). Zanib joined us later that night for a negroni, and of course, I had to refresh my almost empty drink. Another friend Erik joined us for one more drink. Things started to get blurry real quick, I recall there was a Manhattan, a Brooklyn, a rum cocktail of some sort, fried chicken, and a Macallan 12 at one point before we’re back in the car for a nightcap at Blacktail. A tiki-focused sister bar of Dead Rabbit. We’re welcomed by a pink slushy daiquiri, and the bartender made me a delicious, stirred rum cocktail to sip on - don’t ask what it’s called. I finally tapped out and made my way back to Brooklyn. With close to zero voice, I got to Newark and flew back to Vancouver via. Denver - yes, I made a stop to Death and Co for a Sazerac-esque cocktail called the Uncanny Valley and a lobster ceviche. Here I am two weeks later, still recovering from the worst sore throat of my life, slowly getting my voice back (still can’t hit Mariah’s note tho :s). Will I do it again? ABSOLUTELY! Thanks for the amazing time New York - until next time!

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questions-for-sherlock · 6 years ago

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The Latest Case

So, I believe I promised you all a post about our latest case, so here it is. It all began Thursday morning when I went into work at the surgery. I know what you’re thinking, “How is that relevant?” Just wait. It was right after lunch when someone came in, a young man with a strange pattern of cuts on his back. They were small, straight cuts arranged into a circle, seemingly expertly done. I thought it was unique, I’d never seen anything leave marks like that on someone’s skin before, so I brought up the normal, casual, boring, doctor small talk. “What caused this? It’s a very… unique set of cuts.” I asked him. Of course, he stated that he didn’t know, that’s what they all do. So, I finished up with him and sent him on his way. The day continued on as normal after that, nothing particularly interesting, the occasion flu, kids with snotty noses, getting germs everywhere. Boring.

I came home a few hours later to find Sherlock in his chair reading over possible cases. Just as he was when I left (He had moved, Rosie had eaten and was napping on the sofa). “John, come look at this, see what you can make of it.” He said, his magnificent voice flowing through the air, I walked over and sat on the arm of the chair, looking at his laptop. I saw the markings on a body, a dead body, the same markings that the man from the surgery had. “Lestrade sent me these. There’s been two bodies found so for, both with those markings. No leads on who is killing them. Seems interesting enough.”

“I’ve seen those marks, there was a patient that had them, same placement and everything. Of course, he wouldn’t tell me where they came from.” I explain to him, “Of course if a detective from Scotland Yard happened to ask, I believe he may be persuaded to tell, don’t you?” He didn’t respond, I didn’t expect him too. I knew he was listening but too interested in the perfect circle of straight cuts on the woman’s right shoulder. By no means could those alone be the cause of death.

Sherlock, as always, already knew this, as smart as he is. He contacted Lestrade that he would take the case, stating he normally wouldn’t but as he was “dying of boredom” it was “Better than beating his head against the wall”. I’m not going to get into how Sherlock figured out who the patient with the scars was, I truthfully don’t know myself. I didn’t bother asking figuring I wouldn’t want to know, and wouldn’t understand if he did explain, but somehow, he did manage to figure it out. As always there was then an adventure to the man’s flat. It doesn’t matter how many times I go with him on cases like this, it’s still strange to show up at a stranger’s place uninvited, especially when I’ve already met him and am sure he remembers me as a polite, normal, boring doctor. I briefly explained the situation to him, and Sherlock took over from there. The man (remaining nameless for safety purposes) wasn’t very helpful in the investigation, or at least we didn’t think so at the time, later on the information we gained by talking to him was very useful. He explained to Sherlock that he didn’t see who the people were. “I went to bed, I don’t know what happened, but I woke up the next morning and I wasn’t in my bed. I was on a carpeted floor in a place I’ve never seen before. The walls were dark, the room was dark. I never really saw the people, they were all wearing creepy masks.” He explained. “They? There’s multiple people?” Sherlock asked, picking up on it as quickly as always. “I think so? The same mask every time but the person was different heights. Sometime tall and others quite short. As I said I didn’t really see the face but…it seems like a good guess?” “Why didn’t you go to the police?” I ask at the same time Sherlock asked, “Why didn’t they kill you?” I glare at him and shake my head, a good question but not the most polite thing to ask. —I’m going to be honest with you here, I’m not John and at this point I’m tired of attempting to mimic his writing style. If you want him to finish the story tell him. I’m going to finish this for now though — So basically, the guy was told not to go to the police by the gang (they were a gang, we figure that out) obviously. He was told he would be killed if he did tell anyone. Apparently, they took him thinking he was someone else and didn’t want to kill the wrong people. This let us know that they had a list, specific people they were taking out, we just had to figure out what they all had in common. We spent quite a while looking into all the things the people did, where they went, what they bought, what they did for fun. After extensive research we learned that they were all in martial arts classes, not the easiest of people to kill if you ask me. We also discovered that the living victim did not go there it was looking good. We, John and I, went there (broke in) and had a look around. It was clear from the second we entered that the place was sketchy, a look into their paperwork only made it worse. After having a little look around, we found more signs of strange things happening, things laying around that was not, in no way, necessary in a martial arts class. It was only right that I went to the class they were having that evening and participated (it had nothing to do with me missing taking those classes, nothing at all). I deduced what I could during that class between sparring matches. The teacher seemed to be a quite angry man and had quite a few favorite students, in the creepiest of ways. I’m not going to get into the weird messed up stuff I managed to deduce about the relationships there. It was just disturbing and slightly haunting, but the fact remained, we had found our killers. The only thing that was left was finding a way prove it was them. That wasn’t as simple as it sounds, though it was just as fun. John and I had a chance to go undercover… kind of. We followed the 4 people. It’s really easy to prove someone is a murderer when you watch them throw someone into the boot of a car when the person was unconscious, though it took many hours for us to see them doing it. Okay that doesn’t mean that they’re murderers, by that standard, Mrs. Hudson would be one, but it definitely isn’t a sign to clear their name. I recognized the person being kidnapped as someone else from the class as well, though it wasn’t making sense why they were kidnapping and killing these people. They had no clear motive. Anyway, we’ll get back to that. What followed was a great chase across London as John called Lestrade. I’ve been informed, by myself, that chasing them probably wasn’t the greatest idea, there was some damage done, they were in a car and I was running after them…again, seems familiar. It put the strange gang off and they wouldn’t go to the place they had been using for killing, eventually though Scotland Yard managed to show up, later than necessary really, as always, and stopped them (They had cars). They were arrested, new victim sent to the hospital. I said they were arrested though it wasn’t quite that simple, 3 strong, fit men and 2 women against 3 police officers, an ex-army captain and a consulting detective with a black belt, more fair than you may think, though we all have injuries remaining for this fight, some worse than others. John injured his bad shoulder, thus me typing this out instead of him. He’s lying on the couch with an ice pack at the moment, his head on my lap. I’m taking care of him. Anyway, back to the case. The cuts on the backs of the victims were made with a small knife, a scalpel really, covered in poison, different way of killing but efficient nonetheless. After a talk with the gang and a talk with the surviving victim it was discovered that the victims were killed for declining to join them and their strange relationship/gang. A bit harsh if you ask me but whatever floats their vote (John informed me it’s boat, not vote). After all of this the question remains, why did the guy live? The one that John saw to at the surgery. Apparently one of the members was new and was supposed to kill the guy as part of an initiation used the wrong drug, just gave the guy a pleasant high, not killing him at all. After he didn’t die, they realized he was the wrong guy anyway. Honestly these people are complete idiots. Mistakes were made and as a result of that the case was easily solved. I do not have John’s writing ability for things like this. I’m going back to stating facts, and solving cases, not writing about them. He is definitely the blogger, the one I need. Also, this was the most simple and cliché case I’ve ever seen. I don’t know what NSY was doing that they didn’t figure this out, probably had their heads shoved so far up their…anyway. I’m beginning to wonder if this was even how the case went at all, I’ve probably messed up the whole story by this point, I miss something and catch others. John seems to be able to pick the correct things to include in a way that I cannot. You get the general idea though. The next case that is posted John should be back to writing, I’ve had an attempt, not fun. I must go, my man is injured so I have a daughter to put to bed and then get John to bed as well.

#this is probably terrible but hey #I tried #Sherlock Holmes #Sherlock RP #Sherlock #john watson #johnlock #John x Sherlock #john watson rp #ask john watson #John Watson blog entry #parentlock #parentlock rp #sherlock fic #sherlock drabble

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bangkokjacknews · 3 years ago

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9/11 Conspiracy - World Trade Center Building 7

Possibly the most conclusive evidence that the events of 9/11 differ from the official report can be found by investigating the mysterious collapse of World Trade Center Building 7, at 5.20pm on that day. Actually, it doesn't take much investigating at all. Just reading through the facts available, including from the official report, will provide some startling evidence. We don't need youtube rabble rousers or online 'truthers' to re-enforce the case for a proper, unbiased public inquiry. Or a criminal investigation. The official version of events relating to WTC7, released in November 2008 after a six year investigation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), concluded like this; 'The National Institute of Standards and Technology last week released its final report on the Sept. 11, 2001, collapse of the 47-story World Trade Centre building 7 (WTC 7) in New York City. The final report is strengthened by clarifications and supplemental text suggested by organizations and individuals worldwide in response to the draft WTC 7 report, released for public comment on Aug, 21 2008 but the revisions did not alter the investigation team’s major findings and recommendations, which include identification of fire as the primary cause for the building’s failure. The extensive three-year scientific and technical building and fire safety investigation found that the fires on multiple floors in WTC 7, which were uncontrolled but otherwise similar to fires experienced in other tall buildings, caused an extraordinary event. Heating of floor beams and girders caused a critical support column to fail, initiating a fire-induced progressive collapse that brought the building down. In response to comments from the building community, NIST conducted an additional computer analysis. The goal was to see if the loss of WTC 7’s Column 79—the structural component identified as the one whose failure on 9/11 started the progressive collapse—would still have led to a complete loss of the building if fire or damage from the falling debris of the nearby WTC 1 tower were not factors. The investigation team concluded that the column’s failure under any circumstance would have initiated the destructive sequence of events. Revisions to the final WTC 7 report included: Expanding the discussion of fire-stopping, the material placed between floors to prevent floor-to-floor fire spread; Clarifying the description of thermal expansion as it related to WTC 7’s shear studs and floor beams and; Explaining in greater detail the computer modelling approach used to define where and when the fire in WTC 7 started and the extent of window breakage as a result of fire. With the release of the final WTC 7 report, NIST has completed its federal building and fire safety investigation of the WTC disaster that began in August 2002. A three-year study of the collapses of the WTC towers (WTC 1 and 2) was completed in October 2005. More than twenty changes in the U.S. model building and fire codes have already been adopted based on the findings and recommendations from the investigation.

NIST will now work with various public and private groups toward implementing additional changes to the U.S. model building and fire codes including those based on the thirteen recommendations from the WTC 7 report (one new and twelve reiterated from the towers investigation). The complete text of the final WTC 7 report, a video describing the WTC 7 investigation findings, and of all comments received on the draft WTC 7 report, a chart tracking the progress toward implementing all of the NIST WTC recommendations, and other materials may be accessed at http://wtc.nist.gov End Now, I am not a truther, conspiracy theorist, ranter or raver so let's just have a calm look at all of the main facts, whether we fully understand them or not - for now. 1. Building Seven was occupied by the U.S. Department of Defence, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the CIA, the U.S. Secret Service, the National Security Agency (NSA), the Inland Revenue Service, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York Office of Emergency Management, which was Mayor Guiliani's main command centre and who were co-ordinating the efforts of the emergency response teams in the city on that day. In other words it was already the most heavily protected, and guarded, building in New York City. Or should have been. 2. No steel and concrete building has ever been completely levelled to the ground, (collapsed) by a minor fire, in the history of steel and concrete buildings. Neither before September 11, 2001 or since then. The only officially recorded example of 'fires on multiple floors (in WTC 7), which were uncontrolled but otherwise similar to fires experienced in other tall buildings, caused an extraordinary event. Heating of floor beams and girders caused a critical support column to fail, initiating a fire-induced progressive collapse that brought the building down,' as stated in the report, happened on that day and it happened three times. In the last fifty-years there have been one-hundred uncontrolled fires in tall, steel and concrete buildings and none of them have collapsed, except as a result of earthquake or subsequent controlled demolition. 3. The minor and containable fires visible on the fifth and sixth floors during the afternoon were caused by falling debris from WTC1 that punctured diesel tanks in the basement of WTC7. 4. The five-hundred and seventy-six feet building collapsed into its own foundations in 6.5 seconds causing no damage to any other building around it. Some of them only a few feet away. 5. In April 2005 (long before the final report was released) NIST concluded that they 'have seen no evidence that the collapse of WTC7 was caused by bombs, missiles or controlled demolition.' 6. The owner of WTC7, Larry Silverstein, Chairman of Silverstein Properties, gave a televised interview on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) afterwards during which he explained that the 'fire department commander (Fire Chief Daniel Nigro) told me they were not sure they could contain the fire and so I said, you know we have such terrible loss of life, the smartest thing to do is just pull it. They made that decision to pull and then we watched the building come down.' NB, yes I know that sentence doesn't make sense but you can make your own enquiry by searching 'Larry Silverstein Pull It' on you tube and see for yourself. 7. Silverstein Properties were also the owners of WTC1 & WTC2, the only other two buildings to completely collapse on September 11, 2001. (Or indeed, in the history of steel and concrete construction) 8. Rudy Dent, a Vietnam War veteran, four year member of the NYPD and thirty-two year FDNY firefighter was in the staging area close to WTC7. He gave evidence, several times, that the Fire Department Commissioner and Mayor Rudi Guiliani were in the building until shortly before the collapse. He also testified that there were fire fighters in the building who were 'calling for a hose to mop up the isolated fires. There was no concern about the fires.' After the building collapsed Dent testified he was aware of 'molten, lava like steel in the debris.' 9. News journalist Jane Standley was reporting live for the BBC and announced at 5pm that WTC7, the Salomon Brothers building, had become the third collapse of the day. Amusingly WTC7 was still clearly visible behind her as she submitted her report. 10. Men dressed as New York fire fighters are seen on early live television footage ordering people away and shouting that the building was about to 'explode.' WTC7 used to sit approximately one-hundred meters north of the Twin Tower Complex. Between them were the smaller buildings Five & Six that were hardly damaged at all until the towers collapsed. And yet the official conclusion is that falling debris punctured a diesel tank in the basement of WTC7 and the resulting fire eventually led to a complete failure of the structure. And yet diesel oil can only ignite at temperatures in excess of 140 degrees. And, even if it did, what is the likelihood of a spark or flame jumping five or six storeys into the air and setting fire to the curtains of a building with bomb proofed and air sealed windows? Ask yourself how a small diesel fire or spark could penetrate one of the most secure buildings in America housing the New York Disaster Control Centre, the CIA and the U.S. Secret Service. A building that was gas proof, sarin proof, bullet proof, missile proof, chemical & biological weapon proof, radiation proof and no doubt nuclear bomb proof. It was designed to be a command centre in case of attack by Russia or China. How do the curtains catch fire on the fifth floor after falling rubble, from a building one hundred metres away, penetrates the secure basement and punctures a diesel oil tank? You might also wonder why there is no CCTV footage of any of this. All of these questions would easily be answered when NIST carried out their thorough testing of the steel structure during their investigation. Just as in the case of any air crash investigation engineers would rebuild the structure and look for the cause of catastrophic failure. Especially in a case a high profile as 9/11. However, within hours of the collapse the steel structure was being taken by barges across the Hudson River, and overland by a constant stream of trucks, to scrap metal dealers Hugo Nue Schnitzer at Fresh Kills Landfill, Staten Island, Hugo Nue Schnitzer's Claremont Terminal in Jersey City, Metal Management in Newark and Blanford and Co. in Keasbey. Four hundred articulated lorries, every-twenty four-hours, moved the debris in convoys. That is one leaving the site every three and a half minutes until Building Seven was gone. At the scrap yards 350,000 tons of steel were processed and sold (much of it to Chinese companies) for $120 per ton. American steel mills had been paying $160 per ton prior to then. In the end over 80% of the steel structures removed from Ground Zero was on the slow boat to China before investigators had a chance to examine any of it. Because they were not given the necessary authority to impound any of it before it was sold and shipped. There is now so little doubt that WTC7 fell to the ground as the result of a controlled demolition that it leaves one to wonder why the official NIST report concluded otherwise six years later. After all, the building owner told us in the immediate aftermath of the event that either he, or fire-chief Nigro, ordered the building to be pulled. ('pulled' being a well-known phrase in the demolition community to mean 'demolish'). Even if Silverstein himself changed the story during the same sentence between him giving the order and fire-chief Nigro making that decision. So let's assume that's true, because one part of it is. There is nothing wrong with the fire department ordering a building to be pulled down if it was believed the fire was out of control. But even that is unlikely given that Mayor Guiliani and the fire-chief himself were inside until half an hour before the collapse. And, according to eye-witness Rudy Dent, they were inside for 'quite some time.' There is also nothing wrong with an order to pull a building if it was considered to be unsafe and about to collapse, which is also unlikely for the same reason I previously mention. That is not, however, a decision that can be made by the owner of any building, or even a fire chief in respect of a building with such strategic importance as WTC7. Not surprisingly Daniel Nigro has a different recollection of events and insists, 'they claim, among many outrageous claims, that the building's owner, Larry Silverstein, gave the order for me to pull the building,' he said. 'And that is absolute nonsense.' We know that Mr Nigro, but that only strengthens the case. Either way, just imagine the sensitive information and equipment that could be found in the filing cabinets that might flutter all over the city after the demolition of a working building and not a derelict one. And imagine the sensitive information on the hard drives and network drives of some of the occupying businesses and agencies. No report has ever been made of any guard being placed around the demolition site over-night or at anytime afterwards. Rudy Dent testified he was making his way through the rubble and noticed 'molten, lava like steel in the debris.' So he, and others, clearly had access to the site. He didn't mention if he had a look around for any safes stuffed with cash whilst he was at it. Let alone anything else because, presumably, anything valuable or sensitive would have been removed before demolition. That's sensible, right? So, we are in the middle of one of the greatest and most chaotic events in world history and Larry Silverstein, or the fire chief - it's not really important - who cares, decide to pull WTC7. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt here and agree that it would be possible for them to take that decision. How long then do you think, in light of all the facts we have, would it take for a team of demolition experts to obtain from City Hall, and then study, the floor and structure plans of WTC7. Using the latest planning software they would then have to calculate the explosives needed and work out exactly where they would have to be placed. Following that, how long would it take a team to get into the building, already declared unsafe and with fire raging all around, and drill or cut the explosive charges into the supporting structure with enough accuracy to bring the building down in only 6.5 seconds into its own foot-print. And causing no damage at all to surrounding structures? Ask yourself how long all of this would take. And then consider how long it might take for the staff of the CIA, U.S. Secret Service, FEMA and all the other occupants to get back in and retrieve their files, valuables and any other sensitive information they did not want fluttering around New York on the demolition draft. Do your own research like I did. The answer is that most demolition experts agree this would take at least three weeks of planning and preparation. Some insist it would be much longer and this has become the subject of a heated debate, which just doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is nobody claims they could carry out such a comprehensive clear out and then controlled demolition, between being awarded the contract and completion, in twenty-five minutes. Which is exactly what building owner Larry Silverstein wants you to believe happened. (Despite the official report denying this multiple times and over many years) And if it didn't happen because it is not possible within the time-frame, then it must have been a pre-arranged demolition where the charges had already been planned and planted. Which is also possible. Of course it is possible that the building had already been cleared out, wired and prepared for demolition on or around 9/11. This would have been the sensible thing to say in the first place. That's what I would have said. But they didn't. Why not? Finally there is the seemingly incidental question of what information the BBC had been given for them to report the collapse of a building that was, until twenty minutes later, only suffering from small, containable fires. As obscure as this detail seems to be it is, in fact, a massive piece of clear evidence pointing towards a pre-arranged event. Unfortunately it looks as if somebody, somewhere, in the middle of the chaos of the day, sent an email to the BBC a little too soon. Or perhaps the demolition was delayed by half an hour because Mayor Guiliani was still in there rummaging around and looking for his car keys. Who knows? It doesn't really matter either. The BBC explained away this by insisting that the live satellite feed from New York cut off at exactly 5.15pm and so they were showing slightly older footage, from earlier in the day, behind the news reporter who was broadcasting in real time. But that still obviously does not explain why she was reporting something that happened twenty-five minutes later, according to the clock on the screen, regardless of what was being displayed behind her. It could have been nothing behind her, a blank screen even. By using Occam's Razor we can shave away all of those silly details that do not matter and keep to the facts. Was Guiliani in the building just before it collapsed, or not? Who cares? The time of the BBC report and the time of the event - matters. A pre-prepared demolition matters. And both prove advanced knowledge. There is also the clear television pictures of those men dressed as fire fighters (they might be real fire fighters) telling everybody to clear out as the building was going to explode. 'How did they know that?' the conspiracy theorists all shout at the same time. 'See, clear evidence that it was pre-planned,' screams every truther's website. No it isn't and again, it doesn't matter. Use Occam's Razor and shave that one off too. Because by now we already know it was pre-planned. The real puzzle is why wasn't that the story from the outset. The easy and obvious story that nobody would question, would they? The two buildings once known as the World Trade Centre, or the Twin Towers, and World Trade 7, the only three buildings to be damaged enough to collapse during the events of September 11, 2001, were all owned by one man - Larry Silverstein. Silverstein is a Jewish-American property investor and who bought the World Trade Centre Complex in April 2001. It was the first time in the building's thirty-three year life-time that the ownership had changed hands. The previous owners agreed to sell the complex, valued at $3.2 billion to Silverstein for only $124 million because they knew the Twin Towers required a complete overhaul and restoration. Some of the materials used when the complex was built thirty-three years earlier, namely asbestos, had since been declared a health hazard and the buildings had to be stripped. The New York Port Authority had long been aware of the asbestos problem at the World Trade Centre and had tried, on several occasions, to obtain demolition permits for the buildings, only to be turned down. Asbestos dust could be deadly and the city planners refused to allow a white cloud of it to be cast over New York as a result of demolition. Instead the buildings would have to be carefully stripped down floor by floor and room by room. The cost of this was estimated at the time to be $15 billion. The scaffolding alone came in at $2.4 billion. So, the original owners, the developer, decided to off-load their white elephant, having made billions of dollars in rental income over the previous three decades, for a paltry $124 million. Which for them represented a cool return of $15,124,000,000 if you include the $15 billion they would avoid being forced to spend. For Larry Silverstein the deal represented and absolute bargain at $124 million, for a $3.4 billion piece of prime New York real estate, if only he too could avoid paying the $15 billion upgrade costs. So, the first thing Silverstein did as the new, proud owner of the World Trade Centre Complex, was to replace the security company. Obviously, of course. Isn't that the first thing anybody would think of? Read the full article

#september11 sept11 nyc

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

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How the Pandemic Left the $25 Billion Hudson Yards Eerily Deserted When Hudson Yards opened in 2019 as the largest private development in American history, it aspired to transform Manhattan’s Far West Side with a sleek spread of ultraluxury condominiums, office towers for powerhouse companies like Facebook, and a mall with coveted international brands and restaurants by celebrity chefs like José Andrés. All of it surrounded a copper-colored sculpture that would be to New York what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris. But the pandemic has ravaged New York City’s real estate market and its premier, $25 billion development, raising significant questions about the future of Hudson Yards. Hundreds of condominiums remain unsold, and the mall is barren of customers. Its anchor tenant, Neiman Marcus, filed for bankruptcy and closed permanently, and at least four other stores, as well as several restaurants, have also gone out of business. The development’s centerpiece, the 150-foot-tall scalable structure known as the Vessel, closed to visitors in January after a third suicide in less than a year. The office buildings, whose workers sustained many of the shops and restaurants, have been largely empty since last spring. Even more perilous, the promised second phase of Hudson Yards — eight additional buildings, including a school, more luxury condos and office space — appears on indefinite hold as the developer, the Related Companies, seeks federal financing for a nearly 10-acre platform on which it will be built. Related, which had said the entire project would be finished in 2024, no longer offers an estimated completion date. The project’s woes are in many ways a microcosm of the broader challenges facing the city as it tries to recover. Related said it was counting on wealthy buyers filling its condos and deep-pocketed customers packing the mall to make Hudson Yards financially viable. But that was before the coronavirus arrived in New York. With the pandemic forcing white-collar workers to stay home — and keeping foreign buyers and tourists away — it is not clear when, or if, demand will reignite for the vast supply of upscale aeries and blue-chip office space crowding the city’s skyline. “The challenges facing Hudson Yards aren’t unique,” said Danny Ismail, an analyst and lead of office coverage for the real estate research firm Green Street Advisors. “All commercial real estate in New York City has been impacted by Covid-19. However, I would argue that post-pandemic, Hudson Yards and the area around it will be one of the better office markets in New York City.” The creation of Hudson Yards capped nearly 30 years of planning for the last large, undeveloped parcel in Manhattan, industrial land between Pennsylvania Station and the Hudson River. It is New York’s largest public-private venture and the city’s biggest development since Rockefeller Center in the 1930s, aided by roughly $6 billion in tax breaks and other government assistance, including the expansion of the subway to the West Side. Even with the subway expansion, Hudson Yards is still relatively isolated from the rest of Manhattan, off the beaten path from the busiest avenues for tourists, shoppers and workers. Related acknowledged that it was facing the same financial problems as the rest of the city, but said tenants were still moving into the project’s office buildings and that Hudson Yards would eventually rebound. Four office buildings at Hudson Yards — including 50 Hudson Yards, which is under construction — are 93 percent leased, a spokesman for Related said, though it is unclear how much of that occurred last year. Facebook signed a lease in late 2019 for roughly 1.5 million square feet. “Our strong office leasing, even during the pandemic, is why we’re well positioned to lead New York’s comeback from Covid and why the adjacent neighborhoods and the entire West Side will recover faster,” the spokesman, Jon Weinstein, said. Still, the troubles confronting Hudson Yards have caused Related to rethink its plans. Led by its billionaire founder Stephen M. Ross, the company set out to build Hudson Yards in two phases. The first phase, which opened in 2019, has four office towers, two residential buildings, a hotel and the mall. The second part was supposed to include 3,000 residences across eight buildings closer to the Hudson River, as well as a 750-seat public school and hundreds of low-cost rental units. At least 265 apartments are meant to be “permanently affordable,” according to a 2009 agreement between City Hall and Related. In total, Hudson Yards was expected to stretch 28 acres over existing rail yards and encompass 18 million square feet of space, roughly double the size of downtown Phoenix. The developer has considered an array of new options, including even a casino, though that idea is no longer front and center, according to Mr. Weinstein. Related cannot construct the second half until it builds a deck over the rail yard. The company, along with Amtrak, has been in discussions with the federal Department of Transportation about a low-interest loan to finance the platform and preserve the right of way for a new rail tunnel under the Hudson that Amtrak is planning to build. Related has been seeking more than $2 billion, according to two officials briefed on the proposal who were not permitted to discuss it publicly. “The residential is going to have to recover, or they switch it up and look at a different product mix over there,” said Robert Alexander, chairman of the tristate region for the real estate brokerage CBRE, which is marketing space at Hudson Yards. “To me, it’s a major development site and there’s very, very, very few major development sites in New York.” Related is also facing pressure from its investors to deliver a fuller accounting of the project’s finances. A group of 35 investors from China — a sliver of the roughly 2,400 who contributed $1.2 billion to Hudson Yards — sued the company last year, accusing it of refusing to open its books or say when it might repay their investments. An arbitrator in the case recently denied the investors’ claims and ruled that Related was not required to disclose detailed financial information. The company’s lawyers said that Hudson Yards was facing “significant headwinds as a result of Covid-19” and that because of the economic downturn and lockdown restrictions, it may be unable to recoup its investment in at least one property there, 35 Hudson Yards, a mixed-use tower with a hotel, according to filings in the case obtained by The New York Times. Another group of Chinese investors, whose contributions of $500,000 per person were part of a United States visa program that can grant them a path to citizenship, are said to also be considering filing a similar lawsuit against Related, according to a person familiar with the situation who was not authorized to speak publicly. Related made it clear before the outbreak that it intended to earn the bulk of its money at Hudson Yards through its condos and mall since Mr. Ross said it had been leasing office space at cost, without taking a profit. The pandemic has laid bare the tough road Related faces. In 2020, 30 residential units sold at Hudson Yards, compared with 157 the year before, according to an analysis for The Times by the appraisal firm Miller Samuel. So far this year, several condos are under contract at Hudson Yards, according to Related, a possible sign that the market may be stabilizing. Still, Manhattan has a record number of condos for sale right now, especially luxury units like those at Hudson Yards, and it could take years for sales to truly bounce back, according to Nancy Wu, an economist at StreetEasy. “Hudson Yards was built for a buyer that’s no longer there and maybe partly a tenant that’s no longer there, and that was someone who wanted to live in Manhattan but not live in the city per se,” said Richard Florida, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and School of Cities, referring to the development’s homogeneity and somewhat isolated location. The retail picture is also bleak. The vast space occupied by the failed Neiman Marcus store will no longer be taken by another retailer. Instead, Related will convert it into more offices. In the meantime, the company has intervened in Neiman Marcus’s bankruptcy case claiming that the department store owes $16 million for breaking its lease and an additional $129,000 for the removal of its signage throughout the mall, including a giant sign that hung in a five-story glass atrium. While the mall was closed by lockdown orders from mid-March to early September, shoppers are still largely absent. Related has battled its other beleaguered retail tenants, even threatening stores with $1,500 per day fines for failing to stay open after the mall reopened. Several stores, including Forty Five Ten, a luxury clothing store from Dallas that opened alongside Neiman Marcus, have shuttered permanently. The mall opened with 79 stores and now has 89, Related said. Related said the mall had added at least 11 stores since September, including Herman Miller, Levi’s and Sunglass Hut. In the weeks before Christmas, tourists and office workers were in short supply and some stores were still closed, while others like Rolex were open by appointment only. Mall employees far outnumbered shoppers inside the cavernous building, where the most crowded spot seemed to be the line at Blue Bottle Coffee. Weekday traffic at the Hudson Yards subway station, part of the No. 7 line extension the city paid for to help make the development possible, plunged to an average of 6,500 riders in December, a sharp drop from the 20,000 daily average in 2019, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the subway. The lack of shoppers at the mall has cut into Related’s revenue because the company structured some retail leases so that shops pay rent based on a percentage of their monthly sales. In addition, a number of leases were specifically tied to the fate of Neiman Marcus — if it closed, smaller stores would not have to pay rent or could break their leases without penalty. Related would not comment about its terms with tenants, including whether any were withholding rent payments. Mr. Weinstein, the company spokesman, said that retail would “always be a key element of our new neighborhood.” Despite the uncertainty, Hudson Yards has already helped turn the neighborhood into a key business district and part of a stretch of Manhattan along the West Side that is becoming a major tech corridor. The development has attracted a who’s who of companies, including HBO, CNN, L’Oréal USA, BlackRock and Tapestry, the parent company of Coach, Kate Spade New York and Stuart Weitzman. “I think New York City will be fine, and Hudson Yards will be fine,” Mr. Florida said. “Will Hudson Yards be the same as it is envisioned? That’s the open question.” Source link Orbem News #Billion #Deserted #Eerily #Hudson #left #Pandemic #yards

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notesonnewyork · 7 years ago

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Absurd New York #83: Bad Subways Edition

As a flurry of investigative reports in the New York Times depicted this week, we haven’t been imagining it at all: our transit system has been unraveling for a decade now. Take the graphic above, for instance. In 2007, according to the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s (MTA) own data, trains ran “on time” over 90% of the time on weekdays. Today, they’re only 65% likely to operate on schedule. What’s even more extraordinary is that some lines don’t even appear to be trying anymore. (I’m looking at you, Number 2!)

For MTA statisticians, a train is “on time” if it arrives at its final destination no more than five minutes behind schedule and doesn’t skip a stop. So, for example, if an N Train leaving Ditmars Blvd-Astoria arrived at Stillwell Avenue-Coney Island three minutes behind, it’s considered “on time.” If it by-passed 14th Street-Union Square, however, it’s marked “late” since it didn’t run its entire route. Too bad there’s no data on the average amount of time a train is late when it comes in as such. Suffice it to say, the results would probably be less than admirable.

To make matters worse, when compared with others around the world, our transit system ranks 21st in on-time performance so far this year. Which ones are better? Well, the ones in Mexico City (71%), San Francisco (86%), Washington D.C. (88%), Madrid (91%), Miami (92%), Baltimore (95%), Chicago (96%), Vancouver (96%), Toronto (96%), Atlanta (97%), and Boston (97%). The remainder--those in Montreal, Philadelphia, Paris, Berlin, Seoul, Los Angeles, Singapore, Taipei, and Hong Kong--have efficiencies over 98%!

“We Apologize for Any Inconvenience.”

So what gives? Well, as the Times uncovered, what’s happening today is the direct result of “a perennial lack of investment in tracks, trains, and signals.” It’s as simple as that. Despite an increase of 77% in ridership between 1991 and 2015 (from 1 billion to 1.8 billion annual riders), the system has suffered a loss of total track mileage (dropping from 493 to 488 miles) and added only 27 new cars to the fleet (from 5,255 to 5,282 cars) during that span.

Moreover, the State Legislature has kept the MTA’s budget for maintenance and at about the same appropriation since 1991. The consequence? Today, “more than 2,000 jobs in critical areas like repairing signals, tracks, and cars [are] unfilled” because there’s not enough money to pay mechanics. That understaffing has wrought signal problems and has led to subway cars breaking down “twice as frequently as a decade ago.” In 2005, for instance, the average car could travel about 178,000 before having one of its components fail. In 2016, the same car could manage only 112,000 miles.

“Soliciting Money in the Subway Is Illegal. We Ask You Not to Give.”

So where’d all the money for maintenance go? Well, as the Times suggested, it’s been spent largely on cosmetic improvements to the system instead. There are several egregious cases. Take the MTA burning through $1.4 billion to erect the new Fulton Street station, $135 million to refurbish the Bleecker Street station, $66 million to restore the Cortlandt Street station, or nearly $1 billion to support Governor Andrew Cuomo’s 2016 “Enhanced Station Initiative”--the one that added “lighting, signs, countdown clocks, and other upgrades to dozens of stations.” Furthermore, Cuomo even persuaded the MTA to spend “tens of millions of dollars to study outfitting [its] bridges with lights capable of choreographed display, install wireless internet and phone-charging ports on buses, and paint the state logo on new subway cars.” Pretty toppings for sure, but none of them improved the system’s on-time reliability.

Additionally, for some unknown reason, the MTA decided to use its resources to bail out other businesses over the years. Most notably, it endowed Belleayre Ski Center, Gore Mountain, and Whiteface Mountain--all state-run ski resorts--with $5 million in March 2016 after each experienced bad winter seasons. It even gifted another $5 million to the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority in 2013 to help that entity cover a deficit it incurred for reducing tolls way back in 2000.

“We’re Being Momentarily Held by the Train’s Dispatcher.”

Since 1968, the city and state have had a vested interest in the subway--the city owns it, the state operates it--so both mayors and governors alike have had a hand in directing its finances. The MTA’s capital handicaps, however, began in the 1990s. According to the Times, when Governor George Pataki (1995-2006) revoked its state subsidies and capital funding for projects, he forced the MTA to depend solely on fares, tolls, and revenue from taxes for its survival. Moreover, when Pataki’s state income tax cut was approved in 1995, he paid for it with $200 million in tax revenue that had been originally earmarked for the MTA. Since then, he and his successors have divested the MTA of “at least $850 million” of its own money. Presumably, some of that could have been used to repair tracks, trains, and signals around the city.

On the other hand, Mayor Rudy Giuliani (1994-2001) decided to break from a precedent too. Instead of continuing to fund 10% of the MTA’s total budget like other mayors before him, Giuliani reduced the city’s contribution by $400 million. Later on, although Mayor Michael Bloomberg (2002-2013) used city funds to help finance bonds for the extension of the 7 Line to 34th Street-Hudson Yards, he kept the city’s supplement for the MTA at Giuliani levels. Their moves had an astonishing effect. Whereas the Dinkins Administration (1990-1993) gave about $1 billion in today’s money to the MTA back in 1990, Mayor Bill de Blasio set aside just $250 million for the MTA this year.

Because of all this disinvestment, the MTA has resorted to printing bonds to pay for things like new construction. Over the past six years, the Times tallied that the MTA has issued “about $15 billion” worth of bonds, a total that now comprises 52% of its overall capital funding. But it’s the interest on those bonds that really hamstrings the agency’s finances. “Every second of the day,” the Times declared, “the MTA pays $83 in interest. That’s $7.1 million in 24 hours...$2.603 billion” for the year. So much for buying a new car or two for the N/W Line.

“This Is the Last Stop on the Train. Everyone Please Leave the Train.”

In 2017, New York City is more populated and even vastly more affluent than it was in 1991. Arguably, its revenue from property taxes alone could fund city after city all over America. With this year’s fiscal year budget hovering around $88.4 billion, how can it possibly justify giving less to support the transit system than it did 27 years ago? The same goes for New York State. With a fiscal year budget of $162.3 billion, why does it need to keep shifting revenue away from the MTA? Neither Mayor de Blasio nor Governor Cuomo may be entirely at fault for the subway’s current condition, but they own it now and must be held accountable. Repair the tracks, fix the trains, and replace the signals. It’s absurd if they can continue to find money for everything else but renewing the essential components of a railroad.

-----

(Screenshot taken from The New York Times. Graphic of on-time performance for each of the city’s train lines in 2007 and 2017 compiled by Jasmine C. Lee, November 18, 2017. Retouched by Riff Chorusriff.)

#absurd new york #new york city transit #nyct #nyc subways #bad subways #metropolitan transit authority #mta #new york times #subway performance #governor cuomo #mayor de blasio #andrew cuomo #bill de blasio #tracks trains signals #repair tracks trains signals #subway maintenance #new york city #riffchorusriff photography #riffchorusriff essay

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junker-town · 5 years ago

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The 7 worst snubs for the 2020 Pro Bowl

Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images

Kirk Cousins, Dak Prescott, and a couple of veteran stars from the league’s top defense all stand out.

The NFL announced the full rosters for the 2020 Pro Bowl. The list is full of deserving players, including a whopping 18 of them from the Ravens and Chiefs combined. But while it’s hard to argue against any of the chosen 88, you can bet we have some thoughts on those who should have joined them.

Last year, we also put together a list of snubs and a number of them made the Pro Bowl this year. That includes Christian McCaffrey, Chris Jones, David Bakhtiari, Darius Leonard, Rodney Hudson, Jason Kelce, Chandler Jones, Russell Wilson and Will Lutz.

There are, of course, limited spots available and guys with rock-solid resumes miss out each year. Let’s go over some of the players we thought should have made the initial cut for the trip to Orlando.

Dak Prescott, QB, Cowboys

Coming into the season, Prescott’s detractors consistently harped on his lack of success throwing the deep ball in 2018. This year, Prescott has aired it out with the best of them. He’s third in the league in air yards per completion, and second overall in completed air yards — Pro Football Reference metrics that track how far a ball went before being caught.

While the Cowboys as a whole have struggled, it’s certainly not Prescott’s fault. He’s first in Football Outsiders’ DYAR stat, which measures a quarterback’s total value. He’s second in the NFL with 4,334 passing yards. He’s also fifth in on-target percentage, at 79 percent, and fifth in the league in yards per completion with 12.7. His numbers are the best he’s had in his career, and not only does he deserve a fat new contract, he deserves some Pro Bowl recognition.

Darren Waller, TE, Raiders

The Ravens have a record 12 Pro Bowlers, and by and large, they clearly belong. However, we have some issues with Mark Andrews making it over Darren Waller at the tight end position.

Waller had a rocky start to his career that saw him spend more time suspended than on the field. This year, he’s been active all season and has looked great in the process, earning a long-term contract extension.

Waller is second among all tight ends in yards (1,131), seventh in catch percentage (77.7), and second in yards per target (9.72). He’s ahead of Andrews in all of those stats, and he is one of only a few reliable playmakers the Raiders have.

Justin Simmons, S, Broncos

Simmons is the top-ranked safety in the league according to Pro Football Focus, and there happens to be another iffy decision ahead of him on the roster: Earl Thomas. Of course, Thomas is one of the best to ever play the game, but this feels like Ravens hype trumping what we saw on the field.

And what we saw was Simmons being dominant week in and week out. He leads all safeties in pass breakups with 14 and is second in interceptions with four. He’s tied for first in the league in forced incompletions, per PFF. He was all over the field and has quite possibly been the best safety in the entire NFL this season.

Kirk Cousins, QB, Vikings

Aaron Rodgers got the nod for the 2020 Pro Bowl, and he hasn’t even been the best quarterback in his own division. That honor goes to Cousins, who overcame a slow start to look every bit a quarterback worth a fully-guaranteed $84 million contract.

Since Week 4, he’s thrown for 275 yards per game and recorded a 22:3 TD:INT ratio as Minnesota has gone 8-2. He’s setting career highs in virtually every statistical category available. He ranks among the league’s top five quarterbacks in completion rate (70.8), interception rate (1.2), adjusted yards per attempt (9.4), and passer rating (111.1).

Sure, he’s struggled in big games and still hasn’t won a game on Monday night — though check back after Week 16 — but he’s got the Vikings in position for a return to the postseason and commands the NFL’s fifth-ranked scoring offense. He’ll eventually get an invitation to Orlando as an alternate once other QBs start dropping out, but Cousins deserved to be among the first crop of NFC passers.

Aaron Jones, RB, Packers

Rodgers’ struggles have placed an even bigger emphasis on the Green Bay running game. Jones has responded with the best season of his career. The former UTEP star may only have three 100+ yard rushing games, but he’s got five with multiple touchdowns — all of which were Packer wins.

Though his 14 rushing touchdowns are tied with Christian McCaffrey for the league lead, his most valuable asset this fall has been a leveled-up receiving game. Jones’ 7.2 yards per target are a career high (as are his three-plus catches per game) and more than noted pass-catching backs like McCaffrey, Ezekiel Elliott, James White, and Duke Johnson. While other tailbacks have done more this fall, there are few who’ve been more important for a 10+ win team in 2019 than Jones.

Devin McCourty, S, and Jamie Collins, LB, Patriots

The Patriots field the league’s top defense when it comes to both points and yards allowed. But other than well-deserved bids for Stephon Gilmore, that unit was snubbed when it came to Pro Bowl invitations. Three different New England defensive backs have at least five interceptions this fall, a list that includes McCourty and his record-tying four-game pick streak to start the season. The veteran safety has allowed just a 41.6 passer rating in coverage this season; throwing the ball into the turf every play would net a QB a 39.6.

McCourty has been great, but he’s not the Pats’ biggest comeback story of 2019. Collins was shunted aside by the Browns and returned to New England this spring on a make-good, one-year, $2 million contract that left him in danger of not making the club’s final roster.

Instead, he’s been one of the team’s most important defenders. He’s got a career-high six sacks despite being asked to rush the passer in roughly one-third of his snaps this fall — giving him the league’s top sack rate among inside linebackers. Per SIS, he ranks third among all linebackers, behind only Pro Bowl pass rushers Shaquil Barrett and T.J. Watt — in points saved this fall.

Yes, crying “snub” for the Patriots is a plea that will largely fall on unsympathetic ears. But if the Ravens — the league’s hottest team — can send a dozen players to Orlando, shouldn’t the league’s hottest defense get at least three representatives?

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northsyria04-blog · 5 years ago

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A Great Food Sweatshirt, Famous Barbecue Sauce, and More Things to Buy This Week

This post originally appeared on March 19, 2019, in Add to Cart — the weekly newsletter for people who love shopping (almost) as much as they love eating. Subscribe now.

On Saturday night, on my way home from a delightful party with rather undelightful wine, I found myself scrolling through Instagram, inspired to bring better wine into my life. I found an online seller called Primal; it looked nice and had a decent number of followers, one of whom, Instagram kindly informed me, is a coworker. I managed to order two bottles of wine before my Lyft pulled to a stop — but only with a bunch of fumbling, multiple browser windows, and a glance at my physical credit card.

We’ve all gotten used to bumpy online checkout processes. But today, in what qualifies as major shopping news — and a reminder that crappy online experiences don’t have to be so crappy — Facebook announced you can now buy things directly on Instagram. Instead of being redirected to a browser window when you tap on a product, you’ll see a big blue button. Tap “Checkout on Instagram”; input your email, shipping details, and payment information; and voila, you’ve placed your order without ever leaving Instagram.

It seems like a feature that should’ve existed years ago. For many people, Instagram functions like a more engaging Google, where search results come with better photos and validation from friends (and recommendations creepily informed by what you’ve been Googling). And just as I’m more likely to pick a brunch place based on what my coworkers are tagging rather than on random searching, I’m more likely to buy things based on what my friends are liking (or based on what looks particularly enticing on my “Explore” tab — the ultimate window shopping).

Which makes seamless shopping via Instagram a welcome, if not monumental, change. The capability is currently limited to certain fashion and beauty brands, like Nike, Warby Parker, H&M, and Oscar de la Renta (please tell me who is buying Oscar de la Renta via Instagram). But if Instagram expands it, which seems inevitable, friction-free, impulse-friendly wine shopping could be in our futures.

Things to buy

This perfect Goldie sweatshirt shouts out the Philly falafel shop with vintage college vibes.

Despite recently receiving a very legit food processor as a wedding gift, I find myself still turning to the Ninja Food Chopper Express Chop, which gets the job done as well but is vastly easier to clean, store (in tiny city kitchen cabinets!), and generally manhandle.

If you, like me, spent the weekend watching Queer Eye and sobbing softly into a throw blanket over the sheer goodness of humanity, you might also be interested to know that Jones Bar-B-Q sauce, created by the “heroes” of Episode 3, the Jones sisters, is now available online. “As of yesterday morning, we sold 11,000 bottles. We averaged 1.7 bottles per minute this weekend,” the newly famous biz shared with fans.

A very underrated cooking tool: really comfortable socks. For a chef-approved pair, splurge on Cook Life socks by True Cooks.

Things to know

New York’s just-unveiled Hudson Yards, an embarrassing modern temple to luxury and inaccessibility, is really just a seven-story mall and as such has an extremely extensive food court. Eater NY has an exhaustive rundown (complete with a liveblog and an Instagram adventure) of the good, the bad, and the absurd of the dining options.

Pyrex is a mainstay in millions of American kitchens, including my own, and yet I somehow missed the controversy over exploding Pyrex glass. The tl;dr: It’s probably still fine to use, but maybe be careful?

Interested in another semi-expensive kitchen appliance that you’ll get approximately four uses out of before it starts gathering dust? This just in, from the Wall Street Journal: “White Russian in a Pod? Budweiser Maker Pushes K-Cup Machine for Cocktails.” FWIW, previous versions of this have all been disasters.

Christmas came late this year with the March arrival of Deadspin’s annual Hater’s Guide to the Williams-Sonoma Catalog. With lines like “This toffee tin may as well read HEY, MARY LOUISE! EAT SHIT!” it was well worth the wait.

Hudson Yards in NYC

Alex Staniloff

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Source: https://www.eater.com/2019/3/20/18273297/jones-bbq-sauce-goldie-sweatshirt-merch-buy-shopping-food

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

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patioskate2-blog · 6 years ago

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The James M. Townsend House - 318 West 75th Street

The house to the right was constructed simultaneously for James W. Townsend, Jr.

Mansion architect C. P. H. Gilbert was busily designing a number of townhouses on the Upper West Side in 1895. Unlike the rows of speculative houses rising throughout the district, most of Gilbert's were direct commissions.

Late that year the architect was hired by James M. Townsend and his son to design side-by-side homes at Nos. 318 and 320 West 75th Street respectively. Gilbert treated the two homes independently with no attempt at melding the designs.

The James Mulford. Townsend home would stand slightly taller than No. 320. Its sandy-colored brick upper floors sat on a limestone base. Its somewhat rigid Renaissance Revival design was softened by delightful carvings of scallop shells and squiggly ribbons below the third floor cornice. The shell-and-ribbon motif was repeated in the panels between the fifth floor windows; and a line of shells decorated the primary cornice.

Townsend was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1852. He graduated from Yale University in 1874 and then from Columbia Law School. He married Harriet Bailey Campbell, the daughter of Professor John Lyle Campbell of Washington and Lee University, on November 15, 1882. Theirs would be a large family. The couple had six children--Harriet Campbell, James Mulford, Jr., John Campbell, Edward Howard, and twins Virginia and Donald.

The Townsends maintained a summer home at Pelham Manor, New York; described by The New York Times in July 1896 as "one of the most secluded localities on the Sound." The article mentioned "No trade is carried on inside the manor limits."

When James Mulford Townsend moved into the 75th Street house, he was the senior member of the law firm Townsend, Avery & Button. from Men of Progress, 1898 (copyright expired)

Townsend's social status was evidenced in his club memberships. Men of Progress in 1898 said "He is identified with many of New York's most prominent clubs." Among them were the University, the Colonial, the New York Athletic and the Barnard Clubs.

Harriet's entertainments in the house were not lavish. Society columns commented on teas and receptions rather than sumptuous dinners and dances. Such was the case on February 26, 1900 when she hosted an 11 a.m. lecture by Mrs. Ruutz Rees on "Buddhism."

The Townsends remained at No. 318 until early in 1909 when it was sold to Dr. Frederick Merwin Ives. An unlikely combination of physician and civic engineer, he was born in Rome in 1866, where his well-known sculptor father, Chauncey Ives, maintained his studio. Ives had graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1889 and was married to Edith Wetherill, a graduate of Bryn Mawr College.

The couple had not lived in the home long before one of their servants was the near-victim of a robbery. James Hanley had fallen asleep under a tree in Fort George Park on the evening of June 22, 1910. His reverie was abruptly broken by uninvited movements. He awoke "to find a sailor in full uniform bending over him and fumbling at his pockets," reported The New York Times the following day. "He noticed, too, that his gold chain, worth $10, was missing."

Hanley jumped up and wrestled with the sailor, drawing the attention of a passing policeman. The uniformed man was arrested and Hanley's watch chain was found in his pocket. At the station house the crook said he was Thomas Doyle, attached to the U.S. cruiser the Franklin, and he had come to New York from the Norfolk Navy Yard on furlough. The police were not quick to accept his story, telling reporters they "believed he is one of several fake sailors who beg in uniform for a living."

When the United States entered World War I Ives joined the Medical Department of the Army, with the rank of captain. It may have been his absence that led to the 75th Street house being leased. In September 1919 Albert Gran rented it. But if the couple intended to return, it does not appear they ever did.

On July 30, 1920 an advertisement in The Sun offered "Charming rooms, overlooking Hudson, two doors Riverside Drive." And then on September 7, 1923 The New York Times reported that Edith had sold the house for $65,000--more than $930,000 today.

The buyer was real estate operator Henry Schwamm. Reports said he purchased it "for a client." Apparently the client was himself for he and his wife, Clara, moved in. Like Ives, Schwamm was multi-faceted. In addition to his real estate business, he was an authority on medical and dental jurisprudence and wrote extensively on the subject.

The couple had five children, Gustave, Sidney, Blance, Camille and Frances. They received the privileges of well-to-do families and extensive education.

When son Gustave's engagement to Norma June Wexler was announced in December 1932, for instance, newspapers noted he "was graduated from the College of Arts and Pure Science and the School of Law at New York University." Gustave was still living at home and practicing law at the time.

The Schwamm's well-educated daughters Camille and Blanch attended the Institut Fisher at Montreux, Switzerland. Camille then studied at Syracuse University, and New York University. Blanche went on to Columbia University's Teachers College.

Dr. Henry Schwamm died at the age of 64 on July 22, 1943. Three years later the house was converted to apartments, two on each floor except the top, which had three.

Despite the unfortunate apartment entrance doors and an inexplicable coating of paint over the limestone of the first floor, C. P. H. Gilbert's stately design endures between two other contemporary Gilbert houses.

photographs by the author

Source: http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-james-m-townsend-house-318-west.html

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

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birchleo1-blog · 6 years ago

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The 1894 Aspell & Co. Building - 151 Hudson Street

On July 1, 1823 Helen Lispenard Stewart was married to James Watson Webb in the mansion of her father, Alexander L. Stewart. The three-and-a-half story Federal-style mansion sat at the southwest corner of Hudson and Hubert Streets. Directly behind it was a two-story brick stable.

By the outbreak of the Civil War the days of wealthy homeowners and fashionable gatherings in the neighborhood were nearly a memory.

As late as 1937 altered houses similar to the Stewart mansion survived along Hudson Street one block south. from the collection of the New York Public Library

By the 1890's the Stewart mansion had become a seedy rooming house, occupied by dockworkers and other rowdies. Among those was longshoreman William Goonan and his wife, and William Cleary, another dockworker.

On Saturday night, March 24, 1894 Cleary began drinking. It would be the last time the roughneck got drunk. At around 1:00 in the morning he was in Goonan's room and the two got into a vicious fight after Cleary claimed "that he was the best man along the docks."

According to The Evening World, "Goonan disputed Cleary's claim and the two men clinched. They rolled out of the room into the hallway and down a flight of stairs. On the landing below a big pool of blood tells that a fearful fight took place there."

Roused by the noisy affray, a boy ran from the house and called Policeman Schoenfield. When the officer arrived he found Cleary stabbed in the face and neck and Goonan with a knife in his fist. The Evening World reported "Goonan, who was also badly beaten in the fight, was committed to the Tombs without bail."

The old mansion was soon gone. It had been purchased a year earlier, on April 14, 1893, by Joseph H. Bearns, who owned several properties in the area. The principal in the liquor importing firm Joseph H. Bearns & Co., he had hired architect Julius Kastner to design a five-story loft building on the opposite corner of the block, at No. 10 Hubert Street, two years earlier. In fact, the two had worked on similar projects since the 1880's. They would collaborate again for No. 151 Hudson Street.

Kastner's completed structure was similar to several of his other designs for Bearns. A handsome, industrial take on Romanesque Revival, it was faced in yellow Roman brick and trimmed in brownstone and red sandstone. Designed in four parts separated by brownstone cornices, it exhibited expected husky Romanesque Revival elements like undressed bandcourses, lusty medieval-style carvings, arched openings at the top floor. But Kastner softened the design with the use of bullnosed bricks which rounded the corners. While he could have saved Bearns money with terra cotta decorations, he opted for carved ornaments throughout and executed the complex cornice in stone.

The rounded edges soften the overall appearance of the building. Note the spiraled corner detailing of the top floor. The stone elements that drip like stalactites from the cornice are somewhat hidden today behind metal sheathing.

As the building rose, Aspell & Co. was operating from Nos. 314-316 Greenwich Street. The wholesale grocery dealers embarked on an unusual marketing scheme that year. It opened a new department that offered certain items at wholesale prices to individual shoppers--a savings of up to 50 percent.

An advertisement on August 19, 1894 promised the housekeeper that on top of the savings, she could have "the goods delivered free of charge in or out of the city" (foreshadowing by more than a century retail giants like Amazon). There was "a full line of staple and fancy groceries and wines, etc., also table delicacies suitable for city, country or seaside use."

New-York Tribune, November 13, 1895 (copyright expired)

Before the turn of the century Aspell & Co. had moved into No. 151 Hudson Street. It shared the building with the Cincinnati-based S. A. Sloman Co. Samuel A Sloman had made a drastic change to his family's business a few years earlier--from trading in furs to the manufacture of liquor.

Since the mid-1890's he marketed his Diamond Wedding Whiskey as a remedy rather than an intoxicant. His ads promised it "invigorates feeble constitutions, renews life and arrests disease." Others said it restored "power and suppleness to the muscles, warmth and richness for the blood."

This ad promised the whiskey was "invaluable to nursing mothers." original resource unknown

Apparently the military bought into the restorative powers of Diamond Wedding Whiskey, for in 1900 both S. A. Sloman & Co. and Aspell & Co. were bidding on contracts with the U.S. Navy.

Three years later the directors of Aspell & Company agreed to dissolve the corporation. It was replaced at No. 151 Hudson Street by Wm. A. Leggett & Co., wholesale grocers and dealers in condensed milk. William Leggett had established his company in 1870.

In January 1908 Joseph H. Bearns leased the entire building to Bennett, Day & Co. "for a long term of years." Wm. A. Leggett & Co. was allowed to stay on as a sub-tenant.

There was no long a Bennett in Bennett, Day & Co. The wholesale grocery business was owned by husband-and-wife partners Henry Mason Day and Emily Garnett Day. The Virginians had come to New York in 1874 and opened a dried fruit and nut business. The New-York Tribune noted decades later that for "many years [Day] imported whole crops of fruits from Brazil and other countries and disposed of them to wholesalers in this country."

The Days were prosperous and maintained a summer home in Greenwich, Connecticut, where Henry moored his yacht. But Henry's health had begun failing by the time his company leased the Hudson Street building. He had essentially retired in 1903, spending most of his time in Europe, California and Florida because of his ill health. On January 18 1909, a year after signing the lease, he died at the age of 58.

About the time of Day's death William A. Leggett suffered an attack of bronchitis. His condition did not improve and a year later, in September 1910, he succumbed at the age of 81.

Kastner's attention to detail included delightful miniature Romanesque Revival columns incorporated into the upper portion of the cast iron storefront.

Although his death brought an end to Wm. A. Leggett & Co.; Bennett, Day & Co. continued under the control of Emily Day and her son, Lee Garnett Day. Lee was, perhaps, less interested in the wholesale grocery business than in adventure.

On December 25, 1914 The New York Times noted that he had graduated from Yale University in 1911 and "has hunted big game from India, and recently returned from a trip of five months' exploration in Brazil." The purpose of the article was to announce he was setting off on yet another expedition, this time "to explore unknown parts of the South American jungles under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History and the Field Museum of Chicago." Day personally managed and financed the extensive undertaking.

Day told the reporter "Not a specimen of the mammal or of bird life has ever been obtained there. Should we be successful in getting specimens some of them at least should prove to be of value to the collections of the museums because of their rarity."

Bennett, Day & Co. remained at No. 151 through 1917, before moving to No. 165 Hudson Street. That year Simon W. Greenbaum & Co. was incorporated by Simon and his brother, H. M. Greenbaum, and J. Socoloff to import and export peas and beans." In February 1918 the firm leased the Hudson Street building.

The Produce District edged up against the wholesale shoe district. As the years passed shoe merchants pushed out the grocery dealers in some areas of Tribeca. When Simon W. Greenbaum & Co. signed the lease on No. 151, the O'Sullivan Heel Company was operating from nearby No. 131 Hudson Street. By 1922 they had taken over the Greenbaum lease.

Founded by James and Humphrey O'Sullivan in August 1899, the firm manufactured replacement heels for men's shoes. It marketed its rubber heels as being less jarring than the more common leather versions. An advertisement in 1922 explained "One of the chief causes of fatigue is the strain of standing--the jar of walking on hard floors and pavements." The hard leather heels gave no relief and "ordinary rubber heels are little better." But as in the Goldilocks story, O'Sullivan's Safety Cushion Heels "combine just the right toughness for long hard wear with the greatest amount of springiness."

The Evening World, June 12, 1922 (copyright expired)

In 1908 author William Richard Cutter wrote "Countless imitators, in all countries, have paid their sincerest flattery, by their unscrupulous attempts to foist upon the public, their imitations of rubber heels, and the inevitable results, that none have been, as yet, successful, each claiming for his own to be as good as the 'O'Sullivan'--'The Standard'--the yard stick of the rubber heel industry."

O'Sullivan Rubber Co. was still in the building in 1950 when the Bearns estate sold No. 151 "to an investor," as reported by The Times on March 1. The article noted that it was the last of Bearns's many properties to be sold and that the "sale was the first involving the property in fifty-seven years."

At the time the Tribeca renaissance was still a few decades away. The first signs of change would come in 1980 when the ground floor became home to Sheba, an Ethiopian restaurant. The New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton approved, saying "Huge napkin-size crepes are the eating implements in which are wrapped curried stews such as the doro watt, and minchet abesh wott. Kitfo, a raw ground beef specialty is a personal favorite."

Sheba made way for Thai House Cafe in early 1987. Six months after its opening New York Magazine said "This is food you'd expect to find in a Thai home, carefully cooked and tamely spiced." The restaurant remained in the space at least through 1991.

In the meantime the building had experienced cinematic exposure when it posed as the Hotel Broslin in the 1982 film Basket Case. A large neon sign was hung from the fire escape for the outside shots of the fictitious hotel.

Although a Certificate of Occupancy for the commodious loft dwellings at No. 151 was not officially rendered until 2010; the building had become residential decades earlier. In 1992 Birnbaum's New York, written by Stephen and Alexandra Mayes Birnbaum noted "Only the most urban personalities tend to live in TriBeCa--Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, and Martin Scorsese are among the pack who have lived in converted lofts at 151 Hudson Street."

The building stretches back to No. 2 Hubert Street, where the Stewarts' two-story stables once stood.

Meticulously restored, the facade of Julius Hastner's 1894 structure is essentially unchanged. Its three-color design stands out among its neighbors in the constantly-evolving Tribeca neighborhood.

photographs by the author

Source: http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-1894-aspell-co-building-151-hudson.html

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

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whittlebaggett8 · 6 years ago

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NYC’s first-ever Neiman Marcus just opened in Hudson Yards. The CEO has described the store as a ‘magical’ and ‘immersive’ experience — here’s what I found inside, Defence Online

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The 188,000-square-foot luxury department store spans three levels.

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Katie Warren/Defence Online

Neiman Marcus opened its first New York City store in Hudson Yards, the city’s new $25 billion neighborhood.

The 188,000-square-foot luxury department store spans three floors of the Shops and Restaurants shopping complex.

Geoffroy van Raemdonck, CEO of Neiman Marcus Group, said the new store will create “a personal customer experience that is seamless and magical.”

Neiman Marcus, the luxury department store with the same owner as Bergdorf Goodman, just opened its first New York City store at Hudson Yards, the city’s new $25 billion neighborhood.

The 188,000-square-foot store, which opened March 15, spans three floors of the Shops and Restaurants at Hudson Yards, the site’s seven-story luxury shopping complex.

Geoffroy van Raemdonck, CEO of Neiman Marcus Group, says the new store adapts to how the next generation of luxury customers shops. Unlike other Neiman Marcus stores, the location at Hudson Yards includes a beauty salon and spa, a pop-up florist, and a kitchen that offers cooking demonstrations, tastings, and mixology classes.

“Neiman Marcus Hudson Yards will be all about providing physical and digital experiences in a way not seen at other stores, creating a personal customer experience that is seamless and magical,” van Raemdonck said in a press release.

I walked through the store a few days after its grand opening – here’s what it looks like.

New York City’s first Neiman Marcus just opened at Hudson Yards, the new $25 billion neighborhood on Manhattan’s west side that includes office buildings, luxury residential towers, a public plaza, and a 150-foot climbable sculpture called the Vessel.

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Katie Warren/Defence Online

The department store is part of a one-million-square-foot, seven-story shopping complex called the Shops and Restaurants at Hudson Yards. The developers don’t call it a mall, instead referring to it as a “vertical shopping experience” or an “urban retail center.”

Source: Hudson Yards, Bloomberg

Neiman Marcus occupies space on floors five, six, and seven of the building.

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Katie Warren/Defence Online

Source: Hudson Yards

I got a peek of the brand-new Neiman Marcus on opening day, but I went back a few days later to take a full tour.

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Katie Warren/Defence Online

Geoffroy van Raemdonck, CEO of Neiman Marcus Group, says the new store adapts to how the next generation of luxury customers shop.

Source: Neiman Marcus

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Katie Warren/Defence Online

Stepping inside to the first level of the store, on the fifth floor of the building, I found myself in the accessories department.

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Katie Warren/Defence Online

Luxury handbags were all around, from Balmain to Versace to Louis Vuitton.

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Katie Warren/Defence Online

I asked the Neiman Marcus Group CEO why this is the first Neiman Marcus store in NYC. “New York has always been a core part of our business,” van Raemdonck said. Neiman Marcus already has a base of “over a hundred thousand luxury customers” in Manhattan that have generated $100 million in sales in the greater NYC area, he said.

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Katie Warren/Defence Online

When there was an opportunity for Neiman Marcus to open at Hudson Yards, “we quickly moved on it,” he said.

This Neiman Marcus has several features not seen in the other locations, such as a pop-up florist in case you’re shopping for both luxury purses and fresh flowers.

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Katie Warren/Defence Online

On the fifth floor, there are the usual luxury suspects, from Chanel …

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Katie Warren/Defence Online

… to Saint Laurent …

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Katie Warren/Defence Online

… to Chloé.

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There was an extensive sneaker collection — a logical move, considering millennials’ love for athleisure and sneakers as a status symbol.

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The fifth floor is also home to the beauty and fragrances department, selling products from Dior foundation, which ranges from $40 to $82 …

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… to Chanel lipstick, which starts at $38.

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Unique to Neiman Marcus Hudson Yards are the beauty treatment rooms and spa services, which include a LED LightStim light therapy bed.

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Also on the fifth floor is the Cook + Merchants space.

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There, you can find a chocolate shop, a retail space selling sweets and other gifts …

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… and a coffee shop.

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There’s also a test kitchen that offers demonstrations, tastings, and mixology classes.

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A café sitting area extends into the corridor of the main shopping center.

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Van Raemdonck says the Hudson Yards location is all about “retail theater” and the “immersive experience.”

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One aspect of this, he said, is the 60 Vidari digital screens outfitted throughout the store, which can live stream events happening in other parts of the store or in other stores. When I was there, the screens were simply showing the store directory.

Source: Forbes

I headed up to the sixth floor, which is where you can find men’s clothing, one of the store’s restaurants, and a clothing personalization service called Atelier Notify.

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Atelier Notify is a customizable shop that offers embroidery, painting, patchwork, distressing, and embellishments.

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Source: Neiman Marcus

Also on the sixth floor is a performance venue called Neiman Marcus Live, which will hold concerts, fashion shows, book tours, podcast recordings, and guest speakers. It must blend in well with the rest of the store — which was perhaps the intention — as I didn’t even notice it on my walkthrough.

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Visitors to the store are free to play vintage arcade games scattered around the men’s section on the sixth floor.

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This seemed to be part of the “immersive experience” concept, but I’m not sure playing a video game is something I’d necessarily be interested in doing while shopping.

I went to get a look at Bar Stanley, which looks out over the public plaza and the Vessel, the 150-foot tall climbable sculpture. The menu includes specialty cocktails, wines, beers, non-alcoholic drinks, and “upscale casual dining.”

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The men’s department sells everything from patterned Etro button-up shirts …

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… to Tom Ford suits.

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There’s a walk-up barber station from Bevel for those in need of a quick shave.

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On the seventh floor are the designer collections, which include stunning ballgowns from brands like Oscar de la Renta, which run a cool $5,000 to $10,000 a piece.

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Source: Oscar de la Renta

The seventh floor is also home to the jewelry department and the BLVD beauty salon, which offers services including blowouts, manicures, pedicures, nail art, lash extensions, laser hair removal, waxing, brow shaping, and peel services.

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Neiman Marcus added online personal stylists to its websites in 2018, and on the top floor of the Hudson Yards store you can find a Digital Styling Lounge, where shoppers can meet their digital stylists from the website in person.

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Source: Forbes

I was particularly looking forward to checking out the Zodiac Room, Neiman Marcus’ fine dining destination on the seventh floor at this location.

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But it wasn’t open yet when I came by in the morning, so I only got a glimpse of the space, where it appeared staff was eating before it opened up at 11:30 am.

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The CEO said that Neiman Marcus Hudson Yards should create “a personal customer experience that is seamless and magical.”

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I’ve never visited another Neiman Marcus store, and I can’t speak to the shopping experience at the Hudson Yards store, as I didn’t purchase anything.

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Design-wise, I did find aspects of the store to be beautifully arranged, with comfortable yet stylish seating and ornate light fixtures.

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Like just about everything else I’ve seen in Hudson Yards – from luxury residential buildings to a “third space” that charges $6 for 30 minutes of access to napping pods and meditation stations, NYC’s Neiman Marcus combines a lot of varied services into a single space.

The store was definitely modern and it had some unexpected features – namely the arcades – but ultimately, from walking through it, I have to say that it felt more or less like any other department store I’ve been in.

In a city that already has several famous department stores, from Bloomingdale’s to Barney’s, I look forward to seeing how Neiman Marcus will fare.

The post NYC’s first-ever Neiman Marcus just opened in Hudson Yards. The CEO has described the store as a ‘magical’ and ‘immersive’ experience — here’s what I found inside, Defence Online appeared first on Defence Online.

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craigbrownphd-blog-blog · 7 years ago

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Social Media Outrage Won’t Stop Human Trafficking; Here’s What Will

When it comes to ending workplace slavery, brand attacks might ignite fleeting moments of righteous social media outrage, but companies need to dig a lot deeper into their supply chains for lasting change. This was my big takeaway after talking with Justin Dillion, founder and CEO of Made In A Free World, right before he spoke during a recent roundtable at SAP’s Hudson Yards offices in New York. The occasion was Human Trafficking Awareness Month, but the challenge remains top of mind for organizations every day of the year. Slavery Is Not a Brand Problem Dillion’s company has created a fintech tool called FRDM that help organizations measure slavery risk in their supply chain, and use their purchasing power to solve the problem. “The way to beat the bad guys is to fix the commercial relationship around them, and make it impossible for them to do business,” said Dillion. #Fintech tool measures human trafficking risk in supply chains so buyers and sellers can solve problems together Atomize Risk Made In A Free World originated as a data-driven survey to see if consumers cared about the presence of slave labor in the products they used. “Companies told us they didn’t have a tool to measure slavery – it was too big – and they didn’t have a way to talk about it,” said Dillion. FRDM relies on a growing database of customers and their suppliers collectively identifying risk and making better buying decisions. The tool is embedded in the SAP Ariba business network, and according to Dillion, influences over $10 billion in commerce. A self-described hope-aholic, Dillion said most of humanity, (and by extension, the organizations they work for), exists on a continuum between perfection and evil. He emphasized that FRDM is not about shame and blame. “It’s not a ratings tool for blacklisting companies. It’s a tool to atomize risk because when you look at risk in your supply chain, it’s seldom in the first tier. And if you don’t know where the risk is, you can’t create a plan to mitigate it.” Normalize Doing Business for the Greater Good Dillions said FRDM was built over the past few years as regulations expanded, and border patrols began paying much more attention to imports. Companies in numerous industries including retail, financial services, aerospace, insurance are using the tool to create a “virtuous network” where good companies collectively use their spending power for the greater good profits. “We’re all about return on investment [ROI], and it’s not just purpose-driven ROI,” said Dillions. “When a buyer and supplier start to work together on these challenges, transparency happens with networks forming. This saves customers time and operational budget, and makes it more difficult for people to do bad things like slavery, for this generation and upcoming ones.” Follow me: @smgaler http://bit.ly/2tDtH1S #SAP #SAPCloud #AI

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ericfruits · 7 years ago

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New York’s gargantuan development is shifting its centre westward

THE far west side of Manhattan’s midtown is a hive of activity. Lorries buzz in and out ferrying materials, cranes dot the skyline. Construction workers in hard hats shout instructions at each other and exchange cheerful gibes. Each week the cityscape changes as new high-rises get taller. New Yorkers, who once had little reason to go to the parcel of land called Hudson Yards, are starting to see a new glossy neighbourhood emerge.

For decades this part of Manhattan was not just on the wrong side of the tracks, it was the tracks. About 30 commuter train tracks pass though it. The surrounding area of decrepit warehouses was neglected for half a century. It took a 300-acre rezoning in 2005 by Michael Bloomberg, then the mayor, for things to change. The area stretching from 30th to 41st Street and from 8th to 11th Avenues had been zoned for manufacturing, which has all but disappeared from Manhattan. A failed Olympic bid served as a catalyst for development for Mr Bloomberg, who worried about white-collar jobs migrating to New Jersey. He persuaded the city to pay for an extension of a subway line, the first expansion of the transport system in three decades.

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The result is Hudson Yards, the largest private property development by square footage in America’s history. The 28-acre (11-hectare) site will be complete by 2025. By then, 125,000 people will work, visit or live in Hudson Yards, which includes five office high-rises, eight residential buildings and a retail complex with 100 shops and restaurants. The new district will have more office space than Palo Alto, California. One of the new towers will have an observation deck higher than the Empire State Building. A public school is in the works, as well as 14 acres of public open space. “It’s a city within a city,” says Stephen Ross, head of Related, the project’s developer. Brookfield, another developer, is building its own eight-acre megaproject called Manhattan West. Its six buildings have attracted tenants like the National Hockey League and Skadden, Arps, a law firm. Boston Consulting Group, L’Oreal, a cosmetics company, KKR, a private equity firm and BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, are all heading west.

That means leaving behind thousands of square metres of empty floor space in Midtown East, once the most coveted site for offices and still the city’s most expensive commercial space. More than 300 of the 400 buildings in the district were built before 1961. Their average age is 73. To keep up with other neighbourhoods, landlords will have to update their buildings and offer concessions, incentives and rent discounts to attract tenants keen to cater to the preferences of their employees.

The 73-block area got a boost last summer when the city council agreed to a re-zoning plan, allowing the development of 6.5m square feet of new office space. After considering moving to Hudson Yards, JPMorgan Chase, America’s biggest bank, announced last month that it had decided to stay on the east side. It intends to demolish its 60-year old home and build a new 70-storey high-rise on Park Avenue. Other plans are sure to follow, but it will take time to build out the area, perhaps as long as two decades. In the meantime, JPMorgan and others will try to snap up the air rights of properties such as St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Grand Central Station. (Air rights refer to the empty space above a property. Churches and landmark buildings generally cannot build up, but they can sell or transfer the right to build higher.)

Manhattan once had two main business districts, says Keith DeCoster of Savills Studley, a brokerage. Midtown East competed with the city’s financial district for decades. Now, including Hudson Yards and the Flatiron district, it has four.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "Eastern promise"

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