No more parking PhDs required. (Matt Chaban)

Park this way. (Matt Chaban)

Twitter has changed the way we communicate, and now it may change the way we drive, at least around Midtown.

This morning, the Department of Transportation unveiled new parking signs that greatly simplify and clarify on-street parking regulations. As Tranportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan joked, "We used to have signs with 250 character on four different signs in three different colors. Now we can say it in about 140 characters on a much clearer sign."

The new signs, common throughout the city's business districts, now feature two separate but similar sections, one for commercial vehicles (in red font) and one for passenger vehicles (in green). There will be 6,300 new signs deployed in the coming months in Midtown, roughly between 14th and 60th streets and Second and Ninth avenues. Similar signs will come to the Financial District at a later period, and then on to the outer boroughs' main commercial areas. The city began rolling out the new signs in October, and 450 have already been installed.

Related: Michael Bierut diessects his new signs and why Helvetica never would have worked >>

Unlike the old signs, which were in a mishmash of colors, fonts and styles, the new ones are in a unified format, putting the length of time for parking first, then the days and times. And no longer are they the creative work of the Department of Transportation's sign shop, but instead a collaboration with Michael Bierut and a team at Pentagram. Among the small but important innovation are the formatting of the signs and the location of the font (justified left, rather than centered, which is considered more legible).

"It shouldn't take a PhD in transportation to understand these signs," Ms. Sadik-Khan.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said the new signs would help not only reduce confusion on the streets but also save New Yorkers money. "One of the great things about these signs is they will result in fewer parking tickets for New Yorkers," Ms. Quinn said. "No longer will you say, 'Wait a minute, I thought the sign said you could park there.' These signs will make sure that what you see is what the rules are."

The signs came about after Councilman Dan Garodnick, who represents parts of Midtown and the Upper East Side, proposed a bill to make them clearer. "I always had constituents coming up to me and complaining about how confusing the signs are," he said. When the department heard about the bill, Ms. Sadik-Khan said she told Mr. Garodnick "why bother with legislation," and they set out to come up with new signs.

He said this served an important civic purpose, as well. "The sad part of it is, people deliberately think the city is deliberately trying to confuse them" in order to trick them into tickets," Mr. Garodnick explained.

While the signs may not seem like much, Ms. Sadik-Khan said she views them as equally important as paving new streets, laying down bike lanes or creating pedestrian plazas. "Reducing the clutter and bringing clarity to the rules greatly improves the look of our streets," she said.

Holding out for hotels. (Getty)

Everyone has been praying for the inclusion of churches and synagogues in the Midtown East rezoning, but no one has checked in on the situation of hotels yet.

The religious institutions fear they will not be able to profit from the rezoning the same way their private neighbors will. Now, the hotel union and its political backers are worrying that hoteliers might be in the opposite position, of profiting too much from the rezoning. They are requesting that the Department of City Planning require special permits for new hotel development within the rezoning area. So far, the Department of City Planning has reservations about the proposal.

The Hotel and Motel Trades Council, which represents some 30,000 hospitality workers in the city, is arguing that without requiring developers to seek a special permit, hotel construction might outstrip that of office development, which is the main goal of the rezoning. The rezoning area stretches roughly from 57th Street to 39th Street between Fifth and Third avenues, with a heavy emphasis of promoting development along Park Avenue and around Grand Central.

A special permit also helps ensure union jobs within any hotels that do get built, as The Observer's David Freedlander explained in a profile of the union's boss, Peter Ward. By making hotels pass through the city's public review process, they require the stamp of the City Council, which is hugely pro-union. Granted requiring this support explicitly is forbidden, but that is what private negotiations are for.

The union thus sees this provision not only as a boon for office builders but also the city's hard working masses. "Many hospitality jobs are middle-class jobs in New York City because of the Hotel Trades Council contract," union political director Josh Gold said. "By implementing a special permit process, we can ensure that this area is not overrun by too many hotels. Protecting middle class hotel jobs is a clear way to stem growing income inequality in New York."

The union points to areas like Hudson Square and Times Square, where hotels have proliferated, at times in direct competition with office space. The Hudson Square rezoning already features a hotel special permit prevision to put an end to the new hotels (there was a minor boomlet with the Trump Soho and some budget-rate places) and instead encourage new offices down there.

The hotel union wants to see the same thing in Midtown, but the Department of City Planning, in its initial analysis of the area's needs, does not yet consider such a permit necessary, and even sees it as a possible detriment to the redevelopment of Midtown East.

"Hotels provide accommodations for visitors, space for meetings, conferences and entertainment, foot traffic for businesses in the area and jobs for New Yorkers," a department spokeswoman said in a statement. "East Midtown is, in fact, the ideal location for hotels–it is centrally located with excellent access to mass transit, and is home to some of the city’s best business, landmark and tourist destinations. Hotels in East Midtown are key to the continuing growth of New York City’s tourism industry, and they have always been integral to Midtown’s identity and success."

Councilman Dan Garodnick, who will have final say on the Midtown East Rezoning should it enter public review next year as planned, disagrees with the department's stance. He said in an interview he was worried about having hotels overtake other types of commercial development. He also cited neighborhood concerns as a reason to require special permits for hotels.

"From a community perspective, I hear about hotels from my constituents all the time," he said. "When you have neighborhoods that are residential, with hotels in them that are 24/7, it can cause problems. There are deliveries, there's catering, drop-offs, visitors, conferences. From a land-use perspective, they're a totally different animal."

They want more to look at. (Getty)

Earlier this week, Councilman Dan Garodnick called on the Department of City Planning to slow down the planning for the new Midtown East rezoning that would add possible a dozen new skyscrapers to the Manhattan skyline. The argument was that with such an important rezoning—the city's fate as a competitive marketplace hangs in the balance!—more time was needed to consult all the parties and get the plan right.

For essentially the same reasons, the department is now arguing that it cannot wait. Time is of the essence to get these new projects underway.

In an email statement (in full below, with highlights by us), the department argues that developers need time to to assemble their sites and start building when the restriction preventing new projects before 2017 lapses. Previously, the department had argued that it was not as though all these new buildings would be built overnight, but rather this was a long-term plan that would take decades to fully develop. This raises the question of whether waiting six more months to debate the plan, as Councilman Garodnick and the local community boards are asking for, would really hurt the plan.

"We want to make sure that there is certainty, and we also want to make sure this is done right," Councilman Garodnick said in a statement. "The proposal has merit, and allowing a few more months to what will be a decades-long process would help ensure that all issues are vetted and considered."

The department remains eager to finish this before the end of the Bloomberg administration, though it must also be careful not to anger the Council, which after all has final say on all rezonings.

The purpose of the East Midtown rezoning proposal is to secure the area’s future as a premier business district by encouraging the development of a small number of new, state-of-the art Class A office buildings over the next two decades. Recognizing the fundamental importance of East Midtown to the City’s economic future, the Mayor has made this rezoning a priority for the Administration.

Under the proposed timeline for this project, the first new buildings are not likely to come online until later this decade or next, but this can only happen if we set in place zoning mechanisms now. Adopting a predictable zoning framework in 2013 is a necessary prerequisite for the development of new high-end commercial buildings over the long term. In the near term, property owners need certainty and predictability to make significant financial commitments that will ultimately lead to these new developments. It takes many years to assemble sites, and yet more time to decant, demolish, and prep the site for development. Having the new zoning in place within 2013 will provide the certainty and predictability necessary.

With these new developments will come much needed improvements to both the on‐street and below ground pedestrian networks. We are proposing that major new office towers be required to contribute to a fund for specific and targeted transit and pedestrian improvements in and around Grand Central Terminal that will reduce subway congestion points, increase capacity on platforms and transform Vanderbilt Avenue into a signature pedestrian gateway

As with all of our projects, we have been carefully analyzing the area and meeting with area stakeholders, including the community boards, to discuss the issues and proposed policy solutions so that an appropriate long‐term zoning framework for East Midtown can be created. There is ample time to complete all the necessary review and analyses for this project, and we are committed to continue working closely with the community and other stakeholders as the process moves forward.

Some have compared East Midtown to Hudson Yards, saying that the Hudson Yards rezoning took years before it entered the public review process. East Midtown is a vastly different proposal than the Hudson Yards rezoning, which contemplated a complete transformation of the area equivalent to adding half of downtown Boston’s office space floor area. This was in addition to new streets, parks and open space, more than 14,000 apartments, an expanded Javits Center, a Sports and Convention Center and the extension of the #7 subway. In East Midtown, our proposal is much more targeted—it builds on the existing character of the area and is designed to facilitate a substantially smaller amount of new development.

Any delay of this proposal means uncertainty for East Midtown. Given the importance of East Midtown to the City—for its jobs, tax base, and its critical transportation role—we must put into place a new regulatory framework that strengthens, not stymies, East Midtown’s continued competitiveness on the global stage.

Too big, too fast? (DCP)

Easy does it. That is the message from Councilman Dan Garodnick, echoing concerns of two Midtown community boards, that the Bloomberg administration is moving too fast in its plans to rezone Midtown East to allow for taller skyscrapers.

The Councilman, who represents the eastern flank of Manhattan, applauded the plan in a letter [PDF] to Planning Commish Amanda Burden last week shared with The Observer, but he worries to plan is so complex, it needs more time to be considered. The Department of City Planning argues there is enough time to get the job done before the Bloomberg administration is out in a year and a half.

"It's certainly important to ensure that our Midtown core remains competitive with cities around the world," Mr. Garodnick told The Observer. "At the same time, we need to approach this rezoning proposal deliberately. I understand that the mayor's term has less than 500 days remaining, but that should not be the prime factor in driving the time frame for such an important proposal."

Primarily, Mr. Garodnick wants the scoping session, when the framework is solidified, pushed back six months to March. In the letter, he also criticized plans to release an initial framework in the coming weeks, "before Labor Day—when many New Yorkers are totally disengaged from the political process." The plan was to have the massive rezoning—both in space and scope—enter public review by the first quarter of next year, but pushing back scoping would likely push that into the summer or fall. The rezoning would almost certainly be approved by the next administration as a result.

There is some concern this could scuttle the plan, but Mr. Garodnick sees it as a way to foster a stronger one. "Indeed, there is no harm in having this proposal be initiated by the Bloomberg administration and finalized by the next mayor, whoever it may be, and for it be a shared legacy," Mr. Garodnick wrote. He argues that because the plan will be implemented until 2017, there is no need to rush the rezoning.

In a July 20 letter to the department, Community Board 5 mounted a similar case:

Given the enormous complexity and high stakes for this rezoning, we ask that the Department slow down its timetable so that the community can fully consider and respond to your plans and so that the Department can take the community's concerns and wishes into account, allowing time for town hall meetings, public hearings, and other forums. As a point of comparison, by its own account, the Department spent about five years to develop the plan for Hudson Yards, and just recently, the same amount of time to rezone a stretch of the Upper West Side. Closer to East Midtown, DOT and the Grand Central Partnership have spent nearly three years thus far to develop the plan for the Pershing Square pedestrian plaza. Certainly a project with the magnitude of East Midtown at least merits similar timetables.

There are those who believe the city is dragging its feet, however, namely Post real estate columnist Steve Cuozzo. He took to the tab's editorial pages today to slam the Midtown East plan from the other side. He said the city should not wait until 2017 to let developers build bigger. But his main issue is with a neighborhood improvement fund developers would finance by buying air rights: "The city wants the dough to remedy such horrible 'pedestrian realm challenges' as 'narrow sidewalks and bottlenecks in subway stations.' Hello, slush fund?"

A land swap to make Robert Moses proud. (Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates)

Think of the perfect Saturday on the East Side. Brunch with your friends and the kids at, say, Fig & Olive, Artisinal or—the mayor’s favorite—Viand. Maybe a stroll along Madison for a little shopping and errands, and then off to Central Park to let the little ones wear themselves out before a nap. Or maybe it’s the other way around, soccer and softball in the park, a little tennis with friends or just some sunning on one of the lawns, then a late lunch.

Living East of Eden sure can be nice, but just like Adam and Eve, it always seems like there is more outside the garden gates.

Not satisfied with their proximity to one of the loveliest parks in the world, East Siders have been lobbying for decades for more leisure land, particularly along the river. They look jealously on at their West Side brethren, with Riveside Park and Hudson River Park—and even the green shoots along the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront. Thanks to rampant development, from Robert Moses’ FDR Drive up through the Bloomberg Building on 59th and Lexington, the East Side has grown more crowded every day, and yet access to the water, a mere mile away, has been all but impossible.

Last week, the mayor reached what he called “a historic agreement” with the United Nations that would finally realize every East Sider’s dream of waterfront open space. Beyond that, it ensures the U.N.’s continued presence in New York (a mixed blessing, unless you are a fan of motorcades). In exchange for half of the adjacent Robert Moses Playground—a span of hardtop beloved by roller hockey players—and two office towers, the city will receive $73 million upfront and up to an additional $150 million over time. This will upgrade existing parks as well as the funds to complete a 1.2-mile section of the riverfront greenway. The plan is not only a boon for East Siders, then, but all Manhattanites, as it will close the last gap in the 32-mile “emerald necklace” encircling the island.

"It's hugely important because despite these difficult fiscal times, we've found a way to fund this very expensive and difficult piece of the greenway," Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh, one of the engineers of the deal, told The Observer. "There's always a reluctance to move forward, especially if it means the demapping of a park, but this is critically important to the neighborhood and the city.

That's swell! Sure it is. It's just, well... “The esplanade is a desperately needed feature, but you should not mistake that for a real park,” said Geoffrey Croft, director of NYC Parks Advocates and an East Side resident.

See the parks—or lack thereof—on the East Side >>

There is some truth beyond pure parochialism that the East Side has been given short shrift. They may have Lavo and Barneys, but they also fall last in New Yorker’s for Parks’ rankings. “Believe it or not, the neighborhood has much less park space than most of the city,” local councilman Dan Garodnick told The Observer. “My district ranks 51st out of 51 neighborhoods.” Falling just after Midtown East is the tony quarters of the Upper East Side, 46 out of 51.

This count is on a per capita basis, and it does not include Central Park, but the fact remains, more than 300,000 New Yorkers are confined to 65 acres of open space in East Midtown and the Upper East Side. (The Park Avenue median does not count.) "It's true, the Upper East Side is wider, so all those hundreds of thousands of people living between First and York, Second and York, they have a long way to go to get to Central Park," said Alyson Beha, director of research, planning and policy at New Yorkers for Parks.

While locals welcome the new greenway, they look around at the waterfront parks that have washed up across the five boroughs in the past decade and cannot help but feel a little contempt blossoming.

“There is a huge disparity between what the East Side is getting and what the West Side has had for a long time,” Mr. Croft said. “They’ve got multiple recreational spaces not only with ball fields but skate parks and even merry-go-rounds.” Mr. Croft stressed that he is thankful for what the city is providing, and it is indeed a huge benefit for the entire city, the completion of a circum-polar esplanade, but while everyone else gets generous parks, he and his neighbors are left with little more than a glorified boardwalk.

It's not like they have a better option! (Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates)

Part of the problem is that the East Side is lacking in much of the infrastructure enjoyed by the West Side and other parts of the city. Hudson River Park and Brooklyn Bridge Park are among the notable riverside redoubts constructed on some of the old marine piers left over from the waterfront’s industrial days. East Siders point out that they once had such piers as well, but rebuilding them would be far more expensive. And while it has Central Park, the East Side lacks the benefit of a legacy waterfront park, like Riverside park or even the Moses-era East River Park on the Lower East Side.

The East Side is trapped between the river and a tall place: with all the development that has gone on over the years, there are an inordinate number of people clamoring for parks and public space and nowhere to build it.And by some measures, the East Side is losing as much as it’s gaining.

The press release championing the U.N. land swap crowed about an additional 130,000 square feet of public open space, four times as much space as what is being given to the U.N. at Robert Moses playground. But that is less than 3 acres of land. (The very nice but not huge. Bryant Park measures 8 acres, Union Square 6.5.) The project in question might be better termed a parklette. And obviously the neighbors, especially those in Tudor City, are not happy to be trading hard-top for a skyscraper.

Nor are the folks living on Ruppert Playgroundm who are experiencing a similar land grab without any of the benefits of their neighbors to the south. For 25 years, the lot between 91st and 92nd streets and Second and Third avenues has been home to Yorkville tennis and basketball games and kids frolicking on the jungle gym. Showing just how hard East Siders will fight for their parks, they are challenging efforts by one of the city’s most powerful landlords to exercise their very legal rights to redevelop the space.

The Related Company has had an option on the land, with the right to build what could well be a 50-story luxury tower, so long as it kept the park in place for 25 years. Neighbors and local politicians are desperate to hang onto the tiny space, so starved are they of parks. They are trying to negotiate an alternative plan, either another land swap or tax credits. Some complain that given all the public subsidies Related regularly receives, it should be compelled to give the city the park anyway.

"There are some temporary solutions, but it's hard to make it temporary, because it's such a shock when it comes to an end," said Raju Mann, director of planning at the Municipal Art Society said. "In New York, open space is so valuable, you have to get creative to find more."

This means such open space squabbles are almost always zero-sum issues.

East Siders are so desperate for new open space, they are even fighting with the august owners of Sutton Place, to take over the private park in the East 50s. Its lease on the land, which was awarded with the construction of the FDR, expired in 1990, but no one noticed until the roadway was being rebuilt early last decade. Still, it took years for locals to wrest control. A deal was actually struck last winter, following a lawsuit by the co-op that controlled the land. All this for a quarter-acre of manicured lawns.

Idyllic. (Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates)

Even where the parkland is fine, East Siders see threats. The city is prepared to reactivate a marine waste transfer station at 91st Street that was shut down in the 1990s, but it lies next to Asphalt Green, one of the few public recreational facilities in north of 14th Street. Some advocates like Croft agree with the mayor that every neighborhood should deal with its share of the city’s sanitation burden, rather than shipping it off to low-income neighborhoods in the outer boroughs. “Even on 96th Street or further south would be O.K.,” Mr. Croft said. “I used to coach softball over there, and we had a tournament, and some kids came down from the Bronx and complained how bad it was. They said, ‘This stinks, we’re never coming back.’”

Others take a harder line. “This has unfortunately devolved into, the politest phrase for it is environment or social justice,” neighbor Tony Ard said. “The advocates are lobbying for this site because of who lives there and what it represents.” As though it were a vengeful move of decades of dumping in the outer boroughs. Which is where Mr. Ard still thinks the waste should go. “Does it make sense to drive it all the way up the East Side from all over Manhattan, rather than over the bridge into Brooklyn?” he said. Or, better yet, give it to the West Side, at Hudson Yards. “But they don’t want to do that because it threatens their new development,” he said. “Just give it to the neighborhood that’s already fully developed.”

See the parks—or lack thereof—on the East Side >>

Mr. Croft believes there is a simple solution to rebalance the East/West divide. He said the Bloomberg administration is giving the neighborhood short shrift because only $223 million from the U.N. deal is going to the esplanade. The sale of the playground site and adjacent buildings could lead to a windfall worth hundreds of millions of dollars, but according to a clause in the memorandum of understanding, any extra money goes to the city’s general fund instead of to build additional park space on the East Side.

Assemblyman Kavanagh repudiated this plan, arguing the East Side is already getting more than most. “The expection always was that if the city was going to sell valuable assets that are producing income for the city, the general fund would benefit,” he said. “We drove a hard bargain, and got a substantial portion of the proceeds for the community, for open space.” Mr. Kavanagh added that it would be physically impossible to go much beyond the 30 feet of the shore and not impact the navigability of the East River.

Still, things could be worse. “If you’re comparing East Side to the West Side, we now have a Fairway, we will have a waterfront Esplanade, things are finally beginning to even out,” Mr. Garodnick said. “And, we still have the Met.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the amount of money the East Side would receive for parks as a total of $150 million, not the actual $223 million. It also misspelled the name of Assemblyman Kavanagh. The Observer regrets the errors.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

No one hugged Mr. Cuomo. 

Noting the action-or non-action-at the table, Mr. Ortiz, speaking into the microphone at the podium, said, "Nobody wants to embrace the governor." Everyone laughed, and Mr. Ortiz pleaded, "Somebody has to embrace the governor." Ms. Gillibrand, who earlier had given the governor a brief peck on the check, did so again, and the room applauded.

Ms. Gillibrand notwith-standing, the reticence is understandable. Embracing the governor isn't appealing these days, especially if you're Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Mr. Cuomo just announced a $132.5 billion budget that cut about $1.5 billion from city school funding, according to critics.

The day of the Somos dinner, The New York Times used phrases like "unnecessary pain" and "inhumane and financially backward" to describe the budget, and several Democratic lawmakers spent the weekend muttering about adding new taxes and restoring cuts they were forced to accept. 

Getting Mr. Cuomo's budget through the Legislature on time was no easy task. Mr. Cuomo's office allowed legislators to circumvent the three-day waiting period required before voting on legislation, making the circular argument that "the facts necessitating an immediate vote on the bills are as follows: the bill is necessary to enact the 2011-2012 State budget." The Buffalo News' veteran Albany man, Tom Precious, noted that the exact figures outlining how much money each school district was getting were made public around 9 p.m.; legislators finished voting on the budget hours later, at 1 a.m. Times reporter Thomas Kaplan wrote, "At times, legislators did not seem entirely sure about what they were voting on."

Mr. Cuomo, who was chased down by reporters as he left the Somos dinner, confidently defended himself, once again, using the same argument about spending that has been used in recent weeks and months by conservative governors like Chris Christie: "I disagree with the concept that the only way to get better services is 'more money, more money, more money.' We've been spending a lot more money; we're not getting better services. We spend more money than any state in the nation on education; we're number 34 in terms of results."

"So," Mr. Cuomo added, "it's not as simple as 'shovel more money to these groups and maybe something will happen.' We need to stress performance and achievement in these programs and make the programs work."

"Bullshit!" said the City Council's education chairman, Robert Jackson.

He was standing in the Crowne Plaza Hotel earlier that day, handing out copies of the Times editorial criticizing Mr. Cuomo's budget.

"And I say bullshit-I'm sorry, they tell me not to curse anymore," he said. "The bottom line is, we're losing a billion dollars because of this state budget. A billion, O.K.?"

Mr. Jackson is somewhat ahead of the curve. Many Democrats-particularly city Democrats-have either maintained a bashful silence about a state budget that sends far less money to the city than prior budgets, or are only now getting around to raising concerns about the on-time state budget agreement the governor triumphantly announced last week.

It's not just the fact that the governor pushed the budget through the Legislature quickly, threatening to pass take-it-or-leave-it "extender bills" in the absence of a punctual consensus by the Legislature, though there was that. The governor is very popular at the moment, and resistance is, politically, not all that easy. It is not a coincidence that at a time when even the famously immovable Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, hasn't seen fit to pick a fight with Mr. Cuomo over the budget, most Democratic officials in New York have chosen to accept it all with a smile.

It has been Mr. Bloomberg, by virtue of his jurisdiction, who has been most vocally opposed to Mr. Cuomo's spending cuts, practically standing in for what surely would have been the Democratic opposition to the Cuomo budget, if there were any concerted Democratic opposition to speak of. Mr. Bloomberg said the state cuts impacting New York City were "an outrage." He wrote an op-ed in the Daily News, headlined, "How the State Budget Unfairly Singles Out NYC."

The mayor's outspokeness is also coming at a time when he's suffering from historically low approval ratings. To pump those up, and get his story out, Mr. Bloomberg is running ads saying he's protecting the city.

Mr. Bloomberg is largely blaming the governor for what he says will be a 6,000-head reduction in the city's workforce of teachers. Mr. Cuomo's aides have said that the mayor is exaggerating. Cuomo spokesman Josh Vlasto said in a March 28 public statement that "the City Department of Education has a surplus of over $300 million" and "the city revenue position has improved, so they have much less pressure on their overall budget."

Unions representing teachers and municipal workers are running ads saying the city is greedily hoarding a $3 billion surplus while threatening layoffs.

The issue would seem to be one of semantics. The mayor's aides say there is no surplus-especially not one in their Department of Education-and they stop just short of calling those claims flat-out lies. The $3 billion surplus is already earmarked to plug the budget gap in the upcoming fiscal year-which the city is legally required to do-starting in July. Using it now, Bloomberg aides say, will only lead to more layoffs and deeper cutbacks when those later expenses come due. 

When asked to verify the education surplus claim, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo pointed to the Financial Plan Statements for New York City, issued by the city's Office of Management and Budget. The report does in fact show a $271 million surplus. But the figures are from December, and have since been updated. The latest report, showing January figures, says the $23 billion agency has only a $17 million surplus, hardly enough to make a statistical dent.

When asked about the January figures, the Cuomo spokesman, Mr. Vlasto, said the December figures represented an end-of-year surplus, and thus were valid. Not so. The calendar year (January to December) does not line up with the city's fiscal year (July to June). Doug Turetsky, a spokesman at the Independent Budget Office, said the December figures were "outdated" and that with the December figures, "you're halfway into the fiscal year." 

Even City Comptroller John Liu, whose office is obligated under the city charter to comb through the city's finances and issue reports on it, and who is not exactly shy in airing his opinions, has been thoroughly muted in his assessment of the facts at issue in this argument. 

The city's habit of rolling over surplus created a "fiscal cushion" that "masks the City budget's structural imbalance," Mr. Liu's office wrote in a March 21 report. "While the City has provided $83 $853 million in additional funding to the DOE to mitigate the impact from the expiration of [federal stimulus funds] at the end of FY2011, these funds will not
be adequate to prevent addition pedagogical layoffs." [corrected] 

So Mr. Cuomo is right about Mr. Bloomberg.

And, "as a result of the State's fiscal problems, the financial burden in support of [the city's Department of Education] operations has fallen squarely on the City," Mr. Liu's office wrote in that report.

So Mr. Bloomberg is right about Mr. Cuomo.

But Mr. Liu, who managed a team of actuaries at PricewaterhouseCoopers and holds a degree in mathematical physics, says the existence of a surplus at the Department of Education is a matter of interpretation.

"Both sides are correct," Mr. Liu told The Observer. "No side would make an incorrect claim, all right? No governor is going to make an incorrect claim. No mayor is going to make an incorrect claim. But things are subject to interpretation, and therefore both are correct." It depends on what you mean by "surplus." 

Seated in a cushioned chair in the basement of the Legislative Office Building the morning of the Somos dinner, Mr. Liu said, "The dispute notwithstanding, the bigger issue is that the negotiations have moved from Albany to City Hall. We'll see what happens in the next few months. There's three months to go. A lot can happen in the next three months."

He went on: "Keep in mind that between the mayor's November plan, and the mayor's February plan, three months, $2 billion materialized, O.K.? So, we got another three months to go. A lot could happen."

How Mr. Cuomo handled his budget is a marked contrast to how Mr. Bloomberg handled his, said Fred Siegel, a historian with Cooper Union who is also associated with the conservative Manhattan Institute think tank.

Both Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Bloomberg are settling their budgets in absence of huge federal stimulus dollars. Mr. Cuomo, bravely, opted to restructure expenses, such as Medicaid, and charged headfirst into the state's other major expense, education.

Mr. Bloomberg, now handling his 10th budget, is only now getting to structural changes, said Mr. Siegel.

"The easy thing is to cut services and blame it on someone else," said Mr. Siegel. "The hard thing to do is structural reform."

Without another injection of federal stimulus money, and with Wall Street still recovering from his epic implosion, "it's hard to see a deus ex machina that pulls us out of this," said Mr. Siegel. "What Cuomo is doing is responding to that lack of deus ex machina." Mr. Siegel, who is no fan of Mr. Bloomberg, is skeptical of Mr. Cuomo as well.

"I'm one of those people who describes Cuomo's budget as the tallest building in Topeka. Cuomo leaped over the low expectations," said Mr. Siegel. "Tactically, politically, he did a brilliant job. I'm just not sure where the substance is here." How exactly does the governor go about closing 3,700 unused prison beds, and where specifically do you find the millions of dollars in Medicaid savings, wondered Mr. Siegel.

And now it's Mr. Bloomberg's turn. He will make his latest budget pitch to city lawmakers in a few weeks. He is husbanding an extra $200 million in reserves heading into next year, in the part of budget that requires him to keep a poll of money in reserve-a minimum of $100 million. Mr. Bloomberg has tucked away $300 million.

But that small reserve is hardly enough to stave off what city lawmakers say will be a painful exercise: fighting to preserve services without the ability to raise taxes and bring in additional revenue. And members of the City Council are not looking forward to it.

"I think people understand we're in a difficult economic climate and that cuts are necessary here," said Dan Garodnick, a Democrat repressing Manhattan's East Side, who counts Mr. Bloomberg among his constituents. "But they need to be done fairly and with an eye towards protecting the most vulnerable New Yorkers."

"We should be honest with people when we say we're going to do less," said Councilman Lew Fidler of Brooklyn. "And we're going to do less." 

"Telling people all is well, all is well-like the ending scene of Animal House, when there's a riot going on around you-does nobody any favors," he said.

Back in the Crowne Plaza in Albany, Mr. Cuomo's budget and political future were the topic of conversation among a group of LaGuardia Community College students who just ran through a mock session acting as various members of the State Senate. "They should have not cut so into SUNY," said Christian Sanchez-Narvaez, a CUNY student who played the Democratic conference leader, John Sampson. He was happy some of Mr. Cuomo's cuts were restored by legislators, but "they could have done a lot better, done a lot more to restore that money." 

He added, "I think education could have been restored fully."

apaybarah@observer.com

Gardonick, who represents the East Side of Manhattan and parts of midtown, credited Schneiderman for being a go-getter, do-gooder--the kind of progressive that, well, you just gotta support as the state's chief law enforcer.

"I've seen Eric fighting for progressive causes for years, and I know that as Attorney General, he will be a smart, passionate and independent leader who will work tirelessly to improve the lives of every New Yorker," Garodnick said in a statement released by Schneiderman's campaign.

The Schneiderman campaign is clearly counting on a low-turnout primary similar to last year's, and that the electorate will be disproportionately from Manhattan.

The Politicker caught up with Garodnick by phone Thursday afternoon to ask about the endorsement, which he made weeks after his colleagues in the City Council.

“I had a chance to talk to some of the other candidates, to take a look at the field and to do my homework. And having taken time to do that, I felt that Eric was the right choice.”

Now, it will, presumably, be the biggest default.

Tishman Speyer and BlackRock announced this afternoon they will miss their January debt payment due today, as their reserves to pay off the debt on their highly leveraged deal have run dry. 

"[T]he joint venture will not make today's scheduled full debt service payment to its senior lenders," a joint statement from the two firms said. "The joint venture has been engaged in discussions with CWCapital, the special servicer acting on behalf of the lenders, and hopes to continue good-faith negotiations toward a potential restructuring of the debt."

Now an official notice of default is expected, and the special servicer, CWCapital, will sort through the numerous holders of the debt on the property--investors who bought bonds in one of a set of Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities.

Among those are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who both claim they do not have a seat at the table because they hold the most secure bonds on the property. In all, there is $3 billion in debt financed through the sale of bonds; based on current rent rolls (which are in flux), the property is valued by various analysts at about $1.9 billion.

The missed payment is the beginning of an end for what's been a rowdy three-year ride for the owners, who bet big at the market's peak that New York City was on the rapid rise--that rents would continue their constant ascent seen at the time. They also gambled they could remove rent-regulated tenants at a faster rate than they already had been doing, converting the apartments to market rates that could pay twice as much rent. The results: rents flattened and then fell; the rate of conversions slowed.

And then came the icing on the cake: a court decision that ruled Tishman Speyer (and the previous owner, MetLife, along with other landlords throughout the city) had been illegally deregulating apartments due to the receipt of a tax break that encourages renovations.

The move was expected for months, and yesterday, per The Times, the Speyers started spreading the word on the impending default.

What happens next is unclear, and will depend what road the special servicer and bondholders decide to go down. The property could be sold, though there is uncertainty over the price given outstanding litigation following the rent regulation court decision.

Tishman Speyer has shown no willingness to give up the property immediately--they take in millions in fees so long as they're the complex's manager--and the firm has made clear that other holdings are insulated from this default. 

The Times reported news of the impending default Friday.

ebrown@observer.com

In a letter to Fannie and Freddie, the electeds--U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney, Councilman Dan Garodnick, State Senator Tom Duane, Borough President Scott Stringer and Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh--write:

When the federal government decided it needed to use taxpayer money to help restore solvency to Fannie and Freddie, it involved a massive restructuring. While a painful process, it was ultimately necessary to ensure that your companies would remain strong for future generations. Much in the same way, we need to ensure that ST/PCV will be in place for future generations of middle class New Yorkers.

Fannie and Freddie own part of the building's $3 billion mortgage, and some of its other debt. As of May, the two companies had received about $400 billion dollars in public funds.

The City Council approved the controversial MoMA tower yesterday afternoon by a vote of 44-3, which is supposed to be the last step in the approval process, but is really just the last step before the inevitable lawsuit challenging the approval process.

So it's just barely even news that an opposition group said yesterday it's likely to file suit against the Jean Nouvel-designed tower.

The tower is controversial--it rises 1,050 feet over West 53rd Street--but it's unclear exactly what the grounds for legal action would be. The MoMA tower doesn't seize any land under eminent domain, so it's not subject to the thorny litigation that's plagued the proposed Atlantic Yards development and could affect the city's plans for Willets Point. The best guess it that it would be an environmental challenge, and those suits don't have particularly high rates of success (though longshot wins are possible; see, for example, Westway).

Assuming it doesn't sink the project, a legal delay might not hurt the developer, Hines Interests, given the current market conditions. A Post article last week speculated that the unfinished designs Hines took to City Planning--which cost them 200 feet off the top--might have been a plan to sabotage their own project.

One interesting note from the Council vote: Dan Garodnick--whose district starts just south of West 54th Street and includes a sizeable number of the tower's opponents--voted against the project. But since the building actually lies in Council Speaker Christine Quinn's district, Mr. Garodnick wasn't pressed to rally his fellow Councilmembers and invoke the usual home district deference that members accord to projects in each other's districts.