These success suggest that even though Mr. Doctoroff is no longer in command, might it still be possible to see a gondola stretch across the East River between Lower Manhattan, Governors Island and Brooklyn? Or a light rail line running the entire length of the waterfront from Astoria in Queens to Brooklyn’s Red Hook? Or, most audacious of all, tearing down the Javits convention center and moving it to yet another decked-over rail yard, this time in Sunnyside, where it would be surrounded by apartment and hotel towers and a sizable retail complex?

These were among the proposals Mr. Doctoroff put forward on Friday during a speech at the Municipal Art Society’s MAS Summit 2012. They were meant as examples for the next mayor to latch onto in order to “extend the achievements of the Bloomberg Administration by knitting new connections among emerging communities, amenities and institutions.”

Among the 90 speakers—including quite a few probable mayoral candidates—at last week’s cities conference, Mr. Doctoroff was asked to address what New York would need to do in order to succeed in the coming century. He decided to build his speech around the importance of the mayor and the priorities he believes any mayor (but especially those looking to succeed his boss) should have.

“I decided to frame it in terms of leadership because I have watched Mike Bloomberg over the past 11 years be a great leader and I do believe that mayors (for better and worse) truly make the biggest difference in the fate of the city,” Mr. Doctoroff wrote in a follow-up email. “I also believe that we can lose what we have gained quite quickly, as we saw in the 1970s.”

Mr. Doctoroff said he had three central questions that New Yorkers should ask of their would be mayors:

• "Does he or she truly understand what makes New York unique in an increasingly competitive world?"
• "Does he or she fervently believe in what I call the 'virtuous cycle of the successful city?'"
• "Does he or she have the vision to fuel the imagination of this stunning city and then the courage and decisiveness to get things done?"

Of course Mr. Doctoroff himself had an answer, often lengthy, to each of these questions. To the first one, of uniqueness and global competition, he stressed that the city should not pine for the past, for legacy industries like manufacturing, for outdated ways of thinking, building and taxing. “If we begin to send signals, any signals, that we are not going to remain the most open city in the world, we will surely lose our edge,” Mr. Doctoroff said.

Mr. Doctoroff explained his “virtuous cycle” thusly: “We are a remarkably compassionate city. We believe that we need to help those in need, that we have to make the city more affordable, that we have to provide the tools for people to capitalize on opportunity. All of that requires money. That's why our leaders have to have to truly get―and then they have to effectively manage―the virtuous cycle.”

He then, only half in jest, copped what sounded like a line from Gordon Gecko. “It starts with the core belief that growth―growth―is good,” Mr. Doctoroff said. “That the additional resident, business, or visitor generates net new revenues, which, if invested wisely, enhances the quality of life, which, in turn, helps to attract more residents, businesses and visitors, thereby perpetuating the cycle.”

This growth, this net new revenue, naturally leads to the visions Mr. Doctoroff was so famous for cooking up, and where he outlined the plans previously mentioned.

"Over the past 10 years, we have rebuilt, rezoned, and refashioned huge swaths of the city," he declared proudly. "Rail yards are becoming New York's next great neighborhoods. A rail line has become New York's newest great park. A military base will become New York's next great park. We have reclaimed our formerly decrepit waterfront for housing and recreation. Roosevelt Island will become the intellectual center of a burgeoning tech industry. We are not a city that plays small ball."

In his email, Mr. Doctoroff explained the ideas, some new, some old, some variations on the old, were all designed to connect the progress that had come before. The gondolas would provide more reliable access to Governors Island, allowing it to become a 24/7 community, one that Mr. Doctoroff suggested would become "a hub for another emerging industry, like global health." As for the light rail line, it would run along Kent Avenue and Vernon Boulevard, among other generally quiet waterfront thoroughfares. "Brooklyn is hot," Mr. Doctoroff intoned. "It is Queens' turn next."

But the clincher was Sunnyside, demonstrating the kind of big-picture, nothing-is-impossible thinking that characterized Mr. Doctoroff's tenure at City Hall. He called it "a huge swath or rail yards," repeating the phrase three times, to laughter from audience, before pointing out that it "forms a scar through the middle of Queens." Indeed, this project, bigger than Hudson, Atlantic and the Hoboken PATH yards combined, reminded people all too well of the Doctoroff days.

Proposals for such a project have been in the works for four decades, but Mr. Doctoroff brought some new innovations to the table. For starters, he believes the time is finally right to justify the massive investment such a project would entail. The starting point would be dividing the plan up into parcels, so the entire yards would not have to be decked at once but could instead be done progressively. And the timing for that first parcel could not be better, Mr. Doctoroff suggested.

"Let's borrow an idea from Governor Cuomo and move Javits to Queens, this time, though, to a location that is one or two subway stops from Midtown," Mr. Doctoroff explained. "You could pay for a big part of it by selling Javits' land on the West Side, which is more valuable today because of the No. 7 extension, and we could draw a wider array of conventions to less expensive hotels in Long Island City are built."

He pointed out that while some might complain that the location is not Manhattan, it is close enough and has its clear advantages, including space and affordablility, an approach that Mr. Doctoroff said he witnessed this summer at the London Olympics, where a new convention center had been built in a formerly industrial part of the East End.

The final slide of the presentation, a joke, Mr. Doctoroff later insisted, was the one missing piece from his legacy realized at Sunnyside Yards. "You know, it could even be the site for a temporary Olympic Stadium," he said, to more laughs, "but I leave that to future visionaries."

The whole affair left us feeling dizzy. Many in the city, particularly in the business class, have been hungering for a candidate who could be the successor to Mike Bloomberg. Could this be the one? The rhetoric was certainly there, as Mr. Doctoroff's final words on stage made clear.

"Big visions like this are what have defined New York," he said. "But they don't happen by accident. They take guts and imagination. They require an intuitive understanding of what are New York's unique advantages in a competitive world. They demand the skill to generate the revenues so we can afford to be the kind of city we aspire to be."

Now who could have those qualities? Perhaps Dan Doctoroff?

"Just to be clear, I have zero interest in running for Mayor, so, if the premise of the story is that I am somehow putting myself out there, then I don't want to engage," Mr. Doctoroff said in response to the first email The Observer sent him asking him as much. "If it is about what I said on Friday, then I am happy to talk."

In a follow-up email, he explained that he gave the speech because he was asked, though he also admitted to constantly be thinking up new and far-out plans for the city.

"I visit all of the leading cities of the world on a regular basis, so it is hard to avoid what they are doing and I have always been fascinated with cities anyway," Mr. Doctoroff explained. "That said, I am quite focused on Bloomberg, so it is probably best to characterize my thoughts as musings."

For better or worse, bigger or badder, the city could use more of these kinds of musings.

In the years since, development of the island has been caught up in silly New York politics—a development which would not have surprised the late Senator, who, late in his life, was less than sanguine about New York’s ability to build memorable projects. Now, however, the island’s potential finally is being realized.

Work formally began last week on a $260 million park project on the island. The project will include gardens, open space and ballfields—uses that Mr. Clinton had in mind in 1995 when he told Senator Moynihan that development should include a strong public component.

The project also will improve the island’s antiquated infrastructure and will pay for the demolition of abandoned structures that are beyond repair or restoration.

Beyond this first phase of development, there are plans for hotels, college dorms and commercial development on the island. The city wisely decided nearly a decade ago that whatever the future held for Governors Island, development has to be self-sustaining. The island, City Hall said, could not be drain on the public treasury.

That is how it should be—and how could it be otherwise? The location is magnificent, so the potential for first-rate park facilities, academic buildings, cultural amenities and commercial usage is evident.

That said, it’s critical that progress continues apace, and that the political disputes that held back development be put aside for good.

And now that ground has been broken on the island’s redevelopment, perhaps the city and state can take a few more steps toward the realization of another one of Senator Moynihan’s dreams: The long-stalled rail station in the old Farley post office building. Every now and again New Yorkers are told that progress on that project is just around the corner.

We have yet, however, to reach the intersection of funding and willpower.

The idea was originally conceived by a handful of Columbia architecture grad students, and their professor, architect Laurie Hawkinson, presented an in-depth look at just why such a plan is viable and reasonable to Urban Omnibus.

The really brilliant part is that way the landfill connects existing Lower Manhattan to Governors Island. The real estate angle is the strong feeling that the proximity to – the extension of — Lower Manhattan is what will maximize value. And they did this without compromising the landmarked park space on the Northern end of Governors Island. So it makes for a kind of Central Park green space.

She goes on to discuss the viability of the project and how "dead serious" she and Mr. Chakrabarti are about realizing it in real life. To see how such a thing could take shape, and only in 20 years time no less, check out the attached slideshow.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

If you build it... can you build it? (NYT)

Mayor Bloomberg likes to talk about the need to stay competitive with the other global cities, like London and Hong Kong and Tokyo. Among the challenges are the cost of development, in which we actually have a competitive edge over many of our rivals. Which is why some of them have taken to filling in the waterways surrounding them. One of The Observer's favorite urban theorists, Vishaan Chakrabarti is proposing the same thing, according to The Times, using landfill to connect Governors Island to the Financial District. It might seem insane, but there are even logistical reasons the proposal makes sense.

The landfill would come from the Army Corps of Engineers, which is dredging New York Harbor to maintain and deepen shipping channels. Over the next 55 years, the corps is expected to dredge 180 million cubic yards of material, with the vast majority winding up in landfills and abandoned mines across the country.

Before the current regulations for building on top of landfill, the method was often used to expand the city’s footprint, including for Battery Park City, which is built on the dirt from the original World Trade Center. It is a popular strategy in other cities around the world. About 250 million cubic yards of landfill was used to create the Hong Kong airport and 6.65 billion cubic yards to create land in Tokyo Bay. The Governors Island proposal is much more modest, using approximately 23 million cubic yards, according to the study.

Rules governing building on landfill have changed, so the odds such a scheme will ever be realized see rare, but that may be a shame. For New York to continue to grow and innovate, we must not only look to our past, where building on landfill has a strong tradition, but also the efficiencies that come with turning waste into valuable property.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Long necks. (Barry Yanowitz)

Two weeks ago, Port Authority boss Chris Ward declared that one of the biggest projects the city could undertake would be the redevelopment of Red Hook. Not only would it vitalize another corner of the Brooklyn waterfront, but it would also become a critical connection to burgeoning development on Governors Island.

At the time, this sounded like pontification—Mr. Ward fought to keep the container terminal active at his previous job running American Stevedoring—but now it is looking more like prognostication.

Last week, it was revealed that the Port Authority had quietly cancelled its lease with American Stevedoring, which has led a handful of outlets to speculate that Red Hook’s redevelopment is in the near future. According to a highly placed source at the Port Authority, though, it will be at least a decade before the port ships out for good and the BroBos can move in.

The Red Hook Star Revue first got wind of the American Stevedoring buyout, revealing that the company had refused to pay rent on the piers even after it had won a contentious agreement to continue to manage them in 2008. The Post then reported that Pheonix Beverage was taking over the container terminal, and because it only had a year-lease, it was simply a placeholder.

“Phoenix is a holding pattern until the city and the Port Authority reignite the intensive development unveiled in 2003,” said a source familiar with the buy-out deal. At that time, the city proposed a visitor-friendlier waterfront and angled to wrest control of the piers from ASI.

But The Observer has learned that the one-year lease is merely a holdover until the Port and Phoenix can work out a longer 10-year deal. The hope is this will give it enough volume to move its operations elsewhere, likely to Sunset Park—the sort of move Mr. Ward advocated. "There is no abrupt getting rid of containers in the near term," our source said. "The idea is Phoenix will build up its business, grow its market share, and when it is ready to move, it will move."

Lovely Red Hook. (Bing Maps)

Phoenix executives could not be reached for comment.

The Post argued that Phoenix had no experience running a port, but the Port official told The Observer it is actually a far better deal for the city than American Stevedoring because it will ferry goods back and forth from New Jersey, whereas the former operator often returned with its hulls empty. As a result, American Stevedoring received millions of dollars in subsidies to remain viable, whereas Phoenix is getting none.

Phoenix has in fact been at the terminal for almost two years now, a move that has angered neighbors who feel its beer trucks cause excessive congestion on the streets. Whether its expansion will improve or worsen matters is not clear, but The Observer did learn one fun fact: alcohol is the fourth biggest commodity to move through the region's ports—which is what makes Phoenix such an attractive operator for the container port. As it was explained to us, Heineken is the Walmart of beers and Phoenix controls Heineken, so the scalability and success of its operations is seen as highly likely.

As for what comes after Phoenix’s eventual departure, there are no concrete plans in the works at either the city or the Port, though there is interest in keeping at least part of the space for active, working waterfront uses. "It's not going to flip back to the Dan Doctoroff days of a glitzy Sydney waterfront," the Port official said.

That does not mean redevelopment will not continue of its own accord elsewhere in Red Hook. The waterfront has already begun making its transformation, with Fairway, IKEA and maybe a huge new mall colonizing some of the old piers. Adding to that, Brownstoner hears a huge warehouse may be headed for a rental conversion. It turns out 160 Imlay Street is across the road from the container terminal, so its nascent conversion only underscores the uncomfortable, should-to-shoulder transition within the neighborhood.

Even if Sam Sifton has moved, rumors of Red Hook's demise are greatly exaggerated.

Correction: A previous version of this article mistated the location of 160 Imlay Street. It is not next door to Fairway. The Observer regrets the error. We have been to Red Hook and love it there. Great book shelves...

Also, Mr. Sifton has informed The Observer that he has moved, but not "moved out." He still proudly calls Red Hook home.

Keep 'em coming. (Getty)

Since it opened in 2006, around this time each year, a press release would shoot out from Governor's Island, a torpedo blasting across the harbor, trumpeting the latest attendance numbers. The ice-cream-cone-shaped island, for most of its life an off-limits military compound, had reason to crow. It's visitor's numbers were soaring, putting to rest questions of its viability as a new public park—purchased for all of $1 from the U.S. government in 2005. From 26,000 visitors that first year, attendance jumped to 443,000 last year, 60 percent what it had been the year before.

This year, there has been no press release, no champagne.

Instead, we get a story in DNAinfo that notes a slight rise in visitors, 448,000, and blames the lack of a boom on foul weather.

In July, the problem was record-breaking heat. The two hottest days, when the temperature shot up to 100 degrees or higher, fell on a Friday and Saturday, July 22 and 23.

Then August arrived with a deluge of rain, including nearly 6 inches on Aug. 14, a Sunday, the highest daily total ever recorded in Central Park.

And before August could end as the wettest month in New York City history, Hurricane Irene arrived to drench the city further, forcing Governors Island to close on Sat., Aug. 27 and Sun., Aug. 28 and disrupting a Dave Matthews Band concert that would have drawn thousands of additional visitors.

The Trust for Governors Island had been gunning to break the half-million mark, but no dice.

Not to doubt the cause of these stagnating numbers, but whatever the cause, they could play an important role in the island's future development. It has been a marquee project for the Bloomberg administration, and with N.Y.U., the nascent tech campus and other interests vying for the island's valuable-if-inaccessible real estate, it seems certain the mayor will want to find a permanent use for the island before his third term is through. Even outgoing Port Authority director Chris Ward has stressed the importance of the island.

Even if the weather had been gorgeous all summer long and Governors Island had put up phenomenal numbers yet again, the fact remains, there is only so much art fairs and war reenactors can do to draw crowds to the island. The views will always be amazing, but those can only go so far. Is a new tech campus, as opposed to a convention center or mall, what the island needs to continue to grow? It is a question worth asking, and one worth asking now.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

"That's something we comment on in the story," Fred Van Lente, who wrote the issues, told The Observer. He'll be speaking about them on Governors Island this Sunday. "The tallest building itself turns out to be the Sandman, who has turned himself into a giant building. So that definitely turns into a bit of a complication."

For those not in the know: The Manhattan-based Marvel Comics often uses the city's geography as a playground for its heroes and villains, opting to use New York proper rather than hide behind Gothams and Metropoli, as the distinguished competition does. (In fact, our new offices are not terribly far from 42^nd and Madison, the cross streets of the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building).

Spider-Man's Governors Island adventure, a storyline called "Keemia's Castle," centers around the Sandman, who absconds to the island with a kidnapped girl. When Spidey shows up, the girl is hesitant to leave, Van Lente said, "because Governors Island is sort of a magically wonderful place in its own right, and when your dad is the Sandman it can become even more so."

As an avid biker, Van Lente was already a fan of Governors Island when he chose to scout the location last summer with artist Paolo Rivera, and was also inspired by a friend who partially set a novel about zombies there. "Like a lot of writers, I love sprawling abandoned buildings and army bases, so I was sort of drawn to it," Van Lente said.

His speech on Sunday will feature photos from that scouting trip, and cover the island's colorful history. It came about after Governors Island administrators reached out to him, having received a massive influx of interest in the island following its appearance in the pair of comics.

As for the island's recent history, Van Lente said he hasn't been closely following the city's assumption of control. "Any way you can keep that place open and running is something I'm going to fully support," he said.

Operating under the code name “Project Repo,” aides to Mayor Bloomberg’s right-hand man for development drew up a clandestine list of where the city could seize control of major initiatives it shared with the state.

Among those considered for a city takeover, according to multiple people familiar with the plan, were the sprawling Queens West housing development near Long Island City; Battery Park City; Roosevelt Island; Brooklyn Bridge Park; and Governors Island.

In theory, muscling the state out of the picture would have stripped away tangles of bureaucracy and set up the city for a speedier groundbreaking.

Alas, the plan never amounted to much more than a memo of aspirations, filed away after city officials encountered a new Spitzer administration reluctant to cede control.
Still, it was representative of the Bloomberg administration’s underlying desire to assert more control over the assets within its borders. And now, more than three years later, under a new deputy mayor, a new governor and a cash-strapped state, the spirit of Project Repo is improbably thriving.

After months of negotiating, the city just announced tentative deals to grab full control of Governors Island and Brooklyn Bridge Park, two waterfront parkland and real estate development projects that have languished under city-state efforts.

The latest venture: Battery Park City. While no official city play for the 92-acre extension of Lower Manhattan has yet been announced, the mostly completed development complex is in the cross hairs of administration officials, particularly Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber, Mr. Doctoroff’s successor, who is pushing for the takeover within the administration.

In classic Bloomberg administration fashion, Project Repo had at its roots a strong distaste for sharing control, particularly with a bureaucracy. On the shared city-state economic development projects, officials involved on both sides had long complained of constant bickering and slow decision making that left city-state projects with a similar legacy: progress at a snail’s pace.

“There’s no mystery that in economic development, the best thing you can do from a city perspective is get the state out of the picture,” said a former city official involved with Project Repo.

Of course, a major barrier always faced the plan’s implementation: There was little in it for the governor. The trade, essentially, would have given the mayor the ability to get the projects moving and then lead the ribbon-cuttings, leaving the state only as a bystander with a bit more cash to put elsewhere. Officials in the Spitzer administration, with an empire-building mentality of its own and not eager to cede control on legacy projects, declined an offer by the Bloomberg administration to take over some of these projects. And that, it seemed, was that.

That is, until the landscape shifted. Now, with a politically weak governor and a fiscally emaciated state government, the Bloomberg administration is whisking away assets co-owned with the state, a gambit they have been able to execute without being asked to give up much, if anything, in return.

Battery Park City, should the mayor indeed make a go at adding it to the list, would not even need the consent of the governor, as the city has long had an option allowing it to purchase the entire property for $1 so long as the debt is paid off. (It would, however, need the consent of City Comptroller John Liu, who has taken a few actions opposing the mayor, and has said he is studying the concept. Fearing political backlash, the Bloomberg administration likely would also be reticent to take control without a nod from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.)

Charles Urstadt, the recently retired vice chairman of the Battery Park City Authority and a founding chairman, has been beating the drum on the issue, urging the city to take control now that the complex is built out and the authority is tasked only with managing, not developing.

“It’s a perversion of the original intent of Battery Park City,” he said of the authority’s putting $30 million a year toward management of a completed development. “The job is finished, and the profits, which are enormous, should be used for affordable housing.”

The attraction to the takeover’s backers is a treasure chest of money that would be available to the city, if not immediately then in future years. In addition to the efficiencies that could be had from streamlining management, the city could save on borrowing costs for the authority’s $1 billion in debt (city bonds currently cost less than authority bonds, generally). That, and the city would not have to go through a sticky political negotiation with the governor and the city comptroller every time it wants to use some of the tens of millions in surplus rents that are created every year by Battery Park City’s buildings (the last negotiation, for $860 million, took more than a year).

For all of the projects, the Bloomberg administration clearly sees now as its best time to strike.

“In past severe economic downturns, the city’s fiscal woes forced it to cede a lot to the state,” a spokesman for the mayor, Andrew Brent, said in a statement. “Today, after eight years of responsible fiscal management, infrastructure investments and planning, the city is in a much different position and can afford to take over and manage the future of certain key sites like Brooklyn Bridge Park and Governors Island.”

ebrown@observer.com

This was particularly true in the realm of the physical city: land use, planning, housing, development. An Oct. 26 speech by Mr. Bloomberg on New York in 2013 focused on implementing his existing initiatives-admittedly no small task. His prepared remarks used the words "continue" or "continuing" nine times. The past two elections, after all, gave rise or significant momentum to such concepts as the High Line and the mayor's plan for 165,000 units of subsidized housing, among other ideas.

Whether the mayor is completely out of ideas, holding back a long list of new innovations for the post-election period or, more likely, somewhere in between, The Observer queried various planners, advocates and economic development professionals on what City Hall could do in the next four years. The responses reveal no dearth of ideas-from cheap to expensive-should the Bloomberg administration opt to freshen its agenda.

What follows is a rather random list, without any specific order, value judgment or weight on feasibility.

Filling Vacant Land
One first stop could be a study that the administration itself commissioned in its second term that outlined a long list of large undeveloped sites that could be the launching pads for future growth. The 2006 study, by planner Alex Garvin, suggested ideas like decking a platform over the Sunnyside rail yards or the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in Cobble Hill, and developing along the Bronx and Harlem River waterfronts.

Similarly, financial crisis or not, some urge the widespread private development of the often-underused vacant land in the city's Housing Authority projects.

"With existing zoning, you could build on some of those vast empty spaces," said Hope Cohen, associate director at the Regional Plan Association's Center for Urban Innovation.

Governors Island
The existing plans for the 172-acre Governors Island-build a $250 million park, thereby attracting development-glaringly reflect the era when they were conceived: when "billions," "budget" and "surplus" were said in the same breath. A new plan could be needed, and ideas such as removing a restriction on housing development or moving CUNY to the island have been bounced around.

Or perhaps something more radical: Multiple planners suggested moving the United Nations there.

More Rezonings
Much of the work that's come out of the Department of City Planning in the past six years has been a set of rezonings that allow office and apartment towers to sprout in formerly industrial areas (e.g., Williamsburg, the far West Side, Willets Point in Queens).

While many of the obvious candidates have been tackled already, there are a few neighborhoods or sites that are often pointed to as possible next steps. Seward Park, the set of empty Lower East Side lots, slated for major residential development for decades, has been held up repeatedly over political concerns. Hudson Square, the former printing-industry-heavy neighborhood north of Tribeca, was previously floated as a candidate for a big rezoning by Trinity Real Estate, which dominates the area. And there's the district south of the World Trade Center, Greenwich Street South, which has long been pushed as an area that could blossom with a set of new parks and development should someone just put a deck over the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel entrance ramp (the Downtown Alliance this fall has a campaign urging this).

Tax Reforms
The average annual tax for the buyer of a $750,000 Manhattan condo: $5,975. For a $750,000 co-op, it's $4,453. And for a small home of the same value: $3,301.

Various groups, including from inside the real estate industry, have long pushed for a bit of an injection of rationality into the tax structure-which would require going to Albany to get approval, though some changes could be made locally. When these critics have whined to the Bloomberg administration, officials have generally nodded in agreement, but done little to act.

Rent Reforms
If last year can be seen as a template, tenants and a number of Democratic legislators will make a concerted push to change state rent-regulation laws, attempting to further restrict landlords from converting rent-stabilized apartments to far more lucrative market-rate units. With the debate confined to Albany, the Bloomberg administration steered clear and said almost nothing on the issue. The city bit its tongue intentionally, a city official suggested, and plans to be ready to take a stance this spring.

"There was a reluctance to raise it before the election in a vague way and have it come off as pandering," the official said. "In actuality, it's something we're having substantive policy discussions about."

Of course, the existing laws are hardly a bright emblem of rationality-they allow a billionaire to be rent-stabilized, for instance, but only until his or her rent reaches $2,000 a month-and there have been many calls for a complete overhaul to the system.

Permanent Affordability
City-owned land has been given away to develop tens of thousands of units of below-market-rate housing under Mayor Bloomberg. But come 20 or 30 years down the line, those affordability requirements generally expire, leaving the city with less land on which to build, and less affordable housing.

Housing advocacy groups-the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development and many others-have long been pushing permanent affordability in these programs, and there was a hope that the issue would gather steam this mayor's race.
It didn't.

(Though the mayor did revise his housing plan, scaling back new construction and emphasizing ways to protect properties headed for default and poor management, courtesy of the financial crisis.)

Institutional Knowledge
With the financial sector looking more feeble than once thought, many a planner has recently called for City Hall to light a fire in the institutional sector, growing hospitals and colleges around the five boroughs.

"Institutions will be a major source of growth in the coming years," said Vishaan Chakrabarti, director of the real estate development program at Columbia University and a former City Planning official. "We should do whatever we can to support the expansion of our medical, cultural and educational institutions."

Governors Island, anyone?

West Side, Revisited
The Bloomberg administration spent much of its first four years planning a new future for the far West Side, envisioning a plethora of office and apartment towers. The development isn't going anywhere until the economy recovers, particularly over the 26-acre rail yards, which would need two platforms, costing more than $900 million, just to be able to start building. There has long been a suggestion that the government build the platforms, then parcel out the development à la Battery Park City. (The Related Companies is the rail yards' conditionally designated developer.)

"If you look at Battery Park City, the landfill was done," said Barry Gosin, CEO of real estate brokerage Newmark Knight Frank, "Then, over time, it was developed."

"Nobody's going to build all at once anyway," he said of the rail yards, espousing a government-funded platform.

Then there's the Javits Center, currently undergoing a $460 million renovation. Dropped, at least for now, is talk of what to do long term with the convention center, which is far smaller than the event halls in other major American cities.

Among others, Mr. Chakrabarti, who once worked to expand Javits in its current space, said it should be relocated, using the value of its waterfront land to finance a move.
ebrown@observer.com

More from Eliot Brown:

Stuy Town's Columbus

With Stuy Town, Electeds Play Bailout Card on Freddie and Fannie

A Candid Ravitch Warns of $25 B. Budget Gap, Hints at Tax Overhaul

Fast-forward to 2009, and the reality is less rosy than once imagined. Two park projects with this structure, Brooklyn Bridge Park and Governors Island, are substantially underfunded and their development timelines are sluggish.

Mayor Bloomberg wants to end the partnerships with the state on both altogether. While he was rebuffed on both this budget season—the state pledged funding for Governors Island this week, after initially not having a line for it in the state budget—a spokesman for the mayor said the city will continue to press the issue.

So with the slow progress and bitterness all around, is it safe to chalk up these park partnerships as a failed experiment?

The jury’s still out, advocates of the projects say. While Brooklyn Bridge Park and Governors Island—which, combined, could ultimately demand well over a half a billion dollars in investment—have spawned frustrations, the allure of having two funding sources is quite attractive, possibly outweighing the inevitable headache of dealing with two separate governments at once.

“By making the state and the city partners, each one of them has only half the load to carry,” said Al Butzel, longtime president of the advocacy group Friends of Hudson River Park, a city/state-controlled park started in the mid-1990s that tends to be viewed more favorably.

The difference in Hudson River Park, by Mr. Butzel’s telling, was the strong commitment of money upfront by both sides. While getting equal money from the city and the state for the final stages of the park is now proving difficult, the park is now substantially finished, so its completion seems more a matter of when, not if.

By spreading political ownership, the city/state partnerships also seem to give projects a better chance of continuity over multiple administrations, as an individual mayor or governor may support a project, but the next administration could simply scrap plans as priorities change.

“I say to the people in City Hall that I trust you, and I trust your successor,” said Ken Fisher, chairman of the advocacy group Governors Island Alliance, “but I don’t trust yoursuccessor’s successor.”

ebrown@observer.com