By The Editors 6/12 4:19pm

Race to Gracie Mansion 2013

Screen shot 2013-06-12 at 3.32.17 PM

55% of New Yorkers Can’t Name a Single Mayoral Candidate

So there’s this thing. It’s called a mayoral’s race. Heard of it? Any idea who’s running? If you can name a single candidate, you’re an outlier—55 percent of the New Yorkers we asked couldn’t. That’s one of the take-home messages from our Race to Gracie Mansion 2013 street polling project: very low awareness of the upcoming election. Only one candidate approaches broad name recognition, and it’s not for his policy smarts. Browse the full results here, and tell us who you plan to support.  Read More

By The Editors 5/07 6:38pm

Editorials

Bloomberg’s Last Budget

No significant tax hikes, no spike in city spending: that’s a formula for economic growth. And that’s what New York has grown accustomed to during the Mike Bloomberg era in City Hall.

The mayor unveiled his last budget the other day, and if he took a little extra time to sing the praises of his Read More

By The Editors 5/07 6:34pm

Editorials

Time for Cuomo to Act

Legend has it that when Boss Tweed was at the height of his power, he dismissed criticism of his corrupt ways and means with a single, memorable phrase: What are you going to do about it?

The cartoonist Thomas Nast made the phrase famous—some believe he actually fabricated Tweed’s response—as a symbol of official arrogance Read More

By Drew Grant 4/22 1:28pm

Fashion

Diahann Billings-Burford, Kenneth Cole, Peter Vallone and John Liu (Getty Images)

Shoe Designers and Politicos Lend the City a Helping Foot

This morning on the cold, bright steps of City Hall, several photographers huddled, shivering, waiting for the Two Ten Footwear Foundation conference to begin. The charitable foundation of the U.S. footwear industry was gathered to kick off Two Ten’s Footwear Cares National Footwear Community Service Week (whoof, what a title) in New York, where 14 shoe companies would be dedicating their time and resources to packing meals for the New York Food NYC, God’s Love We Deliver, GrowNYC, and the Occupy Sandy Recovery group.

A smattering of unlikely bedfellows trickled in: Kenneth Cole, Katie Butler of Nine West, two mayoral candidates–Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu–former Council speaker Peter Vallone, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer, along with several other representatitves from the fashionable footwear industry. Read More

By The Editors 3/19 6:00pm

Editorial

Clueless Liu

City Comptroller and would-be mayor John Liu apparently finds it amusing that so many press accounts take note of the scandal that has enveloped several of his key campaign aides. As The Observer noted several weeks ago, the comptroller laughingly referred to himself as “embattled” in an email invitation to a fund-raiser—his way of poking Read More

By Kit Dillon 10/17/12 5:18pm

building stories

Keep digging. (DumboNYC)

Billionaire Boys Club: Bloomberg Produces $1 B. Out of Thin Air For City Infrastructure

Remember shovel ready projects? Thought they were so 2009? Well, you’d be wrong, at least here in New York, where Mayor Bloomberg, Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the ever financially creative City Comptroller John Liu have done some juggling with the city’s capital construction program to fast track $1 billion worth of infrastructure work. These projects will begin in the coming months, rather than in the coming years. Let’s hear it for putting people to work. Read More

By The Editors 3/07/12 11:23am

opinion

Mr. Liu Must Go

When City Comptroller John Liu was asked recently to identify his campaign treasurer—the person listed as his treasurer, Jenny Hou, was arrested the other day, and there was an assumption that she no longer held the post—he did something that should shock nobody: He simply refused to provide a name. Read More

By Emily Witt and Hunter Walker 11/22/11 12:23pm

Occupy Wall Street

23

Knives Out: Politicians Blast Bloomberg’s Zuccotti Eviction; Occupy Enters New Phase

In the aftermath of Mayor Bloomberg’s clearing of Zuccotti Park last week, as helmeted police were still pushing stragglers up Broadway and the first morning commuters appeared, a protester named Jake shouted a warning at the cadre of cops shoving protesters away from their erstwhile home.

“There were people smoking crack, people with puppies begging for money, we looked like shit,” Jake yelled to the police. “Now what do we look like? Peaceful protesters getting our asses kicked. This is the best thing that could have happened. There are thousands of people watching us.” Read More