Kids Of The Rich & Connected Land City Hall Internships

You may need more than the luck of the Irish to land a City Hall internship (NYC Mayor's Office)

The NY Times used the Freedom of Information Act to find out exactly who is landing coveted City Hall internships. And, SURPRISE, many of the interns are the children of the rich, famous and/or connected: "They are the children and relatives of boldface names, like Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs; Peter G. Peterson, co-founder of the Blackstone Group; and Laurence A. Tisch, who was a hotel mogul and chief executive of CBS... The roster has also included grandchildren and stepchildren of people with ties to Mr. Bloomberg and his friends, including the grandson of Robert A. Caro, chronicler of Robert Moses, and the stepson of Neil Simon, the playwright, who endorsed Mr. Bloomberg last fall."

The Times makes sure to explain that the mayor's office was "not eager to share information about who gets the internships and took three months to furnish the list, after the Freedom of Information Act request and repeated follow-up messages." Eventually mayoral spokesman Stu Loeser "said a vast majority of the students were recruited through job fairs, online applications or school programs...Still, one in five of those selected are recommended from someone employed by the administration."

Most interns are college or graduate students, but a few high schoolers and middle schoolers land them with extra close connections (former deputy mayor Daniel Doctoroff's son Jacob was an eighth grader when he worked with "a bunch of 35- to 45-year-olds" in the office of management information systems). One two-time City Hall intern, Hayley Kucich, told the Times, "You’d get a lot of interns who said that their aunt was on the board of something, or that their relatives worked for city government."

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on July 20, 2010 11:20 AM

Comments [rss]

John L

But this is what you guys voted for, you could've voted for democracy and rejected his third term but noooooo you guys voted for plutocracy and allowed his reign to continue.

Keep voting for billionaires thinking they are so honest and won't be corrupted by money. Money is not the only thing that corrupts, power also corrupts.

ANGRYGOD11

Internships became a joke 20 years ago when the unpaid internship became the norm. In one of the most expensive cities on Earth, only the kids with money can afford to "work" for free.

FelixtheCat & Christine Quinn'

Some people do internship to get into college. Their are plenty of qualified poor kids who would like the opportunity to intern in city hall. Bloomberg's campaign staff had no problem using these kids to volunteer for Bloomberg's campaign and they were not paid at all.

JacqueMehoff

+1

I was gonna post that, at my last job most if not all the interns came from well to do families or connected in the industry. the only pay they get is a stipend of $40 and travel expenses. then they get a job with the company soon thereafter.

chchchch

I remember Gothamist once interviewed Shirley Braha of "NY Noise."

She's a perfect example of these types of cases.

http://gothamist.com/2008/03/27/shirley_braha_n.php

Braha was an intern at NYC TV in '03, part of NYC Media Group (which is part of the Mayor's Office). After her internship, she somehow "magically" gets handed a paying TV producer gig for an indie rock show "NY Noise" on NYC TV, making (according to the Civil List) around $50k in salary paid by NY taxpayers.

You could pull any Pitchfork.com reader off the street and get them to program "NY Noise" (which mostly consists of music videos submitted by record labels) for half of that $50k and they would take it in an instant. Forget internships, why are the kids of the rich & connected, like Braha, getting well-paid jobs in City Hall producing rock TV shows that others would do for free? What, is Braha the only person who knows that Animal Collective is considered hip? I'm not saying she isn't into music, I'm saying she got a taxpayer-paid TV producing gig very easily from the Mayor's Office without any real qualifications (there are other TV producers with more experience who would gladly take that salary).

I knew some interns at NYC TV, none of them were offered a producing gig afterwards, as Braha did. FYI, NYC TV was the station where the COO got arrested for embezzling $80 k. And then the CEO (Aarick Wierson, guy with no TV experience but was married to a Bloomberg executive) "voluntarily" stepped down afterwards. This was after the executives actually cast themselves as hosts for NYC TV shows and spun off their own production companies to funnel clients looking to advertise on NYC TV to pay them to produce ads. Anyone who wants to talk about city budgets needs to recognize that no matter how "strapped" the city is, there are departments like DoITT (which has NYC Media) that spend $70k/year on party planners to throw "we won the (meaningless award) NY Emmy again!" parties at the Maritime hotel.

ribaldry

I CANT GET A JOB BECAUSE OF 9/11

JacqueMehoff

You too? like I said, if I knew then what I know now, I would have walked those few blocks South that day.

Think2wice

Nepotism brought down empires.

hotstepper

the rich helping the rich, while screwing the little guy out of an opportunity? oh my god that is shocking!

whoa, look over there, a sea gull! wow that's shocking too!

r1b2

Shame on you. Do you ever stop to consider your message?

JacqueMehoff

Not surprising when you run city hall like a business.

it's always who you know and not what you know. don't believe the BS above yada yada yada bootstraps.

FelixtheCat & Christine Quinn'

Yet tcity hall serves the public and why is Bloomerg giving out internships to the rich kids? Are they the best and the brightest?

angry_pickle

Maybe not all are the best and the brightest, but certainly they are the whitest.

MT

I'll say it. In most cases, yes. They probably are.

FelixtheCat & Christine Quinn'

Rich doesn't mean Better.

maryjr

Who would be surprised by this article? Isn't this just a fact of life?

Stevennnn

this is new? The way to get ahead and find jobs is through connections NOT what you know, but WHO you know.

PKMKII

I find that those who insist it's all about hard work are usually in denial of all help and connections that went into their career. They're trying to maintain the illusion that they're "self-made."

valeriob

That rhetoric is just an excuse for lazy degenerates who don't want to work but pretend to be looking just so they can complain, or are unhappy with the professional career path they've chosen.

What you know matters, especially when you don't know dick and you want everything handed to you magically. Well I want a unicorn to shit in my cereal and turn my milk rainbow colors but you don't see me complaining.

John L

The world is full of lazy rich degenerates as well as lazy poor degenerates but that's obviously not who we're talking about here.

We're talking about the deference between rich and poor bright ambitious people who want to work and get ahead. If you're naive enough to think that rich bright ambitious people don't have more opportunities because of their "connections" then just continue sitting there waiting for a unicorn to shit in your cereal so your milk can turn rainbow colors, I hope it tastes good.