Results tagged “greatdepression”

President Obama will re-appoint Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, the Wall Street Journal reports, "opting for continuity in U.S. economic policy despite criticism in Congress of the low-key central banker's frantic efforts to rescue the financial system." White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said, "The president thinks that Ben’s done a great job as Fed chairman, that he has helped the economy through one of the worst experiences since the Great Depression and that he has essentially been pulling the economy back from the brink of what would have been the second Great Depression."

              

The 1930s were a time of breadlines and Hoovervilles (homeless encampments); there was even a shanty town in Central Park for a few years, in the former Lower Reservoir of the city water supply system. As New York is struggling through a new financial crisis, take a look back at the city as it developed during the Great Depression.

In a Friday review of the 1933 original production of King Kong, The New York Sun's film critic Bruce Bennett wonders why the low-tech original continues to hold up so well after 75 years, especially in comparison to higher-tech remakes. "How, then, does a puppet made from rabbit fur, a rubber ball, and some socket joints, painstakingly animated frame-by-frame during the depths of the Great Depression, ably kick the motion-capture behemoth of Mr. Jackson's modern edition to film history's curb?"

On the national level, sales of existing homes slowed by 17 percent in the second quarter of 2007, compared with the second quarter of 2006, while inventory swelled by 16 percent, according to figures provided by the National Association of Realtors. New homes fared even worse: they fell by almost 19 percent, according to Commerce Department figures.

Continue reading "New York City's Teflon Real Estate Market"

Along with the "Broken Windows" crime prevention theory, one of the big success stories of Gotham's dramatic revitalization over the past two decades has been the BID (that's Business Improvement District, FYI) where business and property owners in a designated area work with the City and make a collective effort to boost business. The most famous BID success is probably Times Square, but they're all over the place nowadays (of the 53 BIDs in New York State there are 45 in NYC), and often are quite successful. Which is why this article on the Village Alliance BID in this week's Villager is so interesting: Efforts to revitalize West Eighth Street have been an unmitigated disaster:

As anyone who has recently walked down Eighth St. between Fifth and Sixth Aves. can’t help but notice, the block resembles a retail ghost town, as if the Great Depression had hit all over again. Virtually every other store is vacant, with For Rent signs prominently posted. In all, about 20 stores were empty when a reporter walked the street two weekends ago. On Sixth Ave., the former Sam Goody space, also in the BID’s district, is vacant.

Today’s New York Times takes a look at words used to describe the current state of the real estate market. “Soft landing”, “pause”, and “melting down”, seem to be the most popular ones these days like “cozy” was a few years ago. The real question is which words should we be using to describe the market? Will we get the “soft landing” everyone hopes for, or is the “housing bubble” a reality?