Results tagged “johncatsimatidis”

It's not uncommon to hear New Yorkers complaining about how overwhelmed they are by the lines at the Union Square Trader Joe's that most hours of the day tend to snake through the store—often leading to a journey just to find where the end of it is. So passers-by on 14th Street must be feeling relieved now that they've spotted a "Trader John's" moving in just down the street in the space that a regular old Gristedes had been, right? Not so fast.

Port Authority commissioner Bruce Blakeman wants to be mayor in 2009. We know this because we've read the news stories and we know this because his talking dog tells us.

The billionaire owner of Gristedes is getting his ducks in a row for a possible mayoral run in 2009. NY1 reports John Catsimaditis is "hiring staff and launching an exploratory committee," per a letter to the city's GOP officials. Like the current billionaire mayor, Catsimaditis shed his Democratic affiliation for the Republican party. Last year, Forbes listed him at #220 on the Forbes 400, noting his estimated fortune of $2.1 billion. And for reference, Bloomberg spent about $74 million to get elected in 2001.

An effort to get more fresh fruit and vegetables into the hands of poorer and allegedly under-served communities is being fought today by bodega and supermarket owners, who feel that a proposed 1,500 new street vendor licenses will cut into their business. Backers of the new licenses include City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Mayor Bloomberg, who cooperated in introducing the "Green Cart" plan, which will issue licenses to vendors who commit to serving fresh fruit and vegetables in poorer communities.

John Catsimatidis is hoping to follow in Mayor Bloomberg's footsteps by becoming a Democrat who follows the path of least resistance into Gracie Mansion. The owner of the Gristedes supermarket chain has millions of dollars to burn and would like to become the Mayor of New York City. Even for a lifelong Democrat like Catsimatidis, the easiest road to City Hall is to bypass the scrum of party politics and simply get oneself elected as a Republican in a heavily Democratic city. Green apparently beats both red and blue in the media center of the world, and it's possible for enough cash to overcome many obstacles.

No one has been surprised that Gristedes supermarkets have been closing steadily over the past ten years, given the influx of other grocery options and rising rents. But the NY Times has a fascinating article on why Gristedes still manages to exist, despite shrinking in size.

Illinois Senator Barack Obama was in New York yesterday as speculating about the 2008 Presidential race started to reach a fever pitch (or as much of a fever pitch as possible this early on). He spoke at a fundraiser for Kids in Distressed situations, saying, "We have an empathy deficit. It's time for a sense of empathy to infuse our politics in America. It is time to stop making excuses for inaction." The Daily News reports his speech "invoked [Robert] Kennedy's famous 1967 trip to Mississippi to expose the horrors of child poverty in America" - which one person thought was a "cheap shot. You don't start your campaign on the mantle of someone else's success." The NY Times notes that while Obama got two standing ovations, "his performance was not flawless: at one point he referred to 'Jose' Posada of the New York Yankees instead of Jorge." And Posada happened to be one of the fundraiser's honorees and was sitting at Obama's table!