is Vega collecting a paycheck in the midst of all this?

man I really hope that is not the case. Otherwise add it to the list of great, but gone: Janam, Ox, Maximillian, etc.

I can't see how all these good places closing is at all a good sign for downtown JC...

Seems every time I walk by Europa on Jersey Ave, it's closed. Anyone know what's going on? Hopefully not shut down...

It's a tough call. 2 nice brownstones have sold around VVP recently. Both were families with children going to greener pastures. That's really discouraging to see.

There is so much opportunity in JC, but it does seem that the machine deliberately keeps it down. You'd think all the arrests would have the council scared, but they know they'll get the votes. Too many people in downtown are renters with no l-t plans to stay; they don't bother to vote.

It's been very frustrating to see all the broken car windows of late around VVP. Are there any beat cops downtown other that at construction sites? This morning the Saffron didn't even have its sidewalks cleared at 9:45AM. Joke.

I'm hopeful, but if the economy continues to flounder JC will revert back to the bad old ways. JC was definitely late catching the brownstone revival wave that got to places like Ft Greene in Brooklyn earlier. We'll see...

Healy puts out statements like that to placate the angry citizens fed up with corruption. There is absolutely nothing behind it. Those two are joined at the hip, it's absolutely in healy's best interest to keep Vega happy with him.

It's no different than Obama's phony criticisms of "fat cat bankers". Nothing behind it...

Most lofts in NYC are 2200sf rougly, that puts the half floor ones at Beacon in the appreciably bigger camp. I think the main difference is that when you walk out of a Soho, Nolita or Tribeca loft you're in a cutting edge/vibrant spot. Not so around the Beacon.

So yeah there's a haircut to compensate for that. I do think the developer's decision is the right one given the uniqueness of the offering, he just needs to find people that want that kind of space and can deal with the neighborhood... We shall see...

most mortgages end up in trouble due to high purchase price. This building at $4.6mm will be no different should the morons on the city council vote yes...

Just read through this as I'd seen that NYT article also. Did anything ever happen after those storms or did it all just blow over. What about that guy living on 4th St whose condo was basically wrecked? Did the city help pay for the damages? This is a very serious issue and one that will only get worse if the NE coast gets whacked by any kind of serious storm...

And the Award for Absolutely No Shame or Competence goes to.....

Maybe some of these 6 figure employees will complain loudly about the crowding/delays with PATH and that will help out regular JC commuters.

As always the govt shells out dough to get these people here, but they don't think about the logistical considerations.

what a joke - who chose this law firm? How do we know if their pricing is competitive or if they are Team Healy friendly? Given that Healy is involved with all abatements seems to me he knows exactly how the development process works.

This is a classic waste of taxpayer money that will yield nothing other than a minor tweak or two so the cronies in power can tell us how they've "fixed" the issues...

is this serious? How could you have children's playgrounds and encourage people to go there if it's massively polluted? Can someone spell this one out? Thanks...

Once again it is clear the only way the city gets out of banana republic status is to get rid of the crooks in office that run the show. The council in no way shape or form is representing the interests of JC homeowners/citizens...

If the federal indictments aren't enough to get rid of them, nothing will change. Property values will drop, taxes will go up.

Understand the mindset of the crooked Council, excluding Fulop:

They're not very bright, they don't know economics/finance beyond a rinky dink level, they know that the majority of JC citizens are apathetic/don't vote, they've flown under the radar for years with nickel and dime graft, AND they're absolutely counting on this current outrage to fizzle out.

They figure that the loud crowd will get frustrated by the slow pace of change and everything will blow over. They figure the media will latch on to something else since there's not likely to be much more coming out of this one.

They're praying every night that some other scandal comes along to take the heat off them.

What this town needs are bigtime journalists doing simple due diligence to figure out just how crooked this city council is. I mean from what I've read on these boards Vega has an upstate NY mansion, a couple pads in Brazil and an art collection. How much does he make in salary? Did he play the market like a fiddle? I doubt it and I'm certain a NYT or WSJ type journalist could probably unearth the cash trail.

The way I see it, if this thing blows over than JC has absolutely no chance of ever changing. It'll roll back over to it's pre-brownstone fever malaise and there'll be a lot of underwater brownstone and condo owners paying exorbitant property taxes.

Absolutely pathetic if this happens. Homeowners are getting absolutely screwed by Vega and his tax abatement granting cronies.

77 Hudson is in the most prime area of JC and is also very high end. Hovanian is a big company and can take their licks, it's not like they're new to this game. They just know a crooked govt when they see one and are taking full advantage.

Very sad, the bad movie script continues. WPLJ radion guys all over this story just now. Described Shaw as one of "healy's best friends."

Smashing the light with a beat up car is perfect. You could then get up to 4500 towards a new car in this cash for clunker gig the govt is doing... Anyone with a low mileage clunker willing to help out?!

The odds of gettting a chance like this (to push these buffoons out) are highly unlikely. If Fulop and those of us frustrated by the banana republic rule can't utilize these federal indictments than I think it's safe to say nothing will ever change in JC...

That said, people please participate in the protests. Send a friend in your place. Numbers will be key to whether the main stream media stays focused on this story. You can rest assured the accused are praying a bigger story comes along fast to deflect attention away from their daily graft....

the door has been cracked open but this is by no means a slamdunk on cleaning up the corruption. Unless the national press keeps the spotlight on this one I could easily see these guys weaseling out of a lot of the charges. The voters are too apathetic to care.

I'm hopeful that this will lead to a more honest/competent JC but I have my doubts given how entrenched the corruption is at multiple levels...

So if Vega and the other JC types are convicted - will they lose their multiple pensions and their free cars? Might help balance the bloated budget a bit...

Remember how Vega put up an Oscar worthy quote around the Crystal Point abatement - something to the effect of "at first I was against the abatement, but upon further investigation we need to do this - what would it say about JC if we have defaulted properties downtown".

I'm sure he thought real hard about doing the right thing or to just vote along with Team Healy....

How much is bail for these clowns and anyone with legal knowledge think these cases are pretty iron clad??

So there were multiple locations where shots were fired. Every time that happens police and bystanders are put at risk. This is wholly unacceptable. My guess is the powers that be are going to sandbag these stories as it starts to paint a really bad picture of a banana republic that's oh 3 miles from the biggest/safest city in the country.

WTF is it going to take to employ some of the strategies mentioned that have been PROVEN to work: cops on beat, broken windows theory, serious jailtime for violent offenses, etc.

Anyone who is so far gone that they'd shoot at police will never be rehabilitated back into society, sorry no chance.

How many "shots at police crimes" is it going to take before people realize that things are out of control?

In light of what happened it seems that some serious show of force is necessary. Clearly the existing system is not working at all...

was it a person, store or home that was robbed on Grove and Montgomery?

Isn't this basically the same area that was robbed when the elite city council had their meeting a few weeks back to give away more tax dollars to Crystal Point developers?

the channel 11 news did not report that Dinardo was doing better.

They said he was still in extremely critical condition and that there had been several police and city officials streaming in and out of his room this morning. The inference was not what any of us were hoping for...

That Atlantic article is a hack piece.

It is indisputable that Goldman alums made the decisions that let Lehman (competitor) go under. Goldman alums also bailed out AIG which allowed Goldman to get paid back 100% on $13 billion of trades where AIG was the counter party. Further GS has enormously benefited from the implicit govt guarantee and the next to 0% interest that they pay for funds. There is also a developing story on GS collecting a vig on electronic trading.

Bottom line is that GS is the most Machavellian of all the banks and absolutely uses their alums in govt to ensure that they get their way as much as possible. Frankly were AIG not bailed out, GS may have been in the same hurt locker as LEH and Bear Stearns...

The building is ho-hum and it basically serves as emergency trading space should downtown NYC come under attack again. That's how much GS thinks of JC...

Wibbit does a good job of outlining the supply case for Paulus Hook/Newport. If Wall Street just stays in a holding pattern, all else equal, that ought to bode well for working off that supply.

I think the demand side of the equation is a bit tougher to gauge. On the brownstone side, most downtown brownstones have roughly tripled since 1998. To put this in markets context, the Dow is negative 2% over the same time horizon and the S&P 500 is down 16% (not including dividends).

I wasn't here in '98 but my guess is things are a lot nicer in downtown, whether they're 3X nicer is tough to say. I think much of what fueled the RE runup was cheap money and more importantly loose credit standards. We still have cheap money but now credit standards are tough and banks are VERY risk averse. I think the new world order will be one where banks don't want to hear from you unless you can put down 20% and have sterling credit/job stats. That said I think the demand side is going to be problematic for RE buyers/owners for a long time; until average US household has a better balance sheet or a new crop of bankers come in that never read the history books.

How this impacts RE pricing is guesswork, but I think the supply side will get better slowly as the demand side stays pretty soft. I could easily see another 15-25% downside, but we're probably not going back to brownstones for 300K around VVP....

This is truly awful and it is making national news, so maybe some outside pressure will be applied to the local banana republic rule that goes on around here.

Imagine if this had gone down around that park on the north side of Wayne that is a known drug den?

As far as I'm concerned anytime you allow areas to be known drug dens you create a combustible situation that flares up every so often. The summer is only getting hotter and something needs to be done about this situation citywide now...

Good stuff Wibbit - one thing I'd throw out there though is that yes GS put up huge numbers but Wall St as a whole is still a good 15% or so off it's 2007 headcount. So Goldman employees will get paid well if their prop desk doesn't blow up over the balance of the year, but on net there are far fewer people employed on Wall St with a 6 figure base. Furthermore, guys at Citi, BofA, etc are all nervous about comp still. Lawyers are derivative of Wall St so there may be fewer 160K first years running around too.

Layer on top the huge oversupply of condos coming to market in JC, Brooklyn and LIC and I think there may be another leg down. Probably not overnight but I see this thing just grinding down for awhile.

Another wild card is how much does the JC Council soak RE owners to pay for all their crony programs that have the city in a California way.

Time will tell, but my brownstone focused homework indicates there's a big disconnect still....

New Heights - I'm looking at this from the perspective of an individual or a family looking to buy or rent a place. I think it's safe to assume that most buyers aren't looking to be a landlord. I understand your criteria for a 3 or 4 family, but I think it only applies to a small percentage of buyers.

From what I'm seeing around VVP, there is no case to buy given what you can get from a rental standpoint...