Slumdog was released 17 weeks ago! And you went on a random Wednesday... The movie was by no means "intelligent," great flick that won best Picture, but that award isn't necessarily reserved for the most "intelligent" movie of the season.

I wonder what movies you normally watch.

I was doing some reading on the Subway line in Beijing on Wikipedia and I thought this was interesting.

"Increasing Capacity. With new lines drawing more riders to the network and the fare reduction making rides more affordable, the subway has experienced severe overcrowding, especially during the rush hour. Operators have often been forced to skip transit stops to avoid delay-induced overcrowding on one line from spilling over to other lines. In response, the subway upgraded signal equipment to increase the frequency of trains and added to the capacity of subway trains. The minimum wait-time has been reduced to 2.5 min. for Lines 1 & 2; 3 min. for Lines 5, 13 & Batong; 3.5 min. for Line 10 and 15 min. for the Airport Line.[46] Lines 13 and Batong have converted 4-car to 6-car trains.[47][48]"


Just wanted to point out that it's going to be another two years before PATH's new signaling system is in place. To put that into context, Beijing's subway has 15+ lines each with 10-25 stations. PATH has three lines and 3-7 stations, many of them shared. The wait on the weekends tops 20 minutes during the day.

I just think it's a shame that everyone is so used to mediocrity that the Port Authority can get away with taking five years to install some lights inside a tunnel that's connected to a central computer.

And GrovePath, please don't post a link suggesting that I go to the PA website to complain. I really don't care that much nor will it make a difference since they'll only say that it's already on the agenda. I mean, we already got new flat screens! HOORAY!

I would say that in our society, income is the best gauge available of one's worth to society. I can't think of a better alternative.

Perhaps to an individual, self-worth and pride is worth more than any type of monetary compensation, but unfortunately, you can't go to a grocery store and expect to use your pride as currency.

Also, the services of garbage collectors is certainly not priceless, I'd say probably between $40-60k a year. Regarding HF managers? Right on point, why do you think so many have liquidated their funds?

I can't believe how much my words have been twisted around. The whole point is that these condos shouldn't be given away, to artists or otherwise. It was purely based on economics, not on what you perceived to be prejudices again the artist community.

And I totally disagree with you that it's because artists live in this area that makes it so popular, people want to live there because it's close to Manhattan and they don't have a pay an arm and a leg to live comfortably.


No one cares if you're an artist, a banker, a baker, a teacher... Get over yourself.

"This is how the city can try keep the Arts in the Powerhouse Arts District you moron. Otherwise they would just call it the Powerhouse Condo District. It's an genuine attempt to preserve some of the diversity of the community that existed there before it became so expensive and trendy. I am an artist who can afford his rent, who lives there too. What do you do for a living troysmith? I'm sure it's more admirable than arts."


Congratulations sir, on being able to afford rent. If this were the norm, then we wouldn't have such a downturn in the housing market and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

As for the comment that the city isn't losing as much tax revenue as I think... That's because they're stealing from the private sector. If you were a condo developer (albeit in this case, a very ill-informed one) and the government takes the fruits of your labor, would you continue building? Of course not.

If this continued, no one would build and all the buildings would become dilapidated. I'd recommend a booked called "Atlas Shrugged" to anyone who thinks that what's going on here is proper and justified.


"So you're all for the market economy but an ex-commodities broker selling 30 basket and soccer balls for $3m is getting away with something."

I think you've missed my point entirely. I think it's great that this person can sell some rubber balls for ?1.2mm+, if more artists were able to do this, I wouldn't be complaining about the mayor!

Are you kidding? Has no one heard of a market economy? I still don't understand why if you're an "artist" you get special privileges. No one forced you to go into a profession that doesn't pay enough for you to afford rent. If there is too little demand for artists, that just means that in a market economy, the supply should naturally decrease. Instead, this is in effect a price ceiling and now there is a deadweight loss that the tax payers and the builder will have to swallow.

I'm sorry, but Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy is clearly mistaken when he said that this is a victory for the city. The city will actually receive LESS TAX REVENUE because they are forcing the units to be sold for $1. Blasphemy I say. And we should all require him to take a college-level economics course because apparently Villanova failed miserably at that.

And I don't feel bad for artists at all when they can get away with this: http://chelseaartgalleries.com/auctions/with?sale=P31&lot=30

i can't believe that the Port Authority is this far behind schedule...

oh wait, no i'm not, these are the people that are "...paying Silverstein $300,000 a day until the sites are cleared and ready for construction under an agreement renegotiated in 2006. The Port also missed another deadline at the end of the year for work on the sites for Towers 2 and 3 and has racked up $60 million worth of fines to date for missing the June and December 2008 deadlines. As a result of the arbitration, the Port and Silverstein have agreed on more detailed guidelines to determine when the sites are done."*

$60mm worth of fines. who foots the bill? the tax payers. with $60mm, they could afford to hire a few more conductors and run more path service on the weekend and nights. but they'd rather just hand over the money to some real estate developers to sit on their bums!


*http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_298/portrecession.html