#real estate board of new york

[communityrealestate]

#real estate board of new york

[dostoyevsky-official]

Business titans privately urged NYC mayor to use police on Columbia protesters, chats show

A group of billionaires and business titans working to shape U.S. public opinion of the war in Gaza privately pressed New York City’s mayor last month to send police to disperse pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, according to communications obtained by The Washington Post and people familiar with the group.

Business executives including Kind snack company founder Daniel Lubetzky, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, billionaire Len Blavatnik and real estate investor Joseph Sitt held a Zoom video call on April 26 with Mayor Eric Adams (D), about a week after the mayor first sent New York police to Columbia’s campus, a log of chat messages shows. During the call, some attendees discussed making political donations to Adams, as well as how the chat group’s members could pressure Columbia’s president and trustees to permit the mayor to send police to the campus to handle protesters, according to chat messages summarizing the conversation.

Some members also offered to pay for private investigators to assist New York police in handling the protests, the chat log shows — an offer a member of the group reported in the chat that Adams accepted.

[...] One member asked if the group could do anything to pressure Columbia trustees to cooperate with the mayor. In reply, former congressman Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), CEO of the American Jewish Committee, shared a PDF of a letter his organization had sent that day to Columbia President Minouche Shafik calling on her to “shut these protests down.”

“Also in touch with the board,” Deutch wrote to the chat group. “So NYPD can return.”

Asked for comment, a spokeswoman for Deutch wrote in an email to The Post that the American Jewish Committee “values all opportunities to engage with various individuals and institutions who support the Jewish people and the State of Israel.” Asked about the chat group and its activities, a Columbia spokesperson wrote, “We have no knowledge of this.”

[...] The chat was initiated by a staffer for billionaire and real estate magnate Barry Sternlicht — who never joined directly, instead communicating through the staffer, according to chat messages and a person close to Sternlicht. In an Oct. 12 message, one of the first sent in the group, the staffer posting on behalf of Sternlicht told the others the goal of the group was to “change the narrative” in favor of Israel, partly by conveying “the atrocities committed by Hamas … to all Americans.”

[...] The chat group formed shortly after the Oct. 7 attack, and its activism has stretched beyond New York, touching the highest levels of the Israeli government, the U.S. business world and elite universities. Titled “Israel Current Events,” the chat eventually expanded to about 100 members, the chat log shows. More than a dozen members of the group appear on Forbes’s annual list of billionaires; others work in real estate, finance and communications.

[...] “He’s open to any ideas we have,” chat member Sitt, founder of retail chain Ashley Stewart and the global real estate company Thor Equities, wrote April 27, the day after the group’s Zoom call with Adams. “As you saw he’s ok if we hire private investigators to then have his police force intel team work with them.”

Cypriot Israeli real estate billionaire Yakir Gabay, a chat member, wrote in a statement shared by a spokesperson that he joined the group because he wanted to “share support at a difficult and painful time,” to aid the victims of Hamas attacks and to “try and correct the false and misleading information intentionally spread worldwide to deny or cover up the suffering caused by Hamas.”

[Deputy mayor Fabien Levy] added, “The insinuation that Jewish donors secretly plotted to influence government operations is an all too familiar antisemitic trope that the Washington Post should be ashamed to ask about, let alone normalize in print.”

[...] Months before the protests at Columbia this spring, some chat members attended private briefings with former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett; Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet; and Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Herzog, according to chat records.

[...] Sternlicht declined to comment on the record, although a person close to him — speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the chat group publicly — confirmed the real estate tycoon initiated the chat. Other members of the chat, including Ackman and Schultz, confirmed their membership.

[...] On Oct. 12, a staffer for Sternlicht relayed a message from his boss outlining the group’s mission: While Israel worked to “win the physical war,” the chat group’s members would “help win the war” of U.S. public opinion by funding an information campaign against Hamas.

The news site Semafor reported in November that Sternlicht was launching a $50 million anti-Hamas media campaign with various Wall Street and Hollywood billionaires.

#antisemitism in action

[feminist-space]

"Two landlord lobbying groups are petitioning the Supreme Court to overturn New York City’s rent stabilization law, which would allow further countrywide challenges to rent control. Real estate billionaires friendly with court justices are backing the move.

...

Samuel Stein, a housing policy analyst at the Community Service Society, an anti-poverty organization in New York, said that if the Supreme Court were to overturn the rent stabilization law, “It’s the end of New York City.”

“Rents would go up significantly around the city,” he continued. “There will be a tremendous amount of displacement. You will have a lot of people leaving New York City, you will have a lot of homelessness, you’ll have a lot of overcrowding.”

A high court ruling wouldn’t just reshape New York, but would also pave the way for legal challenges to the dozens of rent control laws that exist around the country, and many more currently being considered. For example, in 2024, Californians will vote on a ballot measure to repeal the state’s ban on rent control.

At least one group petitioning the court to take the case has substantial ties to both Harlan Crow, the GOP megadonor and Justice Clarence Thomas benefactor, and Paul Singer, the hedge fund billionaire who provided an undisclosed private jet flight to Justice Samuel Alito.

...

The challenge to New York’s rent stabilization law was brought by two major New York landlord lobbying groups: the Rent Stabilization Association (RSA) and the Community Housing Improvement Program (CHIP).

The two organizations spent a combined $4.7 million lobbying as they pushed to block the passage of a sweeping tenant protection law in 2019. The law, which expanded rent stabilization from just New York City to any locality in the state that chooses to opt in, made it more difficult for landlords to remove units from rent stabilization and added new protections to rent-stabilized units.

Just after the law passed, the groups sued the city and state, arguing that the new law and New York City’s existing 1969 rent stabilization law are unconstitutional.

The lawsuit from RSA and CHIP was dismissed by lower courts, most recently the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals. But the groups claimed that their intention was always to reach the Supreme Court.

...

O Over the summer, a flurry of corporate lobbying groups and conservative think tanks submitted amicus briefs urging the Supreme Court to take the case. One of these think tanks has close financial ties to the Supreme Court’s billionaire benefactors.

The ties to Crow, a Texas real estate mogul, are salient as Congress urges the Justice Department to investigate Thomas’s alleged repeated violations of federal ethics laws, in part by accepting a series of undisclosed luxury gifts from Crow over two decades.

...

CHIP and RSA themselves represent major corporate landlords in New York, even as they have often claimed to be the voice of mom-and-pop landlords. (The two groups are reportedly considering merging.)

Major real estate and corporate lobbying groups are urging the high court to hear the case, including the California Business Roundtable, the Real Estate Board of New York, the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Apartment Association.

The Supreme Court will decide on the petition on September 26. If they accept it, justices will decide the case during their 2023–2024 term."

#rent #corrupt supreme court #landlord vampires

[simply-ivanka]

Letitia James Turns the Screws on Trump

The inflated $464 million bond required to appeal effectively denies him due process.

By The Editorial Board

Wall Street Journal

March 18, 2024 

New York Attorney General Letitia James’s use of lawfare to take down Donald Trump is getting uglier by the day. She is now threatening to seize the former President’s assets after effectively denying him the ability to appeal the grossly inflated civil-fraud judgment against him.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers wrote Monday in a court filing that they’ve been unable to obtain a bond to guarantee last month’s $464 million judgment. Defendants are required to post bonds to appeal verdicts. Mr. Trump’s lawyers say securing the full bond would be “impossible” since most of his assets are illiquid.

One way to satisfy the bond would be to borrow against his real-estate holdings. But Mr. Trump’s lawyers say that only a handful of insurance companies have “both the financial capability and willingness to underwrite a bond of this magnitude,” and “the vast majority are unwilling to accept the risk associated with such a large bond.”

What’s more, his lawyers say that none of the insurers that Mr. Trump’s team approached “are willing to accept hard assets such as real estate as collateral for appeal bonds.” This isn’t surprising given the recent write-downs in commercial real estate and enormous uncertainty about their valuations, especially in places like New York. Insurers may also fear Ms. James’s legal retribution if they provide the bond to Mr. Trump.

Thus in order to appeal the judgment, Mr. Trump could have to unload property in a fire sale. If he were later to win on appeal, his lawyers rightly argue that he would have suffered an enormous, irreparable loss.

Ms. James no doubt knows she has Mr. Trump in a bind. She and courts have opposed his requests to reduce the bond even though a court-appointed independent monitor overseeing his businesses eliminates the risk he could dispose of or transfer his assets to make the judgment harder for the state to enforce.

As we wrote last month, the judgment is overkill. None of Mr. Trump’s business partners lost money lending to him or claimed to have been deceived by his erroneous financial statements. No witness during the trial said his alleged misrepresentations changed its loan terms or prices, and there was no evidence that he profited from his alleged deceptions.

Nonetheless, state trial judge Arthur Engoron ordered him to “disgorge” $355 million in “ill-gotten gains.” This sum was based on the interest-rate savings that a financial expert retained by Ms. James estimated Mr. Trump netted from his legerdemain. But this calculation seems dubious since banks said they didn’t alter their loan terms.

The judge also tacked on profits that Mr. Trump putatively made on properties for which he submitted false financial statements without demonstrating that the latter enable the former. He also added “pre-judgment interest” dating back to the day Ms. James launched her investigation in 2019. This makes Mr. Trump liable for alleged wrongdoings before he was even charged. All of this provides plausible grounds for appeal.

Whatever his transgressions, defendants are entitled to due process, which includes the right to appeal. Ms. James is trying to short-circuit the justice system to get Mr. Trump, as she promised she would during her 2018 campaign. Anyone who does business in New York ought to worry about how Ms. James could likewise twist the screws on them.

#trump #trump 2024 #ivanka #americans first #america #america first #repost #president trump #donald trump #democrats #wall street journal #New York #Democrat Corruption

[racefortheironthrone]

Do we have to consider rethinking Spider-Man staying in New York, if we continue thinking of him as working class, given rent hikes over there?

This is a good, if sobering question.

Granted that Peter Parker's class position is wildly in flux across his character history - a freelance photojournalist is in a very different place in terms of economic stability than the science editor at the same paper, ditto a unionized public school teacher, ditto a CEO - let's consider Peter Parker's real estate situation over time.

Back in the 70s, Peter's first real apartment after moving out of Aunt May's house and/or his Empire State University dorms was in Chelsea, roughly at 24th and Ninth Avenue. A one bedroom apartment in that neighborhood would run him about $5,000 a month today.

That's tough to swing, even for Spider-Man. In order not to be officially rent-burdened and stay in that apartment, he'd have to be making $200,000 a year. Depending on how we think the sliding time scale interacts with the New York City Rent Stabilization Board (which largely covers apartment buildings built between 1947 and 1974), it might be a rent stabilized apartment, in which case the rent would be more like $1,300 a month.

If the Parker luck holds, however, he might have to move back home to Forest Hills, Queens where rent isn't an issue because Aunt May is definitely a homeowner.

#marvel #marvel meta #spider-man #nyc #rent

[yagrldariv]

The Big Reveal

Tony Stark x Photographer!Reader

Warnings: Mention of light alcohol consumption, light fluff.

Request: tony stark dating pepper's little sister, reader who is a Photojournalism for the New York Times

A/N: Sorry for the delay, made this a bit longer than I would a regular one-shot. So I hope you like this anon. Just to make the story flow a bit better, Pepper and Tony never dated. Set around the first Iron Man. Sorry for any typos!

When you first applied to the New York Times, you sort of did it as a joke. At least that’s what you told yourself when you were prepping for absolute rejection. But when you got the offer letter you were sooo excited. This was going to be your opportunity to be a part of history. While you were picturing your photos in the Met, you never knew it would be those kind of photos.

As you quickly learned, interning at the New York Times was not quite the same as being a full time photojournalist. You though you would be taking on the heavy-hitter topics like crime, houselesness, corporate greed, arms dealings. And yet, here you were taking photos of potholes for someone else’s 20th page column about infrastructure. But at least you got paid for it (if you were speaking technically).

After your session uptown, you started heading for the subway towards home when your phone starting ringing.

The screen lit of bright with a photo of you and your big sister and you swiped to answer, “Pepps!! Heyy everything ok?”.

Between you schlepping around the city and her being an assistant for the worlds wealthiest businessman, your schedules never seems to line up.

“Everything is great, I just wanted to see if you were free”, Pepper yelled something to someone in the background before continuing, “I’m gonna be uptown for a few hours at an event, I’d love to see you”.

You stopped on the steps toward the subway, contemplating her proposal. “Ya know Pepps, those really aren’t my thing”.

Pepper groaned on the other end, “C’monnnn Y/N. I miss you, plus there’s free food drinks”.

You hesitated, you couldn’t pass up on both your sister and free food, but you were tired and the idea of laying in bed was sounding better and better as time ticked on.

“You can even bring your camera and take photos if you want”. She knew exactly which buttons to press.

“You said you this was uptown right? I can be there in 10 minutes.”

*Later that evening*

What you thought was going to be some A-list event with lots of opportunity to get a story, turned out to be a private board event for some financial company you’d never even heard of. And you hadn’t even seen Pepper yet. At least she was right about the champagne and the hors d'oeuvres.

After another hour of random applause and squirreling away mini quiche at the back of the room, you were ready to leave. You started packing your camera bag when you heard some rustling on the table behind you.

“Ya know all night I was looking for the waiter that had the spinach ones and low and behold, they were being hoarded back here.”

You turned around and your cheeks got hot. Not only did your mini stash just get raided, you also had to explain to your sister that’s how you met her boss.

Tony Stark stood in front of you in all of his tailored glory, pointing to the quiche as you just stared. You were trying to find the right words to respond but all you could muster was ‘You’re way more handsome in person’, and you definitely were NOT saying that.

“Well I’m taking the ‘standing and staring but not saying anything’ as code for these are free real estate, so thank you”.

You finally snapped mustered up the ability to think and finally responded “Yeah sorry, they’re all yours, I was actually heading out”.

“So soon? You mean to tell me the musing of a bunch of old geezers isn’t the hottest place to be on a Friday night?” Tony teased, popping a mini quiche in his mouth.

You laughed, “Please, this is way too cool for me. I just came here to meet my sister, but she never showed, you probably kept her pretty busy”

His jaw dropped, “No way! Potts is your sister? I didn’t know she had family around here”.

Tony grabbed the plate of quiche in one hand, extending his free one in your direction, “I’ll take you to her. On the way you can answer my questions,” he paused and looked you straight in the eye, and you could feel your back start to sweat “I have about 100”.

Tony led you towards the elevators and up to the top floor , the whole time he was actually asking you questions about Pepper, not realizing he was actually serious. You struggled to focus on answers as the heat from his hand was all you could think about.

“Ok ok last one, are you absolutely certain Pepper is was a human child at some point and was not a factory built android”

A voice shouted from down the hall “I heard that Tony!” and a yellow stress ball came flying right after. Pepper poked her head out from an office a few doors down to see Tony catch the ball that was headed for your face.

“C’mon Pepper, what happened to aim? We almost had a civilian casualty here.”, he teased.

The two of you made it to her office where she had been typing away at something. Tony moved his hand to the small of your back as he stepped out of the door way, letting you enter first.

“Pepps when will you be done? I thought I was coming to see you?” You approached her desk, hugging her shoulders from behind as she worked.

“We’ll thank Mr. Stark over there, someone just had to cancel appearances we had already agreed to months ago and now I’m sending out apology emails.”

“To be fair, those things are a total snooze fest. Case in point, the senior citizen meetup happening downstairs ”, Tony chimed from the corner.

“We’ll then I guess I will just head home, there’s not a single news worthy story down there I could present to my boss and not get laughed out of the room”. You gave Pepper one last hug, thanked Tony for walking you up and heads back towards the elevator.

Before you got halfway there you heard rapid footsteps coming up behind you. You turned and Tony was there.

“Hey Y/N let me make it up to you. I kinda feel a little bad you came all the way here and didn’t see your sister. Since she’s working, can I at least drive you home?” For once it was sincerity and not sarcasm in his tone.

“It’s not big deal, I’m only about 15 minutes away if I take the subway”. You clicked the ‘down’ button on the elevator.

Tony reached, lighting touching the back of your arm. Heat instantly rushed to your skin where his fingers were lingering.

“I’ll give you an exclusive. Stark Industries is about to make a pivot and I’ll let you drop the story. How’s that sound?”.

You could not contain the smile on your face. Breaking a story like that, would literally change the trajectory of your career.

You brain was rapid firing as you were trying to form sentences “What-wh-why would you do that for me?”

Tony grabbed the camera bag from your hand, walking into the elevator that just arrived “Well because your Potts sister, first of all” he held the door for you as you entered the tiny space. “And I can’t let such a beautiful girl like yourself walk home alone at night when my driver is just right downstairs”.

You opened your mouth to object but Tony cut you off, “I’m only giving that story if I can make sure you get home safely”.

And so of course you obliged. You climbed in the back seat of his car, cheeks red as your mind lingered on Tony’s comment. You’d always found him attractive, as most women probably did. But there was something about knowing that attraction was reciprocated. It gave you butterflies watching him slide into the adjacent seat.

“So, Y/N, where to?”

In the first 15 minutes of the drive, Tony upheld his end of the bargain. He let you photograph him a few times, and answered all of your questions fully in depth. But then Tony started asking you the questions. You obliged at first, thinking it would make him more comfortable to keep talking about Stark Industries. But after awhile it felt less like an interview and more like a conversation with an old friend. The topics getting more and more personal.

So much so that you didn’t realize you had already parked in front of you apartment building. And had been for the last 2 hours according to the time on your watch. You also didn’t notice how close he had gotten. Your thighs were flush against one another and you could see the flecks in his brown eyes.

Your throat was suddenly very dry and you barely squeaked out, “Well I guess I should head upstairs”.

“You sure you want to?” Tony’s eyes bore into yours and you couldn’t look away.

You definitely didn’t want to, but you felt like you should. However you made no effort to move, it felt like you were frozen in your seat. Tony never took his eyes off you and you gulped. The proximity and sudden silence was making it the car hot.

“You’re doing that ‘staring but not speaking’ thing again” he chuckled, “It’s cute”.

If it was even possible you cheeks got even hotter, “Sorry I’m just trying to think here”.

Tony smiled, “Well here’s another option since you don’t seem ready to go home,” he slid his hand into your, kissing the back of it, “We can get a drink, keep talking”.

Tony lent forward, close enough that you could feel his breath fan across your face. Your breath hitched as his free hand cupped the side of your face.

“How’s that sound?” You nose filled with the sweet smell of mint as he spoke.

Still at a loss for words, you did the only thing you could think of in that moment and kissed him.

You thought he would’ve pulled away, but he leant in even more. He removed his hand from your and placed it on the other side of your face.

You two sat this kissing for what felt like forever, but it was just until you ran out of air.

Tony still had his hands on your cheeks, his thumbs rubbing circles against the soft skin, “Well I’m just gonna take that as a yes”.

*5 Months Later*

You and Tony were sitting at the back booth of one of his favorite places in the city. The two of you had decided it was best for you and your career that the topic of your relationship stay private.

Your palms were sweaty and you kept fidgeting and Tony noticed. He placed his hands over yours, making you look at him.

His brown eyes were soft, not a lick of worry to be found.

“What if she hates me?” Your voice laced with worry.

“If there’s anyone to hate here it’s probably me.”

The last few month have been absolutely amazing and not just with Tony.

The article you wrote using your conversation on that night really impressed your boss. It ran front page that Sunday on both print and online. You were finally offered a full time position after a month of busting your ass to prove you had more to say.

Tony, of course had been so ecstatic. He cancelled all his appointments and took you on a week long vacation to Greece to celebrate your promotion. It was there you really got to see Anthony, not Tony Stark the billionaire. That sarcastic facade he puts up was just for protection. He was extremely caring and noticed the smallest of details.

Once you two got back into the real world, you thought things would change, that he would be too busy to see you. But somehow he always always made the effort. He always managed to treat you to a date night at least once a week, sometimes as much as your schedule would allow. He’d surprise you with giant bouquets of flowers at work, making everyone in the office jealous. Eyebrows always raised at who the secret admirer could be.

You tried to keep your thoughts positive as you sit in the familiar restaurant but stress creeped it’s way in.

“I don’t know Tony, maybe we shouldn’t tell her. I think you still might have time to run out the back”, your eyes scanning the room for any signs of her.

Tony laughed, a sound that always soothed you. You took a deep breath and realized you were being a little ridiculous.

Tony lent across the table, taking his hand from your and placed it on your chin, “Hey look at me, you got nothing to worry about”.

Just as you calmed down you spotted her enter the restaurant. You waved her toward you table and stood as she approached. You met her half way and wrapped your arms around her.

“Y/N!! It’s been so long! I’m so happy to finally see you. That new job has been keeping you busy it seems”, she squeezed you tight and you chuckled nervously.

“I know Pepps, it’s been crazy. Why don’t we sit and catch up. There is someone I want you to meet”.

Pepper glanced toward the table you got up from and eyed the brown haired man “Oh, you didn’t tell me there’d be a plus one”.

You arrived at the table and your back was sweating profusely.

“Hey Pepper” Tony stood and pulled her in a hug.

You expected to see surprise or concern on her face but it was the opposite. Pepper was smiling profusely and your anxiety turned to confusion.

“Well finally, god it took you long enough” she said as she slid into the booth.

“What do you mean”, your asked.

“You two are finally being honest. I’ve been waiting for this ‘big reveal’ for months” she explained.

Tony on the other side of the booth laughed, “Well cars out of the bag I guess”.

You still were confused, you two had been so careful. Never walked out together. Tony paid off any paparazzi that happened to get a photo of the two of you together. He even had Jarvis routinely scour the internet and purge any photos that might’ve leaked.

“What? You thought you were that discreet?”Pepper spoke, noticing you still looked confused she continued, “I make Tony’s schedules for Gods sake. How many months doe you think it takes of the two coincidentally being unavailable at the same time for me to put two and two together”.

“Plus Tony never his his flower receipts, I called and got the delivery address and knew that was your apartment building”, She said before taking a sip of water.

It now clicked for you, realizing you hadn’t been as discreet as you thought. And you just laughed, for a good 30 seconds before they other two joined you.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” You questioned your sister.

“I don’t know, seems like it was something you wanted to tell me in your own time, and it got Tony out of my hair” she laughed.

You nodded and the table fell silent.

Tony was the first to pipe up

“Now that we’ we gotten that over with, who’s hungry?”

#tony stark #tony stark x reader #d writes #Tony stark one shot #tony stark imagine #Tony stark blurb #tony stark fluff #mcu tony stark #MCU #marvel fanfiction #tony stark fanfiction #Tony stark fanfic #asked and answered

[neonponders]

For @billyhargrovebingo​​ 📚

~ read on ao3 ~

C2 - Bookstore AU

• • •

Billy had meant to buy a new car. His old blue beauty was still going strong, even if she creaked through left turns and the air conditioning went out every summer.

The price was right, and Billy might not know a lot about real estate, but he knew books. And the whole location, location, location thing.

There just wasn’t a bookstore where both kids and adults could be taken seriously, ie. comic books as well as the New York Times’ hoity toity favorites list. Billy had distinct, annoyed memories of having to travel across his California home town just to get the stack of Spider-Man and novels that he wanted. Not to mention the amount of times he’d had to listen to his stepsister complain about walking into a comic book store like the grown ass men had never seen a woman before...

So he bought it.

It was a real fixer-upper, but he bought it, and that felt great. The ground floor was the store, and he could renovated the second floor too, but he didn’t have the money to rent an apartment and get a business off the ground.

So he lived on the second floor’s barebones floors while the electrical and plumbing got sorted out. The summer heat had certainly sweetened the price on this place - air conditioning units were a small fortune - but as they say, some like it hot, and Billy never shied away from heat.

That gave him an idea. Aside from his pillow and mattress right on the floor, the first thing to go into his new shop was the movie poster for Some Like it Hot. It went right onto the one finished wall of the place: a typical brick wall. Terrible for insulation, and Billy didn’t give one rat’s ass about it.

Slowly but surely, his money dripped into the repairs on the place. He collected more and more pictures for the walls, a whole stack of frames upstairs just waiting to be mounted. The place was going to be a real queer dump when he was through with it:

Plants everywhere. Pictures of men in drag for movies and stage. If things finally settled, he’d get a shop cat. Or a dog. The laziest geriatric the shelter had. A record player was a must. Between the books, ambiance, furry shopkeeper, and plants, if some stiff even noticed all the queer on the walls, then Billy could keep a sheet of gold star stickers for his ass to get kissed on their way out.

That was the dream. Dreaming is easier than building.

Maybe the heat did get to his head, because somewhere in July, Billy officially lost it. The floor of the upstairs wasn’t finished, meaning that he had to be very careful with his showers, or else create water damage in both his home and business. He was officially in debt, because goddamn books were expensive the longer her held onto them because the shop wasn’t ready yet. He was walking on unstable floorboards in his own home, so how the hell was he supposed to bring a hookup over to blow off some steam?

Welcome to my place. If you fall through my bookshop’s ceiling, you’re paying for it.

The final straw was a bug. Admittedly, Billy didn’t know what termites looked like, but a small bug crawling out of one of those goddamn boards just did him in. He ripped the floor up, throwing down shards and heavy boards of wood. Soon, he didn’t have a second floor at all. Just a staircase that didn’t even connect to a loft holding up a poor excuse for a kitchenette -

“Uh, hello?”

The short curl right at the top of Billy’s forehead stuck to his sweaty skin as he stood up straight, and looked into the fresh face of a tall guy with huge brown eyes and a crown of soft, glossy hair on his head. “What d’you need?” Billy said gruffly.

That cupid’s mouth gaped like a fish until he scrounged together, “I work next door at the ice cream shop. I heard the noise, I thought you were being robbed.”

That explained why the guy somehow didn’t sweat in July. Billy shamelessly opened his arms at his travesty of an investment. “Steal what?”

Those big doe eyes wandered, clearly looking for an answer. He pointed at the Marilyn Monroe poster. “Anything with Marilyn on it sells.”

“It’s a poster,” Billy clipped.

“A big one,” the guy corrected, stepping onto the staircase to touch the corner of the frame. “The kind that might’ve been in the theaters when the movie released. You’d be surprised how much movie nerds would pay for this.”

“Well that’s great. Really great. Will it pay for a new floor and ceiling? Otherwise Marilyn isn’t buying me shit.”

That closed the guy’s mouth and he preoccupied himself with reading over the names on the poster. Then from memory, he recited, “And why would a guy wanna marry another guy?”

“For security,” Billy huffed.

All at once, the ice cream man smiled at him. And...Billy should’ve invested in ice cream.

“The movie hasn’t aged well, but I always liked that joke. Sometimes Hollywood accidentally gets things right. So,” his shoes clapped the floor as he stepped off the stairs, “you need some fresh lumber. It’s good that you rage-ripped these up. If they were from old trees, they’d be sturdy, but these were cheap when they were put in.”

Billy cocked a brow at him. “You know construction?”

“My dad’s a contractor. Well, that’s the easy way of putting it. He’s a real snob about architecture and real estate.”

“Then why aren’t you working for him? Sounds like there’s real money there.”

“Because in my dad’s effort to make me a respectable man like him, he made me too much like him. We can’t exist in the same room together for more than fifteen minutes.”

Billy huffed a laugh and kicked a plank of wood out of his way. “Yeah. I get that.”

“Do you have power tools?”

“I have one drill and a spare battery.”

“I know a guy who can loan you saw horse and an electric saw. Hell, show him your lack of a ceiling, and he might just build it for you. He’s a retired guy who needs the chores. Just pay for the supplies and lunch, and he’s in.”

“I’m not interested in an old man breaking his leg for my pursuits. That’ll only make the property value go down further when I try and get rid of this place.

The guy put his hands on his hips and looked around, visibly thinking hard on something. “What about two losers who don’t have anything better to do?”

Billy smiled. “Who’d you have in mind?”

That’s how Billy met Robin Buckley. And Steve. His name was Steve.

Billy couldn’t be sure which was more frightening: a retired carpenter with rickety bones, or a lesbian with a power drill walking over the beams overhead. But the three of them got the floor reinstated that afternoon, and the following morning, Robin and Steve arrived with linoleum and caulk to finish and waterproof his floor.

Even more, Steve got the fire department and city to repair the fire escape in the alley between the bookshop and the ice cream parlor. He shrugged when Billy asked him about it. “Some things have to be built to code. Code name: Harrington. Are those fries?”

Billy smiled and slapped the fast food bag against his abdomen. Steve took it eagerly and stuffed four fries into his gullet. Billy couldn’t believe his luck at having one of the city’s precious heirs getting humbled in the ice cream shop next door.

Steve’s opening day gift to him was a movie projector. After hanging up a white sheet in the back of the shop, they played Some Like it Hot while Billy rang up the first purchases from his shelves.

And yet...even with money finally dripping back into his pockets, Billy looked forward to 4pm, when the ice cream shop closed and Steve and Robin strolled into his place with a carton of chocolate-chocolate chunk, and a gift collar and leash for the old German shepherd mutt waiting to be picked up that Friday.

As the movie said, “It’s not how long you wait, it’s who you’re waiting for.”

#harringrove #book shop!au #neonponders #billyhargrovebingo #billy bingo #ficlet

[jordannuni]

Jordan Nuni is a skilled professional in the hedge fund industry, currently employed at Xena Capital, a renowned multi-strategy hedge fund previously located in New York City and now headquartered in Miami Beach. Since November 2016, he has been instrumental in helping Xena Capital achieve appealing risk-adjusted profits using a methodical approach that merges fundamental models with tactical market tools. Nuni's proficiency spans across both equity and credit sectors, enabling Xena to provide clients with returns that are independent of traditional markets.

Before his time at Xena Capital, Mr. Nuni worked as an analyst on the investment team at Birch Grove Capital for a period of three years. During this tenure, his focus was on employing long/short strategies in equities, corporate credit, and structured credit. His duties included conducting quantitative and qualitative analyses, engaging in event-driven investments, and overseeing a substantial portfolio of structured credit assets.

Prior to his role at Birch Grove Capital, Mr. Nuni served as an analyst at WMD Capital, where he managed fixed income portfolios consisting of whole loans. His responsibilities at WMD Capital showcased his expertise in loan analysis, mortgage securitization, and real estate valuation.

Jordan Nuni pursued his education in business economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In his leisure time, he finds joy in playing golf and restoring classic Mustangs from the mid-60s.

Additionally, Jordan Nuni holds a position on the board of the Iron Horse Party, a organization that backs ALS Research and collaborates with the ALS Foundation in New York City. It is noteworthy that Xena Capital is a distinguished sponsor of this charity.

[1988hc]

I love you, but I can't

1988, 1.8k words, hurt no comfort, break up, unhealthy relationship dynamics, unhappy ending

“I can have it painted. Remodel.” “But you won’t.” Sometimes it’s really fucking inconvenient how well Jonny knows him. How stubbornly he insists on demonstrating it. How Jonny always knows better. “Then what will you have me do? Live out of the team hotel?” Pat can feel his heart beating faster, his muscles tensing, everything in him shoring up for a fight, another blow of epic proportions. It’s one of Jonny’s worst qualities, how he can be this brick wall that Pat smashes himself against again and again, grinding himself into dust.

“Don’t buy it. You can’t live there,” Jonny says, because he’s a weirdo who doesn’t know how to start a phone conversation with ‘hello’.

Patrick rolls his eyes, glad that Jonny can’t see him, and closes out their now moot text thread to pull up the real estate listing again. “Why? What’s wrong with it?”

He swipes through the pictures, even though he’s seen them all before. It’s a nice apartment. Marble countertops, floor to ceiling windows, good neighborhood…

“It’s a shoebox,” Jonny complains, sounding offended on Patrick’s behalf. Which is oddly sweet, in a very roundabout Jonny way, but also entirely misguided.

“It’s a two bedroom. I’m not gonna need a home theater and basement gym and rooftop garden, and nobody’s asking me to shelter any rookies.” It’s just gonna be Patrick living there, how much space could he possibly need? “I’ll hardly be here, anyways.”

He doesn’t specify whether he means during the season or long-term. In too many ways still, he doesn’t want to be here. But he has to be, for now.

“Travel in the east is a lot shorter, you’ll be there more than you know.”

Looks like Jonny is still as loath to talk about the future as Pat is thinking about it. At least they still have something in common.

“I can’t afford a bigger place. Prices in New York are crazy, man.”

Jonny laughs. It’s not mean, per se, but something about it still stings. “Like fuck you can’t. I’ve seen your accounts.”

Pat doesn’t really want a bigger place. It’s not like Jonny will be there, taking up space with his clutter and his presence and his dreams of buying a dog. It’s just gonna be Pat rattling around in there, and he doesn’t want to get lost wandering aimlessly from empty room to empty room, thinking what could’ve been. He doesn’t know how to say any of that to Jonny, though, doesn��t want this to end in another fight.

“What about this one instead?” He sends Jonny another link.

It’s slightly bigger, and consequently a lot more expensive. Fucking New York, man. Pat’s not really relishing the idea of dropping so much money on a place he has no idea how long he’s even gonna be in. The team had offered to board him in a hotel for the remainder of the season, but that prospect is even more unappealing than buying something short term. ‘New York is a hot market, you can always flip it,’ Steve, his finance guy, had said, and Pat didn’t have any retort to that, so he’d started to make some calls.

“No,” Jonny says, quick enough that he can’t have done much more than pull up the site and glance at the listing.

Pat pinches the bridge of his nose. He only had a question about the energy rating and thermal insulation methods because he remembered vaguely reading something about long term health effects, but he really should’ve known better than to ask Jonny. It’s a hard habit to kill, still his first instinct whenever he turns around, to ensure Jonny’s on board with any major decision because for the longest time it used to be imperative he was. That’s what you do when you’re together. Jonny’s always been his go-to person.

And Pat misses that. More than the team, and the UC, and playing for a franchise he grew up in, that’s been so good to him, in a city that felt like home. He misses having Jonny there, a steady presence by his side, misses having someone to talk to, someone who’ll give Pat his honest opinion. Jonny used to be his sounding board and his reality check and his rock. But Pat’s in New York now, chasing a long buried dream, and Jonny is playing what’s gonna be his last games in Chicago, even if neither of them is willing to admit it yet.

Just another giant elephant in the room. There’s so many nowadays Pat feels like he’s barely got space left to breathe, skirting from one conversational land mine to another, always on tiptoes, braced for the next explosion. It’s why he went, and Jonny stayed.

“Too small?” He asks, and fails to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Jonny scoffs, but doesn’t rise to the bait. “It’s ugly.”

It’s true, the walls are a putrid yellow color that made Pat flinch the first time he saw it, and the all black kitchen isn’t exactly his style.

“I can have it painted. Remodel.”

“But you won’t.”

Sometimes it’s really fucking inconvenient how well Jonny knows him. How stubbornly he insists on demonstrating it. How Jonny always knows better.

“Then what will you have me do? Live out of the team hotel?” Pat can feel his heart beating faster, his muscles tensing, everything in him shoring up for a fight, another blow of epic proportions.

It’s one of Jonny’s worst qualities, how he can be this brick wall that Pat smashes himself against again and again, grinding himself into dust. Jonny can be so goddamn absolute, hard and unforgiving, managing to make Pat feel dumb and small and stupid for trying. Pat bites his lip, using the pain as a focal point to push the tears threatening to spill over back down, tries to breathe even though his chest feels tight. He can’t even tell whether it’s frustration or hurt that’s making him feel this way, emotions he’s not willing to examine bubbling inside him, vulnerable and raw.

Maybe he’d know if he’d gone to therapy like Jonny wanted him to, but Pat didn’t particularly feel like letting a stranger tell him all the things he was doing wrong in their relationship. He got enough from Jonny on that.

Jonny’s breathing on the other end of the line, so Pat knows the call hasn’t disconnected. Jonny’s quiet, though, probably clenching his jaw and staring off into the distance, drawn inward and fucking impenetrable, alone with his thoughts, leaving Pat like a stranger standing outside, banging against the door begging to be let inside.

This is why they stopped working together, why Pat had to go away, break free.

A tiny part of Pat had hoped that with distance, not seeing each other every day fighting over unopened mail and dirty dishes and stinky socks on a wet bathroom floor, it would get better. That maybe having some time away from each other would allow them both to find their equilibrium again. Instead Pat’s never felt more off-kilter, trying to acclimate to a new team and new city, everything suddenly blue and loud and big, and even winning had felt strange somehow, like Pat didn’t really deserve it.

“What about this one,” Jonny says, because when shit gets tough he’s always liked to retreat to the task at hand, as if everything would somehow magically fix itself if Jonny could just ignore it long enough. Pat’s phone plings with another link. He swipes the notification away.

Nothing’s really changed. It’s been a couple weeks now, and Pat thought that maybe— but Jonny’s still barely talking to him, and when he does it’s about inane stuff, or this. No matter how hard Pat tries, somehow they always end up fighting. They used to be on the same side, but now there’s a rift between them, and Pat doesn’t know which one of them switched sides, or when, or how.

It would be easier if it were something tangible. If someone had cheated, or said something stupid, or whatever. Then they could’ve fought about it, and it would’ve been ugly and a shitshow, but they could’ve moved past it eventually. Or at least Pat would’ve known why they stopped working. Instead it’s been this, a slow death that Pat hadn’t recognized before he’d woken up one morning and suddenly found himself on the outside of Jonny’s fortifications, a wall impossible to scale.

He’s so fucking tired.

The link is an olive branch of sorts, a chance for them to keep talking.

But Pat’s been down this road too many times before.

Jonny’s gonna send him links of condos that Pat is gonna hate, if not for the condos themselves then for that fact that Jonny picked them, Pat resenting that he let Jonny have a say in this and yet unable to tell him to back off. So he’s gonna end up giving in to one of Jonny’s choices just to keep the peace, and resent Jonny even more for it, and himself for being a pushover, and Jonny will be annoyed that Pat’s crabby, and he won’t understand what the problem is when Pat tries to talk about it, because Pat agreed to the condo didn’t he, and if he doesn’t like the condo why did he buy it, when it isn’t even about the goddamn condo. It’s never been about the condo, or money, or their last summer vacation, or Pat spending Christmas with his family, or Jonny’s kooky nutritionist and faith crystal healer, or the right AC setting at night.

It’s always been about them. And Pat can’t do it anymore.

He tried, he tried so goddamn fucking hard. But nothing Pat tries ever makes a difference, nothing he does will ever be good enough, nothing he says manages to get through to Jonny anymore.

He’s been shut out, with no way in.

The rift between them is yawning, a gaping abyss, and Pat can feel it swallow him whole.

“Sorry, Jonny, I don’t think this—” Pat chokes halfway through the sentence, all the old hurt and anger flooding through him anew, an unhealed wound someone’s picked off the scab bleeding fresh and scarlet red. “I have to go.”

He hits disconnect, not giving Jonny a chance to reply.

A drop hits the black screen of his cell phone, and Pat pushes it away, buries his head in his arms folded on the table, and cries. Ugly, wracking sobs that shake his whole body, and once he’s let go is like an avalanche, the dam breaking, the flood sweeping every last, flimsy defense away, leaving Pat floating and unmoored.

It hurts worse than anything Pat’s ever felt before. His chest is the epicenter of it all, pain radiating outwards to his limbs, like someone drove an ice pick straight through his sternum. He tries to curl up, but it’s no use. The pain is inside him, there’s no refuge. It’s cold and cruel, a gaping hole where he used to be whole, like someone’s gone and ripped away a piece of Patrick.

Gone gone gone. Should’ve known better, should’ve tried harder. I hate you, I miss you, I need you. Fucking why, I’m so fucking tired, why did it have to end like this. I can’t I can’t I can’t, oh God.

Why do I fucking love you. Why does it have to hurt like this.

No matter how tight he screws his eyes shut, the truth is right there, staring him in the face, hammering behind his temples to the beat of the ice pick getting hammered into his chest, a steady drum ripping Pat apart.

Pat needs to get out. He needs to breathe. He can’t do this anymore.

Him and Jonny are over.

#1988

[elekinetic]

How do you envision Nancy’s future?

we have Boarded The Vessel.

Nancy moves to boston for college. She goes to emerson and gets involved in radio. she ends up involved in a heavy rivalry between emerson's and harvard's radio stations. jonathan goes to nyu and they do long distance again, but this time its a lot healthier. they see each other at least once a month and try for more. post-vecna/UD shit i like to think that the govt paid them BIG BIG money to shut up (and as compensation). nancy uses her share to invest in real estate. she buys a small condo in connecticut and slowly flips it over the course of a few years. (this is where she and jonathan meet up a lot.) she enjoyed working on hop's cabin, and its a fun side gig for her. post-college she sells the place and uses the money to buy an apartment in new york. she and jonathan move in together, and eventually she flips it and they move closer into the city. nancy works as an investigative reporter for the NYTimes (and then AP for a minute before moving back to the Times). she wins a pulitzer in the late 90s for an exposé on a state senatorial bribery scandal, which was directly responsible for the defunding of DV/abuse shelters and eliminated pro-bono medical practices. jonathan does photojournalism for a bit, but finds his niche in arts photography. he and nancy have a kid when they're in their mid-thirties. a girl. nancy isn't the perfect mom, but she does everything she can to be what her mother couldn't. jonathan is a fantastic dad and a great partner, despite his insecurities. their kid grows up feeling loved. she likes her grandma joyce and her aunt holly best, but she guesses her parents are pretty cool too.

#the radio station stuff is a real thing but im just projecting #its vicious out here #this turned into a jancy thing but ykw im not mad #jancy #i love em #comic con panel #thank u for asking this

[rockislandadultreads]

Women’s History Month: More Nonfiction Recommendations

The Barbizon by Paulina Bren

Welcome to New York's legendary hotel for women.

Liberated from home and hearth by World War I, politically enfranchised and ready to work, women arrived to take their place in the dazzling new skyscrapers of Manhattan. But they did not want to stay in uncomfortable boarding houses. They wanted what men already had - exclusive residential hotels with maid service, workout rooms, and private dining.

Built in 1927, at the height of the Roaring Twenties, the Barbizon Hotel was designed as a luxurious safe haven for the "Modern Woman" hoping for a career in the arts. Over time, it became the place to stay for any ambitious young woman hoping for fame and fortune. Sylvia Plath fictionalized her time there in The Bell Jar, and, over the years, it's almost 700 tiny rooms with matching floral curtains and bedspreads housed, among many others, Titanic survivor Molly Brown; actresses Grace Kelly, Liza Minnelli, Ali MacGraw, Jaclyn Smith; and writers Joan Didion, Gael Greene, Diane Johnson, Meg Wolitzer. Mademoiselle magazine boarded its summer interns there, as did Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School its students and the Ford Modeling Agency its young models. Before the hotel's residents were household names, they were young women arriving at the Barbizon with a suitcase and a dream.

Not everyone who passed through the Barbizon's doors was destined for success - for some, it was a story of dashed hopes - but until 1981, when men were finally let in, the Barbizon offered its residents a room of their own and a life without family obligations. It gave women a chance to remake themselves however they pleased; it was the hotel that set them free. No place had existed like it before or has since.

D-Day Girls by Sarah Rose

In 1942, the Allies were losing, Germany seemed unstoppable, and every able man in England was on the front lines. To “set Europe ablaze,” in the words of Winston Churchill, the Special Operations Executive  (SOE), whose spies were trained in everything from demolition to sharpshooting, was forced to do something unprecedented: recruit women. Thirty-nine answered the call, leaving their lives and families to become saboteurs in France.

In D-Day Girls, Sarah Rose draws on recently de­classified files, diaries, and oral histories to tell the thrilling story of three of these remarkable women. There’s Andrée Borrel, a scrappy and streetwise Parisian who blew up power lines with the Gestapo hot on her heels; Odette Sansom, an unhappily married suburban mother who saw the SOE as her ticket out of domestic life and into a meaningful adventure; and Lise de Baissac, a fiercely independent member of French colonial high society and the SOE’s unflap­pable “queen.” Together, they destroyed train lines, ambushed Nazis, plotted prison breaks, and gathered crucial intelligence - laying the groundwork for the D-Day invasion that proved to be the turning point in the war.

Heiresses by Laura Thompson

Heiresses: surely they are among the luckiest women on earth. Are they not to be envied, with their private jets and Chanel wardrobes and endless funds? Yet all too often those gilded lives have been beset with trauma and despair. Before the 20th century a wife’s inheritance was the property of her husband, making her vulnerable to kidnap, forced marriages, even confinement in an asylum. And in modern times, heiresses fell victim to fortune-hunters who squandered their millions.

Heiresses tells the stories of these million dollar babies: Mary Davies, who inherited London’s most valuable real estate, and was bartered from the age of twelve; Consuelo Vanderbilt, the original American “Dollar Heiress”, forced into a loveless marriage; Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth heiress who married seven times and died almost penniless; and Patty Hearst, heiress to a newspaper fortune who was arrested for terrorism. However, there are also stories of independence and achievement: Angela Burdett-Coutts, who became one of the greatest philanthropists of Victorian England; Nancy Cunard, who lived off her mother's fortune and became a pioneer of the civil rights movement; and Daisy Fellowes, elegant linchpin of interwar high society and noted fashion editor.

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly 

Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space.

Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in the South’s segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America’s aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had a shot at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam’s call, moving to Hampton, Virginia and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory.

Even as Virginia’s Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley’s all-black “West Computing” group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and complete domination of the heavens.

Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement and the Space Race, Hidden Figures follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden, four African American women who participated in some of NASA’s greatest successes. It chronicles their careers over nearly three decades they faced challenges, forged alliances and used their intellect to change their own lives, and their country’s future.

#women's history month #women's history #history #nonfiction #nonfiction books #Nonfiction Reading #Library Books #Book Recommendations #book recs #reading recommendations #Reading Recs #TBR pile #tbr #to read #tbrpile #Want To Read #book blog #library blog #Booklr #book tumblr

[resolutedoubt]

While monied industry groups merely affect the posture of grassroots action and woke language while advancing high level political and legal crusades, small landlords like Lincoln Eccles, uniquely affected both by the pandemic’s economic precarity and its emergency regulations, have taken to the streets and Twitter, where they trumpet slogans like “landlords are people too,” “justice for mom’n’pop housing providers,” and “small landlord lives matter.” Some have even rebranded themselves as “indentured landlords,” “carelords,” and “community-based landlords.” When the New York City Council mulled a bill to target discrimination against formerly incarcerated tenants, a state committee member and shareholder of a Bronx gated community, spun it as “The End of Black Landlords.”

This narrative—and the cash machine behind it—has proven effective in swaying politicians, blunting tenant progress. It was reportedly influential in stopping Good Cause Eviction for the fifth straight year. Discussing the bill, a central Brooklyn assembly member representing a district of nearly three quarters Black renters argued that regulating rent increases would actually lead to “Black grandmas out on the street.” New York Mayor Eric Adams, himself a landlord, said in February that it’s important to “remember that small property owner—who came from the Caribbean [and] was able to buy a ten-unit house—how their increases are going up, what they’re going through.” When pressed by a Holocaust survivor tenant about city-wide rent increases on stabilized units approved by the Rent Guidelines Board, the members of which he appoints, Adams accused her talking to him like a “plantation owner.”

This pernicious rhetoric has succeeded not only at moving liberals but at arming conservatives, offering them the guise of populism while muddying the waters of debate. It has allowed the real estate establishment to cannily exploit the contradictory commitment of Democrats to both wealth-building through private property and, nominally, social justice.

For landlords, the language of victimization, which both identity politics and right-wing grievance draw upon, proves a potent force, tying together a relatively economically and politically diverse movement. It is the central engine of real estate’s outrage machine. No matter how absurd some manifestations of the social justice-minded mom-and-pop trope are, they’re the face of a deadly serious campaign—one close to snuffing out rent control entirely.

The narrative of the “woke” mom-and-pop landlord has since been taken up across the country. During public hearings about a new rent control program in St. Paul, an opponent—on Zoom from a beach vacation, naturally—characterized the policy as a form of redlining. Small landlords seeking to roll back rent control in Portland, Maine, adopted progressive language to do so, with ​​some arguing that their willingness to rent to asylum seekers, those on federal housing vouchers, and other marginalized communities demonstrates notable liberal bonafides. In Seattle, opposition to a local measure was led by a mom-and-pop group called Seattle Grassroots Landpeople. A Democratic city councilwoman in Minneapolis who led the charge to scrap consideration of a rent control program derided tenant advocates as “wealthy beer drinking pants rolled up white men” who need to “get out of mommy’s basement.” In a landlord forum, she described her role as “getting ready, putting my lipstick on, curling my hair and selling our message. [Landlords] are the experts at giving me what I’m selling.”

…

Outside of New York, this dynamic has played out most notably in California. The successful fight against Los Angeles’s pandemic eviction moratorium was led in part by the ​​Coalition of Small Rental Property Owners, “a California-based advocacy group that mostly represents black and Latinx landlords.” This past February, one small landlord launched a hunger strike to push for the end of Alameda County’s eviction moratorium, calling himself and other immigrant landlords “victims of government abuse.” The moratorium was ended by April.

Across the country, small landlords wielding social justice language are on the march, but their efforts could prove unnecessary. At the time of writing, the Supreme Court is mulling whether or not to hear any combination of five separate challenges to New York’s rent control law. Rent control has previously been upheld by the court, but with a ultra-conservative majority unbothered by established precedent, there’s ample reason to think they may take the case on—and undermine, if not outright abolish, rent control. Amid a national housing crisis in which rent prices are up just over 30 percent from 2019, the average American tenant is rent-burdened, eviction filings are 50 percent higher than the pre-pandemic average in some cities, and homelessness has reached record highs, the few restrictions on rent hikes that exist could be made unconstitutional overnight. The effects would be catastrophic, especially on renters of color.

#rent control #housing

[reidio-silence]

The number of housing cooperatives rose steadily, if not sharply, after World War I. And all but a handful of them went up in the early and mid-1920s. What is more, a few labor unions were showing a growing interest in cooperative housing. In the forefront were the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, the ILGWU, and a few other needle trades unions, many of whose members had been hard hit by the postwar housing shortage, which had driven vacancy rates down to record levels and sent apartment rents skyrocketing. During the early 1920s the Amalgamated, the ILGWU, and a group consisting of tenants’ leagues, religious organizations, and an insurance company came to the conclusion that the housing problem of the working class could only be solved by applying the principle of “collective self-help” and thereby eliminating the landlords and their excessive profits. At its annual convention in 1924 the Amalgamated passed a resolution in favor of building a housing cooperative. And a year later the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Corporation, which had been formed by Abraham Kazan and other members of the Amalgamated’s credit union, acquired thirteen acres in the North Bronx, at the edge of Van Cortlandt Park, for what would become the Amalgamated Houses. At the same time the ILGWU joined forces with a few other needle trades unions to sponsor a $2 million housing cooperative in the South Bronx, which would be designed by Andrew J. Thomas and constructed by the Labor Home Building Corporation. Known as the Thomas Garden Apartments, it would provide homes on the Grand Concourse for roughly 170 working-class families. Besides the support of some influential New Yorkers like Clarence Stein, the needle trades unions had a couple of other things going for them. During the 1920s the United States was in the midst of a nationwide “Own Your Own Home” campaign. Led by the US Department of Labor and the National Association of Real Estate Boards, the campaign was based on the deep-seated (and long-standing) view that homeowners were better, happier, more productive, and more responsible than tenants. As Secretary of Commerce Robert Lamont said in 1931, “It is doubtful whether democracy is possible where tenants overwhelmingly outnumber home owners.” The Own Your Own Home campaign was focused on the residents (or prospective residents) of single-family homes. But many New Yorkers were convinced that the benefits of homeownership applied to apartment-house dwellers as well. Starting in the late nineteenth century, a few New Yorkers had built cooperative apartment houses for the well-to-do, mainly on the Upper East Side and other posh Manhattan neighborhoods. Several others followed suit after World War I. And in an effort to circumvent the Emergency Rent Laws, which imposed rent control in New York and Buffalo in 1920, still others converted rentals into cooperatives.

— Robert M. Fogelson, Working-Class Utopias (2022)

#nyc #housing

[brostateexam]

[The street names in Monopoly] weren’t picked at random. In the early 1930s, various informal versions of Monopoly were played throughout the northeastern United States, with local street names inserted for each city. The game’s appearance and rules were perfected as it was being played. Around that time, an Atlantic City realtor named Jesse Railford hit upon an innovation: to put not just names but also prices on the properties on the board. Since he knew the lay of the land in his home city, those prices reflected the hierarchy of real estate values at that time.

That hierarchy and those prices were informed by the segregation that was rife in 1930s America. As one of the gateways of the Great Migration in the early 20th century, Atlantic City was a waystation for countless African-Americans leaving behind the stifling oppression of the South for better economic opportunities in the North. However, what they encountered on the way and upon arrival was the same racism, in slightly different form.

Railford played the game with the Harveys, who lived on Pennsylvania Avenue. They had previously lived on Ventnor Avenue and had friends on Park Place—all of which fall into the pricier color categories on the board.

In 1930s Atlantic City, these were wealthy and exclusive areas, and “exclusive” also meant no Black residents. They lived in low-cost areas like Mediterranean and Baltic Avenues; the latter street is actually where the Harveys’ maid called home. In many local hotels at the time, African-Americans were only welcome as workers, not as guests. Atlantic City schools and beaches were segregated.

Belying both the binary prejudices of the time and the sliding price scale of the Monopoly board, Atlantic City back then was in fact a place of opportunity where a diverse range of communities flourished. Black businesses thrived on Kentucky Avenue. Count Basie played the Paradise Club on Illinois Avenue. There was a Black beach at the end of Indiana Avenue. For Chinese restaurants and Jewish delis, people headed to Oriental Avenue. New York Avenue had some of the first gay bars in the U.S.

#long reads

[0zymandias-v-archived]

Known as: Ozymandias Real name: Adrian Friedrich Veidt DOB: January 3rd, 1939 Age: 46 Height: 6' 0'' (182 cm) Weight: 200 (90 kg) Hair: Blonde Eyes: Grey-ish blue Sexuality: ??? Bi, maybe? Gender: Cis male

Personality traits, or what to expect from Adrian:

Ambition - He's the most savvy businessman there is. Only because he's made such a fortune while sticking to using clean power, big on recycling, paying livable wages to all employees, and all that good jazz. He's not afraid of making his Board of Directors panic and question him on these simple acts.

Charm - Adrian knows how to socialize, and genuinely comes off as a humble, and sweet man. Wanting to spread his wealth more than hoard it. Though he still lives rather comfortably.

Betrayal - Ozymandias is extremely determined and goal focused. Ready to kill anyone who crosses him, or threatens to ruin his plans.

Bubastis - She is a genetically engineered large cat, a hybrid between Lynx and Tiger. She's red and black striped, and surprisingly friendly. Adrian's pride and joy, and trusted companion.

Savior complex - At the end of the day, Adrian is a selfish bastard. He calls himself Ozymandias, compares himself to Alexander the Great, and is unhealthily obsessed with ancient Greek and Egyptian mythology. It may be a god complex as well. But either way this guy decided in order to "unite" the world he'd drop a huge telepathic "alien" on New York City, killing millions. To "save" billions. And he truly believed his plan to work.

Description: Adrian is conventionally attractive with symmetrical and sharp facial structure along with straight blonde hair and grey-ish blue eyes. His hair is short, and usually styled neatly. His body is muscular yet lean due to his constant psychical excising and experience in acrobatics. He has no visible scars, and has a pale complexion with warm undertones. He is always sharp dressed, wearing the finest of fabrics that money can buy, always wearing purple and/or gold. As Ozymandias he wears a purple tunic with gold chest, arm and shin plates. Along with a purple cape, and a golden headband. And when he used to keep his identity a secret, a purple domino mask.

Background: Adrian was born right after his parents, Friedrich and Ingrid Veidt immigrated to the United States. The young boy was a natural prodigy, excelling in several grades higher than his own. Though quickly his teachers became suspicious that Adrian was somehow cheating, perhaps involving his parents. Who told their son to hide his intelligence from now on and continued to get perfectly average grades.

His parents died in a car accident that left Adrian with their estate and successful perfumery business named Nostalgia at age 17. However, he gave it all away to charity or shareholders of the business. Announcing that he wanted to demonstrate that anyone could achieve anything while starting with nothing. And thus he started his nomadic period. Traveling overseas to follow in the footsteps of his beloved role models, Alexander the Great across the Mediterranean, Asia Minor, and former ancient Persia. At the end of his journey in Babylon, Alexander's resting place, was where Adrian reflected on his idol's shortcomings. Where he failed to unite the world. He consumed hashish while traveling in the desert. There he completed his odyssey, undergoing a transformative psychedelic experience which gained him the understanding of Alexander's legacy and the wisdom of the ancient pharaohs, all of which would inspire him to become a "savior of mankind".

At age 19, Adrian took on the name Ozymandias and became a masked vigilante. Wasting no time in taking down large drug trade operations, tearing down Moloch the Mystic's criminal organization before locking him away. Ozymandias earned the tittle "Smartest man in the world" after that. While having no superpowers, he is still an extremely skillful fighter. His PR team took the extreme liberties to spread rumors that he learned to use 100% capability of his brain to gain peak condition. Thus he was known as "the man that can dodge bullets". Of course, he wasn't a costumed adventurer forever. After the first meeting of Crimebusters in 1966 that turned sour, Ozymandias pondered on the Comedian's wisdom for some time after. In 1975, two years before the Keene Act that outlawed masked vigilantes, Adrian retired and revealed himself to be Ozymandias. Then he began selling his hero persona as action figures. Growing his business into Veidt's Enterprises, which funded his secret mission; world peace.

It took in depth and careful scheming while he continued to pretend to be a compassionate entrepreneur, fighting against nuclear power plants and making plans to solve global warming. All the while he and his team of scientists began working on creating a horrid, telepathic monster posed as an alien at this secret base in Karnak. Ozymandias' plan was to help induce nuclear panic, keep Dr. Manhattan blindsided, then at the peak of a war breaking out he'd drop the alien in New York city. Tricking humanity into believing an alien invasion was taking place and therefore uniting the world toward a common enemy. Despite the murder of Eddie Blake (the Comedian) and it catching the attention of Rorschach and later on Nite Owl, Adrian managed to fool both vigilante's and his plan was successfully carried out.

After the failed attempt by Nite Owl and Rorschach to stop the catastrophic event from happening, which ended in Rorschach's death, and Nite Owl returning with Silk Spectre to the US. Adrian looked to Dr. Manhattan for reassurance that his plan truly had worked in uniting the world and creating peace amongst all nations. To which Dr. Manhattan cryptically responded by saying "Nothing ever ends". Leaving Veidt alone to question himself while in self exile.

#character bio #might edit here and there later

[thoughtportal]

Emma Silvers May 23, 2018

Liz Phair is getting into character. She’s practicing her moves. She’s doing vocal exercises every night.

“You make these sounds for a really long time, like a monk, to try to get that lower register open,” she says, demonstrating a long, low hum. “Because my range has gotten way higher as I’ve gotten older.”

She’s calling from Los Angeles, a week after her 51st birthday. And the character for whom she’s in training is a 25-year-old version of Liz Phair, the one that released “Exile in Guyville” in 1993, the album that subsequently thrust her into the national spotlight — despite the fact that she had only played a handful of live shows.

“It was a disaster,” she recalls. “That’s not how you do it! I was already famous before I’d ever played live.”

But Phair needs to channel that person to properly perform that album, she says — which she plans to do for Bay Area fans Friday, June 1, at the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco, as she tours intimate venues in support of the 25th anniversary reissue of “Girly-Sound to Guyville” (Matador), a seven-LP or three-CD box set complete with essays, interviews and remastered rarities. (The first half of the title refers to early Phair demo tapes that were, before now, mostly message board fodder for die-hard fans. This tour marks the first time she’ll perform the tracks live.)

“Exile” was a revelation when it hit the radio in 1993: sensitive and blunt, angry and funny, honest about sex and the alienation of being a creative girl in a guy’s scene. Framed as a wry response to the Rolling Stones’ “Exile on Main Street,” it stood in stark contrast to the bro-dominated grunge acts of the era, and quickly landed on critics’ best-of-the-year lists. Meanwhile Phair, a Chicago native and recent Oberlin College grad who had written most of her songs in her bedroom at her parents’ house, became an indie darling overnight.

It was in that spotlight that Phair was taken to task for her lyrics, whose sexual frankness (“I want to be your blowjob queen,” from the sing-songy track “Flower,” was among the most-quoted) barely moves the needle by today’s pop music standards. But in the ’90s, says Phair, “You were still judged according to the Slut-O-Meter.”

“I wanted it to be so outrageous and over the top that you had to talk about whether I could say it or not,” says Phair, whose penchant for performance art comes across in early interviews. “I wanted men and I wanted to have sex. I had those feelings, and I had those thoughts, so it was really about what you were allowed to exhibit. What you’re given ownership over, even in the real estate of your own inner life.”

In the 25 years since “Exile,” Phair has released five full-length albums, some to acclaim, and some — like her 2003 self-titled foray into slicker, more radio-friendly pop — to critical derision and cries of “sellout.” She also dabbles in other art forms: after finishing a double album with Ryan Adams recently (release date still to be announced), she turned her attention to a different kind of writing, inking a two-book deal with Random House in 2017. A memoir called “Horror Stories” will be published first; the second, she says, is tentatively organized around the theme of fairy tales.

Regardless of her medium, Phair’s impact and influence have grown more obvious with each passing year, especially as younger generations of feminists discover her landmark debut.

“Dude, I was ahead of my time. What can I say?” she says with a laugh, when asked about how well “Exile” has aged.

It’s 2018, and Beyoncé, whose brand is seeped in sexuality, just gave the performance of her life at age 36 — the same age Phair was when a New York Times review of her self-titled record painted her as a desperate, over-the-hill soccer mom for daring to still be sexual. Does our cultural landscape have more room for women as three-dimensional beings than it did in 1993?

“I do think we’re much further along,” says Phair. “But especially in the last couple years, with the Trump administration, it’s also shocking and deeply disturbing to realize how much further there still is to go.”

Which has, in turn, lit a fire under Phair in other ways.

“I have felt a definite need to be present, vocal and accounted for, because I need to be as strong and loud as these voices that are so horrifying to me,” she says. “We all do. The America that I believe we live in just needs to turn up its volume.”

In the meantime, those who caught Phair live circa 1993 can expect a much more technically skilled performance of “Exile” songs than the last time around. That said, Phair’s biggest strength remains the same: “It’s a testament to people’s appreciation of songwriting,” that fans stuck with her 25 years ago, she says, as she learned to play shows in real time.

“But I think that’s what I do better than other people. I don’t sing better or play better, but I have a kind of authorship. A voice.”

Emma Silvers is a Bay Area freelance writer.

#Liz Phair revives ‘Guyville’ for 25th anniversary #liz phair #1990s music #1990s #article #Exile in Guyville #music #interview #2018