Albany, New York isn’t just the seat of a clown car state government — it’s also a college town. And college students, when boozed to the gills, can out-bozo politicians. (Well, almost.) On March 12th crowds of drunken students rioted in the Albany neighborhood known as the student ghetto. The lads and lassies, most of whom seemed to be from UAlbany (a major campus of the State University of New York aka SUNY), had prepped for the city’s St. Patrick’s Day parade with hours of bar crawls and Kegs and Eggs house parties. Eventually the breakfast bunch spewed out onto the frosty streets.

The Albany Student Press claims that the Albany police, in an effort to tamp down the annual festival of collegiate binge drinking, had rousted the house parties. Pushing participants outdoors where “frat boys and sorority chicks”* joined them in solidarity. The non-student press hasn’t mentioned any rousts. Whatever. Hundreds of students milled in the streets, wearing neon green tees and bellowing like cattle on jimsonweed. Smaller groups commenced to trash. Cars were pushed into the street and smashed. Appliances were hurled from balconies. Cans and bottles flew. Several cops were tackled. Most (though not all) in the crowd laughed to see such sport. Their cellphones captured the riot. YouTube took it viral. Suddenly, all eyes were on Albany’s student ghetto.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Albany pols and college officials freaked. Were they riled by the riot — or the nationwide publicity?

Callow binge drinkers have been stampeding in the student ghetto for years. And not just during the daze of St. Pat’s. A brief search of YouTube turns up numerous vids of students from UAlbany and the College of St. Rose (a private university adjacent to the student ghetto) making merry on many occasions. Heck — I lived on the edge of the student ghetto in 2000/2001 and can personally attest that every weekend, except for ones during breaks and vacations, was a holiday in the hood. Or should I say — a party in its mouth? The sidewalks were a mosaic of greasy pizza boxes, crushed beer cups, broken bottles, and vom. In winter the mosaic froze over, spring brought the big patty melt.

Walking through the student ghetto was an eyeball assault. Its once-beautiful two and three family homes were sinking into the sludge. Absentee landlords and young lugs living la vida transient don’t do upkeep. A virtual tour of the homes’ interiors can now be had on YouTube. Footage of semiconscious or completely zonked students being owned by their roomies is a staple on Student Ghetto, The Reality Show. If you look past the limp bodies in funny degrading poses, you can see the subdivided warrens, rats’ nest wiring, and broken windows covered with trash bags.

Code enforcement? What code enforcement?

I used to wonder if parents actually visited their kids’ digs. And what they thought if they did. After all, parents frequently pay for those digs. Some even send rent directly to the landlords. I also wondered if parents understood the intensity — and heavy underage aspect — of the student ghetto bar scene. It gave me quite a turn to see really young girls staggering out of bars blitzed blind and dumb. Particularly since the neighborhood is also a crime scene.

Muggings, assaults, and burglary shadow the student ghetto. Students are perceived as easy pickings; predators from other ghettos come to partake. In the autumn of 2008, a UAlbany senior was shot to death a few blocks from where I once lived. Drug trade? It’s like, historic. One street has an evil rep going back decades. From my window I watched deals going down on the corner of said street. The longevity of its rep made me cynical (wrongly, I’m sure) about notifying the Albany police. Instead I called the county cops and hoped for the best.

But back to Kegs and Eggs. Some 40 students were arrested. A few days after the riot YouTube footage was being used to identify more participants. Pictures taken from videos were released to the press. (Many of the alleged perps seemed in dire need of Clearasil.) Detective James Miller, official spokesman for the Albany Police Department, promised swift and certain justice.

On March 16th, a New York Daily News editorial blasted SUNY Albany for being known for “hard partying” rather than quality education. The editorial also denounced the “moms and dads” of the rioters, for contributing to a “culture you let sprout into criminal proceedings.” The next day, the first of the UAlbany students seen in the video pictures turned himself in. OMG! His father turned out to be Bob Sapio, senior executive editor of the New York Daily News. Was Dad’s face red!

Also red faced: Detective James Miller, official spokesman for the Albany Police Department. On March 18th Detective Miller (now on suspension) was arrested for allegedly driving drunk. In an official vehicle, while off duty. Miller apparently refused to take a breathalyser test. DWI cases can be more difficult to prosecute sans results from breath tests. In some cities, police officers aren’t allowed to refuse breathalysers. But Albany has its own way of doing things.

For instance, despite much local coverage of the Kegs and Eggs riot, plus related articles about housing conditions in the student ghetto, the neighborhood’s worst landlords have yet to be outed by the news media. And given the lack of code enforcement (a problem in more nabes than just the student ghetto) you’d expect some investigative reporting on who hearts who — politically speaking.

Another Albany oddity: the in-office longevity of Mayor Jerry Jennings. When Jennings ran for his first term in 1993 yes 1993 he waxed reformer about the student ghetto and vowed change. He renews those vows regularly. Particularly when public funding can be accessed via the vowing.

In April 2005, Mayor Jennings took an after dark walking tour of the student ghetto, accompanied by the late Kermit L. Hall, then president of SUNY at Albany. The town and gown twosome dialogued with students hanging in front of bars and tut-tutted over slum conditions. President Hall vowed to help rid the neighborhood of drugs, violence, and blight. Some $400,000 in government grants was set to flow through the New York State Division Of Criminal Justice into a “historic partnership”** between SUNY Albany and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in NYC — as part of the crime fighting initiative Operation Impact. The Albany police were eventually outfitted with cool tech tools via Operation Impact. Department officials say crime in Albany is being fought more successfully thanks to those tools. Folks in and around the student ghetto aren’t convinced.

Operation Impact is one of many initiatives that over the years, have been accessed by Mayor Jerry Jennings and a string of area college officials in efforts to re-imagine the student ghetto. Yet somehow, the neighborhood remains a place where impressionable young oafs and oafettes pick up the perception that civilization is far far away.

But change may finally be in the wind. City officials are now making a concentrated effort to refer to the student ghetto as the Education District…

Carola Von Hoffmannstahl-Solomonoff
Mondo QT

*Assigning blame for Kegs N Eggs melee, Albany Student Press, 03/26/11

**Governor Pataki Announces Historic Partnership with UAlbany and John Jay College to Develop Enhanced Crime Fighting Initiatives Impact, Office of the Governor Press Release, 04/04/05

Sean Patrick Griffin’s new book Gaming the Game won’t make disgraced NBA referee Tim Donaghy happy. In 2007, Donaghy was busted by the feds for conspiring with pro gambler Jimmy “Baba” Battista and their mutual boyhood pal, low-level drug dealer and all round dogsbody Tommy Martino. Donaghy had been supplying Battista with picks on games he refereed. (He was also betting those games through Battista.) Donaghy claims the devil, aka Battista, made him do it. Sean Griffin locates the devil that made Donaghy do it, in Donaghy’s own greedy soul.

Tim Donaghy, Tommy Martino, and Jimmy Battista had attended the same Catholic High School near Philadelphia. Tommy Martino was tight with both Donaghy and Battista. Donaghy and Battista were never close. But in late 2006, they became partners in crime.

Tim Donaghy’s version of events goes like this: after Jimmy Battista discovered through other gambling professionals that Donaghy was a gambling addict and was betting on NBA games, he extorted Donaghy into supplying NBA picks. According to Donaghy, Battista also threatened his family; implying that if Donaghy didn’t cooperate his wife and children might be “visited” by people from New York. As in, mob thugs. With 15 months in a minimum security federal prison behind him and an exculpatory book to peddle, Donaghy continues to paint Jimmy Battista in mobbed-up colors.

The Real Deal

Prior to conspiring with Battista and middleman Tommy Martino, Tim Donaghy was secretly betting on NBA games he officiated. He was also betting on games he didn’t referee, as well as other sports. By late 2006 he was dissatisfied with the paybacks he was receiving from his prime enabler (remember, we’re talking addiction) and switched to Jimmy Battista. Tommy Martino, a runner for Battista who also supplied him with drugs (as he did for Tim Donaghy), set up the meeting that got the NBA deal going. Jimmy Battista was stoked. “As a gambler, having an NBA referee tell you what games he likes was like taking a kid into a candy store and saying what flavor do you want.”*

As candy store guy, Tim Donaghy got a real deal; he didn’t have to cover his losses. Yes — he did make bad bets. According to Jimmy Battista, when Donaghy wasn’t referee his picks were much less reliable.

Jimmy Battista never asked Tim Donaghy directly if he was making calls to benefit his bets (don’t ask don’t tell being the rule) but he figured Donaghy “was going to do whatever it took to win.” Tim Donaghy maintains that all he did was handicap games from an ultra inside position. His winnings flowed from superior knowledge. The feds who prosecuted Donaghy never charged him with influencing outcomes. Though the plea deal Donaghy accepted did include a line about the possibility of his on-court performance being “subconsciously affected.” As for any lingering suspicions, Gaming the Game lays out new statistical research into the games Donaghy bet. Theoretically speaking, it does seem as if “Elvis” (Battista and Marino’s nickname for Donaghy, the King of NBA picks) might have shown his own interests a hunka hunka burning love.

Rest easy readers. Gaming the Game isn’t a compendium of statistical charts. Though important to the question of Tim Donaghy’s alleged doings, the stats are confined to an appendix. Plus, Gaming is far less about Donaghy than it is about the life and times of pro-gambler Jimmy Battista. As such, it’s a compelling character study and more historically interesting than a rundown of the corrupt actions of one greedy Gus with an edge. Sean Patrick Griffin, an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Pennsylvania State, Abington, and a former Philadelphia police officer, combines an eye for human detail with the ability to convey broad social themes. He’s a fluid, crisp writer and an A-1 historian of crime. Griffin’s earlier book, Black Brothers Inc.,The Violent Rise and Fall of Philadelphia’s Black Mafia, revealed a hitherto unacknowledged chapter in the history of crime in Philadelphia. Brothers was made into an episode of the Black Entertainment Television (BET) series American Gangster and has been optioned as a motion picture. Griffin’s knowledge of the crime scene in and around Philadelphia illuminates Gaming the Game.

Born in 1965, James “Jimmy” Battista grew up in a working class town near Philadelphia. He was a black sheep (hence the nicknames “Baba” and “Sheep”) in a close knit, morally centered family. His parents personified the work ethic. Despite his non-absorption of their other beliefs, Jimmy did soak up their attitude about work. From his early entry-level hustler jobs (as a cocaine distributing shoe salesman, he substituted coke for the silica salt packets in shoe boxes) through his learning curve as a paper-juggling bookie, to his glory days as a computerized pro gambler near the top of that industry’s legal and illegal ladder, Baba busted his hump. As an ultra successful pro gambler, he lived on the down low. No Damon Runyan excess, just a nice McMansion life with a wife and kids in a suburb forty minutes out of Philly.

Though Jimmy often worked at home, his family life was almost nil. He spent most of his time in the basement — in his home office slash betting center. Confabbing with other bettors and movers via Skype (harder to bug) and glued to a towering stack of TVs and monitors feeding him nonstop sports action and betting info from sources such as casinos and offshore sportsbooks. When a betting line made a mega move in say, Taiwan, a computerized voice alert (installed by Jimmy) would intone “Major Line Movement.”

When not busy in the basement Jimmy was on the go with his laptop and bag of cell phones. Doing business from other cities (including Vegas), other homes, and on park benches and in cars. He was a fan of T-Mobile, because buying a phone through them didn’t require ID. Sheep, as he was best known in the gambling world, used different phones for each major client. The phones were replaced frequently. His “disposable” phones were a major business expense; disposing of them was a job. The SIM (subscriber identity module) cards were tossed into rivers. The phones themselves went into an acid dip bath intended for cleaning restaurant grills. After the dip, Jimmy pounded the remains into smithereens with a hammer.

Then there was the hassle of transporting money and collecting debts. Re the latter, Sheep wasn’t a thug. He smashed phones, not faces. If someone welshed he just stopped dealing with them. Unrecoverable loss is part of illegal business. As for moving money, doing it in the U.S. was an exercise in paranoia. Think cross-state car trips with a million or so in cash stashed under the seats. Pit stops were fear stops. Sheep carried his food and water with him, along with a hospital “piss cup.”

Back in the Philly area, Sheep and his suburban, white-collar gambling colleagues were always worried that “the boys downtown” (Philadelphia organized crime of the Italian-American variety) would get ultra heavy with independent players. During one downtown mob war, Sheep and his then business partners temporarily relocated to Vegas, to dodge an expected rise in extortion demands.

By early 2007, Jimmy Battista was a slave to the rhythm. Years spent monitoring monitors and working phones while eating takeout had ballooned his weight. He took assorted drugs to ease the pressure of his work and had become addicted to Oxycontin. For the first time in his career he was betting while under the influence and losing like the suckers pro gamblers deride. He was heavily in debt, which was angering some of his most important business colleagues. His family was falling apart. And his always high paranoia level had been jolted to new heights by growing rumors of an FBI investigation.

Jimmy Battista did business with the crème de la crème of bookies and bettors. Some were mob connected. Apparently, an FBI team assigned to the upper echelons of the Gambino family in New York City picked up wiretap chatter about Tim Donaghy and his connection with Sheep. (The gambling world had been rife with gossip about Donaghy’s NBA betting for several years.) Another story says a mob-connected bookie with a business beef turned Sheep in. Whatever. What followed is history. All of which is covered extensively in Gaming the Game.

The research behind Gaming the Game is impressive. Sean Patrick Griffin, an academic and ex-cop, combines extensive reference to court documents, betting records, law enforcement files, and media coverage with on-the-ground interviews and multi-party corroboration. Gaming is also many leveled. Via its coverage of Jimmy Battista’s evolving career, Gaming is a history of the transition from paper-based betting to information age gambling. As a character study, it leads one to ponder the mysteries of human nature — and also, by implication, the mysteries of U.S. policies re gambling. Jimmy Battista was an immensely talented individual. Why chose a life so fraught with the dangers of (partial) illegality? Given his particular skills, Sheep could have been a contender on Wall Street. Where financial speculation, manipulating the odds, and a willingness to profit from another person’s fraud almost never brings down the feds.

Another character question: why did Tim Donaghy and Tommy Martino take plea deals and turn on Jimmy Battista while Battista kept his lip zipped? Sean Patrick Griffin has many interesting things to say about that. As he does about the overall legal and public relations strategies of “Team Donaghy.” Which he refers to as their “assault on justice.” As said, this book won’t make Tim Donaghy happy.

The NBA may not be thrilled either. Though Gaming the Game sinks some of the conspiracy theories that followed the scandal (including ones spread by Tim Donaghy) it poses plenty of hard questions about the NBA’s response to the Donaghy affair — and their ongoing stewardship. NBA officials (if they don’t feel too piqued) might find the section titled Some Suggested Research for the NBA quite helpful.

As example, since the 2003-2004 season the NBA has been collecting data on the calls and non-calls made by all referees. Though the collected data was originally intended for other purposes, current and future data will now also be analyzed with an eye toward spotting referees who might be fixing games. Sean Griffin suggests the NBA also make a retrospective analysis of the call data. Tim Donaghy claims that the winnings from his NBA bets (the ones which according to his plea deal concession, might have “subconsciously affected” his on-court performance) were fairly limited. Some folks, including a number of pro gamblers, think otherwise. Analyzing the data might clear up the issue once and for all. Plus, the suspicion lingers that other refs may have been gaming the game. A retrospective check for patterns of subconscious activity could help lay that suspicion to rest.

Back to Timmy, Tommy, and Jimmy. Before being busted Jimmy Battista entered drug rehab. After a lot of legal wrangling, all three men eventually served about a year in federal prison. As always, Tim Donaghy thought he deserved a better deal.

* All quotes in this article are from Sean Patrick Griffin’s Gaming the Game, Barricade Books, Inc.

Carola Von Hoffmannstahl-Solomonoff
Mondo QT

Remember the late great Tea Party? The grass roots movement that made the political establishment quake? For one glorious moment it seemed as if a truly independent, average Joe/Joan movement might be gathering steam. A memory from that halcyon time: assorted TV pundits telling Republican leaders that Tea Party people “don’t like you guys either.” To which said leaders would put on a humble face and mumble something about how Republicans had lost their way and needed to get back on track. The out-of-control spending, corruption, and support for endless wars were missteps off the path of Republican core values.

In truth, no missteps were made. The Republican core was intact. Albeit shared with the Democrats. Out-of-control spending, corruption, and endless wars R both parties.

Though the following factoid has disappeared into the memory hole of ideological rewrites, a goodly number of those initially drawn to the Tea Party did not support endless wars. They supported the troops ’cause that’s a question of loyalty. But adventures-in-nation-building weren’t their thing. They were also concerned about losing civil liberties via Homeland Security overkill. And most Tea Party protesters blamed Wall Street, as much as government, for the financial meltdown of 2008. Lest we forget, the Tea Party really took off when the too-big-to-fail banks and other financial entities that partied with housing bubble paper were bailed out by taxpayers.

For a brief period the left was equally vociferous re the bailouts. But the moment of rapprochement between progressives and Tea Party types, along with the potential for game-changing coalitions, passed when it dawned on the left that coming down too hard on taxpayer infusions and massive government interventions might not set the right tone for passing health care reform. The Tea Party was way suspicious of government (almost as much as the 60′s counter-culture had been) and it was the wrong time to fan such suspicion. Instead ’twas time to ridicule and revile the masses of average Americans who feared that a government redo would make the failings of U.S. health care worse instead of better. That this fear might be based on, say, observation of the role federal policies played in inflating and eventually collapsing the housing market buttered no progressive parsnips. As for the fear that Obamacare would be Homeland Security in a nurse’s uniform, how paranoid was that?

While the left was in the basement mixing up the medicine and the Tea Party was on the pavement thinking about the government, the Republicans seized the time. Coming back strong as champions of the people and enemy of the political elite. (Insert row of laughing emoticons here.) Hoovering up the Tea Party and making it their own. The more the left trashed “tea baggers” the more the independent spark in the Tea Party dimmed. Tea talk started sounding more and more like the type of Republican conservatism dished by Limbaugh & company. Critiques of state capitalism, particularly as practiced during the Bush years, were out. So were thoughts of a third party. Union bashing was in. With public employee unions cast as evil incarnate.

After several years of government hearings and investigations into the 2008 financial meltdown, Republicans and Democrats have been unable to reach agreement on who-done-it. Republicans put the blame on the government sponsored mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; Democrats pin it on an insufficiently regulated Wall Street. No prime movers of subprime sleaze (hello Angelo Mozilo), or political enablers (hello Friends of Angelo), or major Wall Street sludge jugglers (too many for a shout out) have been prosecuted. Nor have new lending regulations staunched the growth of mortgage fraud in taxpayer-backed housing programs. However, we will be able to hang some teachers out to dry.

The concordance of big government and big finance that pumped the housing bubble and hence inflated hauls of real estate derived taxes (including property taxes) was not why so many local governments overextended themselves during the boom years and now face disaster during the bust. The real villains were teachers, firefighters, police officers, sanitation workers, and secretaries in public agencies. Aka Joe and Joan Average with a government job. Who, according to the bashers, are not average at all ’cause they get better benefits and more job security than a private sector employee or a small business owner. That being a private sector employee or a small business owner has its own set of advantages butters no conservative parsnips. The right, which typically decries attempts to stir up class warfare, is passing out flaming torches and whipping up envy. Screaming for folks to be stripped (preferably in public?) of their collective bargaining rights. Working to turn the American middle-class against itself.

And I thought only lefties were into creating social chaos…

Incidentally (or not) while the billionaire Koch brothers donated $43,000 to the gubernatorial campaign of union-busting Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, housing and Realtor groups kicked in $43,125. Not that Republicans in general are uniquely blessed by the real estate industries. In New York, another state with budget problems, the NYC real estate crowd has been particularly generous to Governor Andrew Cuomo.

As for Joe and Joan Average, who really represents them? The left or the right? Answer: neither. At least, not reliably. Under certain self-serving circumstances both do an occasional good deed. But when push comes to shove in our state capitalist times, Joe and Joan are on their own. Which is less discouraging than it sounds. Being independent means never having to say you’re sorry for noticing that your representatives, no matter how rhetorically righteous, primarily rep big money conjoined with government power.

Third party, anyone?

Carola Von Hoffmannstahl
Mondo QT

Ah, mortgage fraud. The unsung power tool of the housing bubble. Starting around 1999, the FBI issued repeated warnings that mortgage fraud was surging. Few in government listened. Fraudsters ranged from organized cross-country rings of real estate, banking, and investment professionals, to non-profit profiteers and Joe and Joan Doakes lying on mortgage aps ’cause they just had to have that house. Feeling nostalgic about the big grift that sent no major players to jail but left taxpayers holding the Hefty and the landscape blotted with foreclosures? No need. Boom or bust, the impetus for mortgage fraud is a constant. When housing is hot there’s pressure to keep the market booming, in bust mode there’s pressure to jack it back up.

According to Core Logic (a leading provider of business information), after taking a breather in 2009 mortgage fraud increased more than 20% in 2010. (The Mortgage Asset Research Institute reports that Florida and New York lead the nation at number one and two respectively.) With government now owning or insuring 97% of mortgage bonds via Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), taxpayers are on the hook more than ever. And they’re paying for new twists. Quoting* mortgage fraud attorney L. T. Lafferty, a former federal prosecutor specializing in white collar crime, “fraud is … perpetrated differently when there are different opportunities.”

When one door closes, another opens…

Loan origination fraud, a mortgage fraud staple, is seeing new emphasis on hiding debt and liabilities. (Prior mortgage defaults? No problem.) Due to increased requirements for proof of income, credit, etc., mortgage fraud rings increasingly rely on identity theft rather than fake documents — thereby involving a wider circle of victims. Then there are the homebuilders with a glut of houses or condos who offer buyers financial incentives that aren’t disclosed to lenders. After buyers obtain loans, builders welch on the incentives. Oops, more underwater mortgages. Faked occupancy is on the rise. (Loans for second homes, and for rental properties without an owner in residence require larger down-payments and higher interest rates.) And hey — foreclosure rescue scams are on fire! Loan modification, refinancing, short sales, real estate owned (REO) sales, and government sponsored programs are being mined big time. Of course, almost the entire housing market might now be called a government sponsored program…

To date, taxpayers have kicked in $153 billion just to prop up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fan and Fred’s oversight agency (an organ of the FHA) estimates that the agencies’ losses through 2013 will require another infusion of between $68 billion to $210 billion. In government speak, a massive transfer of wealth from the general public (roughly one third of whom are renters) to cover a mountain of bad private assets is called an “investment.”

In Washington, the Obama administration and Congress are trying to hammer out a plan for “weaning the $11 trillion mortgage market from its dependence on government.”** The weaning, which will allegedly include the waning of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, must be done carefully and slowly so as not to damage the fragile housing market. (When the market was robust, reform was rejected ’cause it might damage the boom.) A time frame of five to seven years has been mentioned. By then the full wean will be in the hands of the next administration. In the meantime, the real estate lobby is beating down doors in DC, to make sure that nothing (untoward) is accomplished. The National Association of Realtors, the American Bankers Association, the National Association of Home Builders, the National Council of State Housing Agencies, and the National Fair Housing Alliance are united by their determination to protect folks from being cheated out of the American Dream of Home Ownership.

Do Mollusks Dream of Electric Drills?

Mortgage fraud isn’t the only real estate product backed by taxpayer investment. There’s always (forever and ever) urban revitalization. Point of info: investment in urban revitalization does not put the truly needy in safe, clean public housing and bring industry back to fading blue collar cities. Instead it pumps luxury condo enclaves, twee art and restaurant districts, and political corruption. Perhaps no place exemplifies this type of urban revitalization better than Hoboken, New Jersey. A small (one mile square) waterfront town across the Hudson River from Manhattan, which after biting post-industrial dust was reborn as the jewel of government-backed new urbanism. That almost all of Hoboken’s blue collar residents were pushed out of town in favor of wealthier professionals largely employed by Wall Street mattered not. Gazillion urban planners saw the future and it was Hoboken.

What they didn’t see were the mollusks. More about them in a minute. First, the corruption. Everyone saw the corruption. Over the roughly three decades in which Hoboken became the revitalized gem of Jersey’s “Gold Coast,” developers and public officials from Hoboken and its parent entity Hudson County, went down like nine pins; bowled over by federal and state investigations frequently targeting corruption related to government-backed development projects. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and U.S. Department of Transportation were soaked again and again. As were assorted state agencies. Tax breaks were/are crony candy. Hudson County’s other cities revitalized their historic corruption with equal fervor, inspired by Hoboken’s new urban success.

Hoboken eventually became one of the most valuable chunks of real estate in the country. Yet taxpayers have never stopped investing in its revitalization. The promenade that stretches along the city’s condo-lined waterfront was a mega investment. The walkway and its park areas are open to the public. Hoboken’s master builders would have preferred waterfront access to be restricted to condo dwellers but local green space activists fought not only to keep it open, but to expand the walkway into an unbroken strip running along the entire Gold Coast. Since public largess was powering waterfront development, developers had to bend. Pols scrambled to speed their plow, cutting government red tape re construction. In Hoboken the promenade was largely in place by the 1990′s. New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection signed off on it every step of the way.

Now we get to the mollusks.

The first cave-in on Hoboken’s promenade occurred in 2007, at Castle Point Park in mid Hoboken. Just a small collapse. No cause for alarm. But two years later, part of a sports field that had been built atop a pier slid into the Hudson. When the field was developed in the 90′s engineers warned that the pier’s pilings were infested with shipworms, a type of mollusk. Shipworms eat wood. Suggestions were made that the pilings be replaced with something less tasty. The suggestion went into the memory hole.

In early 2010, a section of the walkway in the north, near a cove between Hoboken and Weehawken collapsed. Last October, a fifty foot sinkhole opened on Frank Sinatra Drive. (Sinatra was a Hoboken boy.) The drive, which is 13 years old, runs along the river in front of a strip of luxury condo towers — including one which houses former NJ governor and ex Goldman Sachs boss Jon Corzine. The sinkhole, which was also allegedly caused by mollusks, followed two smaller collapses on Sinatra. Recently, engineers determined that the steel beams supporting Pier A, a popular park on the south end of the promenade near Hoboken’s train and ferry stations, need a makeover. Seems the concrete jackets on the beams aren’t covering all they should. No danger from salt water corrosion yet. Just being proactive. Pier A is like, totally safe.

Despite all the wealth that hangs in Hoboken, the city has severe financial problems. Hoboken isn’t the only entity responsible for repairing the collapsing waterfront (as example, Sinatra Drive was a county project) but the city will have to cover much of the rehab. The cost will be more than the entire city budget. Massive debt will be assumed via bonding. According to the New York Times,*** Mayor Dawn Zimmer (elected in 2009) is holding out “hope for state and federal aid.” And Hudson County is hoping to obtain federal grants to repair the Sinatra sinkhole. As for the mollusks, they have high hopes for more wood.

*Mortgage Fraud: Worse Before Better, Expect More Schemes and More Regulatory Oversight in 2011, Tracy Kitten, Managing Editor, Bank Info Security, 02/04/11

**Obama Administration Calls for Winding Down Fannie, Freddie, Lorraine Woellert and Rebecca Christie, Bloomberg News, 02/11/11

***As Hoboken’s Riverfront Crumbles, the Cost for Repairs Soars, Richard Perez-Pena, New York Times, 02/08/11

Protesters fed up with political repression, corruption and poverty (particularly recent food price inflation) toppled the government of Tunisia. They threaten to do the same in other countries throughout the Mideast as pundits hail the “Twitter and Facebook revolution.” But repressive governments have as much compunction about shutting down communication services as they do about torturing dissidents.

Egypt has cut all Internet access and most mobile phone service as huge protests threaten to topple that government. For a while the ISP Noor remained online — largely because it connects the country’s Stock Exchange and many offices of foreign companies to the outside world. Noor has now been cut off as well.

Interestingly, Egypt and Tunisia have some of the largest percentages of the population online in Africa. Egypt’s Communications Minister, Tarek Kamel, was secretary and co-founder of the global Internet Society’s Egyptian Chapter (which is no longer active). He is still listed as a member of the Board of Trustees on the Internet Society’s website. The Internet Society has strongly denounced the Internet shutdown.

Kamel is widely recognized as the person who brought the Internet to Egypt. He has publicly supported the open development of the Internet. His bio on the Internet Society’s website states that in the early years of the development of the Internet in Egypt, “Kamel’s work extended into liberalization issues such as a tax reduction for ISPs as well as a government/private sector partnership to serve the Egyptian Internet community. He has actively participated in the establishment of community centers in remote areas to bring the Internet to the have-nots.” His role in the shutdown is unknown, although he wasn’t among the cabinet members removed in the shakeup of the Egyptian government in the wake of the protests.

Cutting off most communication with the outside world for an extended period would be economic suicide for any modern, developed country, but temporary interruption — long enough to kill or imprison a large number of protesters without too much visibility for squeamish foreign allies — is viable for a poor country ruled by an elite supported by gifts of military technology from wealthier countries.

The protesters’ vulnerability is relying on highly centralized communication networks and services while fighting an overly centralized political system. The younger ones probably don’t have any memory of being without mobile phones and the Internet and may have taken them for granted.

To succeed in the face of violent repression and the shutdown of Internet and phone service, they must quickly develop low-tech strategies that are as fast and flexible as the ones that have been lost.

Another approach is to build communication services that cannot be intercepted or shut down. Human rights activists and hackers are already starting to do it with combination of low-cost commodity hardware and free open source software:

• Landlines still work in Egypt and a French ISP FDN offers free dialup Internet to Egyptians. Instructions to connect to foreign ISPs via dialup with a mobile phone are also being circulated for those who can use them.
• For Egyptians who are still able to use their mobile phones, there is Sukey, “a security-conscious news, communications and logistics support service principally for use by demonstrators during demonstrations.”
• Tech entrepreneur Shervin Pishevar put a call out on Twitter for volunteers to help construct self-configuring unblockable mobile ad hoc networks to prevent government caused blackouts during future protests worldwide.
• We Rebuild, a Europe-based group working for free speech and an open Internet is developing non-Internet modes of communication, including amateur, shortwave and pirate radio as well as a fax gateway, to assist protesters and humanitarian relief efforts. Information on these efforts can be found on their Telecomix news site.
• Remaining Internet activity is certainly being monitored. The Tor network of anonymous, encrypted proxies has seen a huge increase in Egyptian traffic.

Efforts like these could be the tipping point for the uprisings. In 1989 Czech student protesters received a gift of then state of the art 2400 baud modems from a mysterious man who may have been from the covert-operations wing of the Japanese embassy. Modems were illegal but the most Czech police didn’t even know what they were. The students set up BBS systems to coordinate actions throughout the country and successfully overthrew the Soviet communist backed dictatorship.

If you think the problems people in Egypt have could never happen here, you might want to think again. In the U.S. the “Internet kill switch” bill in Congress would allow interruption of Internet services in a “national cyberemergency.” Senator Joe Lieberman, who introduced the bill in the Senate, has described the Internet as a “dangerous place” and promised the bill would protect against “cyber terrorists.”

Some of our current political leaders, hanging on every word of their consultants and pollsters, and terrified of harsh criticism, might consider hostile online commentary more of an “emergency” than something trivial like say, a collision with an asteroid.

General Douglas MacArthur said, “No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.” Today that vigilance means learning to build and modify the technology that we use rather than being passive consumers of it.

Incredible that 9/11 is almost ten years ago. So much has changed. Including our attitude about free speech. After 9/11, it suddenly felt necessary to lower your voice in restaurants when criticizing the government. Who knows — waxing negative about U.S. policies in the Mideast might cause folks in the next booth to alert Homeland Security that a terror symp was downing a burger at Joe’s Grease N’ Go.

Speaking of grease and go, as the prep for invading Iraq ramped up so did attacks on speech. Pro-war pundits (aka the laptop bombardiers) suggested — or outright declared — that the various progressives, libertarians, and paleocons who expressed doubt about attacking a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, were traitors. Numerous patriots called for the heads of antiwar celebs. Sure, some of the latter were knee jerk anti-American. But since when does getting your britches in a bunch over the opinions of singers and actors qualify as “standing tall”? Then there was our much vaunted free press…

Until polls showed public support was waning, most of the fourth estate banged the drum for the Iraq war and kissed the rump of the Bush administration. Those on the right like to say that the mainstream media is overwhelmingly liberal. Maybe so in sentimental moments. But ultimately they worship at the altar of triumphant big government.

As Iraq wore on, and over several election cycles, tolerance of free speech seemed to be reviving. But the revival never completely took hold. Speech was still more likely to be viewed as a weapon rather than protected expression. The tendency was encouraged — and simultaneously made manifest — by broad, imprecise, and propagandistic terms such as “War On Terror” and “Hate Speech.”

Terrorism and discrimination are specific actions that can be defined and addressed. Terror and hate haunt the human condition. Both also have a non-evil place. Is it wrong to hate cruelty to children? Some wars are just; should military forces on the side of the angels not strive to inspire terror in their enemies?

Note re just wars: the Catholic Church under Pope John Paul II did not deem Iraq a just war. The Catholic theory of just wars doesn’t cover speculative ventures. Fighting Nazi invaders is one thing, attacking countries you perceive might pose a threat in the future is another. Self-serving motives are too likely to influence the perception of “threat.” (Catholicism can be so cynical about human nature.) Advocates of the war were annoyed that His Holiness didn’t get American exceptionalism. Neocon Catholic philosopher Michael Novak made like Henry VIII and tried to get the Pontiff to bend. Sorry, no divorce. Catherine is still your true wife.

Circa 1980′s, neocons had lauded John Paul II for his support of Solidarity, the non-governmental labor movement in Poland that triggered the fall of communism throughout the Eastern bloc. But the not-a-just-war decision blotted the Catholic copybook big time. (Besides, who wants to remember good things about unions?) Some on the right were so bugged by the Pope’s intransigence that they borrowed a meme from the left and snarked about pedophile priests. Bipartisanship is indeed possible!

Suppression of speech is another issue on which left and right can come together. Albeit with different apps. The left, which once championed free speech to the max, is traveling fast down the road of suppression. Covering over nasty words the way Victorian ladies allegedly covered furniture legs.* Baying for “civility.” Seeing hidden, murderous intent in political rhetoric and thought crime in dissent. Depicting non-compliant citizens as slaves to the right-wing rhythm. Meanwhile, those on the right who believed being against Bush and the Iraq war was treason, are outraged by those on the left who deem Tea Party talk inflammatory.

Though some may find it difficult to define inflammatory speech (in terms of directly connecting one person’s rhetoric to another person’s destructive action) both left and right have no problem recognizing it. Particularly when folks with whom they disagree are speaking it. As for all of us outside neat little ideological circles, it’s important to remember that suppression of speech, once started, tends to spread.

First they came for Sarah Palin and I snickered ’cause I’m not a right wing nut. Then they came for Keith Olbermann and I laughed ’cause I’m not a left wing loon. Then they — Oh. Wait. Who’s that knocking on my door?

Carola Von Hoffmannstahl-Solomonoff
Mondo QT

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* Victorian ladies are oft said to have covered furniture legs with shawls in order to prevent said legs from arousing impure thoughts in male guests. The story is most likely apocryphal. Myriad photos from the period show plenty of naked leg. On the furniture, not the ladies.

The terrible violence in Arizona last weekend prompted much national discussion on many issues. All Americans are united in their sympathies for the victims and their families. All wonder what could motivate such a horrible act. However, some have attempted to use this tragedy to discredit philosophical adversaries or score political points. This sort of opportunism is simply despicable.

We are fortunate to live in a society where violence is universally denounced. Not one public official or commentator has attempted to justify this reprehensible act, yet the newspapers, internet, and airwaves are full of people trying to claim it was somehow motivated by someone else’s political rhetoric. Most disturbing are the calls to use government power to censor certain forms of speech, and even outlaw certain types of criticism of public officials. This was the completely apolitical act of a violent and disturbed man. How sad that the attempted murder of the Congresswoman who had just read the First Amendment on the House floor would be used in efforts to chill free speech! Perhaps some would feel safer if the Alien and Sedition Acts were reinstated.

Also troubling are the renewed calls for stricter gun control laws, and for government to “do something” to somehow prevent similar incidents in the future. This always seems to be the knee jerk reaction to any crime committed with a gun. Nonsensical proposals to outlaw guns around federal officials and install bulletproof barriers in the congressional gallery only reinforce the growing perception that politicians view their own lives as far more important than the lives of ordinary citizens. Politicians and a complicit media have conditioned many citizens to view government as our protector, leading to more demands for government action whenever tragedies occur. But this impulse is at odds with the best American traditions of self-reliance and individualism, and it also leads to bad laws and the loss of liberty.

Remember — liberty only has meaning if we still believe in it when terrible things happen and more government security is demanded. Government cannot make us safe by mandating security any more than it can make us prosperous by decreeing an end to poverty.

We need to reaffirm the core American value of individual responsibility. Consider the young man who had the courage to tackle the shooter and prevent further carnage because he himself had a concealed weapon. Without that gun, he could have been yet another sitting duck. When peaceful citizens are armed, they at least have a chance against armed criminals.

Advocates of gun control would urge us to leave our safety to law enforcement, but eyewitness reports indicate it took police as much as 20 minutes to arrive on the scene that day! Since police cannot be everywhere all of the time, a large part of our personal safety depends on our ability to defend ourselves.

Our constitutional right to bear arms does not create a society without risks of violent crime, and neither would the strictest gun control laws. Guns and violence are a fact of life. The question is whether it is preferable to be defenseless while waiting for the police, or to have the option to arm yourself. We certainly know criminals prefer the former.

Sometimes a story is so local it jumps up and bites you. Such is the case with the stash of potentially explosive materials found in an apartment building in the town where I live. Say hey for Delmar, New York. It’s a mighty nice place. Delmar is a suburb of Albany. The kind of old leafy suburb extolled by folks who like old leafy suburbs. Not completely crime free, but certainly not Albany. So when a stockpile of HAZMAT materials turns up in the basement of a small tidy apartment complex in an old leafy neighborhood, eyebrows get raised. Particularly when there’s an ongoing back story…

First story first. On the afternoon of November 30th, police were summoned to the Cherry Arms apartment complex on Delaware Avenue in Delmar. A resident had spotted large amounts of what looked to be suspicious chemicals, plus some sort of weird device in the basement’s common storage area. Though a space where most people store boxes of old tchotchkes seems an odd place to keep acetone, xylene, nitric acid, sulfuric acid, butane, and gosh knows what else, there they were. Along with a commercial-grade vacuum chamber. A hefty item (some 400 pounds) that resembles a cross between an old fashioned safe and a commercial laundry extractor.

After the cops scoped the basement, the Albany County HAZMAT Team tossed it. Carefully. For safety’s sake tenants were told to vacate their apartments. Jason Sanchez, age 24, refused. He allegedly got way huffy. To the point where he had to be hauled from the scene. The bads in the basement allegedly belonged to Sanchez. A search warrant allegedly turned up more materials in his apartment. On December 1st, Jason Sanchez was charged with resisting arrest and first-degree reckless endangerment.

If stored in close proximity a number of the substances found in the Cherry Arms basement are potential explosives. Storage areas are generally full of fire food. The Cherry Arms is a multi family building. According to a tenant quoted on local ABC News 10 (Arrest made during Hazmat situation in Delmar) it contains 18 gas furnaces. (A comment posted in response to the story says there are no furnaces.) The building is closely surrounded by other residences and is catty-corner from a gas station. The convenience store right across the street is a popular hangout for students from the high school down the block.

Jason Sanchez is a grad student (computer science) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, across the Hudson River from Albany. So far, Sanchez isn’t saying what he was planning to do with the substances found in his basement and apartment. The Bethlehem police (the village of Delmar is in the township of Bethlehem) are investigating. Deputy Police Chief Timothy Beebe says Sanchez “had apparently been setting up some type of laboratory in there”*. Adding that the basement set-up didn’t seem to be intended as a home-on-the-range meth lab. Official focus seems to be on the possibility that booms were in the works.

Interesting but no doubt unrelated factoid: acetone, xylene, nitric acid, sulfuric acid, and butane (the identified substances found at the Cherry Arms) are what’s known as over-the-counter-solvents. Aka OTC Solvents. OTC Solvents can be used to process various drugs that aren’t meth. For instance, to extract THC from marijuana and produce stronger concentrates of high. Googling “OTC Solvents” brings up lots of how-to info on extraction, plus numerous warnings about handling and storing solvents.

Interesting but no doubt unrelated factoid about vacuum chambers: an 06/20/09 posting titled “Get All Your Cannabinoids” at marijuana.com sez “In laboratories when we need to remove solvents or by-products and our target compound is sensitive to heat, sometimes we use a vacuum chamber to remove solvents and byproducts…in the lab when we boil off compounds we don’t save what boils off, it gets whisked away by the vacuum pump. So the challenge is building a vacuum chamber vaporizer. How can this be designed? Does anyone have any ideas? …. If this can be done we could produce true medical grade vaporizers. A vaporizer that is extremely efficient and gets all the cannabinoids.”

Speaking of cannabinoids, in late August the NY State police discovered a large scale marijuana farm operating out of a Delmar warehouse, at a Delaware Avenue address just a block or so south of the high school. The discovery was pure serendipity; the police were on the premises as part of an unrelated investigation. (The nature of which was never revealed.) Three farmers were busted. One pleaded guilty in October. When not tilling the soil, Yoeman Ray Marshall was snapping up rundown rental properties in downtown Albany. Buying dozens at open bid auctions run by Albany County.

But I digress. Back to the dangers of storing potential explosives in basements.

On December 19th, 2009, a fire destroyed a single family home at 151 Adams Place in Delmar, in a nabe within walking distance of the Cherry Arms. The fire started with an explosion in the basement caused by a collection of unidentified chemicals. As the fire tore through the house, smaller explosions went off. Neighbors were evacuated from nearby homes. The residents of 151 Adams? Jason Sanchez wasn’t at home that afternoon. But his mother was, along with his 15 year old brother.

Jason’s mother was unharmed but his brother was in the basement when the initial explosion occurred. He lost several fingers and was severely burned. A local law enforcement officer stated he may have been handling the chemicals that touched off the explosion. Jason Sanchez’s brother spent several months in the hospital. Delmar is a public spirited place and schoolmates and family friends raised more than $20,000 to help the Sanchez family get back on their feet.

In late February 2010, Jason’s mother, a volunteer firefighter and EMT with the Delmar Fire Department, won the “Keep America Running Hometown Hero” award (a program sponsored by Dunkin’ Donuts) for using her emergency response training in pulling her 15 year old son out of the basement at 151 Adams. Two police officers had completed the rescue, moving the boy out of the house.

By March, the official investigation into the fire had come to “a little bit of a standstill”**. Mother Sanchez was refusing to be interviewed by the police. She also wouldn’t let them talk to Jason’s brother. The police did claim to know what chemicals had caused the explosion — but they weren’t releasing the info ’cause the investigation was ongoing. Almost a year after the explosion and resulting fire that burned 151 Adams Place to the ground, the investigation is still ongoing. Will the stash of potential explosives found in the basement of the multi-family Cherry Arms make the on-go move faster? Possibly. Though in old leafy suburbs, time moves more gracefully…

*’A grave risk of death‘, Stephanie Lee, Albany Times Union, 12/01/10

**Mother won’t talk about fire, Christen Gowan, Albany Times Union, 03/03/10

Carola Von Hoffmannstahl-Solomonoff
Mondo QT

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Ho humdrum. It’s back to political bidness in the Empire State. The gubernatorial race ended just as predicted. Andrew Cuomo finally got elected to something. (Becoming attorney general on Eliot Spitzer’s coat tails doesn’t count.) Not that beating Carl Paladino is proof of public appeal. A friend of mine in Hudson County, New Jersey suggested that Andy’s dad, former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, hired Paladino. I gave this theory serious consideration. Hudson County knows good ringers. (Point of info for folks living in Eden: political ringers are fake reform candidates who divide or reduce opposition to the machine candidate.) But as the campaign devolved, I rejected the notion. Buffalo developer Carl Paladino is definitely his own man. Albeit of an easily recognizable type. In upstate political circles, wacky little Caesars are a dime a dozen. Some are truly extreme. Remember Congressman Eric Massa?

Until resigning in March 2010, Democrat Massa repped the gerrymandered 29th district. The 29th contains a hefty chunk of primarily Democratic suburban Rochester in western New York, plus a swath of the state’s more Republican Southern Tier. (The latter incidentally, has a particularly fine collection of Caesars.)

Massa resigned under a cloud of sex scandal that reeked of abuse of power; he allegedly had a habit of harassing young male staffers verbally and physically. Coming on crude and overbearing. (Similar stories surfaced about Massa as a Lt. Commander in the Navy in the early 90s. Officers of lesser rank who shared quarters with Massa recalled waking up at night with his hands all over them — or with his junk in their face.) The scandal was a big story because Congressman Massa claimed top Democrats had targeted him for extinction, smearing him with lies damn lies. Why? Because Massa wouldn’t sign on to ObamaCare; he wanted a single-payer system. Massa later back pedaled on the claim, most spectacularly on the Glenn Beck show.

Beck had Massa on as a guest for a full hour in early March, thinking he was going to tell ALL about corrupt, arm-twisting Dems. But Massa only talked vaguely of how big money (from unnamed sources to unnamed pols) was corrupting both parties. Massa did talk at length about his “tickle fights.” Which were being seen through a glass, lewdly. His pile-on gropings of staffers were merely the horseplay of a rough mannered ex-military guy.

Every time Glenn Beck tried to pry Democrat dirt out of Massa, he dodged with tickle fight talk. Personally, I believe Massa’s appearance on Beck was the point at which Beck went round the bend. Before Massa (BM) I sometimes agreed with Beck and often found him funny. Sure, his sharp bi-partisan satire was already segueing into lectures re a vast, astonishingly competent commie conspiracy. And the Holy Prophet thing was kicking in. But after Massa (AM) Beck’s head totally ballooned.

Mother of God — did Eric Massa pass along the imp of the wacky little Caesar? If so, Upstate New York owes Beck an exorcism.

As for X Congressman Massa, no need to fear for his future. Word is, he’s been snapped up by the TSA. (The TSA is a big contractor in the Southern Tier.) Look for him at your local airport.

Massa is an extreme example of a wacky little Caesar. (He may actually qualify as a wacky little Caligula.) But his assumption that bully fun is a perk of power, along with his tone-deaf narcissism, are typical of many players in politically airless upstate New York. Where decadence isn’t divine, just day to day mundane. It’s been bred into the region’s old boys (and girls) by hoary political machines riding high in a post-industrial landscape of shrinking population. A sizable influx of civic minded residents might shake things up, but jobs that pay middle class wages are scarce. However, there is an influx of poor folks with substance abuse problems. They’re being shipped upstate to partake of one of the few growth industries. Halfway-Houses-R-Us! As an electorate, the poor and addicted are swell for political machines. What with their being so dependent on public money and all.

Speaking of being dependent on public money — and political machines — consider what passes for economic development in Upstate New York. Being Joe Doakes with a good idea for building widgets doesn’t cut it. Just try and build a few prototypes in your garage, Joe! Red tape and taxes will be on you like Eric Massa on a staffer. Meanwhile, when Widgetom Inc, a multi-national company supposedly headquartered somewhere in the USA, announces plans to build a facility upstate, they get the red carpet treatment from local pols, development officials, and New York’s quasi-public Empire State Development Corporation (ESD). In exchange for talking job creation and revitalization, and for stroking the egos and jazzing the war chests and vacation trips of assorted little Caesars, Widgetom receives tax breaks, public utility deals, EZ loans, and exemptions from environmental and land use regulations. Plus tons of taxpayer cash in combo platters of state and federal grants.

After several years of breathless local press coverage re Widgetom and the glorious revitalized future, Widgetom will announce that due to changing economic conditions and technological developments, the future will be smaller than initially projected. Maybe delayed indefinitely. However, a few more grants might just pull the rabbit out of the hat. Pols and development officials agree to stand and deliver. So much has already gone into the hat. The future of the region is at stake. Widgetom is too big to fail!

As for Joe Doakes, if he doesn’t flee the state, he may hew his way to a small business start-up. Heck, he might even get a few bucks from the local ESD funnel. (As long as his product doesn’t compete with Widgetom.) Tip 4 Joe: get cozy with your local little Caesars. Fealty can B fun.

Getting back to New York’s gubernatorial election, though numerous other states were able to field credible reform candidates of the Tea Party variety for major offices, the Empire State put forth Carl Paladino. An ultra wacky little Caesar whose real estate ponderosa in the Buffalo area is heavily dependent on state government contracts and ESD-based tax breaks. His bully in a china shop campaign style? I am what I am said Paladino. (Him and Popeye.) A rough mannered son-of-an-immigrant guy. At least Paladino wasn’t into tickle fights. He only emailed extreme pornography (woman w. horse) and puerile racist jokes to dozens of business associates, including ones with government addresses.

That Carl Paladino passed as a populist reformer in so much of upstate is a sign of that region’s decadent political condition. On the statewide front, the election of Andrew Cuomo, after no real race, is a like-minded sign. We New Yorkers love our Caesars. Be they little or big. As for the wacky, will Andy turn? Never say never. (See Eliot Spitzer.)

Carola Von Hoffmannstahl-Solomonoff
Mondo QT

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mailto:editor@mondoqt.com

Here’s the thing. When you talk about Albany to people outside the Capital Region most think you mean New York State government. In election years the reality of Albany as a specific place, not a symbol of pols-gone-wild, becomes even more difficult to convey. A shame, because the city of Albany has all sorts of exciting stuff going on. Particularly on its downtown real estate scene.

On October 22, fire broke out in an enormous (11 stories, 500,000 square feet) abandoned warehouse on the Albany waterfront. Smoke blanketed a large section of downtown, an adjacent highway, and a railroad bridge that carries Amtrak over the Hudson River to points west. Central Warehouse aka 143 Montgomery Street burned steadily for three days and continued to flare for six, with firemen hosing it down from the outside due to fear of possible combustibles and hazards within. Nearby neighborhoods inhaling the smoke had no need to be concerned — the New York State Departments of Health and of Environmental Conservation issued words of reassurance. Saying the smoke wasn’t packed with too many particulates and that the thousands of pounds of ammonia gas that once graced Central Warehouse (a former refrigeration and dry storage facility) had been drained by its circa 2000 owners.

What-to-do-with-Central-Warehouse has been a downtown Albany development question for decades. Abandoned since the late 1980′s, Central Warehouse (CW) reached rock bottom in ’97 when it was sold for a dollar and back taxes. Since then it’s passed (some might say flipped) through a number of hands with the price steadily rising along the way. The last sale took place in 2007 for $1.4 mil. The buyers were a team composed of Axiom Capital Corp., an Albany-based commercial real estate financing firm and CW Montgomery LLC (also CW Montgomery Street LLC), a group of undisclosed partners. The New York State Department’s Division of Corporations shows CW Montgomery and an entity named Axiom Realty Management LLC registered at the same address on State Street in downtown Albany.

When Axiom bought Central Warehouse they expressed belief the state might kick in a $5 million rehab grant from the Restore New York Communities Initiative. Restore New York is administered by Empire State Development (ESD), a quasi-public corporation. Though not an actual government agency, ESD has the power to dispense massive amounts of taxpayer cash. Restore New York grants are intended to favor projects in Empire Zones (a tax-breaks-for-job-creation program recently scrapped due to corruption and ineffectiveness) and in “Brownfield Opportunity Areas.”

The post-industrial area in which Central Warehouse sits is nothing if not brown.

Among the hands through which Central Warehouse passed are those of Brooklyn developer Joshua Guttman, doing business as Albany Assets LLC. It was Guttman who in 2007, allegedly sold CW to Axiom and the undisclosed partners of CW Montgomery. Apparently Guttman had tried to market the building on eBay for more than $3 million. Joshua Guttman (no relation to Caspar Gutman, the morbidly obese, obsessive seeker of the Maltese Falcon) has a history of troubled development projects turned smoky. Most dramatic example: the 10 alarm Greenpoint Terminal Market fire of May, 2006. The fire was one of the worst in New York City history. The immense and historic Brooklyn waterfront property was left in total ruins. Declared arson, the fire was ultimately laid at the door (shopping cart?) of a vagrant stealing metal fixtures.

Joshua Guttman is currently embroiled with the city of Hartford, Connecticut (the state capital) over a property he and his son own as Myrtle Realty LLC. The property, Capital West, is a highway visible office complex with a Myrtle Street address. According to the Hartford Courant, Capital West is “regarded as one of the city’s worst blighted properties.”

Albany, N.Y., Mayor Jerry Jennings (right) and Fire Chaplain Rev. John Tallman observe firefighting efforts at the Cental Warehouse October 22. Photo by Sébastien Barre

Central Warehouse is one of Albany’s worst blighted properties. Despite all the hands that handled CW, no rehabs happened. But over the years talk was talked by its buyers and sellers, local development officials, and Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings. (Jennings has been mayor since before CW was sold for a dollar.) Central Warehouse was repeatedly said to be on the brink of becoming a condo and/or commercial palace. Sure, the highway overpass and railway bridge right outside the non-existent windows on the upper floors were a tad problematical. As were the non-existent windows themselves and assorted environmental hazards within the structure. CW is a veritable concrete fortress. Chock full of no-longer acceptable materials. Punching out windows and removing the bads would be difficult and monumentally expensive. Not impossible tho. As for the highway overpass, if the projected young professional residents of the warehouse looked past the stream of cars flowing by their windows, they’d have a glorious view of the Hudson River. The railway bridge? Mooning Amtrak from the comfort of your loft-style condo is a great way to cap bar crawls.

Yep — the plans to revitalize Central Warehouse were grand. (Even if nobody really touted the mooning thing.) Alas. As the real estate bubble deflated, so did the plans. The asking price for the warehouse went the other way.

By September 2010, Central Warehouse (aka 143 Montgomery Street) was on the market for $4.9 million. Offered by Carrow Real Estate Services of Albany, described as a prime development opportunity with “possible grants available for rehab.” Carrow is headed by Charles M. Carrow. On the company’s website Charles Carrow is described as a board member and treasurer of the Downtown Albany Business Improvement District (BID). The BID knows good grants. (Like other BIDs, they also have the power to levy special taxes within their borders.) However, Mr. Carrow isn’t listed as board member or treasurer on the BID’s current site.

But back to the blaze. The fire at Central Warehouse was immediately considered suspicious. Vagrants had been spotted on the premises. As were mysterious workers who seemed to be removing fixtures. On October 28th, the alleged culprits behind the fire were identified. The mysterious workers done it. A local contractor and crew, who were engaged until last June in legit fixture removal at the behest of the warehouse owners, had allegedly snuck back in. Folks at neighboring businesses had seen them going to and fro for weeks, lugging out truck loads. Those responsible for property management at Central Warehouse apparently didn’t notice the action — or the tons of missing fixtures. While popping pipes, the thieves’ tools had sparked, thereby igniting the highly flammable cork-lined walls at the warehouse.

Despite the fire damage Central Warehouse isn’t in total ruins. As said, it’s a concrete fortress. The property is probably good for several more rounds of real estate games. In the immediate future will the damage mean “New Price” for CW? If so, will it move down — or up? And if a buyer bites will the possible rehab grants materialize? Stay tuned…

By the buy, don’t expect New York’s new governor, be it Andrew Cuomo (shoe-in) or Carl Paladino (snowball in hell) to cancel the capital city’s real estate games. Paladino, a Buffalo developer who leases miles of office space to state government agencies, was instrumental in getting the Empire Zone program expanded from Buffalo’s inner city to its office tower downtown. Collecting more than $300 mil in tax bennies along the way. Ex HUD head Andrew Cuomo? The lion’s share of his political contributions come from real estate industries, including some of New York’s most powerful developers.

Game on.

Carola Von Hoffmannstahl-Solomonoff
Mondo QT

Send comments or confidential tips to:

mailto:editor@mondoqt.com

["Fire at the Central Warehouse" photo by Sébastien Barre; CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]