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“Cool” by whose standards?
Pink roller skates are cool by anyone’s standards.
You got that right!
Cool would be allowing people to play music again at Bethesda fountain, that stale bubble blowing and wedding photoshoot experience is getting very old.
Re: “Cool would be allowing people to play music again at Bethesda fountain”
REALLY? And how would anyone HEAR the music over the amplified din of the “Break-dancers” several hundred feet away shouting for the slack-jawed tourists’ dollars!
Why they are permitted to spoil the park experience is a very interesting question which no one is willing to answer for fear of being dubbed “racist”, “un-cool”, too-white, etc. etc.
Peace is important to me in parks. Competing noises are all over the city.
Also, there are too many weekend organized activities in Central Park.
It’s no place to go just to unwind and savor the green.
Coolness is in the eye and mind of the beholder!
Looks like I’ll have to dust off my roller blades. Of course, the knee braces will offset what little coolness factor I have left.
Speaking of roller skates, anyone else old enough to remember Saloon and what a novelty it was at the time!?
I remember the Saloon! Went there on a date before seeing a play at Lincoln Center and my menu caught on fire. I made a great first impression, lol. I brought my niece there for her graduation a few years later and the roller skaters were gone.
I completely remember Saloon and the owner Stuart. And the upside-down Christmas tree hanging from the ceiling. The food wasn’t bad either. I actually remember what it was before Saloon – back in the day it was a Roast Beef & Brew with a salad bar and in the bard section they had a palm reader who worked some evenings.
That was a great date place!
Yes Nelson! My sister worked at The Saloon! It was all about the roller skates. I don’t know how she did it. Or anyone else for that matter.
Ernies, Saloon, Dobsons, Al Buon Gusto, Marvin Gardens, Museum Cafe, Tuesdays, Teachers…all those places made such an impression on me that I can still remember them 30 yrs later! Back when “The Morning Show with Regis & Cindy Garvey” was a local show ha ha ha!
still searching for a replacement for the minestrone at al buon gusto.
Anyone ever notice the revolving cast of characters going in & out of the deli on 94th/Amsterdam? Oh, $4 or less for most breakfast sandwiches…just ask for salt & pepper!
I’ve got a question.
Can anyone give me a serious answer as to what economic incentive landlords have to leave storefronts vacant for months or even years?
I’m not asking this rhetorically. I’m assuming that the landlords are doing some sort of rational calculation.
for example, do they get to write off the purported ultra-high “rent” that they don’t receive as some sort of business loss? i.e. throw out a store that is paying $10,000 a month; list the space at $50,000 a month, and then write off the empty storefront as a 50K monthly loss?
I’m wondering if anyone here has experience with the accounting on this. what they are doing on the UWS doesn’t make sense to me.
Your paranoid conspiracy theory about the ultra-rich and the developers is just that…it all actually makes perfect sense. That is, to someone who understands business and not bitter old progressives.
However, I will give you a brief lesson on commercial real estate valuation. Generally, as opposed to residential real estate, commercial r.e. value is based on the tenant. For example, the longer the lease and the higher the credit rating of the business the higher price you can sell or value the property at.
When developers and landlords and business owners look at a commercial property they simply look at the NOI, or Net Operating Income and multiply that with a market capitalization rate or cap rate. Now, when I say NOI I mean the landlords not the tenant. It doesn’t matter if Starbucks or Citibank make or lose money. The landlord gets his income from the rent payments, which with a national, AAA rated tenant are steady and secured. Not so much with Mom and Pop.
So, to answer your question, that scenario you made up is completely false, however, property taxes are always tax deductible. The reason these stores stay vacant is just a simple matter of dollars and sense. Most have owned these buildings for generations and are paid for or their basis is sooo low it doesn’t matter. People are in business to make money and smart strategic people make more. They are not in it to beautify or enhance neighborhoods.
I could go on but as a master of the universe I have to go back to exploiting the poor and downtrodden.:) got to afford the UWS after all…
God bless us all and long live the UWS.
Despite the snark, you guys actually made some interesting and informative points. And regarding the snark, please read what I wrote again. it was a QUESTION. I was asking what the economic justification was. i wasn’t putting forward some “paranoid conspiracy”.. just trying to figure out the actual economics.
Now let’s get into the substance of the two answers.
So it’s obvious that the cash flow of the building is negatively affected, at least for a year or two, by leaving the storefront open. But your argument is, if I understand it correctly, that the resale value of the building itself will increase MORE than the cash lost on the annual profit / loss statement. Thus, by keeping the storefront open and trying to get an “A” tenant at a much higher price, they are speculating on increasing the balance sheet (the building valuation) while taking a hit on the annual profit loss.
Please note that in many cases the issue is not RENTING to someone new but evicting someone who has been there for years or decades, presumably paying rent and producing steady cash flow. RCI Electronics on 98th (99th?) and Bway, which the last time i looked was still vacant, is a case in point. for all practical purposes it is an eviction… they raise the rent above what the store can possibly pay.
I’ve had commercial leases on office spaces and for small businesses they ran 5 or 10 years (or often less these days, for start-ups). Does anyone know the standard storefront leases on the UWS? Does the local Starbucks sign a 10 year lease?
Hi again, Mr. Bernstein.
Although I don’t have enough time right now to address everything, I wanted to respond to you and I will write more later. I apologize for the “snarkyness” of my previous responses.
See, the problem with more regulations and more taxes, etc. on businesses creates an anti-business environment where entrepreneurs don’t want to take the risks and deal with the red tape. Then guess what happens….more empty store fronts! If you really want to get businesses to set up shop in the neighborhood, think about it….how would you want to be treated if you were a business owner? Maybe we should ask Jacob and his Pickles about the obstacles to running a thriving business on the UWS?
Business owners generally are people who are taking great risks, investing countless hours of their time and money, and helping the community on a variety of levels from employing people to providing goods and services to the neighborhood. Well, landlords are business owners too. When you make it more difficult for them to conduct their business you are essentially incentivizing them to just sit on the sidelines.
Anyway, you cant solve economic problems with politics, everything isn’t political and or social. Whether we like it or not it’s the almighty dollar that makes the world go round. Now, let’s all try to put our heads together and figure out how to fix-up our beloved UWS. I think we can do it….
Well put Uwslifer!
I might also add that a landlord has considerable expenses when first getting a tenant (broker fees, tenant improvement allowances, etc) and then if the tenant fails the landlord has more expenses to empty the space for a future tenant.
This is why a landlord will keep a space vacant instead of leasing to yet another Fro-yo store destined to fail.
There is no provision in the tax code allowing a landlord to deduct rent not received from a non-existent lease. In fact that is one of the most ludicrous arguments I’ve ever heard.
Thanks Richard! Those are excellent points as well. Turnover is always a negative for the property owner. All the more reason they want these big chain tenants in there….much less likely to break the lease or go under etc.
Just to be clear to all my neighbors here on the UWS, I don’t support this or think it is positive for the neighborhood. I remember the good ole days too but this is just a sad reality of how high finance and hyper-capitalism is changing the character of NYC. I consider myself a pretty liberal guy, probably more of a moderate, but I am also a realist. If we don’t understand the “why’s” of the problem we will never figure out solutions. We cant just blame billionaire boogie men (wow, that would be a great name for a band, huh?)and act like victims. Im looking at you Mr. Bernstein…:)with all due respect of course. I know you do have a lot to contribute to these conversations.
Again, best regards to all the UWS lifers and transplants alike. The people make the neighborhood. lets all try to be kind to each other, we are all just trying to make it through life in this crazy city.
UWS_Lifer and others, i appreciate the facts you are providing about how the commercial rent market works and how buildings are valuated. i’m trying to understand the facts… so let’s avoid the assumptions for now, please.
more snark. i was the one who started the discussion by trying to find out the actual economics of why the landlords are doing this. that has nothing to do with being a “victim”.
but in this case, “free market economics” is leading to something that is bad for the city and the neighborhood. thus we should look at forms of commercial rent regulations and/or mandatory rent arbitration, as proposed by #Savenyc (Steve Barrison).
and the unfettered free market in this case is not good for everyone’s economic health. eventually the valuations on the properties will be bid up too high… an asset bubble. and we know the results of asset bubbles.
I am no expert, but I heard that, since these leases can run for 20-30 years, and you figure that the value of real estate will keep rising, it’s worth waiting for the right deal.
I LOVED the Saloon! I would bring all out of town guests there… it was such a quintessential NYC spot – and right across from Lincoln Center! I can’t think of another place (that is somewhat affordable) that compares. I *did* bring my last group of out of town guests to Gray’s Papaya, though – and they loved it!
Cool People……IMO comedian Jordan Peele (Key & Peele on Comedy Central) who grew up on the Upper West Side. He attended PS 87, IS 44 and Calhoun. His family was not affluent. Per The New Yorker he was “reared in a one-bedroom walkup.”
Sadly, unlikely that a family like his at a moderate or middle income level could live on the UWS now. Until about a decade or so ago, the UWS was full of middle income people, many intellectuals, many quite cool – musicians, social workers,writers, professors etc.
But UWS has changed and now, due to the luxury real estate tsunami,new UWS residents are at high income levels, more likely to be in big finance, media, law etc.
Jordan Peele is a product of the old Upper West Side, something half the people on this site don’t care for or know anything about.
it’s true… really sad…
I wish that there was an “advice” column in this publication.
Oh my goodness, yes please!
“Cool”? I tend to cringe at the use of such colloquialisms by mature adults. Youthful antics can be charming– when exhibited by youth. From those who are already well past that benighted, magical early phase of this fleeting, fraught journey that we call life? Not so much.
In recognition of how critical the “coolness factor” can be for youth, how deeply and extensively influential it can be, I would like to take this opportunity to address just two areas in which said factor could be used to promote public safety and health among this demographic.
First, on the matter of getting youth to comply with the basic, critical precaution of wearing helmets while riding bicycles, skateboards, scooters, roller skates, in-line skates or anything similar.
We need to make the wearing of a helmet “cool” and the not wearing of one “uncool”.
Consider some of the following suggestions that were given to the mother of a twelve-year-old for how she can get him to wear a helmet when skateboarding. These are excerpted from a discussion that I highly recommend: helmut [sic] or no skateboard?
……………..
…………
I will try to make a separate post about my other idea for an area in which the “coolness” factor could be utilized.
I would like to comment on the exchange between Bruce Bernstein and several other individuals in this thread, concerning landlords and vacant storefronts, etc.
As should be quite clear from a number of replies I have made to various comments of BB’s, I have hardly been one of his fans here. The exchange between BB and his detractors in this thread, however, is a case where I find myself considerably more inclined to side with BB. At the very least, I would say that BB has not only made valid points but also comes out of the exchanges with his opponents and detractors looking distinctly better than them. (And it is not the first such case, either.)
I would like to quote from a post of BB’s from back in October that I recently came across while searching for something else.
( https://www.westsiderag.com/2014/10/18/rci-appliances-set-to-close-after-80-years-on-the-upper-west-side#comment-252221 )
BB’s claim about Adam Smith, quoted above, is consistent with what I have read and heard about Smith. I must confess that, with the exception of some excerpts that I have come across here and there, I have yet to actually read Smith’s writings myself. Nonetheless, just about everything I have read and heard about Smith, by people who have read him, has led me to the same conclusion: that at least a great deal of what is called “capitalism” today is starkly at odds with what Smith actually advocated and envisioned. I believe that Smith himself would be quite disturbed– if not downright livid– over at least much of what is claimed to be in his mold and of his legacy.
Thus, when I heard Noam Chomsky describe Adam Smith as someone whom “we are all supposed to respect but never actually read“, I smirked with appreciation.