New York To Drop 'The Big Apple' For New Nickname: 'World's Second Home'

[matcom]

<snip>

NEW YORK -- Forget "The Big Apple." New York now wants to be known as "The World's Second Home."

The city has filed an application to trademark the slogan, "The World's Second Home," giving the city exclusive rights to use it to promote business and tourism.

The phrase is likely to come up often as New York makes its push to host the 2012 Olympics.

If application No. 78484751 is accepted, the city would have exclusive rights to attach the phrase to a list of more than 200 products and services, according to Thursday's editions of the New York Times.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a self-made billionaire, has been much more aggressive about filing for city trademarks and patents than his predecessors. One such application includes licensing the phrase "Made in NY."

In the 1970s, the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau officially gave New York City the moniker "The Big Apple." Around the same time, the state took on the "I (Heart) NY" slogan.

http://www.wftv.com/travelgetaways/4206522/detail.html

[sam sarrha]

1. sothey will propably clearcut Central Park for the Olympics..??where else?

[Reverend_Smitty]

2. First Warner Brothers is changing Bugs Bunny...

now they are getting rid of "the big apple", what next? Why do people mess with good things?

[Osamasux]

3. Bush-Buddy Bloomberg has got to go.

He wants to build a football stadium for the Jets like his life depends on it. (Well, his Olympic dreams probably do.) He has been trying to help the Jets get their hands on one of the development rights only large lots available in the City on the cheap (West Side Rail Yards). The Jets offer is $100 million, with the taxpayers picking up a few hundred million to build it. Cablevision offered $300 million, plus they would pay the $250 million to build the platform over the yards. A $500 million difference for the cash starved Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). Bush-Buddy Bloomberg and Company keep calling the Cablevision offer "a publicity stunt". x(

Yesterday the MTA put the yards out for public bid. It's good to see them say 'Screw Bloomberg'.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. World's "Second" Home?! A person with an average salary can't afford

a parking space in a garage, let alone a studio in Manhattan. In the outer boroughs, an apartment can go for $500,000 to start as rentals are not as plentiful as they once were. And if you can rent, $2,000 per month is supposed to be a "good price".

[dr.strangelove]

6. Its bad, but not that bad

I've lived in NYC for most of my life. Until recently I made a average salary and have gotten by very well. All of my friends have average jobs and get by well. If you want to live in the price range you are talking about, you certainly can choose to, but that is not the normal range.

In the "outer boroughs", if you mean Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens and the Bronx, you can get a nice coop apartment for much less than $500,000. My sister is buying a 2BD coop in Long Island City (Queens) for $325,000. Rent for a nice non-rent controlled 2BD in Brooklyn or Staten Island is under $1400. If you luck into a rent controlled building in Brooklyn or in St George in Staten Island, it is under $1000. A nice queens 2BD is probably closer to $1800. In the city a decent 2BD is over $3000 and a decent studio is in the $1500 range. You can pay as much as you want though. A studio on 5th and the park can easily run you $5000 a month or $750,000 to buy, but that is far from where average people live.

[alarimer]

8. I don't know what you mean by average

But a salary of 30K is about $2000/month after taxes, so $1800 is a bit much for an apartment. that is still extraordinarily expensive for most. I once considered a job in the San Francisco Bay area but I looked at the rents, which were just as high and realized I would only be able to afford it if I lived 100 miles away.

NYC is well beyond the reach of most people.

[dr.strangelove]

10. I think your understanding of average is low for NYC

Do you know many households in NYC making under $30,000, I don't. In 1999 the per capita income for NYC was ~$23,000. This includes ~20% of adults who do not work by choice and an unemployment rate of 5.5%. The average salary for employed adults in 1999 was over $30,000. I can't find a source for figures since 1999, but I would guesstimate it is about $36,000 now.

This is based on jobs that people I know have. My cousin is a struggling actor who bar tends and waits tables in between commercials and theater work, I do his taxes and he reports slightly more than $30k. He is by far the poorest, employed, person who lives in NYC that I know. My sister never graduated high school and is a clerk for the city library and she makes $40. My brother is a freelance film maker and works on whatever films are in town. He makes well over $50 a year. I also have friends who are investment bankers and lawyers making $200,000 plus.

I work in a mid size law firm and we pay our mail-room clerks $35,000. My secretary makes $45,000. NYC teachers start at $36 and are making $50 in 5 years. NYC social workers start at $32 and are making $45 in five years. NYPD starts at $35,000 and after overtime you clear $55,000. NYFD is very close to that.
The MTA (city trains and buses) just posted 1500 jobs at $18 per hour and up. $18 per hour is about $35,000 per year. These are traditionally the lower earning jobs. If you want to make it in this town, it takes a little work, but it is done by millions every day.

By the way, I listed rents for 2BD. You can get a studio in Staten Island next to the ferry for $800. You can get a studio in Bay Ridge for $900. You can get a studio in the Bronx by the subway for $600. You can get a basement 1BD in Queens for less than $1000. You can get a studio in the upper east side for $1,100. You can get a great 1 BD in Harlem for $1,200. If you want to live alone, that is how you tough it out. I listed the rates for 2BD because many young single people get roommates and share rent. This can help get you through the first three - five years at a job where you make only $35. Once you start to clear $45 - 50, it is easier to get your own place.

I would not relocate to a city with rent that high unless you are making a substantial amount of money. But for those of us who live here, it is fine. We get by very nicely and are quite happy. I come from a union working family. My granddad was a meat packer and my other grandpa dug tunnels for the subways and later for the aqueduct. My mom is a nurse. My aunts are teachers or secretaries. I am the first one in my family to go to college, but yet we all have lived in NYC our whole lives and all all happy.

Unemployment in NYC is low compared to other cities, like San Fran, Portland Or, Seattle, Chicago, Atlanta and Boston.

I got by on $26,000 when I graduated about ten years ago. It was not easy, I had a roommate. It got me through a few years. If you don't want to pay a premium, move out a little farther. A 30 minute train ride to Yonkers will cut your rent by 50%. A 45 minute train ride to NJ will cut rent by 50%. If you want to live in the city, which I think is well worth the high rent, you pay for it.

[Me.]

5. The Only Good Thing About That

is that it will help bring Bloomberg down. That and the sweetheart deal he was trying to give the jets at the taxpayers expense. In a poll yesterday, B's numbers had risen by 2%, but the poll also said he would lose to any dem by 28%. We won't forget his turning this city over to the pukes for their disgusting convention any time soon. Fat lot of good that did him!

[dr.strangelove]

7. What is wrong with the "sweetheart deal" for the Jets.

And how is it at the taxpayers expense. If you are opposed to any public financing of a private enterprise, fine, but then lets stop building private ferry terminals, train stations and the Freedom Tower with public money. While we are at it, lets kick the NY Stock Exchange, the AMEX and NASDAQ out of the city because we gave them "sweetheart deals" too. Lets also kick out all the investment banks and companies we gave deals to keep in the city after 9/11 so they would not go to Jersey City. (Many did, and took thousands of jobs with them).

I think a municipality should give favorable treatment (and that includes tax breaks, cheap land and public financing like the sweetheart deal the Jets got) to a project that will bring in half a billion in union construction jobs, expand a convention center that is required to only employ union laborers and bring in a sports team that will create thousands of very much needed jobs.

Why is this "at the taxpayers expense?" Part of the deal is that that the NFL players, who earn a collective salary of over $85 million, will all pay New York City Income tax. Not to mention the ticket tax, parking tax, luxury box tax the construction of a connection to the rail lines and everything else that the city gets.

I don't want the Olympics here, but I fail to see how the Jets Stadium is a "sweetheart deal."

[Me.]

9. I Consider It A Sweetheart Deal

because a property valued at 900 million (according to the MTA) was to be sold to the Jets for 100 million and then the stadium would be built using taxpayers funds. Frankly I would like an end to all "sweetheart deals" to those who can well afford the price. As for the stadium, the only reason I have given it a second thought is because of the jobs it would provide, but I do not think the studies as to overall costs (overt & hidden) have not been comprehensive and do not begin to tell the story of the real costs, for there have been too many times when the estimated cost of something turns out to be twice that quoted. Further, the unseen costs, traffic etc. gives me the chills. The Time Warner construction at Columbus Circle is a good example of the chaos that can ensue. I am also very wary of deals made between "friends" which was stated to be the case on the local news last night regarding Blomberg & the Jets. I am in agreement with you about the Olympics, yet they are being used as an additional incentive to push this Jets deal through, "We don't have a chance at getting them unless we build the stadium now".

[dr.strangelove]

12. Everything has a price

The sale price of a piece of land does not only include the sale cash value. In this deal, the city gets significant benefits above the sale price. It is akin to me selling you my house and in addition to the sale price, my getting more money each year based on your income. If the Stadium and convention center do well, the city makes more revenue. The sale price in not $1 million, like it would be if MSG bought it and paved it over for a parking lot (which is what Dolan wants to do with it). The sale price includes potential future earnings.

This is just like what Jersey City did after 9/11 when it got several brokerage houses to move over. They gave a great deal, but in the long run got other businesses to move over and increased revenue.

The fact is that Yonkers, Jersey City, Hoboken and several others, are in the marketplace for businesses that produce jobs. If people work in a city, the tax revenue goes up. NYC needs to keep jobs to increase revenue. If revenue increases, money is available for all kinds of pork, including art projects like the new murals in the subways and the "poetry in motion" subway literature campaign (which I love but got cut from the budget next year). I want more revenue to keep those kinds of pork programs. I like to read poems and see artwork while I commute.

Anyway, I don't see it as a sweetheart deal. This is a pitch by Dolan and he got his media buddies on board to push his position.

[Me.]

13. I Agree The City Needs More Revenues

So let's hire more teachers and pay them better, re-open the firehouses closed down and hire new firemen, and if we want to subsidize let's also provide incentives to film companies like Canada does so we can bring that business back and put all the film people who are having a hard time finding work, jobs. Films, when we were getting a fair share of them provided a great deal of revenue for the city in salaries, hotels, restaurants, shopping etc. We could re-open libraries and extend their hours and on and on. These people pay taxes too. Also, it is people like these, the middle class, that keep the infrastructure of a city going, supporting it from the bottom up.

[dr.strangelove]

14. Doesn't that cost money, not make money

Hiring teachers and firemen cost money. As for paying teachers better, I am all for it. I don;t want to be greedy, but do you know how well paid NYC teachers are? I come from a family of NYC teachers. They do pretty well. I'd like them to make more, but NYC teachers have it way better than most of the country.

You examples are pretty funny because they hit my family on the nose. I have at least 10 teachers in my family, my brother is in the film industry and my sister in a NYC library clerk.

I think you are right about the film industry. My brother is a
freelance film maker (editing and post production work). He has had a harder time finding work. The only problem is films don't bring in massive revenues to the city. It does bring in a little, but the costs of the film have outweighed the benefits. That is why they were cut out, not because the city wants to lose money. I think we should bring back films,. but it is a cost to the city. To cut back on the revenue of taxing the film makers, we need to pay for the street shut downs, police and fire for the film and loss of parking revenue by film taking up street parking in some other way. The increase in revenue by the stadium should help. I how they use some of the revenue to help the film industry.

My sister's overtime has dropped since the library hours shut down. I would love to see NYPL branches re-open and the libraries extend their hours.

I think the stadium and convention center will create revenue and allow these projects.

[Me.]

15. Clearly We Are Representative On How The City

is split on this issue. You obviously have the inside track on how teachers are paid but I will beg to differ on the benefits of film. They brought in a great deal of money, across the board, in big and small ways.

I see the stadium idea as a gift which will keep us giving. As neither of us will have any real say, as this issue will never be voted on, we'll just have to wait and see how it shakes out.

[dr.strangelove]

17. On the stadium yes - we'll agree to disagree

As for teachers, it really depends on what is okay. Teachers are underpaid, but once a teacher has been in the NYC BOE and gets tenure, they make $50-60. I'm all for paying teachers more than lawyers, but 50-60 is not bad money for teachers in this country.

The film industry, we just have a different view on this. I don't think it makes money for the city because the costs are huge and the jobs are mostly temporary jobs for the life of a film. But I'm okay with your position.

Its been fun chatting.

[Me.]

18. D'accord!

See ya around

[Sabriel]

11. Hey, all the homeless people can wear t-shirts with the slogan!

I'm sure they'll appreciate it when the temperature drops.

[DrGonzoLives]

16. Ah, the arrogance of New York shines through once again

:eyes: