NEW YORK BRIEFING February 2005

News this month

Rock and a hard place

On February 4th, a judge ruled that the state's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional, and that city clerks should be able to hand out licenses to same-sex couples. The ruling prompted Michael Bloomberg, New York's Republican mayor, to pledge his support for gay marriage, but then to say that the city would appeal the court's decision. City lawyers have recommended the appeal, arguing that an iron-clad ruling from the state's highest court would ensure the validity of same-sex marriage licenses. Otherwise New York City may simply fall in line with San Francisco and New Paltz, a small town in upstate New York, where thousands of gay marriages were ultimately overturned.

Mr Bloomberg's attempt at caution has won him no admirers. Tom Duane, a Democratic state senator, called him a coward, while his fellow republicans trotted out their long-held claim that the mayor is a Democrat in disguise. Some observers say Mr Bloomberg is just trying to have it both ways, before his election in November, since a wave of same-sex marriages would have hurt him in his party's primary. But a position unsympathetic to gay marriage would damage Mr Bloomberg's standing among the city's Democrats and gay voters, who are prominent in New York.

Spring sale

The budget recently proposed by George Pataki, New York's governor, calls for selling or leasing some of the state's roads, airports and bridges. Though Mr Pataki has long advocated privatisation—arguing that the state's transport facilities “are worth billions”—the move would require a change in state law. State officials seem confident that this will come, and have already met with Macquarie Securities, an Australian investment bank, and LCOR, a Pennsylvania developer, to build and manage a replacement for the Tappan Zee Bridge.

Privatisation of public works is becoming more common across the country. Last month, Texas announced that a private company will pay $6 billion to build 316 miles of highway and lease it for 50 years. The Chicago Skyway, a 7.8-mile toll bridge, was leased out for 99 years for $1.83 billion, and the Dulles Greenway in Virginia was built with $338m in private funding. New Jersey is considering leasing or selling the New Jersey Turnpike and two other toll roads to help mend its budget. Critics of the trend argue that profits earned by private firms will raise costs for taxpayers. But sagging budgets have left states like New York looking for a bailout that does not require higher taxes.

Olympian endeavours

In February, the Evaluation Commission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will tour each of the five cities bidding for the 2012 Summer Olympics—New York, London, Paris, Madrid and Moscow. In anticipation of the visit (New York is the third stop on the tour), the city has launched an ad campaign promoting the Games: the five-ringed Olympic logo is plastered across 13,000 taxis, 4,000 subway cars and over 7,000 buses across the five boroughs. The IOC will make its decision on July 6th. Paris is widely seen as the front-runner, with London in second place.

Mr Bloomberg hopes New Yorkers will rally in support of a controversial stadium on the city's west side, which would be used for the opening and closing ceremonies. The stadium would be a permanent home for the Jets, one of the city's two professional football teams (they now play just over the river in New Jersey), which has agreed to foot most of the construction bill. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which owns the stadium site, is in negotiations with the Jets for development rights. But the two sides are some $200m apart, and are squabbling over how to share broadcast revenue. Meanwhile, the MTA has received a $600m bid from Cablevision, an ardent opponent of the stadium, which wants to build shops and apartments on the site. Without the stadium, the city's Olympic bid looks less promising.

Justice

While waiting in line to get into a courthouse in January, one New Yorker turns to another and tells a classic lawyer joke: “How do you tell when a lawyer is lying? His lips are moving.” But an attorney standing near the men got offended, and reported them to a court officer. Both men were promptly arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, a misdemeanour that carries a maximum penalty of 15 days in jail.

But Harvey Kash and Carl Lanzisera, the unlucky jokesters, also happen to be co-founders of Americans for Legal Reform, an activist group that presses for greater public access to courtrooms. In this case, they got the last laugh: on February 8th, a grand jury voted to dismiss all charges. Mr Kash emerged from the courthouse proclaiming: “The First Amendment is alive and well,” and vowing, “to keep telling those lawyer jokes 150%”.

“C” stands for?

As New York's commuters crawled out from under the snow dumped by a blizzard that hit in late January, they were met with terrible news: two of the city's busiest subway lines were disastrously crippled by a fire. The C-line was suspended altogether, and the A-line was cut to a third of its previous frequency, putting each train 18 minutes apart. Transport officials first said it would take a ridiculous three to five years to fix the damage. But somehow, following a public outcry, they restored service by early February. Some 580,000 people ride the lines every weekday.

The damage—the subway's worst since September 11th—was caused by a fire in the tunnel leading to the Chambers Street station. Initial reports blamed the fire on a homeless man who was trying to keep warm (police do not remove homeless from the subway when temperatures drop), but police officials are still investigating. The fire destroyed a signal room full of crucial switches, relays and circuits, which can be repaired by only two firms in the world, one in Pittsburgh and the other in Paris.

Catch if you can

February 2005

Christo and Jeanne-Claude's The Gates in Central Park

February 12th-27th 2005

New York is in a tizzy over the Christo and Jeanne-Claude's latest environmental artwork. For two weeks, Manhattan's Central Park will be lined with 7,500 saffron-coloured vinyl gates (a hue remarkably similar to Jeanne-Claude's hair), each 16 feet high and hung with fabric panels. These vivid arches create a majestic passageway, criss-crossing the park's 23 miles of pedestrian walkways. Killjoys who tsk-tsk the city for endorsing such a project should note that the artists have paid for this $20m artwork themselves, using money earned from Christo's drawings and collages.

The Gates are expected to attract quite a few tourists. Those frustrated with the project's short shelf-life (after 26 years in the making) should note that brevity is part of the point. As Jeanne-Claude once said in an interview: “The fact that the work does not remain creates an urgency to see it. For instance, if someone were to tell you, ‘Oh, look on the right, there is a rainbow.’ You will never answer, ‘I will look at it tomorrow’.”

See the artists' official website.