Good morning. It's Friday. We'll look at what Mayor Eric Adams plans to do with his first paycheck. We'll also look at a new study of how New York City could become more technology-oriented, which recommends testing drones to inspect buildings. |
 | | Seth Wenig/Associated Press |
|
Today is Mayor Eric Adams's first payday. That's not the day's only first: it is also the first time a mayor of New York City has put his money into cryptocurrency, which is trendy. It's also famous for roller-coasterish fluctuations. |
How much will be in that first paycheck? His gross pay is $9,924.66, which he will receive every two weeks. A City Hall spokesman would not say how much was being deducted for taxes but said that Adams would put all of his take-home pay into cryptocurrency. |
Adams will be paid in old-fashioned, federally backed money because federal labor laws require base wages to be paid that way. He will convert the money to Bitcoin and Ethereum using the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. It's enough to make you wonder what Alexander Hamilton — who established the Bank of New York before becoming the nation's first secretary of the Treasury — would say. |
In a way, Adams is simply applying an age-old political strategy — appealing to the business community — to a relatively new corner of that community. Joseph Grundfest, a professor of law and business at Stanford University who is a cryptocurrency expert, said Adams was signaling that he was "really supportive" of crypto and wanted to attract the crypto subculture to New York. |
"That makes all the sense in the world," he added. "If you think about the work force that's crypto-related, it's typically high-tech and high-net worth with relatively low demand on municipal services. What you need is high-speed internet access and lots of good coffee bars." |
State Senator Diane Savino, who leads the Senate Committee on Internet and Technology, said Adams would make constituents more comfortable with cryptocurrency. |
The crypto industry already seems comfortable with Adams. Michael Novogratz, a major cryptocurrency investor, held a fund-raiser for Adams in September. The place: Zero Bond, the members-only nightclub where Adams has been known to fraternize late into the night. And when he went to Puerto Rico shortly after the November election, he flew on the private jet of Brock Pierce, a cryptocurrency investor. |
Adams went to Washington on Thursday to promote what he called a "radically practical" agenda. He has used the phrase before, including during his first speech as mayor three weeks ago. My colleague Emma G. Fitzsimmons says it means concentrating on the basics of running city government rather than pressing for one ambitious and wide-reaching policy proposal, as his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, did with his universal kindergarten plan. |
Adams, who has referred to himself as the "future of the Democratic Party," used a speech to the United States Conference of Mayors to reveal more details about his priorities. He outlined a "national urban agenda" built around public safety, child care and infrastructure. He also called for more federal funding for anti-violence programs. |
"That is how we create safer, more prosperous cities as we recover — that is how we bring our country back," he said. "That's being radically practical." |
A partly sunny day with temps in the low 20s. The evening turns mostly cloudy and cold, with temps in the mid 10s. |
In effect until Jan. 31. (Lunar New Year's Eve). |
- More than 95 percent of the record-setting $21.6 million in contributions to Gov. Kathy Hochul's campaign came from donors who gave $1,000 or more. The comedian Jerry Seinfeld and the former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt were among those who gave $50,000 each.
- Hundreds of people gathered in Times Square at a vigil for Michelle Alyssa Go, who died after being pushed onto the subway tracks last weekend. Here's what some of them had to say.
|
Fly-by-day building inspections? |
 | | Joseph Prezioso/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
|
It happens early in any mayoralty: The suggestions pour in. |
There are suggestions for reimagining, redesigning and remaking the city. There are suggestions for making it a better place to live, or at least a bigger place. Last week Jason Barr, the author of "Building the Skyline: The Birth and Growth of Manhattan's Skyscrapers," suggested making Manhattan bigger — 1,760 acres bigger, or slightly more than twice the acreage of Central Park. He said that tacking on a landfill development that would push the shoreline out into the harbor would help address housing affordability as well as climate change, which is making the city increasingly vulnerable to storm surges and flooding. |
Another, different, suggestion about an issue for the parts of the city that have already been built: Use drones to inspect building facades. |
That suggestion was contained in a report called "Rebooting NYC" by the Urban Tech Hub, part of the Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island. "The Adams administration, the new City Council and other officials like the borough presidents have a huge opportunity to radically improve the way the city works using technology," said Rohit Aggarwala, the lead author of the report. |
The report said that allowing drones to fly close to buildings, looking for potential hazards like loose bricks that could fall, would yield images that could be studied for potential problems. |
Using drones would also yield benefits at street level, the report said. It projected a 20 percent reduction in sidewalk sheds, the tunnel-like pipe and plank structures that are supposed to protect pedestrians from things that might fall — including, potentially, workers from engineering firms on rigging inspecting the facade. The city requires such inspections every five years for buildings more than six stories tall, some 14,000 buildings citywide, the report said. |
Drones, already used for building inspections in some other places, are banned in the city. "We had a building in New Jersey where they knew they had a problem with cracked window sills," said Stephen Varone, an architect who is the president of RAND Engineering & Architecture, a consulting firm, "but they didn't know how bad the problem was and you couldn't see from the street. The traditional way was to get into the apartments and look, or use a motorized rig outside. We used a drone. You're looking at it like a video camera. We used it to document which sills were damaged." |
Varone and other experts have noted that drones for inspections could be tethered so they could not fly off if something malfunctioned. And the report from the Urban Tech Hub stopped short of recommending that drones do more than just look. "It is not clear that drones today are capable of making repairs, although such technology is imaginable in the future," the report said. |
The City Council ordered a study of drone inspections that the Department of Buildings completed as the de Blasio administration was preparing to leave City Hall. The tech hub report took issue with elements of the Buildings Department report and called for a drone-based test program for 2023. |
Peter Luger's beckoned. It was a special night for my wife and me, so we arrived early to soak up the atmosphere and do some people watching. We stood at the bar, and I ordered a Beefeater martini, straight up with a twist of lemon. |
The bartender nodded, returned promptly, iced the glass, shook the shaker and poured a perfect drink. |
As I sipped my cocktail, I was fascinated by his interactions with customers and other members of the staff. He was clearly a consummate professional. |
He moved effortlessly, offering a smile, advice or a joke. And even as the crowd at the bar grew, he remained in absolute control. |
He returned to me to ask whether my drink was satisfactory. |
I asked how long he had been there. |
He said he had arrived at 4 o'clock. |
Glad we could get together here. See you Monday. — J.B. |
Melissa Guerrero, Geordon Wollner, Olivia Parker, Ed Shanahan and David Yaffe-Bellany contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment