Good morning. It's Friday. We'll look at what a planned semiconductor factory could mean for upstate New York. We'll also pull back the curtain on memories from the old Metropolitan Opera House. |
 | | Steve Helber/Associated Press |
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Will this reinvent upstate New York as a manufacturing hub, as Gov. Kathy Hochul suggested? |
It will be a step toward that vision. When I spoke to him, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said the big chip project has the potential to be a "21st- century Erie Canal" for upstate New York — a foundation for economic prosperity for the region. |
But remember, all the projections for dollars spent, factories built and jobs created cover more than 20 years. This is a long-term venture for the company and a long-term investment for the state and federal government. Micron will not begin making chips in volume until after 2025. |
Describe what the plan actually is. How big will this be? |
This could well be the largest chip-making complex in the United States. The plan is for four giant factories, covering the equivalent of 40 football fields. And the company says the project will eventually create nearly 50,000 jobs — about 9,000 at the company, and more than 40,000 in the surrounding community for suppliers, contractors and local service businesses. |
Companies making site investments like this, subsidized by government funds, always talk about all the jobs they will bring. Even if as many jobs are created as Micron predicts, what kind of jobs will they be? |
Walk into a modern computer-chip factory, and you don't see many people. The few people in them are wearing white suits, masks and hoods. It's highly automated. |
The kind of manufacturing Micron does is a world apart from the old-line manufacturing that once provided good jobs in upstate New York, straight out of high school and onto the factory floor. |
The company said its 9,000 jobs will pay well, $100,000 or more on average. And Micron's suppliers of gasses, chemicals and production machines that will likely set up operations nearby will be hiring mainly skilled workers. |
To become a modern manufacturing hub will require investments in education and training. And Micron and the state have pledged to spend $500 million on community and work force training. |
Hochul said this project was personal for her because, coming from Buffalo, she lived through the decline of manufacturing upstate. How much is the state putting up? What about the federal government? |
The New York incentive package is $5.5 billion over the life of the project. Hochul said that was the largest ever by a state, but worth it because of the scale of the job creation and economic impact. And she noted the state financial support would come in steps as milestones for jobs and private investment were met. |
Federal grants and subsidies will come from the $52 billion authorized for new semiconductor manufacturing in the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which Congress passed in August. Companies cannot apply for that funding until next year, but Micron will and stands to receive billions of dollars, though how much remains to be seen. |
You noted that the chip industry is cyclical. Doesn't a big chip factory like this expose upstate New York to the same kinds of ups and downs as the auto industry in Midwestern communities? |
It's a good question and a good analogy. While there are cycles in the chip industry, demand is expected to rise overall. The memory chips Micron makes are used in everything from smartphones and personal computers to cars and appliances — and increasingly so. Total demand for memory chips is expected to double by the end of the decade. |
But the American auto industry got battered mainly because for years it could not compete with Japanese carmakers on quality and price. The upstate New York chip-making investment will only expand and pay off for the region and for Micron if it can compete with rivals in South Korea, China and Taiwan. |
It's a sunny day near the mid-70s. At night, expect wind gusts with temps dropping to the high 40s. |
In effect until Monday (Italian Heritage Day, Indigenous Peoples' Day and Sukkot). |
 | | Ulster County Board of Elections |
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In July, Ashley Dittus, an election official in Ulster County, N.Y., said it was "not what you think of when you think of a traditional 'I voted' sticker." But Ulster County ordered thousands of them printed, and this week Dittus announced on Twitter, "They've arrived." They will be given to voters once early voting begins on Oct. 28 and on Election Day, Nov. 8. |
The design was the work of Hudson Rowan, 14, who said in July that the creature on the sticker "kind of resembles the craziness of politics and the world right now." It easily won a design contest with 228,200 votes, about 48,000 more than the population of the county, but the contest was not limited to county residents. |
 | | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images |
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 | | 1902 Irving Underhill, N.Y. |
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A plaque will be unveiled next Wednesday to commemorate a long-gone building, the old Metropolitan Opera House on Broadway between West 39th Street and West 40th Street. One of the people who will pull back a gold lamé curtain for the unveiling is Nancy Zeckendorf, who remembers the old Met. She was a dancer in the Met's ballet corps in the late 1950s and early 1960s. |
The plaque will mention Sir Rudolf Bing, who was the Met's autocratic general manager for 22 years and is credited with moving the Met into the modern era and out of the old building in 1966 when the Met's new quarters at Lincoln Center were ready. |
Zeckendorf's new memoir — "small town Big Dreams," written with Jane Scovell — also mentions Bing. And Chapter 14 mentions something that the plaque does not: her affair with Bing. |
"That has nothing to do with the plaque on the building," she said in an interview this week. And later, when she was asked how she and Bing became involved, she seemed not to want to dwell on the relationship. |
This was after she had talked about discretion, or discreetness. "Somebody else might have taken the opportunity to flaunt the relationship and talk about it, but we didn't," she said. "Seven years is a long time for a relationship. A lot of marriages don't even last that long." |
She said she had written about Bing in her memoir because the often acerbic Bing is not always remembered for his contributions to the Met, which included bringing in new directors "from theater and cinema to upgrade the dramatic potential," she wrote in the memoir. She also wrote that he was "forward-thinking when it came to casting," hiring Marian Anderson in 1955 (after hiring Leontyne Price two years earlier; the Met had hired the Black prima ballerina Janet Collins two years before that, for a scene in "Aida"). |
The plaque says the old Met's acoustics were exceptional, but the backstage facilities were overstuffed long before Lincoln Center was on the drawing board. Still, Zeckendorf, who later met and married the real estate developer William Zeckendorf Jr., said she missed the old building. |
"Everybody came out and went in the same stage door — the stagehands and Renata Tebaldi," she said, referring to a legendary soprano. "I would see her and she would say 'Good morning, Nancy.' Singers were not flying from one city to the other doing a different opera three days later. Not in those days. They stayed in one place longer, which I think was better for their voices as well." |
I brought a bunch of my old clothes to the local Housing Works store as a donation. In the pile was a dress I liked but never wore. |
Nonetheless, I began to miss it once it was gone. I would visit it at the store while it waited to be bought. |
It didn't sell, and I was insulted. Months passed, and it was discounted to $12. |
I bought it back and I'm wearing it now as I write this. |
Glad we could get together here. See you on Tuesday. — J.B. |
| Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
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