CRAINSNEW YORK BUSINESS NEW YORK BUSINESS® APRIL 3 - 9, 2017 | PRICE $3.00 BLAST A new owner looks to once again make the Cosmos kings of New York soccer, like in the days when Pelé FROM ruled the pitch. But it won’t be easy. PAGE 13 THE PAST VOL. XXXIII, NO. 14 WWW.CRAINSNEWYORK.COM CLOSING Uncertainty BIDDING RIKERS, ails health TO BUILD OPENING insurers TRUMP’S POSSIBILITIES P.7 P.5 WALL P.16 NEWSPAPER P001_CN_20170403.indd 1 3/31/17 9:03 PM “With Star Citizen, we do 15 to 25 builds every day. We’re talking tremendous amounts of data. Fortunately, our fi ber network is absolutely stellar.” Chris Roberts, CEO Cloud Imperium Games Client since 2012 PC gaming is serious business. To compete, you need a robust network and IT infrastructure. We help clients like Cloud Imperium Games get that edge—with a winning mix of data, voice, video and cloud solutions, all delivered over a nationwide fi ber network. Game on. Visit enterprise.spectrum.com © 2017 Charter Communications. All Rights Reserved. Not all products, pricing and services are available in all areas. Restrictions may apply. Subject to change without notice. All trademarks remain property of their respective owners. ent-APR17-Brand-CIG-10-8x14-5-CrainsNY.inddCN018206.indd 1 1 3/22/173/22/17 12:08 1:03 PMPM APRIL 3 - 9, 2017 CRAINSNEW YORK BUSINESS FROM THE NEWSROOM | JEREMY SMERD | EDITOR IN THIS ISSUE Hailing Uber’s haters 4 AGENDA 5 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT UBER HAS TAKEN NEW YORK by storm since launching here 6 POLITICS Talent war six years ago. Three out of every four for-hire rides New breaks 7 HEALTH CARE Yorkers take in a car other than a yellow cab now come out for 8 WHO OWNS THE BLOCK commercial through the app. But Uber’s aggressive growth and reliance brokers on independent contractors instead of employees and the 9 REAL ESTATE stream of press reports alleging a sexist company culture 10 INSTANT EXPERT have made it an easy scapegoat for the shortcomings of an 11 VIEWPOINTS industry that long resisted innovation, in large part because 12 THE LIST it enjoyed so much protection from market competition. Along came Uber and today hailing a car with an app— FEATURES and having the fare automatically charged to your credit It’s part of our 13 LONG SHOT card—is the new normal. The irony is that nobody trusts mission to be 16 WANNABE WALL BUILDERS Uber—even though everyone uses it. That has made the “ $70 billion company surprisingly vulnerable. a reliable ride All this helps explain why Uber’s New York executives for everyone, P. came to our newsroom last week. They were trying to sat- 20 ROY CASTRO isfy critics who have been assailing the company for not everywhere providing enough wheelchair-accessible service, while also staving off regulators looking to enforce requirements that car services give wheel- chair users equal access to their vehicles. Those rules have long been on the books, and just about every for-hire fleet operator flouts them. But Uber being Uber makes the company a target. The executives, of course, didn’t describe their plan to expand wheelchair service in those terms. “It’s part of our mission to be a reliable ride for everyone, everywhere,” said General Manager Josh Mohrer. 20 GOTHAM GIGS Uber’s proposal calls for a 5-cent surcharge on every for-hire ride, money that 21 SNAPS would be used to attract more drivers, not just those working for Uber, to convert 22 FOR THE RECORD to wheelchair-accessible vehicles. That way, “companies would compete to provide the best service,” Mohrer said. 23 PHOTO FINISH The fact that Uber is pushing this plan speaks to its desire to neutralize naysay- CORRECTIONS ers, as the company could easily solve the shortage problem on its own. In fact, it Corrected profiles for 40 Under 40 2017 honorees already is. Last fall Uber launched a pilot program to improve accessibility. By low- Arun Gupta, Jessica O. Matthews and Laura Y. Rapaport appear at CrainsNewYork.com. ering its fees, it has enticed drivers to put 200 wheelchair cabs on the road. A few more months could bring that total to 1,000—the number Uber says is enough to make the service reliable for the 1% of New York riders who need it. Wheelchair service “is not going to be big business for us,” Mohrer said. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority alone spends $600 million to ferry disabled passengers. Uber’s wheelchair cars could prove a cheaper alternative. But the company would have to fulfill its own mission to make it happen. ON THE COVER PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES APPLY NOW DIGITAL DISPATCHES DOES YOUR COMPANY Go to CrainsNewYork.com HAVE WHAT IT TAKES? READ The generation If you think your organization is a next in line to lead cut above the rest, Loews Corp. earned > apply to be on our 10th annual more money in Best Places to Work list 2016. Alexander and recognizing the top 100 Benjamin Tisch, vice employers in New York City. presidents in corporate development, took home REGISTRATION $925,000 last year, up IS OPEN 8.8% from 2015. Benjamin is the son of To participate, go to: CEO James Tisch (pictured), while Alexan- CrainsNewYork.com/bestplaces der’s father is Co-chairman Andrew Tisch. ■ Verizon will launch an online TV service Vol. XXXIII, No. 14, April 3, 2017—Crain’s New York Business (ISSN 8756-789X) is published weekly, except for consisting of a dozen channels this summer. double issues the weeks of June 26, July 10, July 24, Aug. 7, Aug. 21 and Dec. 18, by Crain Communications Inc., 685 Third Ave., New York, NY 10017. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send The new offering is separate from the com- address changes to: Crain’s New York Business, Circulation Department, 1155 Gratiot Ave., Detroit, MI 48207-2912. pany’s Fios TV and Go90 services. For subscriber service: Call (877) 824-9379. Fax (313) 446-6777. $3.00 a copy, $99.95 one year, $179.95 two years. ■ (GST No. 13676-0444-RT) ©Entire contents copyright 2017 by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved. Airports can apply for a share of $20 million in state funding for safety im- provements and modernization. BUCK ENNIS, BLOOMBERG NEWS APRIL 3, 2017 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 3 P003_CN_20170403.indd 3 3/31/17 9:02 PM WHAT’S NEW APRIL 3, 2017 AGENDATear down an expressway to build up a community ew York City may be a Jane Jacobs town, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo is more of a Robert Moses type: He tries to cut through red tape and political obstacles to make big projects happen. Sometimes it works—construction of his new Tap- Npan Zee Bridge seems to be humming along despite its murky financing. And sometimes it doesn’t—he announced grand plans for a Queens con- FP0 vention center in 2012, but the project never materialized. What the city really needs is a combination of Jacobs and Moses: some- one who, like Jacobs, understands that our built environment must be com- patible with a community-oriented way of life and who, like Moses, can overcome NIMBYism, tightfistedness and fear of change to get things done. ACCESS TO GREEN SPACE and the waterfront will make the South Bronx a more pleasant place to live. Cuomo has a chance to achieve that elusive combination with his $1.8 billion plan to tear down the Sheridan Expressway and replace it with a tree-lined boulevard that connects residents of the South Bronx with the Cuomo, to his credit, embraced this challenge. The governor tasked his Bronx River and green space. planners with crafting a solution that would rid the Bronx of its ugly, noisy, The Sheridan, as it happens, was a Robert Moses creation that en- air-polluting, waterfront-blocking expressway, get trucks off the streets capsulates all that was wrong with the master builder’s highways. The and improve access to Hunts Point, which is the backbone of the city’s 1.25-mile roadway was myopically designed food supply and a key cog in our economy. to move as many vehicles as possible as Cuomo’s proposal breaks a stalemate And his negotiators had to sell it. Judging quickly as possible—not merely ignoring from the enthusiastic reactions of the stake- but undermining the needs of the neigh- between neighborhood and business holders and advocacy organizations, the borhoods it cut through. Eventually, this interests. Now he must deliver governor and his team have succeeded. realization took hold in the Bronx, and local Considering the conflicting, hardened sentiment gelled into a movement to undo positions the various factions had taken Moses’ handiwork. But by then the roadway had generated a business con- and the number of years the Sheridan fight had dragged on, this is quite stituency: the Hunts Point wholesale market and the truckers who sup- an achievement. plied it. These competing interests yielded a stalemate, with political lead- Jacobs would be proud of the plan, which introduces South Bronx res- ers unwilling to make a change that would make businesspeople unhappy idents to a waterfront long denied them. Now Cuomo must match Moses’ and require substantial resources to boot. ability to turn vision into reality. — THE EDITORS FINE PRINT BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager, with $5 trillion in assets, said it will consolidate 11 actively managed funds and lay off dozens of stock analysts as more investors put money into passive mutual funds that use computer algorithms to track market indexes.