POWER STRUGGLE Business Groups Say Natural-Gas Delivery Has Reached a Crisis Point
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ASKED & ANSWERED: ALICIA GLEN on her 5 game-changing years as deputy mayor PAGE 13 SPECIAL REPORT: Leveling the playing eld for New York’s female entrepreneurs PAGE 3 CRAINSNEWYORK.COM | MARCH 4, 2019 | $3.00 POWER STRUGGLE Business groups say natural-gas delivery has reached a crisis point. Environmentalists agree BY MATTHEW FLAMM New York is a city of canyons. But for Ashley Fallon, a child of Breezy Point who now lives in Rockaway Beach, her portion of Queens can seem closer to California than Manhattan. e view from her surfboard might include any of three species of whales, two kinds of dolphins and baby seals. Walking on the beach, she sometimes spots the rare snowy owl. Fallon knows the beach was not always this clean or the water this full of life. at is one reason she has joined a coalition of local civic and environmental groups ghting the proposed Williams Transco natural-gas pipeline. e groups, including Surfriders Foundation, 350.org and the Rockaway Beach Civic Association, insist the pipe- line could in ict lasting environ- mental damage on the area. e 24-mile expansion of exist- ing pipeline infrastructure would run 17 miles underwater, from New Jersey’s Raritan Bay across lower New York Bay to a Transco pipeline already in place 3 miles o shore from the Rockaway Peninsula. e project’s supporters are no less pas- sionate than Fallon. ey say the he rst time Jay Cross Northeast Supply Enhancement CITYSCAPE Project, or NESE, will address a visited the West Side looming natural-gas shortage in rail yard was in the Brooklyn and Queens and on Long T Island that could in ict lasting spring of 2000, when he ew damage on the region’s economy. up from Miami to meet Woody e battle is playing out amid an- Johnson and complete the other gas shortage that has raised GOING YARDS deal to become president of alarms across the region’s business community: Con Edison has de- Hudson Yards, Related Cos.’ bold gamble on the New York Jets. He was clared a moratorium on natural-gas the Far West Side, is poised to pay off tasked with building a stadi- hookups in southern Westchester. um on the site. Having previ- As of March 15, the utility said, it will not be able to guarantee service CNYB BY GREG DAVID ously overseen a new venue, for new projects, e ectively sti ing development. JAY CROSS, president of Related Hudson Yards SEE HUDSON on Page 16 BUCK ENNIS/ SEE POWER on Page 20 VOL. 35, NO. 9 © 2019 CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC. CUOMO’S WE GOT A FACE-LIFT! HAIL MARY Our revamped look lets us deliver more of the essential TO LURE news and insights you’ve BACK NEWSPAPER come to rely on from Crain’s! AMAZON MORE INSIDE PAGE 6 ISTOCK, P001_CN_20190304.indd 1 3/1/19 7:42 PM IN CASE YOU MISSED IT DATA POINT No-bull BofA readiness tests kept pace, growing Ten years after snapping up Merrill THERE ARE 41 CIDER-MAKERS at a 10.7% clip. Lynch, Bank of America is erasing IN THE STATE, THE MOST IN THE traces of the once-venerable insti- Easy riders tution. BofA is removing the Mer- U.S. AND 413% MORE THAN Citi Bike will ood the streets with rill Lynch name from its invest- THERE WERE IN 2014. THAT 4,000 e-bikes in the next few ment banking and trading months and charge $2 more for divisions and shortening its YEAR NEW YORK BEGAN GIVING rides. e rollout will result in one- wealth-management nomencla- NEW LICENSES TO CIDERIES fth of the total eet being of the ture to Merrill. pedal-assist variety. THAT USE LOCAL APPLES. MTA trips up Pulling the plug e prices of weekly and monthly Scott Rudin, the lead producer of MetroCards will rise to $33 and Pier pressure the To Kill a Mockingbird on $127, respectively, April 21. e e 25th annual Armory Show, set Broadway, is having theater pro- base fare won’t change, but bonus for March 7 through 10, was forced ductions of the classic novel shut rides will be eliminated. Suburban to move half of its art exhibits from down across the country. Lawyers commuters also face hikes of 3.85% Pier 92 to Pier 90 after the Econom- for Rudin are declaring exclusive on monthly LIRR and Metro-North ic Development Corp. informed stage rights to adaptations of the GETTY IMAGES tickets and 6.3% on most E-ZPass organizers that Pier 92 was struc- iconic Harper Lee novel. tolls on MTA bridges and tunnels. turally unsound. — Chris Kobiella Another speaker’s bubble Calling foul Potluck, indeed Sweater brand Coogi is suing the Martha Stewart and Canopy bursts—Johnson, take note Brooklyn Nets for incorporating its Growth are teaming up on canna- “distinctive multicolored pattern” bidiol lines for humans and ani- LAST TUESDAY SEEMED TO DASH THE DREAMS of yet another City Council into jerseys inspired by legendary mals. e lifestyle expert’s CBD speaker, in this case Melissa Mark-Viverito, who left the post in 2017. Brooklyn rapper Notorious B.I.G., advisory role follows her Martha & e Upper Manhattan politician nished third , with less than 11% of the who popularized the sweaters. Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party co- vote, in the 17-candidate race to ll the vacant public advocate’s o ce— Coogi demands that the team stop host Snoop Dogg’s 2016 partner- her vote total was tripled by the man she beat for the speaker job in 2013, wearing and selling the uniforms. ship with a Canopy subsidiary. Brooklyn Councilman Jumaane Williams. She promptly ruled out chal- lenging Williams for the job in the June Democratic primary. Return engagements Going yard Mark-Viverito did not deny during the race that she hoped to run for Famed East Village music venue TF Cornerstone bought two Paci c mayor in 2021, but that plan appears to have withered . Webster Hall is reopening in the Park development sites from She should have known: No council speaker has ever won higher o ce. spring after 18 months of renova- Greenland Forest City for $143 mil- Peter Vallone, the rst to hold the role after its creation by the 1989 City tions. Owners Brooklyn Sports & lion. It will erect two towers with a Rolling out Charter revision, bombed in his 1998 run for governor and his 2001 bid for Entertainment and AEG Presents total of 800 apartments and retail The infamous Lower East mayor. His replacement, Gifford Miller, placed fourth in the 2005 Demo- upgraded the acoustics, restrooms space at 615 and 595 Dean St. at Side Hells Angels clubhouse, cratic primary for mayor. Eight-year Speaker Christine Quinn got less than and air conditioning, among other the former Atlantic Yards. known as the Church of the half as many votes as Public Advocate Bill de Blasio in the 2013 primary. improvements. e opening date Angels, was sold to LLC East Part of the di culty is that an e ective legislative leader inevitably en- and act will be announced soon. Hitting the books 3rd Street for an undisclosed genders enemies and animosity. But the process that selects the speaker— A record 55,011 city students took amount. The motorcycle getting the votes of at least 26 of the 51 council members, usually by court- at least one Advanced Placement gang reportedly bought the ing county Democratic bosses—is hardly indicative of citywide electability. exam last year, an 11.4% increase building, at 77 E. Third St., It is similarly rare for heads of the state Legislature to become governor from 2017. e rise in students for $10 in 1977. and for U.S. House and Senate leaders to attain the presidency. passing one of the college- AP IMAGES Corey Johnson, the current council speaker, ought to pay attention. As with Vallone, Miller, Quinn and Mark-Viverito, the power and media pro- CORRECTIONS le of his position has given him eyes for Gracie Mansion. e fate of his The owner of 250 Joralemon St. is Brooklyn Law School, not the city. The information was forerunners should give him pause as he begins raising funds for a mayor- misstated in "Boerum Place Continues Its Evolution," published Feb. 25. al bid in 2021. He had been rumored to be targeting the Manhattan bor- Michael Jackson, COO of Skype, purchased Yello Lambo from Kevin Abosch. The name and ough presidency, which produced such mayors as Robert Wagner and title of the purchaser was incorrect in "Coin Artist," published Feb. 25. David Dinkins. at would carry less in uence than the speakership but The New York Times Co., though it is an investor in Scroll, has not committed to participating broaden his base . Johnson is not yet 37, roughly the same age Miller was in the subscription service. That fact was misstated in “Stopping the Media Carnage,” when his mayoral bid ended his political career. — Will Bredderman GETTY IMAGES published Feb. 25. STATS AND THE CITY CONFERENCE CALLOUT VOCAL LOCALS APRIL 3 CRAIN’S ARTS & BY GERALD SCHIFMAN CULTURE BREAKFAST Partygoers enjoy rooftop bars and lounges at hotels around the Commissioner Tom Finkelpearl of city, but the venues can cause consternation among neighbors, the city Department of Cultural who are apt to call 311 to gripe about the noise they generate. Affairs will discuss engaging New Yorkers across the ve Days in a 12-month period noise complaints were led against the Dream boroughs and the importance 49 Midtown (right), the most of any city hotel of securing the future of culture in New York City.