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CRAINS 20160321-NEWS--0001-NAT-CCI-CN_-- 3/18/2016 7:30 PM Page 1 CRAINS ® MARCH 21-27,2016 | PRICE $3.00 NEW YORK BUSINESS How to make it as an artist in New York OR DIE TRYIN’ PAGE 15 NO SUCH THING AS A FREE (FERRY) RIDE P. 7 PLUS Two real estate execs nearly take the gloves off P. 10 VOL. XXXII, NO. 12 WWW.CRAINSNEWYORK.COM THE LIST 12 5 Largest M.B.A. programs in the city P. 14 NEWSPAPER 71486 01068 0 T:10.25 in Running a business isn’t simple. But choosing a wireless plan is. Introducing the Verizon Plan for Business. T:14 in One plan. Five sizes. Simply pick the right one for your business and switch it up anytime you like. Share your data across up to 25 devices, all with unlimited talk and text. And you can even pay for your devices up front or monthly. Getting on the best network has never been easier. Better matters. Activation/upgrade fee/line: Up to $40. IMPORTANT CONSUMER INFORMATION: Corporate Subscribers Only. Subject to Major Acct Agmt, Calling Plan, & credit approval. Up to $350 early termination fee/line. Offers & coverage, varying by svc, not available everywhere; see vzw.com. Restocking fee may apply. © 2016 Verizon. 1.800.VZW.4BIZ | vzw.com/businesspricing 20160321-NEWS--0003-NAT-CCI-CN_-- 3/18/2016 7:27 PM Page 1 MARCHCRAINS 21-27, 2016 FROM THE NEWSROOM | JEREMY SMERD Trashing the city IN THIS ISSUE 4 AGENDA A DOZEN GUESTS VISITED our newsroom last week to talk 6 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT about an issue central to the life of every New Yorker: 7 TRANSPORTATION Mayor’s affordable- housing plan may garbage. Most of us would prefer not to think about trash, 8 ASKED & ANSWERED never reach its but we can’t avoid it. It’s everywhere—and in my Bed- goals without this 9 HEALTH CARE tax break Stuy neighborhood, that includes the trees. Trash is one 10 REAL ESTATE area where New York reminds me of a city I lived in long 11 ago, Kathmandu. Nepal, though, is one of the poorest WHO OWNS THE BLOCK countries on earth. 12 VIEWPOINTS Our Sanitation Department 14 THE LIST picks up residential garbage, but that’s only a third of There’s next to no FEATURES New York’s waste. Commercial carters haul the rest. Back recycling going on,” 15 COVER STORY in the day, the mob controlled them. That was good news “ for workers. Allen Henry, a member of Teamsters Local claimed a former 24 GOTHAM GIGS 813, told us he made $16.10 an hour when he started commercial waste 25 SNAPS slinging trash in 1985. Then the city busted up the mob’s 26 FOR THE RECORD monopoly, competition ensued and prices for businesses collector, now a 27 PHOTO FINISH dropped. So have wages. Henry’s son joined the union organizer after Teamsters four years ago as a trash collector for a private 30 years on a truck hauler. Starting pay: $11 and change. “The government got the mob out,” Henry said, “but the worker took a beating.” Carting companies compete for business customers across the city. For some, the clients are so spread out that a truck that picks up only cardboard can’t get to them all. So Henry often had to throw cardboard—a valuable commodity—into his regular trash truck. “There’s next to no recycling going on,” Henry said, even though recycling laws have been on the books for more than 20 years. P. 24 The drop in wages, the loss of Teamsters’ market share and the inefficiency of Apolonia Edwards carters has made allies of the union and environmentalists. Their coalition, Transform Don’t Trash NYC, wants the City Council to divide the city into CORRECTIONS RICHARD KALIKOW is not the owner of 101 Park Ave. His first geographic zones where one carter would have the exclusive right to pick up cousin Peter Kalikow owns that property. This information was commercial waste. The coalition says that on any given night, 4,200 trucks from misstated in the March 14 “High risk play.” competing companies leapfrog one another on city streets. They want DEVELOPER DELANCEY STREET ASSOCIATES will pay for the Essex Street Market vendors’ move from the old building to legislation to create a more efficient system and raise wages for workers. their new digs at Essex Crossing, not the city’s Economic Since 2008, the city has increased by 50% the cap on rates that carters can Development Corp. This information was misstated in the March 14 “Cheap rent in 2018, but only if vendors survive charge businesses. If there are savings to be found, they should go toward until then.” keeping prices down while increasing the paltry 25% recycling rate, which is much lower than in cities with zoned systems. Offices produce mainly paper; restaurants produce mainly food waste. That’s half the waste stream right there. That we haven’t figured out how to recycle it is why New York is more like trash- strewn, poverty-stricken Kathmandu than eco-friendly Seattle. ON THE COVER PHOTO: BUCK ENNIS CONFERENCE CALLOUT APRIL 5 CRAIN’S BUSINESS BREAKFAST FORUM DIGITAL DISPATCHES Bill Mulrow (pictured), secretary to Go to CrainsNewYork.com Gov. Andrew Cuomo, will discuss the administration’s legislative READ The state Legislature priorities, from major rejected Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s infrastructure projects to raising proposal that utilities pay > the minimum wage to $15, and $375 million to help defray take questions from reporters. the MTA’s cost of moving NEW YORK wires and pipes at transit ATHLETIC CLUB projects. 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. ■ Vireo Health of New York, one of five [email protected] firms licensed to sell and produce marijuana products in the state, called Vol. XXXII, No. 12, March 21, 2016—Crain’s New York Business (ISSN 8756-789X) is published weekly, except for double Google’s ad policy “inadvertently evil” for issues the weeks of June 27, July 11, July 25, Aug. 8, Aug. 22 and Dec. 19, by Crain Communications Inc., 685 Third Ave., prohibiting cannabis firms from New York, NY 10017. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address promoting the drug to patients. changes to: Crain’s New York Business, Circulation Department, 1155 Gratiot Avenue, Detroit, MI 48207-2912. For subscriber service: Call (877) 824-9379. Fax (313) 446-6777. $3.00 a copy, $99.95 one year, $179.95 two years. LISTEN to a discussion about working as (GST No. 13676-0444-RT) an artist in New York, featuring painter AP IMAGE, BUCK ENNIS, GETTYIMAGE ©Entire contents copyright 2016 by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved. Mario Naves. Music by Ben Seretan. CrainsNewYork.com/podcast MARCH 21, 2016 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 3 20160321-NEWS--0004-NAT-CCI-CN_-- 3/18/2016 7:26 PM Page 1 AGENDAWHAT’S NEW MARCH 21, 2016 Mayor’s signature achievement is beneficial but not a game-changer e were glad to see the tough-talking activists who had been protesting Mayor Bill de Blasio’s housing plan for months do an about-face days before City Council leaders blessed it last week. Everyone agreedW with the crux of the plan, which is to require some affordable apartments in any housing development that benefits from a rezoning. But the opponents wanted so many low-rent units that projects would have been rendered uneconomical, and nothing would have been built. HELP IN HARLEM: An Unable to persuade council leaders, the activists declared themselves affordable-housing project satisfied with a promise from the mayor to study their ideas, which he uptown. The law will set had already decided were impractical. The mayor’s plan will be aside low-rent units in projects helped by approved by the council and signed into law well before that analysis rezoning. happens, rendering it an academic exercise. The plan has always been a balancing act between economic and The city cannot close this gap by mandating affordability. Make the political feasibility. Its signature achievement is the mandate for afford- units’ rent too low and they won’t get built; make them too high and able units, which will help families the 20% of New Yorkers living in who win housing lotteries to rent Make the units’ rent too low and poverty won’t be able to afford them. them. Taller, denser buildings allow The new policy is beneficial, but it’s not for more market-rate apartments to they won’t get built; too high and a game-changer. subsidize those low-rent units. De millions won’t be able to afford them The problem is that despite all the Blasio hailed it as something of a man- calls for alleviating the housing crunch, on-the-moon achievement, but let’s too few New Yorkers want all the con- be realistic: It won’t solve the housing crunch. Not by a long shot. struction required to make a noticeable difference. Amendments to the Under its terms, 10% of a project’s units will be affordable to families mayor’s plan as it went through public review reduced the number of earning 40% of area median income, with an additional 15% of units set units it will generate, making the legislation less historic and more incre- aside for households making 60% of that median. Communities could mental. This is not the mayor’s fault; he did as well as could be expect- also choose an alternative: 20% of units at 40% of the income median.