CRAINSNEW YORK BUSINESS 10,000 businesses to get emergency lifeline P. 5 | Classical music’s rock stars P. 6 | Put your money where your mind is P. 15 NEW YORK BUSINESS® APRIL 17 - 23, 2017 | PRICE $3.00 IS THIS THE STORE OF THE FUTURE? Apple has Siri. Amazon has Alexa. Tom Murn has Vicki, which he is hoping will transform the way New Yorkers shop PAGE 13 VOL. XXXIII, NO. 16 WWW.CRAINSNEWYORK.COM NEWSPAPER P001_CN_20170417.indd 1 4/14/17 7:36 PM APRIL 17 - 23, 2017 CRAINSNEW YORK BUSINESS FROM THE NEWSROOM | BRENDAN O’CONNOR | MANAGING EDITOR IN THIS ISSUE Playing it safe 4 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT 5 TECHNOLOGY BROOKLYN’S LITTLE LEAGUE BASEBALL season is off to a 6 SMALL BIZ SPOTLIGHT Midtown typically slow and soggy start this year. Opening Day (April East is finally 1) was a washout, and in an apparent pre-emptive strike 7 ENTERTAINMENT becoming a 8 WHO OWNS THE BLOCK restaurant against further field erosion, the Parks Department decided destination to close all the diamonds in Prospect Park for the entire 9 REAL ESTATE weekend. The sun returned the following Saturday, which 10 VIEWPOINTS also happened to be the beginning of the public school 11 THE LIST spring break, leaving several teams—including my son’s, which I coach—depleted of players. FEATURES But, hey, that’s baseball. To borrow a line from Bull 13 VENDING MACHINE Durham, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, some- Though rare, sudden 15 PEACE OFFERING times it rains. And in the case of the Prospect Park Baseball cardiac deaths Association, sometimes half the team is on vacation. “ Of course, juggling rosters and dodging raindrops is can be triggered pretty standard fare when it comes to youth baseball. But by blunt trauma, this season has brought one unexpected twist: In January like a baseball to New York became the first city in the country to require its parks department to equip all youth baseball teams with the chest automated electronic defibrillators (AEDs). P. 44 Although rare—an estimate from a national high school BUIST BICKLEY association suggests that fewer than 25 otherwise healthy people younger than 30 die each year from sudden cardiac arrest (SCA)—the handful of tragic SCA deaths 44 GOTHAM GIGS tends to spark big headlines. Causes vary, but incidents can be triggered by blunt 45 SNAPS trauma to the chest, a phenomenon often associated with baseball. 46 FOR THE RECORD An AED is “a person’s best chance of surviving” a sudden cardiac arrest, said 47 PHOTO FINISH City Councilman Steven Matteo of Staten Island, one of the bill’s sponsors. “This CORRECTION legislation will dramatically expand access to AEDs, along with proper training, for Romanoff Equities and a partner have nearly thousands of Little League teams, free of charge.” finished leasing 860 Washington St. The address On that count, the council is batting around .300. As a result of the new law, was misstated in “Meatpacking rents soar,” this year’s league-supplied equipment bag was stuffed with worn-out catching gear, published April 10. tattered bases, scuffed batting helmets, and a brand-new AED, a model that looks similar to one that retails for $895. That might help explain the program’s projected price tag of $6 million over six years—a cost critics no doubt will contend amounts to a pound of prevention for an ounce of cure. Matteo said he wants the devices to become “as ubiquitous as fire extinguishers.” While the $12.95 I paid for the online training is not exactly “free,” I might have felt a bit more confident had the 15-minute instructional video included more than ON THE COVER a minute on how to actually operate the defibrillator. On the upside, the devices are PHOTO: BUCK ENNIS meant to be dummy-proof. Here’s hoping I never have to use one. DIGITAL DISPATCHES CONFERENCE CALLOUT MAY 9 Go to CrainsNewYork.com CRAIN’S SUMMIT: FUTURE VOTE Everyone is abuzz over the face-off DR. IAN SHAFFER OF BEHAVIORAL HEALTH between the Charging Bull and Fearless Girl sculptures (see editorial, page 3). Join Dr. Sabina Lim of Mount Sinai, Should the statue of the girl stay or go? Healthfirst’s Dr. Ian Shaffer, Staten Vote online: CrainsNewYork.com/poll. Island District Attorney Michael McMahon and others to discuss the ■ SIGN UP Stay on top challenges of integrating behavioral of business news health with primary care and treating throughout the day > drug users in New York state. by subscribing to our email newsletters. NEW YORK From the Morning MARRIOTT MARQUIS 10, which lands in your 8 a.m. to noon inbox by 8 a.m., to [email protected]. our 4 p.m. Daily Alert, we’ll have you covered. There are also Vol. XXXIII, No. 16, April 17, 2017—Crain’s New York Business (ISSN 8756-789X) is published weekly, except for individual newsletters for entertainment, double issues the weeks of June 26, July 10, July 24, Aug. 7, Aug. 21 and Dec. 18, by Crain Communications Inc., 685 Third health care, politics and real estate Ave., New York, NY 10017. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send junkies. All the newsletters are free, with address changes to: Crain’s New York Business, Circulation Department, 1155 Gratiot Ave., 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. the exception of Health Pulse. (GST No. 13676-0444-RT) ©Entire contents copyright 2017 by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved. BUCK ENNIS, AP IMAGES 2 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | APRIL 17, 2017 P002_CN_20170417.indd 2 4/14/17 7:44 PM WHAT’S NEW APRIL 17, 2017 AGENDAFearless Girl is an advertisement. State Street should pay to show it hat traffic island clearly isn’t big enough for the two of them. The face-off between Charging Bull and Fearless Girl, two statues sharing the same piece of a Bowling Green median, turned into a stare-down last week when Charging TBull artist Arturo Di Modica said the presence of the 4-foot-2-inch statue of a defiant girl with her hands on her hips unfairly vilified his own cata- lytic creation. He has a point. The bronze bull Di Modica crafted nearly 30 years ago was a gift to the city, intended as a symbol of our resilience after the stock market crash of 1987. It was installed without permission under the cover of night and removed by city officials before popular WHO WILL BLINK FIRST? Charging Bull and Fearless Girl have different origins. demand brought it back. Through terrorist attacks (1993, 2001), reces- His? Created as art. Hers? Designed to sell a product. sions (early 1990s, early 2000s and 2007 to 2009), a blackout (2003), a superstorm (2012) and more, the bull has been a fixture in a changing, empowerment of women.” challenged city, not to mention a destination for tourists. It is ironic that the mayor and other city leaders have rushed to defend But art has a way of taking on a life of its own. The bull is as much the girl statue’s implicit criticism of the business world while ignoring an a symbol of an industry as a city, and although Wall Street remains a inconvenient fact: It was commissioned by State Street Global Advisors. cornerstone of the economy, its reputation is diminished by the havoc The Boston-based investment manager hired an advertising agency to it unleashed with the Great Recession. In 2012 come up with the idea and then filed for a per- the bull became a symbol of protest by Occupy The Boston-based investment mit to display the statue—along with a plaque Wall Street. bearing the company’s name and the phrase Fearless Girl’s supporters see her as repre- manager perfectly executed “SHE makes a difference,” a not very subtle senting their weariness of gender inequality. Its a viral marketing campaign reference to the company’s exchange-traded power lies in its timing: unveiled on the eve of fund that invests only in companies with female International Women’s Day and shortly after leadership. Fearless Girl has become art for the nationwide women’s marches protested the inauguration of Donald people but, unlike Di Modica’s bull, it was created to be an advertise- Trump and his genitalia-grabbing past. That antipathy explains Mayor ment for a product. New York has rules for how public space is bought Bill de Blasio’s snide response to Di Modica’s request that the girl be and sold. The foremost being that it be paid for—handsomely. If State removed. “Charging Bull is a celebration of unfettered capitalism,” Street is not willing to do that, it should remove its name from the statue the mayor said “Fearless Girl represents … standing up for justice, the or remove the statue itself. — THE EDITORS FINE PRINT The health care industry has struggled for years to figure out a way to effectively rate hospitals. Turns out that customer-driven reviews on Yelp actually correlate with hospital quality, a Manhattan Institute study found. But the details matter: Columbia University Medical Center got four stars on Yelp, while New York–Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center had two. The problem? They are the same facility. BY GERALD SCHIFMAN STATS NEW YORK SUFFERED a huge spike in data breaches last year 25 WORDS OR LESS HACK ATTACK as hackers targeted small businesses. AND THE C Number of data-breach incidents WHAT CYBERTHIEVES STEAL A fiscally sound last year, a 59% increase from 1,282 2015 1% “ Password/ account information budget is more Driver’s license Number of New Yorkers whose number 1% Unknown/other important than an personal records were lost or 4% I 1.6M stolen last year, three times more Financial TY ‘on time’ budget.