CRAINSNEW YORK BUSINESS Oscar turns grouchy on New York P. 7 | VCs sink their teeth into food P. 8 | What singles signify for lower Manhattan P. 13 NEW YORK BUSINESS® OCTOBER 10 - 16, 2016 | PRICE $3.00 How CEO John Foley steered exercise-bike company Peloton to a seven-figure growth rate and $43 million in revenue. PLUS: The 49 other hottest companies in New York Page 17 VOL. XXXII, NO. 41 WWW.CRAINSNEWYORK.COM NEWSPAPER P001_CN_20161010.indd 1 10/7/16 8:13 PM WE HEAR YOU, MARIO. With Express Funding, get your card payments in your Chase checking account the next business day. Chase.com/ExpressFunding All businesses are subject to credit approval. Next business day funding is available to eligible Chase merchant services clients who deposit into a single Chase business checking account. Visa®, MasterCard® and Discover® credit and debit transactions are eligible. Additional terms, conditions and restrictions apply. Merchant services are provided by Paymentech, LLC (“Chase”), a subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. Real business owners compensated for use of their actual statements. Deposit products offered by JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. Member FDIC ©2016 JPMorgan Chase & Co. Untitled-11 1 8/30/2016 12:13:11 PM OCTOBER 10 - 16, 2016 CRAINSNEW YORK BUSINESS FROM THE NEWSROOM | JEREMY SMERD IN THIS ISSUE Call the commissioner 4 AGENDA WITH ALL THE NEW MANDATES New York City businesses must 6 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT Central Park comply with, it’s no wonder Mayor Bill de Blasio has had to 7 HEALTH CARE Conservancy CEO on rich expand government to police them. In August, City Hall 8 FOOD parks and hired Liz Vladeck to head the new Office of Labor Policy poor parks 10 ASKED & ANSWERED and Standards. The announcement followed the hiring ear- 12 WHO OWNS THE BLOCK lier this year of Lorelei Salas, former state Labor Department official, as the new Department of Consumer Affairs -com 13 REAL ESTATE missioner. (She replaced Julie 15 VIEWPOINTS Menin, who now heads the May- FEATURES or’s Office of Media and Entertainment.) We invited the I really mean it 17 FAST 50 executives to the newsroom to get a sense of their plans. when I say we want Both are thoughtful civil servants who are steeped in advo- “ cacy on behalf of workers and are open to learning about to hear from the the challenges facing businesses. In other words, if you are business community a business or business organization, I suggest reaching out and educating them on the issues that are important to you. “I really mean it when I say we want to hear from the business community,” Salas said. “As we’re implementing these laws, we want to hear from employers.” Email [email protected], tweet to @NYCDCA or live- FOOD52 chat with a DCA representative by visiting nyc.gov/dca. Better yet, hire a lobbyist. DCA, you might remember, is enforcing the paid-sick-leave law and new regu- lations covering fast-food workers and (soon) the car-wash industry. In general, it 49 GOTHAM GIGS responds to complaints about businesses: At the top are furniture stores, used-car 50 SNAPS dealers and home-improvement contractors. There will be a learning curve for these new officials and for the department, whose staff of 430 has increased by nearly 51 PHOTO FINISH 100 in five years, with 25 slated for the Office of Labor Policy and Standards. Salas said the department has issued $1.4 million in fines and recovered $2.6 mil- lion in restitution for paid-sick-leave violations. We’ve been told that the City Council wants to expand the crackdown on fast-food companies that make last-minute changes to workers’ shifts to other industries and smaller businesses. “We will be looking closely at scheduling practices in other industries,” Salas said. Advocates say such a law should not even be necessary, given that most fast-food companies use scheduling software and know well how many workers they need and when. Actually, it’s easy to understand why. Mandates are used to encourage behaviors that achieve a policy goal. But when policymakers penalize rather than reward businesses, the behavior they encourage is avoidance. Companies that must ON THE COVER provide paid sick leave or health care when workers hit a certain number of hours PHOTO: BUCK ENNIS are going to manage those hours below the threshold to keep costs down. If you agree with that notion, I’m sure the commissioner would like to hear from you. DIGITAL DISPATCHES CONFERENCE CALLOUT NOVEMBER 1 Go to CrainsNewYork.com READ Ralph Lauren Getting ready for promoted the found- 9 million New Yorkers er’s son David to chief > Together with private- and innovation officer public-sector leaders, like and vice chairman of Carver Bancorp Chairman the fashion company Deborah Wright, in an effort to make the Crain’s will explore answers to the label cool again. questions facing New York as it n reaches a population milestone. Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said his company is not to blame for LaGuardia SHERATON NY TIMES SQUARE Airport’s crumbling condition. The airline has kept its terminals up-to-date and even 8 a.m. to noon agreed to build a new one as part of the [email protected] airport’s overhaul. n Donald Trump paid $174,444 in property Vol. XXXII, No. 41, October 10, 2016—Crain’s New York Business (ISSN 8756-789X) is published weekly, except for double issues the weeks of June 27, July 11, July 25, Aug. 8, Aug. 22 and Dec. 19, by Crain Communications Inc., 685 Third taxes last year on his 30,000-square-foot Ave., New York, NY 10017. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send penthouse at Trump Tower, according to city address changes to: Crain’s New York Business, Circulation Department, 1155 Gratiot Avenue, Detroit, MI 48207-2912. records. Public data suggests at least 0.27% For subscriber service: Call (877) 824-9379. Fax (313) 446-6777. $3.00 a copy, $99.95 one year, $179.95 two years. of Trump’s income goes to paying taxes. (GST No. 13676-0444-RT) ©Entire contents copyright 2016 by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved. BUCK ENNIS, JAMES RANSOM/FOOD52 OCTOBER 10, 2016 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 3 P003_CN_20161010.indd 3 10/7/16 8:19 PM WHAT’S NEW OCTOBER 10, 2016 AGENDAThe waiting is the hardest part… especially for New Yorkers eventeen months ago, an engineering-firm executive visited Crain’s to talk about the region’s infrastructure, a subject of perpetual concern to business leaders. He lamented, as they all do, that projects don’t get enough (or any) funding or are half- Sbaked. He cited a plan to rebuild toll plazas at the RFK Bridge complete with the bars that come down in front of every vehicle. Toll gates? Really? The technology to collect tolls without drivers having to slow down, let alone stop, was already in use around the country. Yet the Metropolitan Transportation Authority was building a monument to obsolescence. At the time, the agency told us it was concerned that it wouldn’t be able to NO STOPPING US NOW: At-speed tolling is finally coming to MTA bridges and tunnels. collect money from motorists who lacked E-ZPass tags. Last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo mercifully announced the imminent end of toll gates at MTA bridges and tunnels. Drivers without E-ZPass— should explore ways to make truck-based deliveries and service calls more and for the life of us, we cannot fathom why there are still so many of efficient, perhaps with hub-and-spoke systems for particular industries. them—will get a bill in the mail, courtesy of electronic license-plate readers. Currently we have the Wild West, with half-empty trucks and vans travel- Regular users of these crossings will be spared dozens of hours a year wait- ing and double-parking at high-traffic times and locations. ing in toll plaza–induced traffic. Even walking—the city’s primary mode Time is precious, especially to New Time is precious to New Yorkers. We of travel—is slowing down as job and tour- Yorkers. We should not have to waste it be- ism growth overwhelm narrow sidewalks. cause our government is stuck in the last cen- should not have to waste it because Transportation Commissioner Polly Trot- tury. At-speed tolling and accordion-style government is stuck in the last century tenberg has gotten off on the right foot, subways trains (another recent Cuomo an- giving some curb space to pedestrians, but nouncement), while welcome, should have actual sidewalk widening and removal or re- been here by now. And many other improvements are needed to save city positioning of obstacles is needed in crowded areas like midtown. Some- dwellers and visitors from tedious waits. Although road engineers have times we get the feeling that agencies feel no urgency because they all look made some improvements, such as the long-overdue conversion of the FDR good compared with the notoriously Byzantine Department of Buildings. Drive’s Brooklyn Bridge ramp to two lanes, traffic will keep getting slower Well, Buildings is trying, as other departments should be, regardless. We as the city grows until congestion pricing is introduced. Also, City Hall are, after all, tired of waiting. — THE EDITORS FINE PRINT Beginning with a move by Cravath Swaine & Moore in June, 23 of the city’s 25 largest law firms have raised the starting salaries of their first-year associates by 12.5% to $180,000 a year.