Editor's Message From The Editor
Fair is Foul
Amidst the rightful popular outrage against the continued handouts to Wall Street, one man has stood defiant—the mayor of New York City. In Michael Bloomberg’s estimation, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s crackdown on bonuses for the executives of A.I.G. and other recipients of bailout money somehow amounts to “snooping around” in “private lives.” In general, Mike finds all the “yelling and screaming about the rich” to be wrong, because “we want rich from around this country to move here. We love the rich people.” Even more misguided, in his view, are those who think that our economy would be stronger if “income were redistributed throughout the system more fairly.” There’s little reason to doubt his sincerity when the mayor, the wealthiest person in the city, declares that “I don’t know what fair means. You can argue that if you make more money, you deserve more money.” At last we may have found someone ready to go to bat for A-Rod.
My point is not to attack Mike for being an “out-of-touch billionaire” (as consultant Howard Wolfson, now on the mayor’s reelection campaign payroll, famously stated just four years ago). It’s rather to suggest that his current notion of victims—the rich in general, and more specifically the executives of failed companies seeking taxpayer rewards—provides further illustration of how he thinks the city should plan its future. Bonuses, whatever the source, mean down payments on the condos that have now irrevocably altered many neighborhoods across the city. Already flush outfits like the Yankees and Mets have received $1.2 billion in combined public subsidies to build new stadiums; and if the Atlantic Yards project goes forward, it will cost at least another $700 million (or more) in taxpayer support. In the mayor’s eyes, heavily subsidized private development is a good thing. Meanwhile, increasing taxes on the highest earners is wrong, because it may cause them to flee to Connecticut.
It’s a decidedly elitist vision coming from a determinedly anti-populist figure. Even so, most would say that Bloomberg’s reelection chances are pretty good—mainly because his threats to spend whatever it takes to get reelected have already knocked a leading contender out of the race, and also because his approval rating remains high. Yet the boom years are over, and the consequences of the frenzy of overdevelopment are only just beginning to sink in. So stay tuned.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES

Accra Shepp’s Radical Justice: Lifting Every Voice
By Lee Ann NormanJUNE 2022 | Art Books
The book brings together photographic portraits of people protesting in Zuccotti Park during the Occupy Wall Street movement in Lower Manhattan in 2011 and the racial justice protests across New York City throughout the summer of 2020, filling critical gaps in the narrative around the haves and have-nots.
five
By Joe ElliotJUNE 2022 | Poetry
Joe Elliot helped run a weekly reading series at Biblios Bookstore and then at the Zinc Bar in New York City for many years. He co-edited two chapbook series: A Musty Bone and Situations, and is the author of numerous chapbooks of his own, including: You Gotta Go In It's the Big Game, Poems to be Centered on Much Much Larger Pieces of Paper, 15 Clanking Radiators, 14 Knots, Reduced, Half Gross (a collaboration with artist John Koos), and Object Lesson (a collaboration with artist Rich O'Russa). Granary Books published If It Rained Here (a collaboration with artist Julie Harrison). His long poem, 101 Designs for the World Trade Center, was published by Faux Press as an e-book in 2003. Collections of his work include Opposable Thumb (subpress, 2006), Homework (Lunar Chandelier, 2010), and Idea for a B Movie (Free Scholars Press, 2016). For many years, Joe made a living as a letterpress printer. He now teaches English at Edward R. Murrow High School, and lives in Brooklyn.
86. The South Bronx
By Raphael RubinsteinFEB 2022 | The Miraculous
The mayor of New York City borrows a life-size fiberglass sculpture of a shirtless young man with a boombox and a basketball (he holds the ball under his left arm, while his right foot rests on the boombox) to place on the front lawn of his official residence on the occasion of presenting a filmmaker renowned for his depictions of everyday urban life with the keys to the city.
Gary Simmons with Natasha Becker
MAY 2022 | Art
I first came to New York City in 2003 and remember seeing the work of Gary Simmons at Metro Pictures. It was a formative experience. There were so many incredible artists exhibiting in the early aughts; it felt special to have been part of that moment. Its been many years between that moment and seeing Simmonss newest exhibition at Hauser & Wirth in Los Angeles, but the artwork had the same impact, the same mesmerizing immediacy. In the conversation that follows, we discuss the artists educational formation, the way collective memory forms around certain images, and the importance of artwork that poses questions.