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"Strike Against Globalization Now [1996]!"
by Bryan Adrian
by Bryan Adrian
Seymour Durst, speaking from New York City, a house-of-mirrors reflecting many of America's worst social ills, says, "...rent control and zoning make it economically and legally unfeasible for real-estate developers to build affordable housing. Not many poor people benefit from rent control in New York. There are well-to-do insiders here paying almost nothing under rent control for apartments big enough for dinosaurs. Without new housing there is never going to be a solution to homelessness."
"The City of New York holds so much property that sometimes I drape myself with scrolls of their housing foreclosures for tax delinquency, those that give the City of New York possession, to emphasize the extent of cronyism and the degree of larceny here."
"Thousands of small, honest contractors should be given a chance to build small apartment buildings without much of their own investment. Reasonable loans should be awarded quickly to these small contractors, then city Government should just set the zoning and then stay out of it."
Non-immigrant newcomers don't come to live here in New York from other states like they used to in the former days of playwright Eugene O'Neill, nor do enough sincere American arts practitioners of genuine talent, because they seldom are able to find an affordable place to live, nor a decent landlord who keeps up the maintenance on the overpriced property. This syndrome is endemic not only in posh Greenwich Village, but in all the neighborhoods and boroughs of New York City as well, even in the slums. Struggling artists can no longer afford even the escalating rents in the once bohemian East Village. No one in their right mind can afford the layer upon layer of city and state taxes which accrete like fat around the waists of a few giants, their ham-fists grasping nearly all the jewels not yet pilfered in the concrete jungle. These fleshy fists are the direct beneficiaries of rent control, foreclosures, repossession, taxation and real estate subterfuges, and graft.
The Dursts own more than 4.5 million square feet of prime commercial mid-town space worth well over $1 billion. They have planted many trees on the roofs of their towers -- magnolias, Japanese yews, Hollywood junipers, and others -- in a gesture towards ecological correctness, a testimony to Seymour's love of nature (he grew up in the suburbs). The Durst's enormous wealth, unfortunately, does not approach the fortunes amassed by the Reichmanns, nor the Bronfmans, who reside in Canada, nor the Shorensteins of San Francisco, nor George Soros the Hungarian-American gold speculator, nor many other Jewish dynasties in New York City and Hollywood.
Ecological correctness and tree planting, however, in the area of Times Square, including our historic theatres of old Broadway fame on 42nd Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues, is a swan's song. Today this very long and historic strip is a modeling ramp for assorted losers -- exhibitionist pimps, whores, petty crack entrepreneurs and inventive rip-off artists. The rip off artists here, however, show far more talent than the pseudo-revolutionary messages and non-sequitur quips posted in block letters on the dirty and abandoned film and theatre marquees. The last time I looked, these messages, penned by various freelancers hired through the Times Square Development Project, declared existential truths such as, "Go Where People Sleep and See if They're Safe," and "a tourist stopped me in Greenwich Village and asked me how to get to Greenwich Village." These two aphorisms may be the deepest of all the facetious marquee pronouncements placed on the public marquees recently. Some critics friendly to the Times Square Development Project call this "art".
Art it ain't. It's purpose is to pacify anyone who wishes to investigate further into what's really going on with this property that has stood idle for a long, long time at Times Square. Investigations of this nature are very difficult and often lead nowhere. One gets led into a murky and mysterious labyrinth of contracts and records and bureaucrats and gangsters, who no longer fit the Italian stereotype. The subway system under this strip, the Times Square terminus, is painfully underdeveloped and poorly operated, an underground mecca for crime, dinginess, sordidness, overcrowding, odors and exploding tempers. Such a conspicuous mismanagement of tax money and obvious lack of regard for citizens' concerns can't be attributed to the London or Moscow underground transportation networks. Other national capitals would never get away with such a con job over their people. Their taxpayers are not as easily cowed through extensive television and newsprint propaganda and silly hype about the benefits of an On-Line community in cyberspace as here in the USA.
Such rip offs aren't neatly confined to merely Times Square. They are pervasive in the federal government too. Seymour affirms: "the CONGRESSIONAL REPORT shows only a $300 billion deficit. The more than $100 billion borrowed out of government trust funds, particularly Social Security, isn't even counted. They don't count the money they take from the trust funds and Social Security, thus the saying in knowledgeable circles 'you can't trust the trust funds.' Maybe we could coin a new word --- "CON"-gressional Accounting."
"The U.S. Government collects taxes for social security in order to pay it to people when they need it; but then they lend it out to themselves so that when the people ask for it, the government has to tax all over again to regain it. Any Treasury Department that is doing so will prove to be a much greater threat to our country than any other reckless group or individual."
Durst can't sleep in peace until there are remedies for many of our societal ills. Among his dearest pet peeves are: homelessness in America, disuse of real estate property in New York City by bungling bureaucrats, misuse of tax payers money in Washington by careerist politicians, and the abuse and threat of extinction of fine old landmarks and theatres around Times Square and the rest of the nation. What inflames him mercilessly is the obscene layout of idle, languishing or condemned real estate.
These areas could be used to build residential housing. The number of people currently working in manufacturing has dropped from one million in 1960 to less than 300,000 today, yet we have TWICE the amount -- 20,000 idle acres -- reserved for manufacturing than we had in 1960. That land is doing nothing more than serving as parking lots, or garbage dumps, or worse." [manufacturing jobs are by and large outside the metropolitan New York City area. Temps, who earn radically lowered wages than permanent employees or union-member workers, are filling most factory jobs nationwide now. They are rarely if ever given insurance, benefits or compensations. The creation of new real jobs in New York City lags behind even the aerospace industry regions in Southern California. Surprisingly, many Americans have been forced to expatriate themselves to China to represent multi-national concerns if they want to keep their positions.
Employment for Americans is up in China, whereas here at home the biggest new employer of downsized Americans are the temp agencies. Temps are being forced more and more to split a 40-hour work week into two 20-hour weekly jobs shared by two temps. This form of underemployment is a quickly growing national trend, two to a job, so the employer can avoid all government laws that protect and/or benefit the Amercian worker. One of the newest members of the circle of powerful lobbies in Washington is the consortium of temp agency owners represented on the Hill.]
Durst used to write a bi-weekly column in STREET NEWS, the paper to "help the homeless help themselves, before it was driven into extinction by its new management. He readily admits that shelters provided in New York City for the homeless are so terrible that they make even down-and-out mercenary soldiers tremble in fear and repulsion when first assigned a cot for the night. "Shelters for the homeless should be named after each politician who contributes to holding back housing," says Seymour. Babies have been raped in front of their mothers and senior citizens stabbed in the eye with ice picks while sleeping in New York's malevolent shelter system.
The current mayor of New York City has an unpublicized policy now that seems to say, "round 'em up as they sleep in the cold streets or bash 'em in da head," to the law enforcement officials, which forces many homeless families to choose between two evils -- police brutality or a lawless shelter.
Mr. Durst is not alone in his criticisms or allegations. In our age of national communal numbness, there still remain a few primal screams to help awaken us from our coma. Theresa Funiciello, author of, "Tyranny of Kindness," and a genuine reformer and progressive, lends us her vocal chords.
She long ago in a "Nation" magazine article aggravated sundry intellectuals -- especially those adept at sitting complacently on lobbies and corporate boards, yet quite maladroit at toiling in social service departments. In her article she lambasted bureaucratic meddlers:
"Under the rubric of 'helping the homeless,' social welfare empires were expanded and strengthened, careers were boosted and media stars were created overnight, diverting scarce political resources that could have been devoted to solving the real problems. We've made it all but impossible for poor people to represent their own interests in the political forums that could benefit them, telling ourselves instead that the poor cannot or do not know what's best for them."
Seymour ups the ante in such polemics:
"...political people in New York and Washington covet their jobs and thus spend most of their time trying to get re-elected, so as to perpetuate their job."
"Careerism means ineffective government. A man of integrity must contend daily with careerists. I doubt there are any geniuses in Congress who aren't replaceable."
The Lone Ranger of federal reform, Senator Henry Gonzalez, of Texas, has been virtually unheard of in the media, until only recently, due to his loyal defense of President Clinton over the inanities of the Whitewater Investigation (Bush and Reagan must be having a really good laugh now at the seriousness with which the American public is taking Clinton's frequently publicized "alleged" misdemeanors); nor has Senator Gonzalez been referenced sufficiently by judges in state or federal courts, even though he has championed our constitutional rights and democratic ideals for ages. It might strengthen America, as a people, considerably more, to educate the young in the classroom with the achievements of men like Senator Gonzalez, or with books of the stature of Andrew and Leslie Cockburn's "Dangerous Liaison," and Victor Ostrovsky's two alarming books detailing the Israeli secret police agency, MOSSAD, and its illegal dealings on American soil, rather than forced-fed public school viewings of Spielberg's "Schindler's List," as already indirectly legislated in some of our States.
What has been done with American taxpayers enormous and involuntary cash contributions? Why is it so difficult to walk around anywhere in America and feel proud about the distribution of our wealth, as the Germans, the Japanese, and even the French can easily do? What are the State and City of New York doing to declare Times Square a national landmark? When will taxpayers and subway commuters and train passengers and the few new hires in today's "rightsizing" mania organize under one flag and be able to boast ardently "Look how grand, our government's made a stand ... through us!)"
What has been done at all to abate the constantly swelling ranks of unemployed and homeless and uninsured right here on our soil, you may ask?
Let's chop this challenging economic and cultural question down to a modest scale first -- and return to the manageble scale of the Times Square model. The Lyric Theatre on Times Square's 42nd Street had it's exterior refurbished at the Dursts' expense in an attempt to save and restore it, and several other broken down architectural ladies of the stage -- including The Old Victory Theater, The Old Apollo, The Old Empire and The Old Times Square theatres -- that are also on this legendary strip.
New York State and City bureaucracies, particularly the State Urban Development Corp. (UDC) and the 42nd Street Development Project, two kinds of merry-go-rounds that protect their own and other Special Interests, condemned these buildings long ago in their first sly step towards ownership. Says Seymour about these city and state agencies, "We had good lawyers, but they had good judges."
Integrity is bought off dirt-cheap today in our courts. Despite this, baskets of uneaten day-old bread are often too much to hand over to poor and hungry outstretched hands in today's gladiator-style, winner-take-all public arena. Social safety nets, including the preservation of our long standing and hard earned cultural achievements, are frequently sacrificed as unworthy or unpopular issues. Millions upon millions of plain folk don't have medical insurance or decent jobs or job training or neighborhood access to the media/press machinery. Cadres of brokers who have the means to elevate the well being of the average citizen laugh off positive social programs, due to their complete lack of community incentives and their undying loyalty to "preferred" clients.
The New York State and City agencies watched this nearly 1000-pound, retired stage curtain disintegrate for a long time. These agencies habitually show little concern for history or humanity until someone steps in and adds a gigantic private cash donation to their touch of civic pride.
Nowhere in the endless taxation superstructure can the well paid bureaucrats find even one small sack of taxpayer's money to designate for such a restoration. The credo of the agencies controlling the heart of 42nd Street, in it's most elemental form, is "money talks, history walks." It's becoming our new national anthem. Soon this credo will become our national anathema; the legions of unemployed and homeless will soon be singing "Song of the Streets" and walking in organized committees, intent on standing bad politicians on their heads, or better yet, publicly horsewhipping them for their betrayal of the blind faith the electorate had initially placed in them.
Michael Eisner, representing the Disney Empire, did an about-face earlier in his negotiations after he had declared an interest in pouring capital and concrete into the 42nd Street/Times Square power pit.
He made offers to renovate the derelict New Amsterdam Theater, but was quickly discouraged after dealing with the various City and State agencies that control this coveted corridor. The State Urban Development Corp. later found that their interests would make rather good bedfellows with Disney's interests.
What "Beast" this marriage will bring to Mr. and Mrs. John and Jane Doe of Everytown, USA, or to the millions of strap-hangers of the New York City subway system is still to be seen. Shall playwrights like Sam Shepherd or David Mamet see their plays performed soon on the stages of renovated 42nd Street theatres? Or will we get another turkey like Euro-Disney replicated on and on and on, taking us on a fast national ride into a themepark poorhouse?
Some insiders say this strip of land on 42nd Street is sought after more rapaciously by billion dollar takeover operatives than the recent chopping down and gobbling up of Paramount Communications, Inc., a corporation that itself had taken over numerous oil companies, banks, and publishing houses on its way into an obliteration of many small and unsuspecting shareholders' palm- sized nestegg.
The board of directors of Paramount guided the company over the last few years to absorb already-bloated conglomerates, including recent acquisitions Simon & Schuster and MacMillan Publishing. Paramount, among a club of other mega-corporations, has become an exclusive billionaire- merger clique, as it merges further and further, passing off losses to shareholders as stocks take death defying plunges and leave massive hemorrhaging of the labors of American workers in huge pools of bloodletting on Wall Street.
Ask the Japanese Morishita family of Matsushita Company, former owners of MCA-America, why they distrusted their own American executive managers in Hollywood, among them Mr. Lew Wasserman and Mr. Sidney Sheinberg, whose close friend Michael Ovitz served as a trusted go-between (a "nakodo"), and why they discovered little measure of fairdealing in Hollywood- Wall Street dealmaking. The Morishitas will probably illustrate in their reply a universal fear of losing one's pants, and maybe even the household, and everything in the cupboard, to such wolves in sheeps clothing.
We have our own Wizard of Oz types right here under our noses but never hear anything about media manipulation or economic fascism on American soil. The finger points here in our New York controlled national media only to Berlusconi over in Italy and towards other distant lands, such as Iraq. The foresight needed to ensure our national self-preservation has been blinded -- and our urge for improvement suppressed -- by a type of media control that dangerously approaches a Big Brother commodification and a Special Interest group mania that embraces a form of religious intolerance and fanaticism.
We are now nearly catatonic as a People in our inability to recognize ourselves as a nation of self-determining people -- soon we will be mere slugs crawling in the slime towards every carefully planned media and consumer and special interest lobby concept.
When the Hungarians, Checks and Poles were stepping out of the slumber of communism and into the ice-cold shower of Western consumer economics in 1990, our government and business leaders supplied them with astringent caveats to get their development started immediately -- to rely heavily on the issuance of "free ownership coupons" to their new market economy citizens, coupons that closely resembled the shares we use on our stockmarket; these free coupons were to rejuvenate thousands of disabled factories, public facilities and properties.
Our experts conveniently forgot to heed their own advice. Today it would be a great idea for us to follow, starting at Times Square and radiating outward to all other badly mismanaged public properties, including many cultural landmarks and long standing national institutions that have been "disrespected" by elitist financial manipulators throughout our national landscape.
New York City money dealers and Euro-Disney CEOs have rarely allowed the "market to know best." Planned development through elitist committees, such as Times Square Development Project, State Urban Development Corp., and Disney Inc., we have already seen, brings on the antithesis of free market dynamics. The public never knows what's up or what's falling down, despite the deafening chatter of our tongue lashing talking heads on the TV.
"The contemporary world," says Seymour, "has been shaped by ideologies. In America, television has shortened the attention span, patience, and memory of Americans. It has also made them less self-reliant. Americans as a people don't see until they feel, and only during rare moments do they motivate themselves out of the herd mentality and into action. They need an emotional pull or they remain uninspired. Television exploits and manipulates this national susceptibility." Most of our foolish military campaigns, i.e. Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, la Guerra Malvinas, Palestinian displacement programs, and the Gulf War, are a result of this susceptibility. On a lighter note, Seymour adds, "American humor, however, is one of our better national traits."
Where can we find today the moral equivalent or inspiration of a Mark Twain or an H.L. Mencken or a Dwight McDonald? Our humorists and critics of talent today are muted by the dissonant music of dueling machine guns in psychotic TV dramas that guarantee big advertising dollars.
Our daily role models are tough gum chewers with big guns that speak in monosyllables. Ours is a very bleak future -- with up to an estimated five hundred cable channels, one will seldom if ever find a meaningful TV drama or a simple productive fable that depicts wisdom, or a moral order to the universe. Lafontaine's "Fables" from the 1600s in France still speak with more vitality and appeal than all our Saturday morning cartoons combined. The so-called "serious" historical docu- dramas produced by the major American networks have at best been mindlessly cartoonish, reflecting the souls of the producers who manufacture them.