BE 54-55: The Post & UWS Co-Op Mkt. Etc.

[Fiona Shnapple]

The paper’s no-holds-barred political coverage, reminiscent of the
British press or, indeed, the tradition of partisan journalism into
which the Post was born in 1801, has not always pleased the Post’s
reporting staff. In 1977, the paper’s coverage was so outspokenly
pro-Koch that about 50 reporters revolted, signing a petition of
protest. In 1982, the paper embarrassed its staff by encouraging
readers to clip out a coupon that urged Mr. Koch to run for Governor.
Faced with this outburst of popular opinion, Mr. Koch had no choice
but to declare his candidacy. He was promptly defeated in a Democratic
Party primary by Mario Cuomo-who became a Post villain although,
ironically enough, he helped save the paper when then-owner Peter
Kalikow was trying to unload it in 1993. (Mr. Murdoch stepped in for a
second term as the Post ‘s publisher after the paper was on the verge
of closing.)





A recent Post poll identified Mrs. Clinton as the sixth most evil
person of the millennium-ahead of the likes of Adolf Eichmann, Benito
Mussolini, Ayatollah Khomeini and Vlad the Impaler. The poll was
conducted on the Post ‘s Web site, allowing readers to cast their
ballots on line or write in candidates. Mrs. Clinton was a write-in
candidate. So was her husband. He finished second, beaten, for pure
evil, by only Adolf Hitler. A few days later, one of Mr. Murdoch’s
favorite whipping boys, Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, was
pictured in the paper at the helm of his boat looking like the
Michelin man after a trip to the buffet table. The story cheerfully
pointed out that the picture was taken before Mr. Kennedy’s family
Thanksgiving feast.



That said, some Post reporters privately are upset by the paper’s
coverage of the Senate race-particularly its overt efforts to wound
Mrs. Clinton among Jewish voters, who are crucial in a statewide race.
A recent editorial assailed the First Lady for sitting quietly as
Yasir Arafat’s wife accused Israel of gassing Palestinian children.
The editorial carried the supercharged title, “Mrs. Clinton and the
blood libel,” suggesting that she was silently complicit in crimes
reminiscent of the original blood libel, which accuses Jewish people
of the murder of non-Jewish children.



Yet this viciousness is suffused with an undeniable sense of fun. The
paper’s posture was captured perfectly in a random encounter with Mr.
Dunleavy last fall. As it became clear on election night in 1998 that
the Post ‘s favorite Senator, Alfonse D’Amato, was going to lose to
Charles Schumer, The Observer asked Mr. Dunleavy for his opinion of
the Senator-to-be. The columnist responded with a two-minute stream of
vitriol, in which he invoked the names of Saddam Hussein and Hitler.
(He forgot to mention Vlad the Impaler.) As he finished his lecture,
he paused and winked, then took his leave. It was not meant to be
taken seriously, of course.



http://observer.com/1999/12/murdochs-new-york-post-gleefully-roasts-hillary/

he Upper West Side may be known for its affection for leftist causes
and Great Society paternalism, but its citizens, seeing the
destructive consequences of the policies that resulted, valiantly
battled this government-sponsored assault on their community. Their
fight began in earnest with the cooperative revolution, which
transformed rental tenants into owners with the power to reclaim their
broken neighborhoods. These residents—through their co-op boards,
self-started nonprofits, and free associations, and with some help
from city hall, after Rudy Giuliani’s election—have worked tirelessly
to restore the beauty of the Upper West Side. Block by block, tree by
tree, they have turned this neighborhood from a forsaken wreck into
one of the most tranquil and desirable in the city.



Private developers tried to step in with their own capital to improve
the neighborhood, but local politicians slammed the door on them—and
none more rudely than Ruth Messinger, an Upper West Sider who served
as city councilwoman from 1978 to 1989 and then as Manhattan’s borough
president before losing her mayoral bid to Rudolph Giuliani in 1997. A
member of the Democratic Socialists of America, she launched her
political career by opposing private developers who wanted to convert
the area’s prewar buildings into condominiums. She also advocated
extending rent control from the neighborhood’s tenants to the
businesses that leased ground-floor space, a move designed to starve
building owners of their last remaining source of revenue. (The issue
hasn’t gone away: just this year, local politicians have proposed
legislation to limit the size of neighborhood stores, forcing out
larger, higher-paying tenants.)



What saved the Upper West Side’s buildings—aging, stocked with
rent-regulated tenants, and apparently destined to fail as private
assets—was the advent of the co-op. Under cooperative ownership, a
building’s residents are shareholders in a corporation that owns the
entire building, often with a percentage of the building retained by
the original landlord, known as the “sponsor.” The corporation then
grants the residents the use of their apartments through a proprietary
lease. Unlike most multiple-dwelling condominiums, in which residents
own their apartments outright, cooperative corporations can maintain
underlying mortgages on their buildings, much as a single owner would
have a mortgage on a house. It is for this reason that the owners of
rental buildings are able to convert their properties into
cooperatives: the corporation can take on the building’s existing
mortgage. That’s also why cooperative boards must maintain high
financial standards for incoming shareholders. A default by even one
resident can trigger a default on the entire building.

http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_3_upper-west-side.html
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l