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May 17, 2010
Times columnist criticizes corporate welfare for stadiums and companies making bogus threats to leave city; Atlantic Yards would have fit right in
Atlantic Yards Report
In a column in today's New York Times headlined Companies We Keep, and Pay For, Metro columnist Jim Dwyer criticize the willingness of city mayors to subsidize companies to move from other parts of the city into the rebuilt World Trade Center.
Such corporate welfare has been provided in response to threats to leave that "were barely disguised feints, and sometimes not even that." Dwyer cites the magazine publisher Condé Nast, and other media businesses, including the Times itself. The biggest winners were in the financial industry.
And while Mayor Mike Bloomberg canceled his predecessor's subsidies for new baseball stadiums, writes Dwyer, "A few years later, Mr. Bloomberg used hundreds of millions in public money to help the Yankees and Mets build stadiums."
What about AY?
Equally worthy of mention--but unmentioned--is Bloomberg's willingness to subsidize a new basketball arena in Brooklyn.
Posted by eric at May 17, 2010 11:01 AM