The Willets Point Redevelopment Plan has been designed to include exciting retail and entertainment offerings, a hotel and convention center, thousands of mixed-income residential units and new public open spaces and other community amenities. The mixed-use program will create thousands of new permanent jobs and construction jobs, transforming Willets Point into a dynamic regional destination.

A World of Opportunity: Understanding & Tapping the Economic Potential of Immigrant Entrepreneurs,

This new report by the Center documents that immigrant entrepreneurs have emerged as a key engine of economic growth for cities from New York to Los Angeles--and, with the right support, could provide an even bigger boost to these cities in the years ahead

February 6, 2007
Immigrant Entrepreneurs Shape a New Economy
By NINA BERNSTEIN
Manuel A. Miranda was 8 when his family immigrated to New York from Bogotá. His parents, who had been
lawyers, turned to selling home-cooked food from the trunk of their car. Manuel pitched in after school, grinding
corn by hand for traditional Colombian flatbreads called arepas.
Today Mr. Miranda, 32, runs a family business with 16 employees, producing 10 million arepas a year in the
Maspeth section of Queens. But the burst of Colombian immigration to the city has slowed; arepas customers are
spreading through the suburbs, and competition for them is fierce. Now, he says, his eye is on a vast, untapped
market: the rest of the country.
In the long run, like bagels, "you're going to have arepas in every store," predicted Mr. Miranda, whose
innovations include a "toaster-friendly" version (square instead of round), and an experimental Web site that
offers online sales nationwide. "But I don't have the connections. I don't know the people who can advise how to
take us to the next level."

NYC's Subway Spycam Network Stuck in the Station
By Noah Shachtman EmailJanuary 24, 2008 | 8:59:00 AM

New York City's plan to secure its subways with a next-generation  surveillance network is getting more expensive by the second, and slipping further and further behind schedule.

A new report by the New York State Comptroller's office reveals that "the cost of the electronic security program has grown from $265 million to $450 million, an increase of $185 million or 70 percent." An August 2008 deadline has been pushed back to December 2009, and further delays may be just ahead.

Shortly after a series of bombings in the London Tube, The Metropolitan Transit Authority, which oversees New York's mass transit systems, signed a contract in 2005 with defense contractor Lockheed Martin to put in thousands of security cameras, electronic tripwires, and digitally-controlled gates into New York's sprawling network of subways. The deal was inked just a few months after MTA chairman Peter Kalikow argued against "wasting money on unproven technology."

At the heart of the program was a network of surveillance cameras, passing what they saw through a set of intelligent video algorithms, designed to spot suspicious behavior: a bag left on the subway platform, a person jumping down to the tracks, a mob running up a down escalator.
...

November 19, 2007
U.S. Approves $1.3 Billion for 2nd Avenue Subway
By WILLIAM NEUMAN

The long-dreamed-of Second Avenue subway will take another important step toward becoming a real thing of concrete and steel today, as the federal government plans to announce that it has formally approved $1.3 billion in financing for the project's first phase.

Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters said in an interview that the money would be paid out over the next seven years as construction progresses on the subway's first leg, which will have stops on Second Avenue at 92nd, 86th and 72nd Streets and at 63rd Street and Lexington Avenue.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority began preliminary work on the line after Gov. Eliot Spitzer held a ceremonial groundbreaking in April.

Ms. Peters said the federal money would pay for about one-third of the work on the first phase, which is expected to cost more than $4 billion. The first leg is scheduled to open in 2014, and it will run as an extension of the Q line.

What is Local Law 47?

Local Law 47 of 2005 requires the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) to issue monthly reports to the City Council, the Public Advocate, Community Boards and the public regarding data collected on calls made to the 3-1-1 Citizen Service Center.  Below you will find links to these reports, along with additional resources on NYC.gov describing the performance of City agencies. 

Signed by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in May 2005, Local Law 47 is the result of DoITT's work with the City Council.  The prime sponsor of the legislation was Council Member Gale A. Brewer, Chairperson of the Council's Committee on Technology in Government.  Making agency performance data available is an important way to ensure open government, and this law provides the public with valuable information while protecting the privacy and confidentiality of callers to 3-1-1.

DoITT remains committed to improving these reports going forward, and periodic meetings will be held with representatives from the City's Community Boards to review the 3-1-1 Reports' content and format.

June 17, 2007
Curb Job
By PETE HAMILL

Taxi drivers are the most enduring oppressed minority in New York City history. Race, ethnicity and religion are not sources of the oppression. It lies entirely in the nature of the work. Trapped for about 12 hours each day in the worst traffic in the United States, taxi drivers must suffer the savage frustrations of jammed streets, double-parked cars, immense trucks, drivers from New Jersey - and they can't succumb to the explosive therapy of road rage. Their living depends on self-control.

At the same time, they face many other hazards: drunks behind them in the cab, fare beaters, stickup men, Knicks fans filled with biblical despair, out-of-town conventioneers who think the drivers are mobile pimps. Some seal themselves off from the back seat with the radio, an iPod or a cellphone. All pray that the next passenger doesn't want to go from Midtown to the far reaches of Brooklyn or Queens. They hope for a decent tip. They hope to stay alive until the next fare waves from under a midnight streetlamp.

In this informative, solid history, Graham Russell Gao Hodges traces the story of the cabdrivers from 1907, when the first metered taxis appeared on New York streets, to the present. He writes with obvious sympathy, having driven a hack himself before moving on to academic labors as a historian at Peking University and Colgate. Loneliness is a running theme in "Taxi!": if the title were not already taken, Hodges could have called his compact history "One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Sales Information

Finance takes into consideration the sales of similar recently sold properties when valuing New York City properties for tax purposes. As such, to make this process more transparent, the agency makes available a detailed listing of all property sales completed in the five boroughs within the past year, as well as historical data dating back to 2003. This information is a matter of public record.

The files linked to below are indexed by borough and neighborhood to facilitate easy lookups of properties, and are provided in two formats: PDF (smaller, more universally accessible files that require the Adobe Reader) and XLS (Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets for power users interested in creating their own sorts and reports). These listings include all properties sold in the last calendar year including cooperative apartments.

A nine minute student documentary of the Free Culture New York Summit held at Columbia University, January 2006. The film explores a new form of student activism, based primarily on and about the Internet. Beginning with the Free Culture demonstration at the Times Square Virgin Megastore, the documentary covers Free Culture members out to educate consumers on alternative forms of music distribution online (archive.org, ccmixter.org, blogs, etc). It continues the discussion with interviews featuring conference participants (Cory Doctorow, Creative Commons, Free Culture students activists). Finally, using cc licenses for distribution and production, the film acts as an example for other young student filmmakers who are interested in alternative copyright licensing.

A nine minute student documentary of the Free Culture New York Summit held at Columbia University, January 2006. The film explores a new form of student activism, based primarily on and about the Internet. Beginning with the Free Culture demonstration at the Times Square Virgin Megastore, the documentary covers Free Culture members out to educate consumers on alternative forms of music distribution online (archive.org, ccmixter.org, blogs, etc). It continues the discussion with interviews featuring conference participants (Cory Doctorow, Creative Commons, Free Culture students activists). Finally, using cc licenses for distribution and production, the film acts as an example for other young student filmmakers who are interested in alternative copyright licensing.