The sugary deal between Amazon and the city and state dominated Tuesday's coverage, with most wags (including Streetsblog) casting a dubious eye on how much money Gov. Cuomo is spending to lure 25,000 jobs to Long Island City. We defy you to find a better curated list of coverage of the Amazon-sized Amazon announcement. Here's our rundown:
- If you want a broad overview with a bit of attitude, go to the Atlantic, the New York Times, amNY or Gothamist.
- If you want to know what the pols think...
- Here's Mayor de Blasio using it to bolster his bloated BQX streetcar.
- Here's Comptroller Scott Stringer distancing himself from the mayor.
- Here's Council Speaker Corey Johnson being "skeptical" why the city had to subsidize the retail giant.
- Here's Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams putting in a good word for Greenpoint.
- Here's Manhattan BP (and community board term limit opponent) Gale Brewer calling for public oversight of the deal.
- Here's Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeting general outrage (it's not her district, by the way).
- Here's Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer and State Senator Michael Gianaris jointly complaining in one LIC Post story,
- If your issue is jobs, jobs, jobs, read this op-ed in NYDN, watch this video on CNBC, check out this segment on NY1, or read this local angle by Nolan Hicks in the Post.
- If you care about the Cuomo-de Blasio bromance, the Times has you covered.
- If your issue is the boondoggle, read this piece in The Week, this column by Nicole Gelinas in the Post, this tweet from Aaron Gordon, this op-ed in the Times, this piece in The Real Deal, this righteous hot take from the great Alyssa Katz in the Daily News, this jeremiad from future Council Member Macartney Morris, or this analysis of the transit crunch in the Post. The Post's E.J. McMahon also thinks it's a boondoggle, but, predictably, blames the unions for having the temerity to secure decent-paying jobs for hard-working people.
- If your issue is transit, read David Meyer's piece in Streetsblog or Vin Barone's piece in amNY.
- If you want curated commentary from erudite nobodies, read the Times letters page.
- If your issue is Jeff Bezos's helicopter, here's what Charlie Komanoff had to say.
- If you just want to know about Amazon's connection to Long Island's tallest building, read this piece from the Post.
- If you like the deal and want some back-up, the Daily News editorial board has you covered, while the Post editorial board seeks to change your mind.
- If you want a thin perspective from a recent LIC transplant, read this op-ed on CNN. Or you could read Dave Mosher's much better first-person piece in Business Insider.
- If you care about how the rich will keep getting richer, read the Wall Street Journal or this Puget Sound Business Journal piece with perspective from Seattle.
- And if your issue is making the Mets great again, here's a solid tweet from Dave Colon.
In other news:
- Reinvent Albany hammered the MTA on delays on signal improvements.
- Every cyclist in town rightly lost his shit over this flameout by the NYPD's Sixth Precinct, which gleefully tweeted a picture of one of its officers blocking a bike lane to give a cyclist a ticket — the same precinct, Doug Gordon pointed out, that has written all of six parking-in-a-bike-lane tickets this year.
- Friend of Streetsblog Ed Janoff, an urban planner and former DOT official, penned an op-ed on how much he hates Penn Station. (NYDN)
- The Daily News had a third day of coverage of a Queens hit-and-run victim, further evidence that some victims get more coverage than others.
- The MTA is buying Grand Central Terminal (no, it didn't own it, silly). (NYDN)
- Oh, and it's supposed to snow on Thursday. (NY Post, amNY)
