1991: The Year The Union Broke

The last time there were city layoffs, city government cast the choice in terms of employee concessions (“The city has threatened to go through with the layoffs if they do not get the concessions they seek from union leaders, who in turn assert that they must protect their members”). Today, the Bloomberg Administration appears to be setting the stage for a similar scenario:

The [Citizens Budget Commission] study feeds into the Bloomberg administration’s aggressive campaign to get health care givebacks from the unions while urging state legislators to cut pension benefits for future employees.

In fact, Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler spoke to members of the Citizens Budget Commission at the University Club last week and warned that out-of-control benefit costs could push the city to the brink of bankruptcy.

Just a coincidence, commission officials said.

“I’m delighted that the mayor is joining us,” said Charles Brecher, director of research and executive vice president at the commission. “We’ve been concerned about this longer than he has.”

“Pensions are important to people. They are important to people who work for the city, but they are also important to taxpayers, because they are a growing expense in the city budget.”

The Mind Reels

See, tax credits work! They give good jobs to deserving New Yorkers! Though there is something absurdly circular about someone getting laid off from an industry that is probably as responsible for reestablishing New York City’s on-screen persona than anything else in the city for the last couple of economic cycles who then gets work as an extra in those films. It’s like Old Tucson* or something:

Laid off in December from a private equity firm downtown, Trent Calabretta, 26, found himself last month within a cubicle’s length of Angelina Jolie on a Manhattan set for the movie “Salt.”

“I’m not one to get star-struck, but it was a bit surreal,” Mr. Calabretta said. “There were thousands of people there, and we were going up and down Park Avenue for this one parade scene. People were playing military officials and past presidents, and everyone was in different uniforms, and we were all trying to come together to shoot this one scene. When I saw Jolie, my first thought was, ‘Well, she’s definitely not ugly.’ ”

The $8 an hour Mr. Calabretta earned as a nonunion extra — more recently, he was on the set of the CW’s “Gossip Girl” — will not cover the $1,750-per-month rent on his Upper East Side apartment, but he hopes the money he saved during three and a half years in finance will last until he finds a similar job.

“I’ve gotten a few paychecks as an extra, but I haven’t even looked at them yet,” Mr. Calabretta said. “My intention is to get back into finance, and in the interim, I’m going to keep doing these fun little side jobs.”

Managers at casting agencies around New York said they were seeing increasing numbers of people like Mr. Calabretta who have little experience in, or even aspirations for, acting, but are filling hours they used to spend at office jobs with gigs as extra, also called background, talent.

At Extra Talent Agency, a Manhattan firm that casts extras for commercials, television shows and documentary films, the actor database swelled to 9,680 in March from 6,850 in December. Fleet Emerson, assistant casting director at Sylvia Fay/Lee Genick and Associates Casting, has seen correspondence from aspiring extras triple over the past several months, something he called “quite a phenomenon.” And Grant Wilfley Casting, also in Manhattan, had open calls for new background talent in February and March that yielded 1,500 and 1,300 people, respectively.

*Location Scout: Old Tucson.

The Secret Plan To Drive Up Housing Prices Again

And while you’re at it, compare and contrast to the effects of eliminating the more media-friendly M8:

Some bus riders would be stranded by bus cuts leaving them up to 2 miles from the nearest mass transit option, according to an MTA study.

Residents in four areas on the city’s border face the longest treks if the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s array of doomsday service cuts go into effect: the far West Side of Manhattan; Gerritsen Beach, Brooklyn; Woodlawn, the Bronx, and Oakwood Beach, Staten Island, according to an impact study done in connection with the authority’s planned service cuts.

“It’s not right to leave us stranded,” said house cleaner Linda Girron, who works six days a week and lives at 49th St. and 11th Ave. “The bus is my only way of getting to work. We can’t get anywhere without the bus.”

Since last year, transit officials have warned they’d have to make severe service cuts to fill massive budget gaps if the state doesn’t adopt a bailout.

On the chopping block is weekend service on the crosstown M50 route used by Girron. Its demise would leave some workers and residents west of 11th Ave. a mile from mass transit, according to the study.

Residents in Gerritsen Beach, a corner of Brooklyn near Sheepshead Bay, would fare worse during the wee hours of the morning. Some parts of the neighborhood would be nearly 2 miles from another bus route if the B31 is shut down as planned between 1:30 and 4:30 a.m.

That’s bad news for late-shift workers like Alex Popov, 28, who works at a Times Square restaurant. He rides the B31 between 2 and 3 a.m. on his way home. “I need this bus,” Popov said.

On the city’s northern border, Woodlawn residents may lose the Bx34, which runs along Katonah Ave., the heart of the neighborhood, connecting with the last stop on the No. 4 subway line. Some sections of Woodlawn would be left with “no transit service within a walkable distance” during some overnight hours, the study states.

MTA Unbullish On Citi’s Future?

Coincidence? Shares in Citigroup opened sharply lower on Monday, March 30 (from $2.62 to $2.31), after Monday morning’s New York Times reminded readers that the MTA renamed the “Shea Stadium” 7 train stop “Mets Baseball” instead of “Citi Field”:

The Mets had sold 30,000 tickets at $5 apiece and had given away another 12,000, but the ugly weather kept many fans away. Those who did show up began filing off the No. 7 train around 10 a.m., following signs from the subway that now read “Mets Baseball” instead of “Shea Stadium.” They pressed up against the gates, taking pictures of the exterior modeled after the Ebbets Field facade, and were soon flooding into the rotunda honoring Jackie Robinson.

Location Scout: Citi Field.

On The Bright Side, We’ll Still Have That New Paint Job On The Brooklyn Bridge

It’s hard to believe they couldn’t have seen this coming:

Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed budget for next year appeared balanced just two months ago, but the city’s Independent Budget Office says the latest economic indicators show it’s now $1.4 billion in the red. IBO director Ronnie Lowenstein says it’s due to a precipitous slide in tax revenues and a deteriorating economy.

From the assignment desk: Square with “City’s massive budget gap hits $23.8B, service cuts, tax hikes likely” (3/18/09).