The Legacy Of The Third Term

“New York State Ranks Last for Voter Turnout”:

Despite contests for every statewide office for the first time in decades, a smaller share of eligible voters turned out two weeks ago in New York than in any other state. New York turnout was lower than in any midterm election for at least three decades.

On the basis of unofficial returns, about 40 percent of registered New Yorkers voted on Nov. 2. But an analysis by the United States Election Project at George Mason University found that only 32.1 percent of the 13.4 million who were eligible — citizens 18 and older who are not convicted felons — actually voted.

New York ranked lowest, just below Texas and Utah. Minnesota recorded the highest turnout (55.4 percent), one of six states in which more than half the eligible population voted.

These streets will make you feel brand new! The lights will inspire you! Let’s hear it for New York! New York! New York!

I Don’t Understand, Gossip Girl Makes Manhattan And Dumbo Look So Appealing

On the one hand, here’s a link to an op-ed that’s a total fucking waste of time and offensively condescending to boot, in the dippy way the Observer editorial board often is. The only good thing about keeping the Observer in my reader is knowing that I’ll never have to see its unmanly pink pages in real life.

On the other hand, here’s a link to a much more nuanced and substantive piece that goes a long way toward making sense out of what until now has been an inscrutable appointment.

On the first hand, just don your top hat and monocle and pretend everything is cool — this as you fritter away your inheritance on commercial real estate and the media.

On the second hand, shrug your shoulders, smile and say, “What does it really matter when the one side lives in Westchester or Florida off your city taxes and the other side jets off to Bermuda every other week to golf?”

Yay, New York Fuckin’ City!

New York City-Secaucus Junction Transit?

It’s intriguing:

Ever since Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey killed an expensive plan for a new commuter rail tunnel to Manhattan, the Bloomberg administration has been working on an alternative: run the No. 7 subway train under the Hudson River.

The plan envisions the No. 7 stretching from 34th Street on the Far West Side of Manhattan to Secaucus, N.J., where there is a connection to New Jersey Transit trains. It would extend the New York City subway outside the city for the first time, giving New Jersey commuters direct access to Times Square, Grand Central Terminal and Queens, and to almost every line in the system.

Like the project scuttled by Mr. Christie, this proposed tunnel would expand a regional transportation system already operating at capacity and would double the number of trains traveling between the two states during peak hours. But it would do so at about half the cost, an estimated $5.3 billion, according to a closely guarded, four-page memorandum circulated by the city’s Hudson Yards Development Corporation.

I’m not sure I totally understand the Bloomberg administration’s preoccupation with federal money — it reminds me of children bobbing for apples and seems beneath the studiously aloof mayor (it’s also what Robert Moses was pilloried for when “he built” all those Title I projects in the 1950s and 60s).

Which is to say, while this seems like an interesting project, would it be something the City would prioritize had it not been for all that federal money? Which is also to say, why is New York City subsidizing New Jersey commuters? Are there really that many Bruce Springsteen concerts at the Meadowlands? If not, can we also get a cheap New Jersey Transit bus to Newark Liberty from Secaucus Junction when this is completed?

What, Jackie Mason Wasn’t Available? But He Sounded So Good When He’d Hector Me About Using A Seat Belt . . .

Even better than the “sponsored-by Councilmember” trash can is the 40-second survey spot:

The Taxi and Limousine Commission chairman is the star of a 40-second video now playing inside cabs before your regularly scheduled Taxi TV programming. But unlike the mix of news and advertising, you can’t switch off [David] Yassky’s cheery plea for you to participate in a survey about the future of New York City’s yellow cabs.

Proving Again That Actors Will Do Almost Any Day Job In Order To Keep The Dream Alive

I think I’d think twice about accepting certain babysitting jobs, no matter how struggling an actor I was:

Just as waiting tables in fashionable restaurants gives aspiring actors access to New York’s movers and shakers, bedbug hunting can provide a platform for making connections with “high-up people in the New York scene,” [one aspiring actor] said, adding that she was already offered several babysitting gigs from her bedbug job.