New Jersey

Rob Andrews, the South Jersey congressman who is challenging Senator Frank R. Lautenberg in New Jersey's June Democratic primary, just appointed his campaign chairman: Michael Murphy, the stepson of former Governor Richard J. Hughes (who served two terms from 1961 to 1969) and himself a candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1997.

Murphy is generally one of the good guys in New Jersey politics, but apparently he's had quite a change of heart when it comes to Andrews.  read more »

Frank Lautenberg is ripe for defeat in New Jersey’s June Democratic primary, and his opponent, Rob Andrews, looks well-positioned to dislodge him.

Lautenberg is 84 years old, while Andrews is a young-looking 50. The challenger will benefit from future-vs.-past themes. And it’s not as if Democrats feel much personal or political pull toward the incumbent.  read more »

For the first time in eight years, it will be up to New Jersey’s Democratic voters to determine their party’s nominee for a statewide office. Here’s a look at one of the major factors that will shape this June’s Senate fight between incumbent Frank Lautenberg and challenger Rob Andrews:

The County Lines

These are uniquely important in New Jersey politics. In most states, every voter’s ballot looks pretty much the same, with candidates grouped together by the office they’re seeking, and with their names arranged in some kind of coherent order.  read more »

Three years ago, Rob Andrews—like every other ambitious New Jersey Democrat—believed that the best way to get ahead was to be a team player, racking up goodwill and IOU's among party insiders with the faith that, when the time came, they'd return the favor and support his for statewide office.

Part of being a team player meant supporting Frank Lautenberg, who returned to the Senate in 2002 after a brief two-year absence. In March of 2005, Lautenberg held his first major fund-raiser for his 2008 reelection campaign, a lavish affair at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark. Barack Obama was the star attraction. Marvin Hamlisch provided the music. And Rob Andrews was one of the top donors.  read more »

Finally, after years of false starts, Rob Andrews has grasped what so many ambitious and otherwise bright New Jersey Democrats haven’t: If you stand around waiting for someone to hand you a promotion, you’re never going to get anywhere.

Andrews, age 50, is intimately familiar with the particular agony that attends missed opportunities in politics, because he is condemned to live with the knowledge that he might this very moment be a top player in national politics—if only he could have found a way to beat Jim McGreevey.  read more »

So much for that. Just when it looked like Frank Lautenberg had dodged a career-threatening bullet, the dams suddenly appear to be breaking.

Rob Andrews, the South Jersey congressman who jolted the New Jersey political world on Monday when he suddenly began flirting with a primary challenge to Lautenberg, has – according to PolitickerNJ.com – made some stunning inroads into North Jersey's most coveted Democratic turf.  read more »

Frank Raleigh Lautenberg, New Jersey’s 84-year-old senior U.S. senator, is not a beloved public official. He has served off and (mostly) on since 1982, but has never garnered more than 54 percent of the vote in four winning campaigns. His approval ratings are mostly lukewarm, owing more to New Jersey’s partisan tendencies than anything else, and his biggest accomplishment in D.C.  read more »

The concert promotion powerhouse Bowery Presents, owners of the Bowery Ballroom and the Mercury Lounge, as well as the more recently opened Music Hall of Williamsburg and Terminal 5, is beginning a new venture across the Hudson River. Starting this fall, the historic Wellmont Theater in Montclair, N.J.—an artsy town that's home to lots of actors and journalists (and Stephen Colbert)—will reopen under a newly formed independent concert promotion company called Montclair Entertainment, which includes several principals from Bowery Presents, The Star Ledger reports.  read more »

In another sign that the Democratic establishment now views Barack Obama as the inevitable nominee, Hillary Clinton has been hit by two more major defections -- from key supporters in a state whose primary she won handily.

Dana Redd and Donald Norcross, two superdelegates from New Jersey, both announced this morning that they are switching their backing from Clinton to Obama.  read more »

From New Jersey reader Henry Seltzer:

6:30 -- Amid the dense morning fog, went to the polls in Montclair, NJ. Four poll workers were prepared for the day. Only one other voter – a middle-aged white male who took his time casting his vote – was there.

Obama signs and supporters were canvassing the train station and received good responses from commuters.

Barack Obama's speech at the Meadowlands early this afternoon was not terribly thrilling or very new. Reporters wondered why it wasn't happening downtown Newark. This was more an event for the cameras than the people—though one reporter suggested the campaign had become overly fearful of a repeat of the D.C. debacle, where fans and reporters alike had been turned away in droves from seeing Obama speak.  read more »

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.—Robert De Niro has shown up to pitch for Barack Obama, just as the rumor had it, here at the Izod Center at the Meadowlands. He's looking sporty in a blue blazer. "Barack Obama does not have the experience to be president of the United States" is his opening line. For one thing: "He wasn't experienced enough to authorize the invasion of Iraq."

"And that's not all,” he went on. “It's clear Barack Obama does not have the experience to let the special interests run the government."  read more »

EAST RUTHERFORD—Newark Mayor Cory Booker is predicting record Newark voter turnout, and high attendance throughout the state.

"We've got another upset coming on Tuesday," he said. (The Super Bowl metaphors are not gonna stop allllll day!) "We're back here not to rock the sports world like the Giants just did, we're here to rock the world!"

"We're going to be hitting hard as soon as the polls open," he said.  read more »

EAST RUTHERFORD—All of the Jersey press is rolling up in here—the boys from Blue Jersey, Mark Bonamo, the managing editor of the Community Newspapers of North Jersey Media Group—at the newly-named Izod Center at the Meadowlands.

(Need we mention that the Meadowlands is the home of the SUPER BOWL-WINNING NEW YORK GIANTS? OH YES IT IS. Actually, we are on the floor where the Nets play, which probably means that I am standing in Jason Kidd's congealed sweat.)  read more »

New Jersey may host three of the most competitive House races in the country next year.  read more »

A new Quinnipiac poll of New Jersey voters has Rudy Giuliani beating all of the leading Democratic presidential candidates in head-to-head match-ups:

• 49 to 40 percent over Hillary Clinton
• 48 to 38 percent over Barack Obama
• 48 to 41 percent over John Edwards

By contrast, the Democrats all come out narrowly ahead of John McCain and miles ahead of Mitt Romney:

• Clinton beats McCain 45 - 41 percent;
• Clinton beats Romney 50 - 31 percent;
• Obama beats McCain 43 - 41 percent;
• Obama beats Romney 50 - 26 percent;
• Edwards beats McCain 42 - 41 percent;
• Edwards beats Romney 51 - 26 percent.

Al Sharpton really enjoys making candidates beg for his endorsement.   And yet they come.  read more »

Ripped open by an iceberg!  read more »

It sure is a good time to own real estate in Manhattan.

More than $13.6 billion in real-estate sales closed in the borough in the first quarter of 2007, with another $11 billion under contract. That puts the 2007 investment-sales market at a pace to whip last year's $34 billion record.

The numbers were unveiled at a quarterly breakfast on Tuesday morning hosted by Cushman & Wakefield at the Midtown power eatery Michael's.

Other reasons you'd want to be a landlord: Average office asking rents now stand at $53.43 per square foot--the highest average ever--and the office vacancy rate fell to 5.7 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006, its lowest mark since September 11, 2001.

"We have seen unprecedented rental growth in the Manhattan office market over the past year," said Cushman & Wakefield big man Joe Harbert.

More analysis on the record-setting numbers in this week's print edition of The Observer, out on Wednesday. And find the entire Cushman & Wakefield press release after the jump.  read more »

- John Koblin

10 a.m. Consumer Affairs Commissioner Jonathan Mintz will announce a settlement that will return more than $600,000 to homeowners scammed by a home improvement contractor at the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs, 42 Broadway, between Exchange Place and Beaver Street.

10 a.m. State Sen. Wayne Bryant and R. Michael Gallagher, a former dean at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey's School of Osteopathic Medicine in Stratford, will make an initial appearance after being indicted on corruption charges at the federal courthouse in Trenton, New Jersey.  read more »

11 a.m. Citizens Committee for New York City and Council Member John Liu will announce a tax free preparation campaign targeting low-income New Yorkers at the Chinese American Planning Council, 136-18 39 Avenue, in Flushing, Queens.

Speaker Quinn Speaks Nonsense    read more »

Speaker Quinn Speaks Nonsense    read more »

Budget negotiations between Eliot Spitzer and Joe Bruno didn't go well today.

The long-delayed confirmation of the state environmental commissioner, Pete Grannis, passed a major hurdle.

Mike Bloomberg blamed the free market for a lack of taxis in the outer boroughs.

The guy leading the production of an upcoming anti-Hillary movie says despite some bumps in the road, "My organization is not in debt."

A union representing half the state employees in NJ denounced attacks made by other unions against labor boss and former Corzine girlfriend Carla Katz.

It's a nail-biter in Iowa.

Liza Saber thinks Bill Richardson has the best resume of any Democratic presidential candidate, but she's not sold on him yet.

Dennis Kucinich invited two critics of the new Yankees stadium plan to testify in congress.

The son of the Westchester Rockland County Assemblyman who recently died said he'll run for his dad's seat in the May 1 special election.

Rapper Snoop Dogg needs some kind of diplomatic intervention in order to get into the U.K.

PoliticsTV is counting down the best political ads of all time, starting this week.

And pictured above is Bill Richardson in New York.

-- Azi Paybarah

If you’ve been reading the real-estate pages in the newspapers lately, you could be forgiven f  read more »

There is an expression—proven throughout American history—that the road to the White Hou  read more »

The New York finance director for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign just sent out a fund-raising primer and calendar for Hillary supporters to remind them that "the all-important 1st quarter FEC filing is quickly approaching. As many of you know, the March 31st deadline will be the first big test for all of the presidential candidates in the so-called 'money primary'."

The entire letter -- including a fun "Some Facts about Hillary's Record" attachment -- is after the jump.  read more »

--Jason Horowitz

A Quinnipiac poll of registered voters in New Jersey has Rudy Giuliani leading Hillary Clinton 50 to 41 percent in that state. Giuliani's strength is in stark contrast to President Bush's stunningly low numbers in that state.

So the trick for Giuliani will be to make sure that even as he sells himself to red state voters as a who-knew conservative and a Bush ally, his Democratic-leaning fans in the New York suburbs continue to see him as an independent-minded moderate. Easy, right?

From the poll:

New Jersey voters give Giuliani a 66 - 20 percent favorability rating.

New Jersey voters disapprove 70 - 26 percent of the job President George W. Bush is doing, tying his lowest score ever in the Garden State.

Voters disapprove 75 - 22 percent of the President's handling of the war in Iraq and say 64 - 32 percent that going to war in Iraq was the wrong thing to do.

-- Azi Paybarah

8:30 a.m. A forum on school finance equity for New York City will take place at The Century Foundation, 41 East 70th St.

9:30 a.m. An MTA Board meeting will take place at the MTA Board Room, 347 Madison Ave.

9:30 a.m. Tenants and housing activists protest eviction proceedings at 141 Livingston St. in Brooklyn.

10 a.m. Councilwoman Rosie Mendez will introduce two resolutions to get more outside funding to support the New York City Housing Authority at City Hall.

10 a.m. A groundbreaking ceremony for a new airport traffic control tower will take place at the LaGuardia Airport Maine Air Terminal Rotunda.

10:30 a.m. Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum participates in the Family Court Judge for a Day program at the Brooklyn Family Court.

11 a.m. Council Member Leroy Comrie and tri-state legislators announce support for national moratorium on the n-word at City Hall.

11 a.m. The Quinnipiac University Polling Institute will release results of a new poll of New Jersey voters, asking their opinion on Governor Corzine's approval and taxes in Trenton, New Jersey.

Noon. The directors of the New York State Urban Development Corporation meet at the 37th floor in main conference room of the Empire State Development Corporation, 633 Third Ave.

Noon. The National Restaurant Association and Council Member Joel Rivera denounce the Board of Health rule requiring all chain restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus at City Hall.

12:30 p.m. Author and human rights advocate Talia Carner discusses infanticide in China at the The Women's Media Center, Empire State Building, 350 Fifth Ave., Suite 901.

12:30 p.m. The Digital Music Forum East Conference media luncheon will take place at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place.

4 p.m. The Board of Directors of the New York Convention Center Operating Corporation will meet in the main conference room at Jacob Javits Center, 655 West 34th St.

5:30 p.m. Granny Peace Brigade members and author Malachy McCourt protest the appearance of Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain at an Irish-American Republican Club event at the Women's Republican Club, 3 West 51st St.

5:30 p.m. Bronx CUNY college presidents launch a new scholarship fund at the The New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx.

6 p.m. The American Heart Association hosts its 15th Annual Heart of New York Gala in the Grand Ballroom at the Waldorf-Astoria.

6 p.m. Author Chris Hedges discusses his book, "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America" at the James Memorial Chapel, 3041 Broadway.

6:30 p.m. NBC's Tim Russert moderates a discussion with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Governor Mario Cuomo on the 2008 presidential election at The Great Hall at The Cooper Union, 7 East 7th St.

6:30 p.m. Activists rally against Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's decision to stop school reorganization at St. Vartan's Cathedral, 630 Second Ave.

7 p.m. Anti-war activists hold a meeting to plan the March 17 National March on the Pentagon at the Community Church, 40 East 35th St.

7:30 p.m. Dan Donovan, Richmond County (Staten Island) District Attorney, will speak at the Forest Park Republican Club meeting at the American Legion--Continental Post in Forest Hills, Queens.

8 p.m. Stonewall Democrats of New York City host a hearing for candidates for the East Side Assembly seat currently held by Pete Grannis, who has been nominated to be the commissioner for the state's department of Environmental Conservation. The hearing will be held at the LGBT Center, 208 W. 13th Street [title corrected].

Al Gore speaks at the University of Miami in Florida

-- Gillian Reagan

On Saturday, Feb.  read more »

New York Nostalgia Trip    read more »

Mike Ferguson, a conservative Republican who was re-elected to his suburban New Jersey seat by less than two percent of the vote last year, just announced that he would vote against the resolution condemning the escalation of the war.

The youthful and ambitious pol, who engaged in some rather embarrassing district-shopping before winning his 7th District seat in 2000, nearly saw his political career collapse last November, when Democratic Assemblywoman Linda Stender mounted a strong challenge by criticizing Ferguson's loyalty to the House GOP leadership.

She is considering challenging him again next year -- and his vote against this resolution now figures to feature prominently in that campaign.

-- Steve Kornacki

Dennis Foy is a difficult guy to pin down.  read more »

Silver vs. Spitzer? Don’t Spoil the Party    read more »

Silver vs. Spitzer? Don’t Spoil the Party    read more »

There are certain pivotal plays that make mighty noises in small rooms, and Dutchman, by the black a  read more »

Hillary Clinton will drop in on her Hollywood friends next month to head off Barack Obama's courting of some of the town's most deep-pocketed stars and moguls. Elizabeth Taylor calls Hillary "savvy."

A bipartisan independent panel charged with recommending top candidates for the vacant comptroller position jilted the hard-lobbying Sheldon Silver by not including any of his picks. Silver promptly called the panel toothless and said he doesn't care what they suggest.

A poll shows that New Jersey likes Giuliani.

This other poll is good for Hillary.

The National Security Agency's super-classified domestic surveillance program may be too secret to be legal.

Anti-war activists are set to march on Washington.

But the Democrats are still divided.

A conservative candidate, California Representative Duncan Hunter, entered the race for president and started campaigning by driving around his state in a motor home. He's for the war and against abortion.

With a booming real estate market and tax revenues for the fiscal year $2 billion higher than estimated even a couple of months ago, Mayor Bloomberg forsees a $3.9 billion surplus in next years budget that will allow him to cut city taxes.

And finally, it's cold.

-- Jason Horowitz

• East Harlem gentrification fuels Puerto Ricans' angst.
[NY Times]
• How long will hotel-industry hot steak last?
[NY Times]
• Living inside the place you're selling.
[NY Times]
• Behind the Bankers Trust Building at Wall and Nassau.
[NY Times]
• Buying property with friends and family--beware.
[NY Times]
• Deducting "mansion taxes" on federal income-tax returns.
[NY Times]
• Can a co-op or condo change its rules about dogs?
[NY Times]
• 141 Fifth Avenue hides behind full print of its future look.
[NY Times]
• Higher assessments may nullify tax cuts. [2nd item]
[NY Times]
• Face-off between East Village club and upstairs neighbors.
[NY Times]
• Roommates.com faces fair-housing lawsuit.
[NY Times]
• Landlord sues Sharpton as deadbeat office tenant.
[NY Post]
• City--again--rejects Trump plans for Soho condo-hotel.
[NY Post]
• New New Jersey-New York rail tunnel moves forward.
[NY Post]
• 14 Wall Street in contract for $325 million sale.
[NY Post]
• Harlem landlord leaves tenants in the cold.
[NY Post]
• Archdiocese says property of closed parishes not for sale.
[Daily News]
• Copacabana owner vows to reopen in new location.
[Daily News]
• Barclays' Brooklyn arena courts controversy.
[Daily News]
• Median home prices drop in Queens.
[Newsday]
• Bowery subway station ridership quadruples.
[NY Sun]
• Vornado's Roth covets Equity Office Properties.
[WSJ]

Did we miss any New York City real estate news this morning? Please send along tips and links.

• 0 comments

I’m not a Tennis Person. Nor am I a person who likes Tennis People.  read more »

A few more points about dual-citizenship and dual-loyalty.

Last week at the Brit Tzedek event at the Village Temple, the Israeli veteran said that if the West Bank settlements were uprooted tomorrow, most of the settlers would quietly take compensation and move to Israel. But the religious crazies might leave the country. Many of the Gaza settlers had moved back to the U.S., he said. "To New Jersey," someone in the audience called out, knowledgeably. "To Brooklyn," another man cried.

These people were talking about a real issue: the extent to which dual citizenship has allowed religious nutbags from this country with messianic visions to inflame the politics of the Middle East, then when things don't work out, just to come back here.

I dream about a day when national borders will vanish and we'll all sing Kumbaya. That hasn't happened yet; in the meantime, the U.S. and Israel need to clear some of these issues up. The problem came up on Democracy Now yesterday in a forum on the (disgusting) fact that "the Israeli government has effectively frozen visitation and re-entry of foreign nationals of Palestinian origin to the West Bank and Gaza."

Israeli human rights lawyer Leah Tsemel went right to the dual citizenship issue:

I wanted also to mention one very important point. We get information that there are... a half-million Israelis who live in the United States and have dual nationalities. Those, and most of the Israelis, have a second passport and third passport and third nationality, just to kind of -- to be on the safe side. I think that there should be a demand for mutuality. The same [rights should be afforded by] Jewish Israelis toward our American citizens, as we, the Americans have to your Israeli citizens. Because Israelis can come and go with the re-entry permit... into the United States, and at the same time, there is no mutuality, and [Arab] Americans are not allowed in here.

Exactly. There's a revolving door between Israel and the U.S., for Jews. Neocon Max Singer moves to Israel and continues to work for a Washington thinktank, pushing us to go to war in Iraq. Nutbag settlers move from here to the West Bank with religious visions. This freedom (and absence of freedom) is distorting our politics. Yes I dream of a day when there will be no borders. But not just for Jews.

P.S. John Fonte of the Hudson Institute (a principled guy) takes exception to my recent item on dual loyalty:

I read your comments related to my phone interview with you, and your conversation with Max Singer. It is, as we discussed, perfectly legal at the present time to vote in two countries. The implicit subtext of your comments is that Max as a "neo-con," (horrors, hide the children) should somehow be chastized. Why? Because after serious thought he changed his mind and arrived at a new understanding on the basis of principle? On the contrary, Max should be commended for his principled decision to vote only in the country in which he is most politically active. Many dual citizens have not been as principled.

Former city and state comptrollers may join a panel to screen comptroller candidates who would then be voted on by the state legislature.

Eliot Spitzer penned an op-ed saying that high taxes and cost of health insurance in New York can be reduced.

Spitzer reduced the price of phone calls for inmates.

Mike Bloomberg backed off his critique that legislators don't have the skills to be CEO of a city.

Word that Joe Hynes will help Andrew Cuomo investigate Medicaid fraud gets the approval of Post editors.

Hillary Clinton said the country should move towards universal health care as soon as it reasonably can, while Arnold Schwarzenegger pushes ahead with it in California.

Democrats are seeking a way to block financing for the military in Iraq without appearing like they're abandoning the soldiers already there.

Mitt Romney raised $6.5 million for his presidential exploratory committee.

And that weird smell may have come from New Jersey. There must be a punchline in there somewhere.

-- Azi Paybarah

Madonna will be in Malawi. And I’m betting Angelina will be in Angola.  read more »

• Port Authority head: Take "fresh look" at Freedom Tower.
[NY Times]
• Queens DA shuts down Woodside strip club.
[NY Times]
• Manhattan sellers change attitudes in slower market.
[NY Times]
• Florida Panhandle housing market grinds to a halt.
[NY Times]
• Learning from the Dakota's precursor.
[NY Times]
• Buyers find peace, deals in Spuyten Duyvil, the Bronx.
[NY Times]
• Developers bet on city living in New Jersey.
[NY Times]
• New condos atop Upper West Side's Apple Bank.
[NY Times]
• New mortgage products accelerate payoff schedules.
[NY Times]
• Scoping out building noise before move-in day.
[NY Times]
• Do area rugs count as carpeting in condos?
[NY Times]
• Who pays a co-op sublet fee?
[NY Times]
• The 80-20 income rule for co-ops remains in effect.
[NY Times]
• Atlantic Yards' fate in Silver's hands.
[NY Times]
• Realogy agrees to be sold for $9 billion.
[NY Times]
• Bloomberg in a hurry over urban planning.
[Economist]
• Spitzer renders MTA's Kalikow powerless.
[NY Post]
• Nadler gets money from Red Hook terminal manager.
[NY Post]
• World Trade Center site rebuilding starts in earnest.
[Daily News]
• Landlord Pinnacle strikes deal with Spitzer.
[Daily News]
• Hundreds of condos going up in Riverdale.
[Daily News]
• City Council battles over Quinn's 421-a bill.
[Daily News]
• Prospect Heights battleground for "meaning of Brooklyn."
[New York]
• Future MTA chief vows to finish 2nd Avenue subway.
[NY Sun]
• Efforts to revive 421-b development tax incentive.
[NY Sun]

Did we miss any New York City real estate news this morning? Please send along tips and links.

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In a conversation after yesterday's vote by the New Jersey legislature in favor of civil unions, Garden State Equality chairman Steven Goldstein told me that New York now "lags far behind New Jersey in terms of gay rights," and offered an interesting theory for why that might be the case.

"It might be a sociological phenomenon," he said. "New York has upstate New York, which is a conservative counterpoint to the more progressive New York City, metropolitan area. We don't have a conservative part of New Jersey akin to upstate New York. Northern New Jersey is very demographically similar to New York City. South Jersey is similar to Philadelphia. We're a very urban state, a very progressive state. "

-- Azi Paybarah