A New Recovery Plan for New York

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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Last week, as some of you have heard, Governor Hochul and Mayor Adams unveiled their joint plan called Making New York Work for Everyone. This plan to reimagine New York, which has 40 initiatives, some of which we'll get into, of course, has three overarching goals. One, to reimagine New York City's commercial districts as vibrant 24/7 destinations. That is business and residential for what might be a permanently hybrid work world after COVID.

Two, to make it easier for New Yorkers to get to work, and three, to generate inclusive, future-focused growth. We'll see what they mean by future-focused. This plan, which is detailed in a 159-page report was created by a 59 member, New York panel, spearheaded by two former New York City deputy mayors who join us now. Here with me to discuss making New York work for our Richard Buery Co-chair of the New York panel CEO of Robin Hood these days, and some of you remember, he was Deputy Mayor for strategic policy initiatives under Bill de Blasio.

Had a lot to do with a very successful pre-K initiative under de Blasio and other things, and Dan Doctoroff, Co-chair of the New York Panel, along with Buery, former CEO of Sidewalk Labs and former Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and rebuilding for the city of New York under Mayor Bloomberg. Interesting that deputy mayors from the last two administrations were central to helping this mayor imagine the future. Dan and Richard, great to have you again. Welcome back to WNYC.

Dan: Hey, it's great to be back.

Richard: Likewise. Great to talk to you.

Brian: First, can you both explain why we have to reimagine a New York in the first place? Richard, will you start?

Richard: Sure. Well, everybody understands that the last two years have obviously been very difficult for New York. We saw so much of our economy, so much of our business districts harmed below by the pandemic, and we also saw how those harms disproportionately impacted communities of color who across the board with every negative indicator from job loss to health indicators, we saw that those harmed were not felt equally.

The charge really from the Governor and the Mayor was to say, what can we do to help revitalize the economy in the light of the challenges we faced over the last few years? In particular, how do we make sure we revitalize the economy in a way that actually benefits all New Yorkers? Obviously, New York City had a history of strong recoveries from crises. If just go back over the last century from the Spanish Flu to the World Wars, to the Depression, to Hurricanes Sandy in the 911, the one defining factor of our city have been a city that comes back stronger.

The challenges when it comes back stronger, it doesn't always come back in a way that actually benefits all New Yorkers. That was a charge. How do we revive our central business districts after the pandemic? Specifically, how do we revise our central business districts and the economy in a way that benefits everyone?

Brian: Yes, go ahead, Dan.

Dan: I was just going to say, we can't take for granted that this city will come back, in the late 60s and early 70s we went into a vicious cycle of decline, and it took us about 25 years to get back to where we were in terms of population and jobs. The goal here is to be very specific, take concrete action, and we've got problems today. The daily office occupancy is at 47%. It was 80% pre-pandemic. Office vacancy rates are 22%, which is about 12% higher than the average since the mid-1990s when data first became available.

If you look at Midtown in lower Manhattan foot traffic there is down 13%, 14%. Retail spending in Midtown and lower Manhattan is way down. Whereas, by the way, it's up the rest of city subway ridership is 62% of pre-pandemic levels, and all of this has a huge impact on jobs and also on tax revenues which ultimately are the driver of making the city a more progressive and fairer city. We've got to do something.

Brian: Dan, you helped New York City rebuild after 911, which as we all know, involve re-imagining the financial district plus projects like the Highline, Hudson Yards, Barkley Center, all of which involve the rezoning of 40% of the city is the stat that I have largely from manufacturing and industrial zones to allow for more commercial and residential real estate. I wonder how you see a line given your history from what you and Mayor Bloomberg tried to do after 911 to this.

Dan: Well, I will say, the first Major goal as you said, was to revitalize our commercial districts as vibrant 24/7 places. We did start to do that. If you look at, for example, lower Manhattan, there were like 20,000 people living in lower Manhattan before 911. There's 70 or 80,000 now, the job base is much more diversified. We did that also in Long Island City, in Downtown Brooklyn, in Jamaica, in Harlem, in Flushing, but what we didn't do is really focus on Midtown Manhattan and defining it as maybe between 40th and 60th, between Third and Eighth Avenues, and it's got a huge problem today.

I think everyone who's there will acknowledge it, and it is an engine of growth. One line from back then to now is we just really have to focus on Midtown as an engine of growth for the city. We also have to realize that we can't dictate the way people are going to work, the way companies are going to work in the future, and so what we have to do is make New York the best place to work, no matter how you work or where you work. In order to do that, we got to make New York the best place anywhere in the world. That is why a lot of things touch on things bigger than central business districts.

Brian: Richard, to that point, it seems like Mayor Adams, since he and Governor Hochul appointed you is doing a turnaround from what he said at the beginning of his administration, which is everybody has to come back to the office five days a week. He's required that of city workers. He wanted private sector companies to acquire of their employees. Now, it seems like the Mayor and the Governor are saying, doesn't look like we're going to go back to the way we lived in 2019 anytime soon, and so as Dan was just saying, we have to make New York the greatest city in the world based on new realities. Is that a change from what this mayor who appointed you may have said a year ago?

Richard: Well, look, I think one thing to remember is that what we've experienced over the last two years, it's just, it's unprecedented. There isn't a roadmap for this transformation, and so I think to the Mayor's credit and to the governor's credit, we're all looking at the facts, looking at lived experience, and realizing that we are clearly not in the same place and not the same city that we were a few years ago, and fundamentally, it is this real question of people having choices.

For many years, the economy of Midtown, which drive so much of the economy of our city, have been based on the promise that, people have to come to work. You come to work five days a week, and that supports all sorts of economic activity, supports all sorts of tax revenue. It supports all sorts of secondary businesses that cater those workers. The question is, now that we know and I think this is right, we're not going back to a world where everybody has to come back to Midtown to work.

The question is that people don't have to come back to our central business districts. How do we make those districts places where they want to come back? How do we make the vibrant places where people can come to work to live, to play? Part of that is about opening up the creativity and the entrepreneurial spirit of New York so that those places can be multi-use districts, but it's also about thinking about transportation. How do we make it easier to get to work? Whether you're commuting into Midtown, or whether you're working from Social to home? How do we make that easier? We also know that New York City, which has some of the largest commutes in the nation, and by the way worse, again, if you're a person of color. How do we make the commutes more accessible, more affordable, and more pleasant? One thing I appreciated about the mayor, and the governor was just being willing to look at reality that develops and to be willing to adjust and change and innovative effects on the ground dictate.

One other thing I will say, and I've been saying this a lot, so has Dan. It's really been a remarkable experience over the last five months to work with the administrations both in Albany and City Hall on this project. One of the things that we know is that New York City and New York State are deeply intertwined. New York City, of course, is a creature of the state. The state in the region, of course, depends so much on the activity happening in the city.

Having cooperation and collaboration between the state government and the city government is so critical for everything that happened in the city, particularly critical for some of the ambitious proposals that exist in this document. One of the reasons why I have so much optimism about the path moving forward is because we have a governor and the mayor who are willing to collaborate together. Dan and I both experienced that firsthand over the last few months as we saw that collaborative, we saw the mayor and governor collaborate, and even the way that this project has come together the way that the mayor and the governor stood side by side to announce that have endorsed those 40 initiatives is one of the things that gives me a lot of faith and hope for what's coming.

Dan: I will just add to that. Sorry.

Brian: Briefly.

Dan: I know briefly, that it's been 25 years since I first started getting involved in city and state government and I have never seen a level of cooperation like we've seen on this project. It's-

Brian: You mean between the mayor and the governor?

Dan: Yes, and their staffs really impressive.

Brian: Certainly, we know from recent history that Mayors of New York City and governors of New York State don't always get along and cooperate all that well. We don't have to name names. This is WNYC FM HD and AM New York, WNJT FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are in New York and New Jersey public radio and live streaming @wnyc.org with former Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff from the Bloomberg administration and former Deputy Mayor Richard Buery from the de Blasio administration.

Now the Co-chairs of Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul, 59 member panel, and the report that they just put out called Making New York Work for Anyone, which really is a post-pandemic lifestyle reimagining of the city and we can take some questions or even suggestions at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or you can still tweet at Brian Lehrer. It looks like our Twitter poll is winding up with most of you wanting us to stay on Twitter, even if we had another option for the moment tweet @BrianLehrer. Andrea in Red Hook, you're on WNYC Hi, Andrea.

Andrea: Hi there. Thanks for taking my call. I was wondering if your guests have considered the 15-minute city model. It's a residential urban concept in which most daily necessities can be accomplished by either walking or cycling from residents' homes.

Brian: Richard, you want to take that? Have you heard of that?

Richard: I'm not familiar with that idea specifically, but certainly the context of having New York City communities in particular central business districts be mixed-use communities where people can access a range of services locally, is very much central to the vision of this document. Contextually around making it easier to get to where you need to go to. Part of that is about having more communities where people can work, live and play in the same community.

Brian: Dan, let me ask you as a former Deputy Mayor for development and rebuilding, how easy or hard do you think it will be just given the physical assets the buildings that exist to convert Midtown to the kind of living workplace that you're describing? It's easy to say, "Oh, all these underused office buildings now convert them to residential, we need more housing," but anybody who's worked in an office building knows it's not easy to take what's configured as an office and make it into an apartment, or to have a building that's part office space and part residential. How can you do that? How hard will it be?

Dan: Well, the first thing you have to do is eliminate the regulatory constraints or legislative constraints. This plan proposes several options for actually doing that, then there's the actual physical conversion, and some buildings are more amenable to it than others. Buildings with big floor plates, like 20, 30 40,000 square feet or maybe 30 or 40,000, square feet are just more difficult because the cores of the building with elevators and stuff are too far away from the windows, and so there's a lot of dark space in the middle of the building.

It'll be smaller buildings that typically will get converted. That's a start and eventually if people are not returning to work, and it's typically these larger A minus B, quality buildings that will not be used, eventually, some of them I think will be torn down, and will have a lot more residential capacity. One of the things that is a part of this plan that we know is important, is dramatically expanding the stock of housing in the city. We just can't let the city be as unaffordable as it is today.

The answer to that is dramatically, dramatically expanding the amount of housing that we get built in the city. Another part of this plan is to not only convert commercial buildings to residential but to accommodate much more residential than we have today.

Brian: Adrian in the East Village, you're on WNYC. Hi, Adrian.

Adrian: Oh, hi. I just wonder why Governor Hochul is pushing this redevelopment of a Penn Station area with huge office towers when people aren't even going to offices anymore. The area doesn't get cleaned up but I think that's a prime area for putting residential properties in.

Brian: Dan, do you want to take that one too?

Dan: Yes. Look, I think that the average age of a building in Midtown is now 75 years old. Think about that. 75 years old, and companies want modern office space. We've seen, by the way, the success of that at Hudson Yards, where there's been a major move from Midtown, in particular, over to Hudson Yards because of the quality office space is very high and it's pretty much all filled up. From that perspective-

Brian: Is it all filled up? Because I feel like I keep hearing Hudson Yards is underperforming and maybe-

Dan: Not on the commercial side?

Brian: What's the other side?

Dan: Well, residentially it's been a little weaker. I think from a retail perspective it's been a little weaker but from a commercial perspective, the office space is, I think, almost all filled up. That's true also, not just at Hudson Yards, but at Manhattan West, which is just to the east of Hudson Yards. People want new office space because people work differently than they did 75 years ago. In some cases, it's just very hard to turn old offices, particularly these big ones that you see on Third Avenue, Sixth Avenue, et cetera, into modern office space-

Brian: Gabriel [crosstalk]

Dan: -people are still going to go into work, and I suspect that percentage will creep up over time. When people go into work, they want to have a specific workspace.

Brian: Gabriel and Georgia, you're on WNYC. Hi Gabriel.

Gabriel: Hey Brian. How are you doing?

Brian: Doing all right. What you got for us?

Gabriel: I just wanted to make the point that central business districts are not always good organizations. In fact, oftentimes they're exploitative of their street crews and even harassing. They tend to fast-track corporate interests into turning New York into what New York isn't.

Brian: Gabriel, thank you. Let me throw that to you, Richard, with maybe another layer of question laid over it, because a major pillar of your making New York work for every one report and plan is to help working families participate in the labor force and drive an equitable recovery by making childcare accessible and affordable. That's language from your report. Can you tell our listeners more about this? Of course, you were Deputy Mayor under de Blasio who ran in the first place on fighting inequality in New York. Of course, your work on the city's pre-K for all initiative under de Blasio is considered one of the major successes in this respect. How do you further that under this plan?

Richard: Yes, One of the anchors, as you said in the plan is to increase the access to childcare. That is critical for two fundamental reasons. One over the long term for the same reasons why pre-kindergarten is so important. Early childhood education experiences are so incredibly important to human development. We know that the majority of brain development happens before the age of five. Quality early childhood experiences, including the experiences that can happen in the childcare environment, can be critical to young people with long-term life outcomes.

Then more directly and more specifically right now, lack of access to childcare is one of the critical barriers to our economic recovery for a variety of reasons, but we saw the access to childcare really be undermined over the last few years for obvious reasons. We've seen many people leave the childcare workforce if a workforce is deeply underpaid. Primarily women, of color. National statistics show that average childcare worker in America makes less than the average dog walker in America.

We know that there are severe gaps in access. There's only one childcare slot for every five infants in New York. We know there's particularly a challenge if you work off hour, if you work on the construction site if you are a nurse and you've got to work overnight it's almost impossible to find childcare. We know if we want this economy to come back, we have to increase access to childcare and we have to make it more affordable. This work builds on initiative and already happening at the state and the city level.

The mayor's childcare blueprints, the historic investment and expanding access to affordable childcare that the state made in the last budget. We have a variety of initiatives and the board are designed to increase access to childcare. Everything from reducing regulatory barriers to having childcare and basement in second-floor spaces to increasing incentives for employers to provide childcare. It is absolutely central. I guess I would say is a general matter just to appreciate the spirit of what I think the last caller was asking.

This plan is successful if we can demonstrably demonstrate any improvements, any benefits benefit all New Yorkers. You'll see throughout the plan whether it's increasing access for minority-owned business enterprises to a commitment to the expansion of affordable housing. It's really a plan that drives the center equity in everything that it does.

Brian: Last thing, we're we've just got a minute left. I want to give acknowledgment to some skepticism that's coming in on Twitter. Fewer these tweets are, "Why should the governor or the mayor get credit for a pivot when they were both pushing for the Penn District until Vernado decided to hold off on the Penn Station area?" Someone else writes, "Hudson Yards has a nearly two times commercial vacancy rate versus the rest of the city. Then Doctoroff is wrong on that." Another one, "Tell Mr. Doctoroff that if he wants New York City to be more livable, how about reigning in big real estate from crushing every mom-and-pop business?" A lot of skepticism about the real estate industry's role in this. We have 30 seconds for the last word, Dan.

Dan: I don't think this is about the real estate industry. What it's about is recognizing that the model for New York needs to change somewhat. Also, recognizing that in the past as we have grown, we probably haven't done it as fairly or equitably as we can. What we want to ensure here is that we grow in ways that the city ultimately needs, but that we change the model. It is a far more inclusive model than we've had in the past. I think if people take the time to actually look at the plan, the 40 initiatives, the rationale for why we need to do it, I think people will gain a much greater appreciation. I acknowledge there's going to be skepticism. There always is. I think this plan really addresses many of the issues that we need overtime.

Brian: Bloomberg-

Richard: Skepticism is a good thing if it helps us all hold ourselves and the government accountable to actually moving forward with the division, then I think it's to be embraced.

Brian: Former Bloomberg Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff and former de Blasio Deputy Mayor Richard Buery, now working with Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul as chairs of this committee that has written this new report Making New York Work for Everyone. Thank you both for joining us. We really appreciate it. Thank you.

Dan: Thank you.

Richard: Bye-bye.

 

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