Regretting Move, Bank May Return to Manhattan | Hacker News Reader

Regretting Move, Bank May Return to Manhattan

nytimes.com

40 pointssiculars33 comments

"... although Goldman Sachs equity traders revolted in 2002 when the investment bank tried to relocate them to an expensive new tower in Jersey City, a mere mile from its Lower Manhattan headquarters."

Location still matters.

Also distance doesn't accurately represent the inconvenience it takes to get from new york city to a place not connected by subway. To go from Manhattan to jersey city you will most likely be taking a subway and then connecting to a path train or ferry, that mere mile distance could easily make your commute over an hour each way.

For anyone who is familiar with the traffic patterns in and around Manhattan, a "mere mile" as the crow flies is a far stretch from reality. NYC is really a village... at 3am with no traffic. But when you need to navigate public transportation you will no doubt be left wanting wings.

Of course it doesn't need to be this way. Hopefully, they'll extend the 7 line to Jersey and continue adding subway lines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Subway_Extension

Talk to me in a few decades...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway

Subway extensions are notoriously difficult to pull off in NYC. NYC, in specific, and the USA, in general, have become woefully inadequate in their ability to pull of Major infrastructure projects. The list of overbudget and behind schedule projects in the last few decades is a mile long. I won't hold my breath waiting for the day I can take the 7 from Flushing (where I grew up) to Jersey.

It really puts things in perspective when you have a monolithic, monocultural, centrally-planned country like China building all of these science-fiction scope projects like the massive Beijing Subway[1], and doing them in record time.

Seriously, are our troubles building things like the Big Dig really because of Unions, as Free Marketeers have laid blame? Or, is it because the Chinese government can plow through any problem because they're communists and not "inefficient democracy"? Or, is it because of their "monoculture" (I've always hated that argument; I mean, what does culture or cultural mix have to do with getting something built or accomplished?). Or, maybe it's the almighty dollar/yen/yuan (and lack thereof).

Whatever it is, it's really depressing.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxMjjwwV9tQ

Somehow this country, the richest country in history, is in the grips of an amazing can't do attitude. A big part of it is the rise of the conservative movement and its "government is evil" mantra. And part of it is just that democracy is messy since you have to get more people to agree and make compromises.

From the outside it sure seems like its the bureaucracy involved that is our issue. Environmental impact study after environmental impact study followed by detailed design reviews and constituent hearings. The actual engineering and building are still strengths of ours, its every little special interest we put between conception and execution that seems to be the issue.

At least what I can gather talking to people working in those fields. We used to sublet out of an architects office, and it was fascinating listening to them deal with all of the regulatory insanity.

The reviews and objections and hearings and studies are all necessary because of the treason against the American people committed by an earlier generation of planners and engineers.

A lot of the remaining neighborhoods in New York City were nearly destroyed by the Lower Manhattan Expressway in the 1960's.[1] Most American cities were well on their way to being modern Detroit thanks to planners like NY's Robert Moses and his traffic engineers. They wanted to rebuild America to be easy driving dystopias with free flowing traffic and no space for community and walking lifestyles. They did succeed in the outer parts of NYC and put freeways down both Manhattan waterfronts.

There used to be freeways down the Embarcadero and through the central parts of San Francisco.[2] Tens of thousands of citizens were driven out to build them. Their entire neighborhoods were razed and traditional walkable living was on its way to eradication in America.

Freeway protests started with Jane Jacobs in the 1960's, won against the freeway plans of San Francisco, and resulted in the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.[3]

NEPA is the model for analysis paralysis and regulations and safety procedures that block infrastructure projects across America. It continues to be necessary as you can see in most any urban freeway expansion project or wetlands infill development in America today.

The Big Dig in particular proves that even NEPA isn't enough to block idiocy. The best thing for the Central Artery would have been just like the Embarcadero Freeway; tear it down and replace it with nothing. That is, replace it with a regular city street, a couple small parks, and new buildings continuing the urbanism of the North End. The evidence is overwhelming that the traffic situation in Boston would have improved everywhere and the Central Artery (and its underground replacement) actually make things worse.[4][5]

The real insanity isn't that it took 20 years to do the Big Dig but that it wasn't simply a three week demolition project recognizing that the Central Artery was lunacy in the first place.

For now, however, what NEPA can do is slow down the stupidity until we can grow a planning and engineering culture that respects traditional urban form, liveable and walkable communities, and a less motor-oriented way of life.[6]

[1] http://newurbannetwork.com/article/wrestling-moses-how-jane-...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Route_480

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Environmental_Policy_A...

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess_paradox

[5] http://www.infrastructurist.com/2011/06/06/why-building-road...

[6] http://www.cnu.org/

I agree with much of what you wrote (and gave you an upvote) but when you got to this part - The best thing for the Central Artery would have been just like the Embarcadero Freeway; tear it down and replace it with nothing. - I have to disagree emphatically.

Removing the Central Artery and replacing it with nothing only makes sense if the purpose of the new Artery was to move local traffic. It isn't, the primary purpose of I-93 is moving traffic from NY to CT to RI, through Boston up into NH and ME. Part of the traffic tie-ups on the old Artery were caused by locals using the highway as s shortcut to get from the North End to the South End, so in a sense the Big Dig did do as you suggest in that they removed a bunch of on/off ramps that make it difficult for local users to use, and replaced them with lower capacity surface roads (as well as green space + walkways). The Big Dig also included a bunch of transit improvements (some of which are why the MBTA is in a big hole right now, but that's another post).

As for making traffic worse, 10 years after the opening, traveling from Woburn to Braintree is now a 20 minute trip during peak hour where it used to be 90 minutes in off-hours. Of course transit should be factored into roadway expansion, and in the case of the Big Dig, it was.

The PATH does the job though, and connects to the subway in a couple of places.

The PATH is great but it doesn't do the job. The 7 Line could run all the way from the east side of Manhattan to Secaucus for one subway fare for starters. There needs to be more rail lines off the island.

Goldman's idea was to use ferries between FiDi and Jersey City to mitigate this. They called it the 'Venice strategy', I have no idea how well it worked.

The difference may add 15-20 minutes to the commute, if you're coming down from points east. Not insignificant, but it's not like it is taking people 10 minutes on one hand, over an hour on the other.

Because, of course, the financial district is home to the hottest restaurants, lounges and nightlife....

The city should give up wasting time on banks and bankers and focus more on growing it's tech sector. Otherwise you're never going to find a Google, FB or Apple HQ in Manhattan.

Why is the time spent on banks wasted? Reading your comment objectively is extremely hard when it's on HackerNews.

"Stop wasting money on the industry I'm not in, and start focusing on me!"

Maybe because financial services don't make anything. They don't build anything.

They are middleware, They enable others to make something, build something.

The comments below sum it up. I am neither in financial services nor technology, although because I live in the region I associate with people who work in both industries, and although it's not right to generalize - in general there are vast differences in their outlook on life, the world, and what they contribute to manhattan.

Doesn't google already have a huge office/datacenter in one of the biggest buildings in manhattan?

http://mashable.com/2010/12/03/google-manhattan-1-9-billion/

Granted, it's not the headquarters, but still.

"the financial district is home to the hottest restaurants, lounges and nightlife...."

"The city should give up wasting time on banks and bankers"

These two sentences do not jive.

The first sentence is sarcasm. The financial district is pretty dead after business hours (as is midtown).

Ah, fair enough.

I think it's because the first one is sarcastic, but I'm not familiar enough with nyc to be sure.

I imagine the reason they were not known for restaurants and nightlife is that it was mostly offices and traders left at the end of the business day. As more people start living there, we're slowly getting more restaurants and bars.

Like what, the Blarney Stone? Nothing south of Chambers is worth going to at all, except maybe the 2 overpriced bars on the water next to WFC.

You're right. The lunch places are getting better, but that doesn't really support the idea that it's more than just bankers these days.

The financial district spews absurd amounts of money into the city. More than the tech sector.

from where the hottest restaurants, lounges and nightlife are, it's a hell of a lot easier to get to the financial district than to CT.

The city should give up wasting time on banks and bankers and focus more on growing it's tech sector. Otherwise you're never going to find a Google, FB or Apple HQ in Manhattan

Why would they want one?

I know we think that the tech sector is the be-all and end-all of everything on HN, but it ain't. It's one sector among many. It's one of the most lucrative sectors, it's true... but then again so is finance, and finance is what NYC happens to already be good at.

The big danger to NYC's economy is that it's too concentrated on a couple of sectors -- but the solution is more of everything, not just more of one thing. On the other hand, the financial sector has already crashed, and it didn't turn New York into Detroit, so I guess that's not too dangerous after all.

Ultimately I don't think New York City is a particularly good place for an Apple/Google HQ. These companies have big open-space office parks, rather than monolithic skyscrapers, for a reason. Several reasons, probably, including ease of extension, the tastes of their employees, the need to get a lot of stuff in and out, et cetera.

I was just in Stamford last weekend helping my gf find a place there. We both currently live in NYC right now.

First off, rents in Stamford are insane. Decent 1-bedrooms currently rent for over 2 grand (which is what I pay in Manhattan). Granted you get 200 more square feet and a parking spot, this is still a large increase over what rents were in Stamford in 07 (about 500 bucks cheaper). The real-estate agents we spoke to claimed that RBS and UBS were hiring like gangbusters and this was pulling rents higher.

Most of the high end apartments we say had a shuttle service to the Metro North station. It seems there are a lot of folks who live in Stamford and who commute to Manhattan.

Yikes, that picture of that massive cubicle farm gave me the creeps. What is the idea with these trading floors always having open plans? It's not like anyone's going to be shouting across that room.

Cheaper than giving people offices, I'd wager.

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