The long-struggling New York Jets today are unveiling a new uniform set that draws inspiration from a period of relative glory for the team — the 1980s “New York Sack Exchange.”
The change brings back the team’s “jet” helmet logo for the first time since 1997, along with a uniform design based on the set first introduced in 1978. The graphic makeover, which also includes a new set of symbols and bespoke fonts, will distinguish the Jets among fans and brand partners, recruit new fans including in overseas markets, and sell more branded merchandise, team officials say.
The new uniform arrives while nostalgia marketing is hot — and sports teams get more strategic about using their on-field looks as a branding element. Part of that is timing the drop ahead of the NFL Draft on April 25, when incoming players are spotlighted with team jerseys and branded caps. In addition to the Jets, the Detroit Lions (April 18), Denver Broncos (April 22) and Houston Texans (April 23) are to reveal new looks in the coming weeks.
Jets officials say their new look, known as the legacy collection, represents a modern interpretation of a classic design that can restore some luster to a brand that’s been thrown for a loss in recent years. It was designed in-house with cooperation from the NFL.
“The biggest representation of a team’s brand is the uniform they wear,” said Tim Kemp, vice president of marketing for the Jets, said in an interview. “And I think what we’re really excited about is when the stadium is filled with 82,000 people, and there are millions watching around the world, this uniform distinctly looks like the New York Jets. We feel that’s really going to amplify our brand, not only domestically but internationally as well.”
The Jets have local marketing rights in the U.K. and Ireland through the NFL’s Global Markets program. They last played in the U.K. in 2021. While the NFL full schedule won’t be announced until May 11, two of the Jets’ road-game opponents in 2024 — the Jacksonville Jaguars and Minnesota Vikings — have been designated as the home teams for games to be held in London this year.
Throwback
As the Jets look into the past for inspiration, the team is also acknowledging a future-forward rebrand introduced in 2019 wasn’t entirely successful. The “Take Flight” look introduced a new color palette, a new logo and a futuristic uniform distinguished by a pointy shoulder stripe that wrapped to the front of the jersey, an effect some critics dismissed as “Arena League.”
NFL rules require teams to retain their uniform looks for a minimum of five years — and the Jets won’t be a day late. In fact, the team was at work on what would become the successor to the “Take Flight” look as early as 2021, when team officials first discussed a Sack Exchange throwback as an alternate look. The NFL permits teams to have three uniforms — a primary home and away look and an alternate uniform it may wear no more than twice a year. Last week it was announced teams rebranding this year could have three helmets; the collection the Jets are sharing has two — green and black.
One goal of the new rebranding is make it last beyond the league’s five-year minimum. It’s a lesson the Jets absorbed from their New York sports neighbors. “The Yankees don’t change their uniform, they lean into their history. The Mets have had some deviations over the years but they’ve leaned into their history. Same thing with the Rangers and Knicks,” Hymie Elhai, president of the Jets, said in an interview.
The Jets intended to introduce the new look in 2022, but production timing delayed the unveiling to last year when the “legacy white” throwback served as the Jets’ alternate. Fans clamored for its return on a full-time basis.
“I think we realized we consider ourselves an iconic team, and iconic teams have iconic uniforms,” Elhai said. “This uniform resonates in design and aesthetic, to our fan base, and our long history going back to when we played in Shea Stadium [through 1984] …. I think this logo has historic resonance with our fans, and we’d shifted away from it over the past 20-plus years.”
Metallic brightness
The “Sack Exchange” was a nickname given to the defensive line of the Jets — Mark Gastineau, Joe Klecko, Marty Lyons and Abdul Salaam — in 1981. The hard-hitting pass-rushers helped the Jets lead the NFL in sacks in 1981, and cut a personality off the field, with Gastineau emerging as the Jets’ most colorful personality since Joe Namath. The 1981 Jets made the playoffs for the first time in 11 years, starting a prosperous stretch of four playoff appearances in six years.
Those teams played in uniforms that were introduced in 1978, with a helmet logo incorporating the word “Jets” with an airplane flying off the top of the J. The look, with slight modifications over the years, was worn by the team through 1997.
The legacy interpretation makes tweaks big and small to that look, including retaining what worked from the most recent “Take Flight” look — its pearlescent green helmet and a black alternate that was a winner at retail. Subtle changes include a white facemask on the green helmet. This look assures the throwback nature isn’t stuck in the past, said Elhai.
“I think there’s something symbolic about the metallic brightness of the helmet; it’s what we feel the future can be, while also leaning into history,” Elhai said.
The addition of black jerseys has resonated with New Yorkers for whom black is “default fashion,” said Chris Pierce, VP of fan commerce for the Jets, adding that black was a big seller among fans. “Black is an iconic fashion color, and fashion is one of the iconic industries of New York.”
A funky airplane
The Jets wouldn’t have a logo to resurrect were it not for a video-room employee named Jim Pons, who designed the 1978-1997 Jets logo. He came to work for the Jets in the 1970s after his first career as the bass player for rock bands including The Turtles and The Mothers of Invention. Now 81 and retired, Pons recalled being inspired to create his own logo for the team after spotting a submission from a Manhattan graphic design firm with a $50,000 price tag.
“I was pretty amazed and I thought jeez, I think I might take a shot at this,” Pons said. Finding the old Jets logo “too convoluted for my liking,” Pons went for simplicity, starting with the letters, tilting them to the right to impart movement, then extending the top of the J across the other letters, only then realizing it could resemble what he called a “goofy, funky airplane.”
Pons was compensated for his work, Jets officials said, if not at the rate pro design firms were seeking.
That logo will be working harder in the new design. The jet is now bolder, with a streamlined nose, so as to better appear across social and digital platforms and impart the notions of speed and sleekness, said Kemp. The original hand-drawn letters and spacing were also refined. “When you bring all of these elements and typography together it feels more like a logo than a wordmark, and that was important to us,” Kemp said.
A range of secondary and tertiary logos are also emerging from that redesign, including a jet independent of the wordmark that will serve as a 50-yard-line logo at MetLife Stadium. Secondary marks will be tested on a variety of hats, shirts and hoodies, said Pierce. “I want the customer to decide what logos resonate,” Pierce said. “We’re going to put them all out there and beta-test everything to see what are the logos the elicit the best response from fans.”
The revamped wordmark has also inspired a bespoke new font the Jets are calling pilot, along with companions called co-pilot and atlas, developed with the help of a typographist. These will carry the Jets’ branding to all manner of written communications and advertising.
The Jets are also planning to lean into fan contributions to their brand, embracing the “J-E-T-S” cheer popularized by longtime fan “Fireman” Ed Anzalone. “It’s the most famous cheer in sports,” said Kemp. Another slogan with fan heritage, “Jet Up,” will become the team’s new social media hashtag.
Lord of uniform updates
Every week during the football season, the uniform combination the Jets will be wearing is revealed in a post on X (formerly Twitter) from Jets owner Woody Johnson, whose X profile identifies himself as the “Lord of Uniform Updates.”
Comments from Johnson’s posts announcing the legacy look last year served as a kind of affirmation that the Jets were on the right track with their redesign, said Kemp. That the excitement over uniforms is shared by the team owner illustrates the phenomenal fascination fans have with what their favorite athletes wear.
“Regardless of who’s posting and the timing of it, fans in any sport are obsessed with uniforms, and what uniforms teams are wearing,” Kemp said. “That goes back to it being the largest extension of our brand. So social platforms like this are a repository of fan feedback, especially as it relates to uniforms.”
But the Jets have demonstrated over time that even a popular uniform change won’t necessarily lead to fan satisfaction.
The “Take Flight” era won’t be remembered for its glory. The Jets had a losing record in all five years and didn’t make the playoffs, while transitioning from one disappointing high-drafted quarterback (Sam Darnold) to another (Zach Wilson). The team hasn’t made the playoffs since 2010 while enduring occasional indignities like the Thanksgiving Day “butt fumble” in 2012.
“The one thing we’ve realized is that there an extreme level of passion for this team despite the struggles on the field, and those loyal fans aren’t going anywhere — it will pass down from generation to generation,” Elhai said.
The acquisition of veteran All-Pro signal caller Aaron Rodgers was seen as a potential momentum changer last year, but an injury kept Rodgers off the field all season. The outspoken quarterback in the meantime seemed to ramp up his contentious remarks on topics including the COVID-19 vaccine. He also reportedly drew interest as a potential running mate for fellow vaccine skeptic and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr, though he was not chosen.
Has Rogers put the Jets’ brand reputation at risk? “I think Aaron represents us extremely well,” Elhai said.
Brands and fans
Some 120 sponsors also stand to benefit from the Jets rebrand, said Kemp, as they use the Jets’ intellectual property rights to create co-branded packaging, advertisements and other platforms.
The team has been working with a handful of those partners over the last year to prepare for the launch. “We’re coming up with a lot of in-market, consumer-facing activations and packaging that amplifies and reinforces our brand," Kemp said.
Pierce, who oversees merchandise sales for the Jets, is confident the new look will result in a boost in sales, not just because there’s new product, but because he’s confident fans will like it.
“If we make decisions that are good for the fan, those will be good decisions for commerce,” he said.
Pierce declined to disclose where the Jets ranked in merchandise sales leaguewide but said the team anticipates a “significant lift,” this year. “If you split the league into quarters, in terms of performers, I would think we’re moving. We’re going move up a quarter with this iteration.”
Fans who are in a good place emotionally tend to spend, and for the Jets that’s been a struggle as their seasons progress.
“In this business, you're making bets, and you’re always betting that your team is going to stay intact and healthy and perform as you hope,” Pierce said. “Sometimes the universe has other plans. And sometimes you’re surprised and your team is wildly successful, and you wind up chasing business.
”What does it mean to be a Jets fan? A Jets fan is loyal. A Jets fan is passionate. They show up for us in ways that are really amazing and admirable,” Pierce continued. “And we all want the same outcome. We want to reward that passion. And I think this uniform launch is really rewarding that passion, and giving them something that they've been clamoring for.”
This article originally appeared in Ad Age.
A wide-ranging housing deal that emerged in Albany late Friday has come under intense criticism from both tenant and landlord groups for its handling of tenant protections, as negotiations continued over the weekend in hopes of reaching a final accord as soon as Monday.
The uncertainty remains even as labor unions and large developers appear to have agreed on the basics for a new affordable housing tax break seen as crucial to jumpstarting construction.
More details on the potential deal are expected to be handed down to rank-and-file lawmakers by Monday afternoon or Tuesday, following days of continued talks between the governor’s office and leaders of the Senate and Assembly. The package will likely include some changes to the framework announced Friday, which progressives blasted over its weakened tenant protections and landlords slammed over its inadequate help for rent-stabilized buildings.
The tentative deal that legislative leaders described to state lawmakers on Friday would include a replacement for the 421-a tax break — now known as 485-x — a significantly scaled-back version of “good cause” eviction protections, and other measures that would allow more residential density in New York City and encourage office-to-apartment conversions.
The 485-x tax break would raise construction workers’ wages to the level that building trade unions had sought, expand high-wage positions to more neighborhoods and apply them to buildings as small as 150 units – more generous than the previous 300-unit cutoff, according to a person familiar with negotiations. A union official who spoke to Crain’s touted the deal as a “clean sweep for labor,” while the Real Estate Board of New York said only that it “will review” the deal when it is final.
Developments will need to set rents of about one-quarter of units at 80% of the area median income to get the tax break, which is about $102,000 for a family of three. And the 2026 cutoff date for projects already in the lapsed 421-a program will be extended to 2031, said one lawmaker briefed on the deal.
But the version of good cause eviction agreed upon by Gov. Kathy Hochul and legislative leaders appears to significantly limit the law’s reach. Annual rent increases would be set at 10% or 5% plus the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. That is more generous to landlords than the 3% or 1.5-times-inflation formula that lawmakers had wanted. Localities outside of the city would need to opt into the program, and pricier apartments would be excluded above a rent threshold that still appeared fluid Monday morning as lawmakers pushed to cover more middle-income housing.
Friday’s framework would also exempt landlords who own 10 or fewer units from good cause. That provision received immediate criticism from progressives who noted that few tenants would have the ability to determine their landlords’ portfolio size and challenge an eviction on that basis. (Hochul weakened a bill last year that would have made it easier to identify building owners.) One advocate familiar with negotiations told Crain’s that they considered the proposal “impossible to verify or communicate in any way that’s actually governable.”
The housing package is also likely to include lifting the city’s residential density cap — potentially just for office-to-residential conversions or projects that set aside 25% of units as affordable housing — and a pilot program to legalize basement apartments in parts of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, according to a source familiar with the deal. Landlords will likely receive more flexibility to raise rents on regulated apartments after renovating them as well, marking a rollback to the state’s 2019 rent law which has also soured tenant advocates on the potential deal.
Heavy criticism
Groups including the Community Housing Improvement Program, Homeowners for an Affordable New York and the Rent Stabilization Association all released statements panning the proposal over the weekend.
RSA and CHIP, two landlord advocacy groups that plan to merge, claimed the package did nothing to benefit rent-stabilized buildings, while Homeowners for an Affordable New York, an anti-good cause eviction group, slammed it for doing “nothing to alleviate the housing crisis anywhere in the state.”
Specific changes to stabilized apartments would allow landlords who renovate units to recoup $30,000 of those costs through rent hikes, or $50,000 for longer-term tenants — up from the existing $15,000 cap. But the allowable increases would be part of a more complicated three-tier structure that CHIP blasted as “convoluted”, saying no threshold below $100,000 would allow landlords to actually renovate small apartments.
Proponents of good cause eviction were dismayed by the carve-outs reported Friday. Cea Weaver, a leader of the tenant group Housing Justice for All, posted to social media that the version of good cause was a “total disaster” that she was “livid” and “heartbroken” over. And the Legal Aid Society released a statement calling the package “a blank check to the real estate industry.”
Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, who chairs the body’s housing committee, stressed Monday morning that discussions were ongoing, and nothing has been finalized yet.
“The devil is in the details,” she said, “and all the details are not yet worked out.”
Mayor Eric Adams’ administration was among the few willing to praise Friday’s framework. Maria Torres-Springer, a deputy mayor for housing who has pushed hard for a deal, said in a statement that “New Yorkers can breathe a sigh of relief” if the agreement holds, and she praised its pairing of tenant protections with measures to increase the housing supply.
The fact that a package appears poised to come together at all marks a remarkable turnaround from last year’s session and predictions for this session at the beginning of the year.
Although Hochul made housing a top priority in 2023, a deal never emerged, as proposals such as statewide housing mandates proved too controversial. And Hochul herself appeared to have low expectations for progress in 2024, saying she would not be pushing for anything as ambitious as what she did in 2023 given the realities of it being an election year for the state Legislature.
But progress has not been as elusive this year as it was last year. Hochul and other state leaders have repeatedly signaled they are close to a deal, which could be officially announced as soon as Monday afternoon.
A representative for the Hochul administration declined to comment on a potential deal.
Lawmakers returned to Albany on Monday and have been asked to stay through Friday, in hopes of passing a budget before a two-week break begins April 22.
April appears unseasonably chilly for the luxury housing market.
Buyers pulled back on purchases of big-ticket apartments last week, a likely sign that high interest rates continue to weigh on residential sales across the board.
Between April 8 and April 14, buyers signed contracts for 18 Manhattan homes priced at $4 million and above, which represented a decline from the previous week’s total of 26, according to the latest Olshan Luxury Market Report, which tracks high-end deals.
And the stumble comes during a month that traditionally experiences a flurry of activity, said the report, which is published by the brokerage Olshan Realty.
Indeed, during the second week of April in 2023, buyers inked 26 deals for co-ops, condos and townhouses in Manhattan, according to the data. Earlier years saw even better numbers. The same time frame in April 2022 had 41 contract-signings, meanwhile, and the April 2021 period enjoyed 47 deals, according to Olshan.
The biggest deal of the past week was for a triplex penthouse atop the Grand Millennium condo in Lincoln Square. The six-bedroom, 6,800-square foot apartment, No. PH3BC at 1965 Broadway, was most recently listed at about $16 million, according to Streeteasy, though it was introduced around $20 million in 2022.
While the actual sale price won’t be known till the deed hits city records later this month, the unit’s seller, who appears to be former JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief operating officer Gordon Smith, seems poised to take a loss on the home, which is at West 67th Street. According to the city register, Smith paid $18.6 million for the penthouse in 2017.
But the luxury market wasn’t all doom and gloom last week. In fact, a buyer snapped up a four-bedroom condo at 10 Madison Square West, No. 11D, just a few days after it was unveiled for $12.5 million, a speedy transaction for any market.
Still, if it were to close at that price, the NoMad unit, a 3,300-square-foot spread at West 24th Street with 11-foot ceilings and views of Madison Square Park, would essentially be a wash for the seller, real estate investor Lee Pollock, who paid about $12 million for the home in 2016, records show.
Neighborhood-wise, lower Manhattan had the most sales last week, with 7 of the 18 deals, according to Olshan, and condos far outpaced co-ops and townhouses, accounting for 14 of the 18.
Many buyers and sellers entered 2024 optimistically assuming that the Federal Reserve would not only hold the line on interest rate increases but actually cut rates, which could lower the cost of home loans and presumably unlock the market.
But a hotter-than-expected inflation report in April may have put the brakes on that plan, or at least delayed it till much later in the year, as the Fed struggles to get price increases under control.
Across Manhattan, diners are picking up their soup spoons and chopsticks and biting (ever so carefully) into the city’s hottest order.
Xiao long bao, aka the soup dumpling, is a dim sum classic, traditionally with ground pork and/or crab or, increasingly, unconventionally with options such as matzo balls, in a little pool of molten broth within a pleated dumpling wrapper. An enduring staple of food halls in Queens and storefronts in Brooklyn, they’re also nothing new to Manhattanites. Joe’s Shanghai has been steaming them in Chinatown since 1995; more recently, places including Pinch Chinese in SoHo have presented exemplary versions.
But this year the borough’s soup dumpling faucet has been turned on full blast, from the East Village to the Upper West Side.
In Midtown, Long Island Dumplings opened behind an anonymous storefront on Sixth Avenue in December. Chef and owner Jason Lee, who opened the place as an offshoot of his popular Long Island Pekin in Babylon, specializes in serving plump, wobbly pork and crab options, both fortified with bone broth. He also offers a more atypical vegan truffle soup dumpling, made with both fresh and dried mushrooms and a potato base.
On upper Broadway, at 101st Street, the homemade steamed pork soup dumplings at Moon Kee have been a bestseller since the restaurant opened in November.
Din Tai Fung will be the most notable arrival to Manhattan’s xiao long bao scene when it opens its first New York outpost. The 26,400-square-foot space designed by David Rockwell will open later this summer in Times Square. The big-deal Taiwanese chain has been around since the 1970s and has 170-plus locations in 13 countries.
Each outpost of the chain produces an estimated 10,000 dumplings a day on average; it takes about 30 chefs to keep up with demand. Given the large footprint of the New York location, its dumpling count will likely be even higher.
Also exponentially increasing the supply of soup dumplings in Manhattan is Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao. The group, which has been a Flushing staple for almost 30 years, just opened its second Manhattan location, on St. Marks Place; the first opened in Koreatown in October 2022. Each location typically serves about 700 baskets of dumplings, or roughly 4,200 individual pieces, a day.
Michael Ma, a partner at Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao, says the company expanded in Manhattan because of growing demand and also to be near the New York University crowd. “The East Village has such a diverse and lively energy in the food and beverage scene. It resembles downtown Flushing, where our original location is,” he says.
Nan Xiang’s roster of dumplings has expanded over the years as the brand’s audience has grown: It now offers about a dozen flavors, including uber-comfort chicken soup dumplings and gourd luffa shrimp pork soup dumplings enhanced with the squashlike vegetable.
A representative for Din Tai Fung says TikTok and YouTube have created a surge in awareness, via memes such as “Everything I Ate at Din Tai Fung.” The videos have generated millions of views and thousands of comments, helping spike sales of dishes including chocolate mochi xiao long bao, with its gooey, photogenic filling.
Ma also credits TikTok and Instagram with the explosion, pun definitely intended, of soup dumpling popularity. “Social media has been the biggest impact on Nan Xiang growing into the restaurant it is today,” he says.
Another benefit: Diners are getting better at safely consuming xiao long bao. Before the rise of social media, people vividly remembered their first encounter with soup dumplings, Ma recalls, where “they would be warned by dining companions, followed by a demonstration, carefully instructed by a server, or simply learn step by step from a placard at the table” how to eat them properly without scalding themselves with the broth.
Now, TikTok has helped customers become experts by the time they sit down for their inaugural xiao long bao. “Everyone has their own unique way of enjoying their soup dumplings,” Ma says. “We only ask that people not try the one-bite method with a freshly steamed soup dumpling, for their safety and the safety of diners around them.”
Jane’s Walk returns to New York City next month, with more than 190 walking tours in all five boroughs led by New Yorkers. Presented by the Municipal Art Society of New York, the volunteer-led three-day festival, which runs from May 3-5, offers free guided tours through some of the city’s most vibrant neighborhoods. This year’s [...]
The post Jane’s Walk NYC returns with nearly 200 free walking tours across all five boroughs first appeared on 6sqft.
Leases
Livestreaming platform expands at Industry City
Address: Industry City, Building 3
Landlord: Jamestown, Belvedere Capital and Angelo Gordon & Co.
Tenant: B Live
Lease size: 10,047 square feet
Asset type: Office
Brokers: ACONA Real Estate Advisors' Matt Hopkins represented the tenant. Jeff Fein represented the landlord in-house.
Sales
Rockland County shell company picks up Prospect Lefferts Gardens taxi garage
Address: 465 Utica Ave., Brooklyn
Seller: Inglary, Inc.
Buyer: 44 Remsen Ave LLC
Sale price: $11.4 million
Asset type: Industrial
Financings
Epoch Media Group lands loan for new Chelsea building
Address: 129 W. 29th St., Manhattan
Owner: Universal Communications Network
Lender: International Bank of Chicago
Loan amount: $23.2 million
Asset type: Commercial
Read more about the deal here.
Brooklyn taxi center gets $14 million
Address: 44 Remsen Ave., 465 Utica Ave., and N/A E. 51st St., Brooklyn
Owner: Israel Lunger
Lender: Empire State Development Corporation and Dime Community Bank
Loan amount: $14 million
Asset type: Commercial
It would be easy, and ultimately correct, to declare the era of political machines over in New York City.
Individuals, PACs and labor unions matter much more in local races than the old Democratic organizations. The days of borough bosses like Meade Esposito and Stanley Friedman are long past. Party bosses no longer control much patronage or oversee clubhouses teeming with political foot soldiers. In every borough, the county Democratic apparatuses are shells of their former selves.
In Queens, the party boss era ended dramatically when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated Joe Crowley, who was one of the top-ranked Democrats in the House and a county leader still feared on the ground, the sort of politician who was deciding almost unilaterally who became City Council speaker and how many of his friends would work in that office. His successor as party chief, Gregory Meeks, no longer has that reach, even with a fellow Southeast Queens resident, Adrienne Adams, in the speakership.
Now Meeks, a veteran congressman, is clinging to the last bastion of patronage his party organization possesses: Surrogate’s Court. The land of the dead in Queens has long been lucrative for those connected to the party organization because they decide who the judge is and which well-wired lawyers get to administer the estates of those who die without wills. Gerard Sweeney, an attorney who has spent decades as a power broker and lawyer for the Queens machine, has become a millionaire from the court, collecting enormous fees from various estates.
The outgoing Surrogate judge, Peter Kelly, is the brother of Crowley’s former chief of staff. He helped ensure Sweeney and other party allies were paid handsomely throughout the years.
The trouble for Meeks is that his handpicked candidate, Supreme Court Judge Cassandra Johnson, is in danger of losing the upcoming June primary.
One challenger, Civil Court Judge Wendy Li, has outraised her and is expected to perform well with the borough’s burgeoning Asian population. Li has appeared on nomination petitions with Hiram Monserrate, who was ousted from the state Senate in 2010 over a domestic assault conviction and served time in prison for misusing taxpayer money as a City Council member. Monserrate has run repeatedly for elected office since and is trying this June to win an open Assembly seat.
Another Surrogate contender, Donna Furey, is a long-practicing elder law attorney with the backing of progressives and reformers. Based out of Astoria, she can tap into the growing share of left-leaning voters in the western half of Queens.
It’s plausible Furey or Li could keep Johnson from winning, though she should still be considered the favorite because her Southeast Queens base, where Meeks is from, remains vote-rich. With turnout expected to be low, Johnson’s core of middle-class Black supporters could show up for her. Johnson will also benefit from the endorsements of sitting elected officials: With few voters understanding the stakes of the election, validation from members of Congress will matter even more.
One question, for Furey in particular, is if Queens’ rising progressives will fully back her campaign and stump for her in the final weeks before the election. Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t always weigh in on local affairs. If other Democrats, like the socialist City Council member Tiffany Cabán and progressive Shekar Krishnan, lend her a boost, she could be formidable.
Either way, the fact that there is a competitive election at all is a marker of the Queens organization’s weakness. Kelly, the outgoing judge, was unopposed because too many Democrats feared crossing Crowley. Meeks cannot tamp down challengers in the same manner.
For the party attorneys who have spent decades getting wealthy in Surrogate’s Court, it will be a nervous June. Li, for them, is unpredictable. Furey would undoubtedly cut off their sinecures. They need, very badly, for Johnson to win.
Without Surrogate’s Court, the Queens machine will be truly dead.
Ross Barkan is a journalist and author in New York City.
It would be easy, and ultimately correct, to declare the era of political machines over in New York City.
Individuals, PACs and labor unions matter much more in local races than the old Democratic organizations. The days of borough bosses like Meade Esposito and Stanley Friedman are long past. Party bosses no longer control much patronage or oversee clubhouses teeming with political foot soldiers. In every borough, the county Democratic apparatuses are shells of their former selves.
In Queens, the party boss era ended dramatically when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated Joe Crowley, who was one of the top-ranked Democrats in the House and a county leader still feared on the ground, the sort of politician who was deciding almost unilaterally who became City Council speaker and how many of his friends would work in that office. His successor as party chief, Gregory Meeks, no longer has that reach, even with a fellow Southeast Queens resident, Adrienne Adams, in the speakership.
Now Meeks, a veteran congressman, is clinging to the last bastion of patronage his party organization possesses: Surrogate’s Court. The land of the dead in Queens has long been lucrative for those connected to the party organization because they decide who the judge is and which well-wired lawyers get to administer the estates of those who die without wills. Gerard Sweeney, an attorney who has spent decades as a power broker and lawyer for the Queens machine, has become a millionaire from the court, collecting enormous fees from various estates.
The outgoing Surrogate judge, Peter Kelly, is the brother of Crowley’s former chief of staff. He helped ensure Sweeney and other party allies were paid handsomely throughout the years.
The trouble for Meeks is that his handpicked candidate, Supreme Court Judge Cassandra Johnson, is in danger of losing the upcoming June primary.
One challenger, Civil Court Judge Wendy Li, has outraised her and is expected to perform well with the borough’s burgeoning Asian population. Li has appeared on nomination petitions with Hiram Monserrate, who was ousted from the state Senate in 2010 over a domestic assault conviction and served time in prison for misusing taxpayer money as a City Council member. Monserrate has run repeatedly for elected office since and is trying this June to win an open Assembly seat.
Another Surrogate contender, Donna Furey, is a long-practicing elder law attorney with the backing of progressives and reformers. Based out of Astoria, she can tap into the growing share of left-leaning voters in the western half of Queens.
It’s plausible Furey or Li could keep Johnson from winning, though she should still be considered the favorite because her Southeast Queens base, where Meeks is from, remains vote-rich. With turnout expected to be low, Johnson’s core of middle-class Black supporters could show up for her. Johnson will also benefit from the endorsements of sitting elected officials: With few voters understanding the stakes of the election, validation from members of Congress will matter even more.
One question, for Furey in particular, is if Queens’ rising progressives will fully back her campaign and stump for her in the final weeks before the election. Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t always weigh in on local affairs. If other Democrats, like the socialist City Council member Tiffany Cabán and progressive Shekar Krishnan, lend her a boost, she could be formidable.
Either way, the fact that there is a competitive election at all is a marker of the Queens organization’s weakness. Kelly, the outgoing judge, was unopposed because too many Democrats feared crossing Crowley. Meeks cannot tamp down challengers in the same manner.
For the party attorneys who have spent decades getting wealthy in Surrogate’s Court, it will be a nervous June. Li, for them, is unpredictable. Furey would undoubtedly cut off their sinecures. They need, very badly, for Johnson to win.
Without Surrogate’s Court, the Queens machine will be truly dead.
Ross Barkan is a journalist and author in New York City.
Steps from Prospect Park, a new rental building in Windsor Terrace is accepting applications for 95 affordable apartments. Located on the southwest side of the park, the 13-story mixed-use building at 11 Ocean Parkway, called 1 Park Point, has 375 rental units with thoughtful layouts, a suite of luxury amenities, and a prime location right [...]
The post New Windsor Terrace rental opens lottery for 95 units next to Prospect Park, from $874/month first appeared on 6sqft.