Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey resigned effective Aug. 20, giving in to fellow Democrats’ demands he step down following his conviction on federal corruption charges in New York last week.
Menendez’s political support collapsed after a jury found that he had received bribes of gold bars, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and a Mercedes convertible in return for official favors extended to three businessmen and on behalf of Egyptian interests.
His wife, Nadine, was also charged but has not yet been tried.
Menendez, 70, said in his resignation letter Tuesday that he would appeal the verdict but did not want to involve the Senate “in a lengthy process that will detract from its important work.” He said he was delaying his departure until next month so his staff could find new jobs and he could “close out my Senate affairs.”
Before the trial, he gave up his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy called on Menendez to resign almost immediately after the jury delivered its verdict. Murphy has authority to name a replacement to serve until Jan. 3, when the senator’s current term ends.
“I will exercise my duty to make a temporary appointment to the United States Senate to ensure the people of New Jersey have the representation they deserve,” Murphy said in a Tuesday statement.
Menendez’s position became untenable in part because a key Democratic election strategy is to attack former President Donald Trump on his 34 felony convictions.
Rep. Andy Kim is running as the Democratic nominee to replace Menendez in the November election. Kim said in a statement Menendez “made the right decision” to quit the Senate.
John Fetterman of Pennsylvania became the first senator to call on Menendez to resign when he was charged, followed by Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the chairman of the Banking Committee, where Menendez has served as a senior member.
Menendez easily won reelection in 2018 after a separate 2017 corruption trial ended in a hung jury and the Justice Department dropped the charges. The Senate Ethics Committee, however, admonished him for his relationship with Salomon Melgen, an eye doctor.
The committee found that Menendez received numerous gifts without disclosing them while advocating for Melgen. Melgen was convicted of stealing $42 million from Medicare. His 17-year sentence was commuted in January 2021 by Trump in one of his last acts in office. Menendez supported the commutation.
In 2006, Menendez, then a member of the US House, was appointed to the Senate by Governor Jon Corzine, who had given up his Senate seat.
He won election later that year, was an advocate for the Latino community and immigration reform domestically, while becoming a hawk on foreign policy. He was especially firm against Iran and Cuba, which his parents had left a few months before he was born in New York City.
He had served in 2010 as the chair of the Senate Democrats’ campaign committee, but cultivated relationships on both sides of the aisle. Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, served as a character witness at his first corruption trial.
It's no secret renters in New York pay more for less. Prices are the highest in the country, yet apartments are some of the smallest and continue to shrink.
Three boroughs in particular, though, are among the worst regions for renters in the U.S., at least according to a new report from RentCafe. The apartment listing service's 2024 rankings of the best cities for renters put Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn within the bottom 10.
The report considered U.S. cities with at least 10,000 apartment units and 50,000 residents, of which there were 149. RentCafe treated New York's three most populous boroughs each as their own city; it omitted The Bronx and Staten Island from the final report.
Of New York's representation on the list, Manhattan fared the worst. It ranked No. 146 overall, sitting just ahead of Sunnyvale, California, Detroit and Newark, which RentCafe now considers the worst U.S. city for renters. Queens ranked No. 144, falling slightly behind Brooklyn at No. 140.
The report compared cities on 20 metrics related to their housing and cost of living, local economy and quality of life. Factors included rent prices, apartment sizes, the share of new units, air quality, natural amenities and more.
New York's boroughs were plagued most by housing and cost of living measures, which accounted for 50% of the rankings. Manhattan was at the very bottom of that index, while Brooklyn was fourth-worst and Queens was fifth-worst. All boroughs were dinged for their small average apartment sizes, Queens' being 721 square feet, the third smallest overall, followed by Brooklyn's 742 square feet and Manhattan's 748 square feet. Queens also had worse property ratings than any other U.S. city on RentCafe's website. Still, Manhattan ranked lowest among the boroughs thanks to it having the country's most expensive rent prices.
What kept the three boroughs from falling even lower on the overall rankings were their relatively high scores in the local economy and quality of life indexes.
Manhattan had the No. 12 best local economy, per RentCafe's analysis of unemployment rates, job growth, new business applications and more. Brooklyn was labeled No. 35, while Queens sat at No. 60.
Manhattan also scored highest among the boroughs on quality of life, clocking in at No. 5 overall based on school quality, length of commutes, sociability and more. Brooklyn was No. 45, and Queens was No. 65.
The RentCafe analysis relied on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Cost of Living Index, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, GreatSchools, County Health Rankings, the Environmental Protection Agency and Yardi Matrix, a RentCafe sister service.
RentCafe named Charleston, South Carolina, as the best city for renters for the second year in a row.
Asked why New York's other two boroughs were not included in the report, a spokesperson wrote in an email to Crain's "given that Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens have very high densities and distinct dynamics, we chose to treat them separately rather than blending them into a single entry for New York City."
New York-Presbyterian is planning to close a rehabilitation unit at Columbia University Irving Medical Center for patients recovering from serious injuries.
The health system has requested approval from the state Department of Health to transition 16 acute inpatient rehabilitation beds to medical-surgical beds at the 745-bed Milstein Hospital in Washington Heights, the organization confirmed.
The proposal is the latest attempt by a New York City hospital to shift services to potentially improve their bottom lines. But community members say that the closure will eliminate access to recovery care for patients with serious health conditions in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx.
Hospital rehabilitation units – which provide services like physical, occupational and speech therapy – are often the first step to recovery for patients after a serious health event like a stroke or organ transplant. Rehabilitation is not a lucrative business for hospitals, unlike revenue-boosting specialties such as orthopedic surgery or cardiology, which require medical and surgical beds like the planned replacements.
New York-Presbyterian Hospital brought in $14 million in Medicare dollars for hospital rehabilitation care in 2022, just over 1% of its total inpatient revenue, according to Medicare cost report data compiled by Modern Healthcare. New York-Presbyterian earned $12 billion in total revenue across its eight general hospitals in 2023, its latest financial statement shows.
The decision to close the rehabilitation unit is “a clinical one,” said Tony Chau, spokesman for the hospital system in response to a question from Crain’s about how the closure would impact revenue, adding that the choice was based on the hospital’s evaluation of patient need and its census.
New York-Presbyterian is planning the closure in an attempt to reduce wait times and ease overcrowding in its emergency department, Chau said. In lieu of a rehab unit, the hospital will offer bedside evaluations and rehab services as it transfers patients to their homes or to a dedicated rehabilitation site, he added.
Local community members have pushed back on the plan, stating in an online petition that the closure would decimate the only acute rehabilitation center serving Washington Heights, Inwood, Riverdale and the South Bronx. Patients with serious injuries aren’t often in the best position to travel long distances, and the closure could force them to go home without adequate rehab care or caregiver training, the petition says.
“Acute rehabilitation is a crucial step from hospital to home for people who have suffered from serious illness or injury,” the petition said, adding that the closure will reduce acute inpatient rehabilitation beds across the entire New York-Presbyterian by 25%.
The health system did respond to an inquiry about the criticisms of its plans to shutter inpatient rehab beds.
The planned closure of the rehab unit follows previous attempts at New York-Presbyterian to shutter hospital units, including the proposed closure of a midwifery program at Allen Hospital in January. Outrage from community members and a warning from state Attorney General Letitia James led New York-Presbyterian to relaunch the midwifery unit in March.
New Yorkers can celebrate the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra is performing at The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine on Thursday, August 1, at 7 p.m., as part of the Beethoven Ninth Freedom Tour. This concert is the penultimate date [...]
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NYC Ferry travelers will have to pay 50 cents more per trip this fall, a 12.5% fare increase, as the city seeks to rein in a heavy subsidy for the service.
Starting Sept. 9, the city’s Economic Development Corp. will boost the price of a single-trip ticket to $4.50 from $4. The Adams administration has upped the base NYC Ferry fare by more than 63% over the last three years — spiking the fare from its initial $2.75 fee — as part of efforts to majorly reduce the system’s notoriously high per-rider subsidy.
After Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration launched the system in 2017, the service averaged a per passenger subsidy of $10.73, far more than the city’s original estimate of $6.60, according to analysis from government watchdog the Citizens Budget Commission.
The EDC says that figure has since dropped to $8.55 for 2023, but the service remains highly subsidized compared to other mass transit options. In 2022, for instance, the per trip subsidy for New York City Transit’s subway and buses was $2.07 and $4.47, respectively. A 2023 fare boost for those systems, from $2.90 to $2.75, amounted to only a 4% price jump.
EDC spokesman Adrien Lesser said ferry officials settled on the 50-cent increase as a sweet spot to boost fare revenue without majorly discouraging riders to utilize the system. Expanded discounts will also help keep the system affordable to regular commuters, the agency said. Come September, for instance, bundles of 10 tickets will similarly increase to $29 from $27.50, which averages at about $2.90 a ticket — the same fee to swipe onto the subway or a bus.
An existing NYC Ferry discount program, which is modeled after the city’s Fair Fares program for the subway and buses, currently makes the nautical network more affordable with one-way fares of $1.35 for people older than 65, those with disabilities and residents already enrolled in Fair Fares. In September, the program’s fee will rise slightly to $1.45 and High School students who ride ferries on weekdays to travel to and from school will be eligible for the discounts.
The ferry system has come under fire for its disproportionate appeal to wealthy and white riders, despite having been designed as an equity-minded system capable of serving neighborhoods without other transit options. In 2023, just 35% of NYC Ferry riders identified as nonwhite or multiracial compared to 47% of residents in the neighborhoods close to ferry stops, according to the system's annual survey.
Ticket and discount reforms began in 2022, when the Adams administration launched a financial improvement plan known as NYC Ferry Forward. City Hall published the framework days after City Comptroller Brad Lander released a blistering audit that found shoddy oversight and mismanagement of NYC Ferry had cost taxpayers more than $200 million in underreported costs over six years.
More recently, the NYC Ferry system has sought to raise new revenue through corporate partnerships. Recent initiatives include a search for a corporate sponsor to pay for naming rights for the NYC Ferry system, a collaboration with Gay Pride Apparel for a collection of Pride Month merchandise and hosting a listening party for Taylor Swift’s new album on board an East River ferry.
Blackstone Mortgage Trust, which provides financing for commercial real estate, is cutting its dividend by 24% as defaults increase and borrowers struggle to make payments or refinance their loans.
The board of the $3.4 billion real estate investment trust known as BXMT authorized the repurchase of up to $150 million of shares to lift the value of the stock, it reported Wednesday.
BXMT shares fell 6.1% to $18.43 at 8 a.m. in pre-market trading Wednesday in New York after earnings were announced. The shares had dropped 7.7% so far this year through Tuesday’s close.
Commercial real estate mortgage REITs have been under mounting stress since higher interest rates and falling property values have triggered new waves of defaults, particularly for owners and lenders to buildings such as offices. Earlier this year KKR Real Estate Finance Trust and Ares Commercial Real Estate cut their dividends by 42% and 24% respectively.
The Blackstone trust is reducing its dividend to 47 cents from 62 cents, a level in place since 2015. Cutting the dividend will save about $100 million a year that can be reallocated to new loans or other investments.
“We believe stockholder return is well served by balancing current return with optimization of book value and long-term earnings potential through our strategic capital allocation decisions,” BXMT Chief Executive Katie Keenan said in a statement.
Most of the Blackstone trust’s troubled loans were on office buildings, which make up about a quarter of its outstanding loans. Office values have fallen 37% from their early 2022 peak compared with a 20% drop for all commercial property, according to the Green Street Commercial Property Price Index.
BXMT said Wednesday that it’s cut its net exposure to offices by $1.4 billion over the past two years. About 13% of the office portfolio was given a risk rating of “3” by the firm, with loans in that category largely tied to European properties. Roughly 7% of the portfolio had the worst risk rating, where BXMT considers the loans impaired.
Carson Block, head of short-selling firm Muddy Waters, predicted in December that BXMT may face a liquidity crisis and have to default on its loans, a situation he said would come to a head in the second half of this year. He reaffirmed his short position earlier this month during an interview with Bloomberg Television.
BXMT last month modified three loans in California and Texas to provide extensions, analysts at Keefe Bruyette & Woods said in a July 17 note. It put an additional three California loans on its watch list in July, likely driven by near-term maturities, according to KBW, which rates BXMT a “market perform.”
The boutique co-op building at 110 Clifton Place in Clinton Hill was once a ping-pong table factory, giving it plenty of loft conversion authenticity. This two-bedroom home has the 12-foot ceilings, exposed beams and pre-war feel you’d expect from a New York City loft, with 21st-century interior details for easy–and easy-on-the-eyes–living. Asking $1,500,000, the loft [...]
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The city is taking a developer to court for allowing a West 57th Street complex to fall into disrepair and failing to take down the unsightly scaffolding that's been surrounding the buildings for the past 14 years.
In a lawsuit filed this week in state Supreme Court, the city's lawyers allege that Moshe (Mark) Tress, the New Jersey-based owner of five Hell's Kitchen properties known as the Windermere — one of the city's first large apartment complexes — has neglected to take care of the buildings ever since he bought them more than a decade ago, creating dangerous conditions that must be remedied.
"The Windermere should be considered an architectural treasure for our city, but unfortunately the owners have allowed the property to fall into deep disrepair and have kept the building shrouded behind a sidewalk shed and fence for years," said Department of Buildings Commissioner Jimmy Oddo. "Property owners need to understand that we are no longer tolerating when they put off critical building repairs and allow long-standing sidewalk sheds to detract from the livability of our city."
In 2009 Tress bought the buildings at 400, 402, 404 and 406 W. 57th St. and 869 Ninth Ave. — all of which were and remain vacant — for $13 million under the limited liability company Windermere Properties, records show. He reportedly had plans to renovate the historic properties near Columbus Circle, built between 1880 and 1881, and transform the complex into a hotel.
By the 1890s, the Windermere became known as a home for modern women who pursued careers and other interests outside of the home, according to information from the city. It was designated as an individual landmark in 2005, records show.
This isn't the first legal action the city has taken against Tress, who made Public Advocate Jumaane Williams's worst landlord list last year, coming in at number 32 with an average of 759 violations across just two buildings.
In 2022 Tress pleaded guilty to failing to maintain the properties and coughed up $8,000 to pay for fines for numerous violations. But he still made no moves to take down the scaffolding or safeguard the buildings. This time the lawyers say he has violated the city's Nuisance Abatement Law. He faces a $1,000 fine for each day he does not make the necessary repairs at each of the five buildings and a potential injunction from the court forcing him to do so.
The suit, which is part of the city's recently ramped up effort to force landlords to take down unsafe and ugly scaffolding, names Tress personally as well as two private entities named after the landmarked property.
Attempts to reach Tress — who late last year was arrested for allegedly illegally firing an assault rifle near a busy road in New Jersey, according to local reports at the time — were unsuccessful by press time.
Leases
Darts-focused venue to open in landmarked Union Square building
Address: 31 Union Square West, Manhattan
Landlord: David Ellis Real Estate
Tenant: Flight Club
Lease size: 10,700 square feet
Asset type: Retail
Sales
Brighton Beach apartment building trades hands
Address: 125 Brighton 11th St., Brooklyn
Seller: Sentinel Real Estate Corp.
Buyer: Rockledge and PH Realty Capital
Sales price: $11.4 million
Asset type: Multifamily
Financings
Israeli firm funds redevelopment of former Salvation Army building on LES
Address: 223 Bowery, Manhattan
Owner: Nat Wasserstein
Lender: Onyx Properties
Loan amount: $17.3 million
Asset type: Commercial