NYC will be the next Venice

oh go the fu*k away already wont you.

Especially after the oceans rise from global warming after Greenland completely melts. Then Greenwich Village will LITERALLY be like Venice. Glad my joint is on the sixth floor with a terrace - I'll own the equivalent of a frickin' palazzo!

great--i love venice.

Agreed, Venice is fantastic. I am pumped! Thanks rufio.

eah - how's vc doing in these times? I'd love to take my healthcare knowledge there someday, but not sure that's an ideal move anytime soon.

That like totally reminds me -- I hadn't checked "Chicago 24/7 Crime" since Sunday afternoon. Here's what we have up until now, as usual in Chicago it's mostly murders, but some serious injuries as well (no doubt more to come later in the day):

http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/index.html

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Teen killed over hand bump on CTA bus
• Video: Camera captures murder suspect

FBI on the lookout for 'Playboy Bandit'

Three shot -- one fatally -- on South Side

Man seriously injured in South Shore shooting

Marine giving orders for new elite cop unit
A Marine Reserve intelligence officer recently returned from Iraq is helping the department create a new unit that will replace the scandal-plagued Special Operations Section. Chicago Police Lt. James Roussell and department brass are putting the final touches on the more than 100-member Mobile Strike Force, which could be activated by the end of the month.

Metra shooting linked to murder-for-hire plot

Shooting in Dolton leaves man dead

Monday, October 6, 2008

Man arrested for child neglect in infant's death

Two men found fatally shot on Far S. Side

Venezia is fantastic. That should make NYC RE climb. :)

The last couple of times I've visited, stayed in Lido Island which is terrific as well. There are some excellent hotels there and very convenient to the city via a short scenic boat tide.

I'm going to Venice (and Como) again next June. I can hardly wait! Bauer Il Palazzo - Osteria da Fiore - great art......

NYC's decline in the world of business is quite amusing.

bjw - times are somewhat turbulent but i think it's a great/solid place to be. it's not immune but the global aspect kepps it up in the air. this is assuming you're mobile and willing to travel.

rufus logic: Housing in Venice is more expensive than housing in Chicago and Topeka, therefore nobody wants to live in Venice

eah - if I can travel to Venice from time to time, it's a no-brainer! Thanks for the inside scoop.

In all seriousness, the finance industry could easily contract by 30-50%...and what's left may look for lower cost places to do business. That is a scary thought - this place would be a ghost town.

Born and bred in New York, I can attest to the fact that New York was not always the hotbed of financial activity. A contraction in the industry is welcomed, as the flow of more interesting characters, artists, and musicians will bring back some color to the drabness of late.

Sizzlack Oh, thanks for the chuckle! Nice job.

and rufus - chicago has lost most of its conventioneering industry to las vegas. commodities centralized in new york and london. oh that's right - you got oprah!

> In all seriousness, the finance industry could easily contract by 30-50%...and what's left may look
> for lower cost places to do business.

If it does contract by that much, NYC *will* be a lower cost place to do business....

malraux, take me w/you, pleez

ofbrooklyn, actually commodities and derivatives are thriving in Chicago. CME and CBOT are headquartered there, in case you forgot. also, Chicago still hosts the most number of conventions in the country.

Wow, Chicago isn't even good at what it is supposedly good at (and rufus is still lying)...

Top convention cities
Tradeshow Week's list of biggest convention cities last year, ranked by the number of top-200 shows each city attracted.
August 6, 2008

* Las Vegas...44
* Orlando...24
* Chicago...20
* New York...16
* Atlanta...12
* Anaheim...9
* New Orleans...6
* San Francisco...6
* Louisville, Ky...5
* Dallas...5
* San Diego...5
* Washington, D.C...5

Every city on that list save for Dallas, Louisville and Orlando, is more alluring than Chicago. That is without factoring in the weather, which makes Chicago pure torture for a good part of the year.

Rufus: you'll find what you're looking for right here:

http://chicago.craigslist.org/laf/

brokersrjokers, i admit that Chicago's weather isn't amazing, but it's not any worse than NYC's. the summers there are actually a lot more pleasant and less humid, especially if you're near the lake. And Chicago is insanely clean and has the best architecture in the country.

Yes of course, I had forgotten that the winters in Chicago are delightful, especially by the lake. Mind you that there is barely an autumn or a spring.

And naturally the summers are less humid near the Lake, because it's always Backwards Day in rufie's Chicago, so the moisture evaporates from the air down into the Lake.

Minneapolis is better than Chicago.

ROFL ... did anyone see the post about Luis the missing security guard in that Chicago Lost & Found link ?

"Especially after the oceans rise from global warming after Greenland completely melts. Then Greenwich Village will LITERALLY be like Venice."

Yes, imagine that - residents of Morningside Heights, Hamilton Heights and Washington Heights barricading the streets to keep mobs of flood-crazed unemployed investment bankers out of their neighborhoods. High Bridge, Morris Heights, University Heights and Riverdale in the Bronx becoming the most sought-after locations. LIC, Wmburg, Jersey City's waterfront, Hoboken and Edgewater all uninhabitable. The imagination runs wild. But don't worry, kids - Mayor Bloomberg already devised a BRILLIANT flood contingency plan after Hurricane Katrina. Do any of you remember? It was so stupid it wasn't even worth a good laugh.

No - I was thinking more of the Simpsons episode titled "Mom and Pop Art" (with a cameo by Jasper Johns):

Homer is relaxing on a Saturday when Marge tells him that he should be doing work around the house and yard. Homer overcomes his reluctance and takes Bart to Mom & Pop Hardware to get some equipment. But while there, Homer sees a do-it-yourself barbecue pit and is compelled to buy it instead of anything that might help him with his work. Homer tries to install the pit, but bungles the job when he drops the parts of the barbecue into wet cement. He frantically tries to assemble the barbecue pit before the cement hardens, but only makes things worse. In the end, Homer is left with a mismatched collection of parts stuck in hardened cement, which angers him. He vents his rage on the construct, mangling it further. Later, Homer takes the results of his work back to the store for a refund, which he does not receive. On the way home, Homer loses control of the wagon containing the jumbled mess of concrete and bricks. It rolls down the highway and crashes into a woman's car, wrecking it. Homer flees the scene of the accident, but the woman tracks him down. It turns out that she is an artist named Astrid Weller (played by Isabella Rossellini), and sees Homer's handiwork as being a masterpiece of outsider art. Homer's exhibit goes to the Louvre museum and becomes a success.

Now officially an outsider artist, Homer uses his channeled rage to continue his work and befriends other stereotypically pretentious artists. All the while, his easily achieved fame makes Marge jealous due to her lack of success at becoming a successful artist despite years of trying. Homer later gets a notice from Astrid Weller that his work will be in the "Art in America" show, but his new masterpieces are rejected by Springfield's residents and his new "friends" for being repetitive of his first piece.

Down on his luck and starved for inspiration, Lisa recommends Homer visit the Springfield Art Museum. But none of the art Homer sees serves to inspire him; he feels inadequate when he sees what other artists have done, and it only worsens the situation when he takes a nap and has a dream of the art attacking him. He goes back home, discouraged, but is soon given another suggestion by Lisa. She tells him about the artist Christo, causing Homer to try doing something similarly groundbreaking. He and Bart flood Springfield by opening all the fire hydrants (having covered the sewer drains with the city's doormats, including their own) and putting snorkels in the animals of the zoo (so that they don't drown). Surprisingly, the whole town of Springfield is impressed with Homer's work, and enjoy the newly made "Venetian Grand Canals of Springfield" along with the swimming zoo animals.

"Mayor Bloomberg already devised a BRILLIANT flood contingency plan after Hurricane Katrina. Do any of you remember? It was so stupid it wasn't even worth a good laugh."

No, I don't remember Boston Bloomberg's flood plan.

But I do remember his plan for Governor's Island. Because of the shortage of schools, he'd build lots and lots of schools there. And how would all those students come and go, at more or less the same time? He said, and I gest not, that we could build monorails from Manhattan and The County of the Kings. Okeh, he actually said Brooklyn, but that's just plain drab.

Can't wait to see the scary new Halloween election episode of the Simpsons.

okay, alanhart, the Flood plan ran something like this:
We were mailed fliers with maps that showed where our
neighborhood's flood shelter would be in the event of
flooding to our buildings. At the time I lived on
E.34th St., so I was to take myself to some public
school somewhere further west and further downtown.
Me, along with all the other flooded out residents of
a huge swath of the East Side of Manhattan.

yeah, right.................

malraux..... what's the elections gonna be?

Nice. He (El Generalisito Boston Bloomberg, lifetime Mayor of the Banana Republic of New York) probably re-purposed old basement fallout shelters to be flood escape sites!

Unfortunately a lot of lower Manhattan could flood, especially as sea levels slowly rise over time due to global warming. It would take a major coastal storm/low-grade hurricane as well, but this is not impossible even as far north as NYC. It does sound totally crazy, but it is a real risk over the longer-term. I grant, it's not something I worry about actively - there are bigger problems - and it would only affect parts of Manhattan. Bloomberg is not stupid and did not make this up.

http://news.mongabay.com/2006/1025-nasa.html

Venice was an independent city-state until the 1800's. New York was once the capital of America (the "Empire State"). I fail to see how the two cities are related except that both are coastal. What major city isn't a tourist attraction? Oh, wait. Frankfurt, Germany.

80sMan, Ferguson's main point is that due to the financial crisis, NYC will no longer be the world's financial center and will be reduced to a tourist attraction, much like Venice. NYC's decline will be especially brutal. Already, the city is falling apart. Crime is on the rise, and there are more homeless people roaming the streets than ever.

who let the troll out?
Woof! Woof, woof, woof!
who let the troll out?
Woof! Woof, woof, woof!

kspeak, Bloomberg did not make up the flood risk - it's his plan to stave off post-Katrina disaster that's stupid - I was thinking of an evacuation of not only low-lying parts of Manhattan, but even more so flood prone parts of Long Island, like the entire coastline of Brooklyn and Queens - his rescue plan was like the proverbial little boy sticking his finger in the dikes in Holland

Rufus - news flash - Wall Street is not going away. Furthermore, it looks like London - which arguably HAS been the financial capital of the world for the past 5 years - it going to be dealt an even more severe blow than NYC for reasons you are not sophisticted to understand (huge of excess of commerical real estate, the even great lack of transparency in reporting rules in Europe, even great credit card debt in the UK, and the fact that it is much harder for European gov'ts to act and intervene swiftly when necessary). Many of Wall Street's structured products/derivative/fixed income businesses will probably never come back the way they did, and many Hedge Funds will not survive, but traditional M&A/debt/equity services are not going away (yes, they have slowed down), and neither is the fact that a greater amount of capital will be managed in NY than other places. If you believe - like much of the smart money does - that London is in even worse trouble, what is going to replace Wall Street as the financial capital. Hint: it ain't Chicago and the emerging world isn't far enough along yet.

Besides, didn't we already establish chicago has higher crime, higher unemployment,
AND more fat midwesterners ??

Two more points of clarification Rufus.

1) No, your friends in Chicago making $80k a year doing ops or accounting for Citadel are not smart money

2) It's been shown in the past that sattelite offices / locations always do worse in the downtown. Say I am a fund or bank and have 100 people in NYC and 20 in Chicago during flush times. If find I need to reduce headcount by 30%, this impliees my chicago office should have 13 people (unless they have some sort of business focu that makes this different). But then I say to myself... wait ... what's the point of a 13 person office .. may I should consolidate, hell, I've got extra space at headquarters. This happens all the time, I had pretty of friends who were working in Chicago and Boston during the "tech boom" in satellite offices in various banks. Many of them shut down.

kspeak -- that was firmly established without question, beyond doubt, etc.

"Crime is on the rise, and there are more homeless people roaming the streets than ever."

There is ZERO evidence of either of these statements being true. Therefore, your argument is, I think the legal term is, completely full of crap and worthless.

rufie's argument would at quick glance be considered full of crap and worthless. But strict constructionists like Scalia would immediately identify it as complete absolute total and utter bullshite.

kspeak, Chicago has been the world's capital in derivatives for some time and continue to remain so. There is an insane amount of money flowing through CME/CBOT. More importantly though, Chicago has diversified into other areas aside finance. NYC is a one-trick pony, and as a result, it is getting utterly destroyed.

"Chicago has been the world's capital in derivatives". It sounds nice, but what does that even mean?

"Chicago has diversified into other areas aside finance. NYC is a one-trick pony." Again, it sounds nice and would support your argument if it had any shred of truth to it. None. Zip. Zero. A complete lie. Totally made up. Do you get it now?

"There is an insane amount of money flowing through CME/CBOT." Seriously, do you have ANY idea what you are talking about? Is someone feeding you these lines? See, you have to actually have some facts to back-up what you say or it is nothing but a "Bushism".

That is pretty much what you say in every single comment. Completely fabrictaed statements to support your whacky theory, just like W does. Wait a minute.....George, step away from the internets. You're going to hurt yourself.

who gives a shit? people live where they live because they choose to or because they have no choice. if rufus prefers chicago and wants to shit-talk new york, why do you guys care? i love new york, but i don't give people shit if they want to live on a farm in idaho. to each their own. if he wants to play that game why do you guys get all excited.

i don't really care, pure entertainment value.

rufus - and derivatives and all other esoteric aspects of financed are the most f*ked. transparency will be the goal of new regulations ...

To me, rufus is like Sarah Palin. A unitentionally amusng, welcome distraction from the otherwise bleak events going on in the world.

Maverick!

kspeak, if you knew anything about finance, you would know that NYC is shedding thousands of jobs. a lot of people are also being transferred to other cities because the opportunities are just not in NYC anymore. the city is declining; i'm sorry that you're too delusional to accept that.

yea keep calling other people delusional it makes you look like Einstein.

Job market, supply hurt downtown apartment rents
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=31321

cue Rufus sticking his fingers in his ears and shutting his eyes all the while screaming "LA LA LA I CANT HEAR YOU LA LA LA!!!!"

Hey Sizz -- no fair! You stole that out of my bag of responses that I've been holding back on posting!

Rest assuared, even though downtown apartment rents are down, there is no end in sight Chicago luxury condo market.

Haha... you can still use it. It applies to almost every Rufus related post on here.

Sad but true, sizzlack, sad but true

Cracker Boy, mustard and sauerkraut on that one. And hurry up, I don't have all day.

Malraux, I was at the Bauer Il Palazzo this past summer. Hotel is old but beautiful, and the restaurant is to die for. My wife and I had one of our 'ten best meals' there. Luckily it came with our Amex package because it was about $250 without drinks.

PsychoCrackerBoy, where's my hot dog? Are you staring at it and thinking of gondolas, envious that NY might become the next Venice, while Chitroit continues its post-apocalyptic journey and crumbles to dust?

So wait a second: NYC is not already a tourist attraction? Then what are all those red double decker buses for? Who rides them? Investment bankers?

Is Rufus the "Playboy Bandit"? What's a Playboy Bandit?

This reminds me of the telegram that the writer Robert Benchley (or was it Henry Miller?) sent to his editor upon arriving in Venice,

"Streets flooded. Please advise."

Think of how lovely New York will be with the vaporetti chugging up and down the avenues, all of the cars finally banished from the island forever, so that we do not have to be continually harassed by honking horns. I am looking forward to seeing New York become Venice!

and we'll all get to wear those cool masks,

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/02/09/travel/0209-venice_index.html

just like we do on this discussion board.