Category Archives: News

Opening of Fulton Center Station

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Fulton-Center-StationThomas Prendergast, Chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, referred to it as “New York’s next great public space.” Centrally located at Broadway and Fulton Street, the building has real presence. Built at a cost of $1.4bn, taking 10 years, the glass-and-steel entrance opens up to a 90-foot skylight. Featuring the nine existing subway lines within 180,000 square feet, it is due to serve 300,000 passengers per day.

The key engineer on the project, Michael Horodniceanu called it “the station of the 21st century.” It is quite a change from the old Fulton stop where passengers were forced to rush through narrow corridors, trying to avoid other passengers, trying just to not get knocked down!

There are 27 entrances into the building – all of which are handicap accessible. There is a 350 foot tunnel that connects the Center to the Santiago Calatrava as well as the PATH commuter New Jersey train.

Culturally, the new station is also impressive since the historic building brings everything full circle, back to the 19th century when the place was actually central to New York City.

Ed Sayres: Growing Your Business

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working-from-homeThere are many ways to grow a business. Even in the most challenging of situations – such as recession, competition, and failed products – a business can thrive. Often it is just a matter of getting the right consultant and advice for the best guidance.

Ed Sayres has earned a reputation for establishing and developing organizations for sustainable growth. Within this role, he advises top executives on fiscal and crisis management, fundraising, strategic building, etc. His approach over the years has come up against even the most difficult circumstances – and it is based on “disciplined innovation, collaboration, transparency and accountability.” He also does a lot of philanthropic work, most notably via animal welfare organizations.

Another way a company can grow is by taking note of studies to see what methods successful businesses have used to thrive. For example, a Forrester Report put out in 2009 showed that by 2016, 43 percent of the US workforce will be working from home. Perhaps more interestingly, it also found that by giving employees these kind of freedoms, reported a revenue growth of 10 percent or more within the last year, as compared to firms that did not implement this policy. As well, it was estimated by Cisco that remote work saved $277m per year from productivity gains.

Business executives can also take a leaf out of someone like Richard Branson’s book. He recently put up a top ten list of how to ‘do business the Virgin way’ – i.e., successfully. He said that while there are no shortcuts to success his top two ideas fit in quite well with Ed Sayres’ motto: follow your dreams and do some good.

So it seems that to be successful in business, one needs to think outside the box and not just focus on the business – branch out a little and see how you can be beneficial to society.

Jack Lefkowitz, Rabbi Berman and Others Who Make a Difference

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Dealing with an illness, particularly one that is life threatening, is harrowing for anyone. It is particularly scary for people who don’t have a social network where they live and don’t know where to turn. In the New York area, there are a number of organizations that are working to alleviate such fears and to offer resources to those in need.

The New York City Free Clinic is one location worth knowing about for those who are sick. They provide free and comprehensive care and they have an extensive relationship with hospitals, clinics and non-profits throughout New York City. They have ties with the New York University School of Medicine, the Institute for Family Health, Bellevue Hospital Center, New York University Langone Medical Center and more.

Jack Lefkowitz
Jack Lefkowitz

Another organization that everyone in New York should be aware of is Refuah Resources, directed by Rabbi Shuky Berman and co-chaired by Jack Lefkowitz. Their team of medical referral coordinators helps patients to work through the medical system in New York and to guide people to identify the preferred doctor for each of their situations. Working tirelessly, Rabbi Berman, Jack Lefkowitz and so many others help to alleviate the burden of dealing with serious illness by providing guidance and direction.

Finally, for those battling cancer, Team Continuum is there to help. This nonprofit helps cancer patients and their families to minimize the disruptions and hardships that are inherent with the disease. They help families to pay household expenses, they offer friendship and moral support and they help to fund health care facilities to enhance the delivery of care to patients.

These are just a few of the many health care programs around New York that assist those in need. Organizations such as the NYCFC, Refuah Resources with Rabbi Berman and Jack Lefkowitz, and Team Continuum make a difference in the lives of those in New York every day.

New York Entrepreneurial Stars

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Martha-Stewart2014 is the third year of the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc.’s American Made Program. This year, there were three companies from the New York area that won. The program – that honors top entrepreneurs in the handcraft industry – “celebrates entrepreneurial stars of the growing ‘maker’ culture who have turned their passion for handcrafted, well-designed goods into small businesses and proudly manufacture their products in America.”

3,259 entrepreneurs were nominated from 50 states. Nine were chosen by Martha Stewart and her panel. The tenth was selected by online votes from the Audience Choice category.

The three New York winners were: Brooklyn’s Egg Collective (for the design category), WHIT and Clark’s Botanicals (style category).

Affordable New York Housing

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affordable-new-york-housingNew York’s State Attorney General’s Office is implementing a policy change to help keep the city’s housing affordable. Owners of buildings that rent out properties to people of differing incomes will be able to sell apartments at market rate on the condition that they maintain low-income rentals or create new apartments for those on restricted incomes.

According to state officials, before the change is implemented, the city will make sure that property owners will make at least a fifth of their units “permanently affordable.” This will include properties that have been subsidized by tax breaks and bond financing.

Up until now, proprietors were not allowed to sell their property until the affordability restrictions were lifted. Sometimes this took tens of years. And at that point, owners converted the whole property to market-rate units or condominiums. With this new ruling, it is anticipated that many thousands of low-income apartments will be preserved in New York City.

Both landlords and tenants in New York City are equally pleased with the move.

Soda Companies Join Forces

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coke-pepsi-snappleIn a new effort to battle the bulge in America, the three leading soda companies – Coca Cola, PepsiCo and Snapple/Dr. Pepper – are joining forces. The commitment was made a couple of weeks ago in New York at the Clinton Global Initiative. It was welcomed wholeheartedly by President Bill Clinton who noted that sugared-soft drinks account for approximately 6 percent of the average consumer’s daily calorie intake.

The goal of these three companies is to reduce the caloric consumption of sugary drinks of Americans by 20 percent in the next 11 years. They aim to do this by expanding the market of low- and no-calorie drinks as well as smaller-volume drinks. Marketing and promotional materials will be focused on education about America’s obesity problem and how sugary drinks contribute to this.

Vis-à-vis the economics of this, sugary drinks companies shouldn’t really lose out too much. Figures put out by Beverage Digest showed that between 2000 and 2013, there was a plummet of 12 percent in the consumption of calories from sugary drinks. So it’s not new. The way soda companies responded to this (and to continue to profit) was by increasing sales of water based, low-calorie or no-calorie drinks.

If this is the way the market is going, it will not have a negative impact on US business and will rather simply enhance health in the region, by attacking obesity.

New Electric Power Resource in NY

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hydroelectricityNew York State is set to put in a place a new hydroelectric plant. This should generate 14 megawatts of electric power, enough to provide electricity to around 6,000 homes. New York City will then sell that the New York power grid. It will cost around $72m to build, but will generate around $2m revenue annually from electricity sales.

Using this resource (instead of oil or coal) the plant can avoid major environmental issues. One of these is not having around 25,620 metric tons of greenhouse gas emission each year. Environmentally, this is the same as taking around 5,400 cars off the road.

Should this project go as planned, it will be New York’s largest hydroelectric development in over 20 years. It will also mark the first time that power will be generated directed from a branch of Delaware River.

Construction is set to begin in 2016.

Cool New York Businesses

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aqua-cyclingNew York is becoming home to some very cool new businesses. For both tourists and residents alike, New York City businesses are making life easier, more exciting and inspiring. This article will detail a few of the latest crazes to hit the city.

First, there is AQUA – the cycling studio with a pool. It uses water for intense resistance, immersing state-of-the-art bikes in a candlelit pool. It definitely spices up a standard routine for those who have until now stuck strictly to swimming or cycling.

Second, there is BarBacon. A pure gem for bacon lovers, this Bar serves everything with bacon. Some of the features of the bar includes: a bacon tasting menu, the beer and bacon flight and a bacon Bloody Mary! Yes indeed, when they say everything, they mean everything has to have bacon with it. This cocktail is made from bacon vodka and garnished with bacon.

Third, there is Black Seed Bagels. Maybe it’s taking its inspiration from the latest Denny’s to hit Manhattan (which is an upscale version of the family-style breakfast and steakhouse restaurant), this eatery is a bagel store with a difference, with quality Montreal-style bagels with toppings such as tobiko caviar cream cheese!

Fourth, there is Blue Apron. In the mood for eating out but don’t want to eat out? Want to make the meal yourself but well, actually don’t want to make the meal? Blue Apron delivers all ingredients to your home that you need to cook a meal. Sign up for weekly service to have fresh ingredients delivered (for free, if you subscribe) to make three meals in the right proportions. Each meal will take a mere 35 minutes or less to prepare.

These are just some of the latest cool ventures to hit the New York business hotspot. New York sure is making life easier, and for those who have gotten locked out their houses, check out this other New York business, KeyMe – which enables key-holders to share and duplicate actual keys based on a digital scan taken and stored in the cloud. Keys are then printed immediately or print and sent to the customer later.

New York is just getting better and better.

Businesses Motivated to Move to New York

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Start-Up NY – the initiative put in place by New York’s Mayor Governor Andrew M. Cuomo around a year ago – seeks to offer businesses substantial incentives to move their work to New York, either by expanding their existing businesses or “starting up” new ones. The initiative being given is that these companies will be exempt from paying taxes for a staggering ten years! This means, no income tax, business, corporate, state or local taxes, sales and property taxes, or franchise fees. That means companies can make a huge saving.

Two of the eight companies that will benefit from the initiative this year are: Appistry and Liazon. Appistry is a cloud computing firm based in St. Louis that is seeking to expand into the Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, at Buffalo University. Using the program, the firm will pour $2.45m into its expansion, and, once in New York, offer eight new jobs.

Liazon is set to hire a further 500 individuals over the next five years thanks to help from Start-Up NY. This firm offers private online health benefit exchanges.

According to the Governor, 659 jobs in total are being created (the bulk of which Liazon can take credit for), thanks to this initiative. A hundred of these are from BAK USA.

 

Getting Around NYC for a Dollar

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dollar-vansIt started back in 1980 when buses and subway trains went on strike in New York, making getting around the five towns very difficult. Fast forward 14 years and these modes of transport were legally able to serve parts of the city once they got a license from the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission In comes dollar vans, and the rest as they say, is history.

Today, dollar vans are a great way of getting around. Over the last year, Aaron Reiss took to the streets of New York and set about investigating the pros and cons of these, as he himself hopped aboard the dollar vans, covering: Chinatown, Flatbush, Eastern Queens, Eastern Jersey and The Edenwald Line.

He shares his findings in an article that was published by The New Yorker entitled New York’s Shadow Transit. In terms of Chinatown, since increasing rents have resulted in a lot of Chinese immigrants having to leave Chinatown, the dollar vans are great for them since they are inhabiting places without decent public transportation. With these, Reiss found, transportation time is cut in half since it only takes around 35 minutes to go via this method from Chinatown to Flushing as opposed to around 90 minutes via the subway.

Brooklyn residents like the vans too. It reminds the ones who have Caribbean roots of home, resulting in inspired reggae tributes and in-van concerts known as Dollar Van Demos! Indeed, what it seems like, is that not only are these vans a great way of saving time and money, they add an entire culture to lifestyle and living in the Big Apple.