We should all thank Mr. Bloomberg, the ex-mayor of NYC, for his contribution toward making the city increasingly ugly and unlivable.
The licenses and the encouragement that he gave the construction business has created a forest of tall, mostly empty buildings clustered in the center of NYC blocking the view of great buildings such as the Chrysler building on the east side of Manhattan and the empire state building on the west side.
The most iconic buildings in the city of NY, have now been virtually obliterated from the landscape of Manhattan.
These new buildings are not only excessively tall, but they are architecturally devoid of any interest or character.
In the end they are just massive, tall brick, glass steel structures that seem to be largely uninhabited.
The rumor is that the new Mayor of NYC, Eric Adams, has it in mind to convert these buildings to some kind of combination of office and apartments.
Basically, this is probably a good idea. But what he needs to add to his concept is a number of floors dedicated to public parking spaces, where people can park their cars at the same price as parking on the streets. This has been done in all major cities in Europe.
All cars should be taken off the streets, especially in midtown. This would increase the number of traffic lanes which would then enable the traffic to flow more quickly through the city.
This would also enable the streets to be cleaned everyday as they used to be years ago, in the distant past.
NYC has become a filthy, dirty city. Manhattan, the Bronx and all the way out to the airports.
It is the only city in the developed world that has piles of garbage on the streets. Even in the cities of Africa the streets are not piled with garbage.
Better planning and less greed would make a huge difference to the reopening of Manhattan. After all, it is the iconic center of America, if not the world.
Part of the solution to the garbage problem could be to force buildings to provide space for storage bins. These bins could be made on wheels with doors that would open easily, enabling the garbage collectors to remove the garbage as easily as they do by picking it up off the streets.
This solution seems inexpensive and probably immediately feasible.
This combination of getting the parked cars off the streets and getting the garbage off the sidewalks would then make it a very simple job for the little hose and brush carts that we used to have running around the streets and keeping the city immaculately clean.
This project should be carried out city wide. It should cover Harlem and the Bronx, the upper east and west side, lower east and west side and any other part of Manhattan known to man.
This is the moment, the reopening of Manhattan that this plan can really be put into effect.
This goal at this time can be easily achieved because we have the empty buildings in which to create the solution.
Let’s get it done and let’s get the city back to being the clean and pleasant place that it once was long ago in the too distant past.
The city should also go back to enforcing trash laws that we used to have. They were very effective because we had police on the streets who fined people who threw garbage on the streets.
Those were the good old days. Better time than these.
As we reopen our city after the Covid Pandemic can we not also improve it?
Oh, what a wonderful world this could be.