“Jesus Christ Himself Being the Chief Cornerstone” was big in the 1880s and 1890s.
There shall be no EQUAL JUSTICE in New York. What Attorney General in a less than pandering mood would allow Nassau OTB, a public benefit corporation, to close on Roman Catholic Palm Sunday and Roman Catholic Easter Sunday, in preference to Greek Orthodox Easter Sunday and Greek Orthodox Palmay?
The New York Times endorses a man of religious preference which may not be your religious preference if you have a religious preference.
The New York Times endorses a man of religious preference which may not be your religious preference if you have a religious preference.
NEW YORK TIMES ENDORSES ERIC SCHNEIDERMAN FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL
The attorney general and the comptroller of New York State are
two of the most powerful officials in the state. The incumbents in
those offices — Eric Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, and
Thomas DiNapoli, the state comptroller — have exercised their powers in
ways that have benefited the public, and both deserve re-election.
NEW YORK TIMES ENDORSES ERIC SCHNEIDERMAN FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL
The attorney general and the comptroller of New York State are
two of the most powerful officials in the state. The incumbents in
those offices — Eric Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, and
Thomas DiNapoli, the state comptroller — have exercised their powers in
ways that have benefited the public, and both deserve re-election.
John, another lawyer who supports religious preference?
ASK HIM
http://cahillforag.com/about/
Address: 1301 6th Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10019 | View Map
Phone: (212) 728-4700 | Email Us
John, another lawyer who supports religious preference?
ASK HIM
|
http://cahillforag.com/about/
Address: 1301 6th Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10019 | View Map
Phone: (212) 728-4700 | Email Us
About John
John is counsel at Chadbourne and Parke and Co-Founder and CEO of the Pataki-Cahill Group, LLC. From 2002 through 2006, John served as the Chief of Staff to the Governor of New York State. In this role, he was responsible for running all aspects of the state government and was the highest ranking appointed official in New York State Government. In May of 2005, John was also given the primary responsibility for the coordination of the rebuilding efforts in lower Manhattan. Prior to his appointment as Chief of Staff, John served as the Senior Policy Advisor to the Governor where he helped lead the effort on behalf of the state’s response to the attacks of September 11th, 2001. John was responsible for negotiations with the state legislature, as well as the Governor’s point of contact with the White House, Congress and federal agencies.From 1997 to 2001, John served as the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation where he led the State agency with 3,000 employees and a $500 million annual budget. His responsibilities included enhancing and protecting the State’s vast natural resources and the successful implementation of the 1996 $1.75 billion Clean Water Air Bond Act, a landmark piece of legislation. John also led the State’s efforts to preserve over one million acres of open space. Prior to this, John was the General Counsel to the Department of Environmental Conservation and previously was a partner at the law firm of Plunkett & Jaffe, P.C., a firm focused on environmental and government law.John completed his undergraduate degree at Fordham University, and attended Pace University School of Law where he received both a J.D. and Masters Degree in Environmental Law. John formerly served as Chairman of the Environmental Facilities Corporation and Vice-Chairman of the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority, as well as serving on the Olympic Regional Development Authority, Great Lakes Commission and the Adirondacks Park Agency. John has received numerous awards for his dedicated service to New York and the community.John resides in Yonkers, NY with his wife and children where he enjoys completing Iron Man competitions, triathlons and marathons.No Building Is Left Unturned in One Man’s Search for Cornerstones
Six-Year Tally by Foot and Bike Tops 1,100; New Ones Rare as a Flying Buttress
Cornerstones are going out of
style for new construction in Manhattan. William D. McCracken has made
it his mission to document the ones that remain. Photo: Andrew Lamberson
for The Wall Street Journal
Mr. McCracken’s intentions weren’t nefarious. All he wanted was to snap a photograph of the cornerstone, dated 1973, at One Police Plaza in lower Manhattan. The cop barred him from the restricted area, then borrowed Mr. McCracken’s camera and took the photo himself.
For the past six years, the 39-year-old real-estate lawyer has been combing both sides of every street in Manhattan in a quest to document the dated, inscribed rocks that serve as birth certificates for buildings. By foot and on bike, often accompanied by his Labradoodle named Martin, Mr. McCracken has amassed an online archive of the island’s 1,100-plus surviving cornerstones. (See some on an interactive map.)
“I’m 90% sure I have 90% of them,” he says. “And I’m 100% sure I don’t have 100% of them.” His wife Amy usually sleeps in when he rises at 6 a.m. to find new cornerstones. “He’s mission-driven,” she says. “It can be a grind.”
Mr. McCracken’s search has gotten tougher as the venerable cornerstone is abandoned by developers. The load-bearing stones have largely gone the way of the flying buttress since the postwar advent of reinforced concrete and steel-frame construction. The walls of such buildings are often hung from above.
The 20-ton granite block laid as the cornerstone for the Freedom Tower was removed in 2006 when the skyscraper was reconfigured for security reasons and won’t be part of the soon-to-open tower now called One World Trade Center.
Historically, a building in New York City rose in relation to its cornerstone, with facade walls aligned in reference to the rock. The block typically bore a date and often a message. “Jesus Christ Himself Being the Chief Cornerstone” was big in the 1880s and 1890s.
Ceremonies and parades accompanied cornerstone-layings, often led by Freemasons who sprinkled a rock with corn and anointed it with wine and oil to represent plenty, refreshment and joy. Dignitaries made speeches and wielded trowels.
“It’s a noble tradition that enriches the experience of city life, but it’s gotten almost completely forgotten,” says Robert A.M. Stern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture and lead designer of 15 Central Park West, a condominium building which has a cornerstone, and several other New York luxury condos which don’t.
The cornerstone reigned when buildings were heavily loaded at the ground. One of Manhattan’s oldest survivors, dated 1797, anchored the original Bank of New York Building at 48 Wall Street.
That stone, salvaged from a long-ago demolition, now sits in the 1927 building on the site. Mr. McCracken, a cornerstone purist, doesn’t deem it New York’s oldest. He bestows that honor on the oldest stone still housed in its original building, which he believes is St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Harlem, dated 1872.
The world’s oldest cornerstones hail from the European medieval period, including eight laid between 1277 and 1632 in British abbeys, chapels, colleges and gardens, though it is not clear how many of those stones survive, says S. Brent Morris, author of the book “Cornerstones of Freedom: A Masonic Tradition.”
Even a criminal lawyer in the State of New York might be able to
argue and/or form an opinion as to why Nassau OTB should either be OPEN on BOTH Roman Catholic Easter Sunday and Palm Sunday and Greek Orthodox Easter Sunday and Palm Sunday or CLOSED on BOTH Greek Orthodox Easter Sunday and Greek Orthodox Palm Sunday?
Crime pays? Work is a crime?
Stop scratching on holidays
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
To reach the campaign, please contact us at the mailing address or phone number below, or call or visit one of our field offices:
Phone: (516) 307-9820
ENLARGE
Crime pays? Work is a crime?
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Home > LI
Confidential > Stop
scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
To reach the campaign, please contact us at the mailing address or phone number below, or call or visit one of our field offices:
Phone: (516) 307-9820
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 744
Mineola, NY 11501
Garden City Field Office:
311 Nassau Boulevard South
Garden City South, NY 11530
(516) 509-3890
Long Beach Field Office:
305 W. Park Avenue
Long Beach, NY 11561
(516) 319-6732
New
York City Off-Track Betting made history yesterday, taking bets on Palm
Sunday.
Since 1973, when Sunday racing was made legal in New York State, race
tracks have been allowed to operate every Sunday except for Palm Sunday
and Easter Sunday.
While Aqueduct kept its doors shut, NYCOTB had its betting parlors
open despite a letter from the New York State Racing and Wagering Board
stating that it couldn't do so.
"We're not a race track," NYCOTB president Ray Casey said. "OTB's
business is a simulcasting business.
" Bettors responded by wagering an estimated $2 million yesterday on tracks from around the country, including Keeneland in Kentucky and Gulfstream Park in Florida. While in the past NYCOTB has respected the law and shut down on Palm Sunday, it took a chance this time because its business is down. "With the weather being the way it's been our handle has been off significantly," Casey said. "Our lawyers felt from their point of view that we could open (yesterday).
" The law says race tracks can't open. It doesn't mention OTBs. "I respect the Racing and Wagering Board and I have the utmost respect for chairman Michael Hoblock but I felt we're right on this one," Casey said. The NYSRWB didn't return phone calls yesterday but said on Saturday it would meet this week to discuss fines and penalties it can impose on NYCOTB. "This isn't personal," Casey said. "I just didn't agree with the board's interpretation.
" Casey also said NYCOTB may open on Easter Sunday.
Bettors and Nassau County sometimes die bankrupt like NYC OTB?
OPEN ON 1ST PALM SUNDAY, OTB RAKES IN $2M
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, April 14, 2003, 12:00 AM
- A
- A
- A
" Bettors responded by wagering an estimated $2 million yesterday on tracks from around the country, including Keeneland in Kentucky and Gulfstream Park in Florida. While in the past NYCOTB has respected the law and shut down on Palm Sunday, it took a chance this time because its business is down. "With the weather being the way it's been our handle has been off significantly," Casey said. "Our lawyers felt from their point of view that we could open (yesterday).
" The law says race tracks can't open. It doesn't mention OTBs. "I respect the Racing and Wagering Board and I have the utmost respect for chairman Michael Hoblock but I felt we're right on this one," Casey said. The NYSRWB didn't return phone calls yesterday but said on Saturday it would meet this week to discuss fines and penalties it can impose on NYCOTB. "This isn't personal," Casey said. "I just didn't agree with the board's interpretation.
" Casey also said NYCOTB may open on Easter Sunday.
Bettors and Nassau County sometimes die bankrupt like NYC OTB?
ENLARGE
2166 Broadway
The cornerstone decline began in the 1970s, when New York City nearly went bankrupt and public and private construction dried up. He has found 57 pieces from that decade and just 35 since 2000.
One of the most recently laid stones in Manhattan: an office building at 250 W. 55th St., dated 2013 and developed by Boston Properties Inc.
“The cornerstone was always a way to tell the world, ‘Yes, we built this, and we’re proud of it,’ ” says Mr. McCracken, an Oklahoma native who had never seen New York before he arrived with three suitcases in 1997. “It was a public expression of civic pride in the enterprise of building that doesn’t seem to be present anymore.”
Cornerstone festivities are now largely supplanted by “topping-out” ceremonies. “It’s become a full-blown P.R. event to generate interest in a building,” says Kenneth Lewis, a Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP partner who was project manager of Time Warner Center.
That building has no cornerstone. When the first part of its superstructure topped out at 350 feet in 2002, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg , jazz virtuoso Wynton Marsalis and 1,500 spectators gathered to watch.
Many institutions once graced by cornerstones now forsake them. Columbia University installed 23 on its Morningside Heights campus from 1895 to 1969. But cornerstones are nowhere to be found in two buildings rising on the college’s Manhattanville campus.
“We’re not militantly opposed to cornerstones,” says Philip Pitruzzello, a Columbia vice president. “But our design plan calls for high degrees of transparency and glass coming down to meet the street with a light touch. A cornerstone isn’t the most important thing in that vocabulary.”
They still speak to Mr. McCracken, and he can’t resist the hunt. He visited Rockefeller Center dozens of times before maintenance workers moved two massive planters so he could get a clear shot at the cornerstones for the British Empire Building (1932) and La Maison Française (1933).
When his wife was 8½ months pregnant, a family friend offered a dry run of the drive to the hospital. Mr. McCracken, who has no car, saw his chance to bag a long-sought stone: the United Nations Secretariat, dedicated by President Harry Truman in 1949. It was only a bit out of the way.
“We took a little detour,” Mr. McCracken says. His wife adds: “I will always associate that cornerstone with the birth of my daughter.”
