PRESTOPUNDIT

I was struck again by how European-facing New York is. Out here on the left coast, Europe is very far away. We are much more oriented toward the Pacific Rim and Latin America. New York to me feels like Paris West. The accents you hear on the street or in the restaurants are much more likely to be French or German or Russian than Mexican or Asian. I am not sure what the raw numbers are on the source of immigrants and visitors, but for a native Californian, the different influences is palpable ..

A [local news] story that could have run in The Onion, but instead was in the New York Times .. A Queens landlord was convicted of attempted murder for hiring a couple of thugs to rub out two of his tenants so he could rent the unit at market rates. Attempted murder is an awful crime. But it's not hard to understand why this guy was so frustrated. The tenants were the sons of a couple who had moved into the apartment in 1964 and had been paying $400 a month ever since. The parents moved out in 1997 but transferred the unit, and its controlled rent, to their children. The place would rent for about $2,000 a month today.