T h r e a t t o E n d R e n t C o n t r o l
S t i r s Up NYC
BY FRED KAPLAN
NEW YORK—One recent lunch hour at
Shopsin’s, a neighborhood diner in
Manhattan’s West Village, conversation
turned to the topic of the state Senate
majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno. “If he
ever shows his face around here, we’ll
string him up,” a customer exclaimed.
“The guy deserves death,” another said
matter-of-factly.
Rarely has so much venom been
aimed at a figure so obscure as an
Albany legislator, but all over New York
City, thousands of otherwise fairly civilized
citizens are throwing similar fits. For
Bruno is threatening to take away their
one holy fringe benefit—the eternal right
to a rent-controlled apartment.
Massachusetts and California have
abolished or scaled back their rentcontrol
laws in recent years, but New
York remains the last holdout, and on a
scale that dwarfs that of the other cities
S t i r s Up NYC
BY FRED KAPLAN
NEW YORK—One recent lunch hour at
Shopsin’s, a neighborhood diner in
Manhattan’s West Village, conversation
turned to the topic of the state Senate
majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno. “If he
ever shows his face around here, we’ll
string him up,” a customer exclaimed.
“The guy deserves death,” another said
matter-of-factly.
Rarely has so much venom been
aimed at a figure so obscure as an
Albany legislator, but all over New York
City, thousands of otherwise fairly civilized
citizens are throwing similar fits. For
Bruno is threatening to take away their
one holy fringe benefit—the eternal right
to a rent-controlled apartment.
Massachusetts and California have
abolished or scaled back their rentcontrol
laws in recent years, but New
York remains the last holdout, and on a
scale that dwarfs that of the other cities
1 comment:
I wrote this article about 10 years ago. Puzzling that it's going up now...Fred Kaplan
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