BTW, I cannot see anywhere that the NY Times has run this article. A newspaper in Billings, MT picked it up, but not the Gray Lady in whose turf this is happening.
Gloomberg has declared his self to be an ‘Independent’........
Either way, there is not much that can be done about this besides expediting insurance payouts.
The buildings are externally intact because they are made of solid stone and brickwork - from the outside, they look largely unaffected.
The problem is that this is the oldest part of NYC - the electrical grid and communications grid were underground and vulnerable to the surge, and they were wrecked. Many of the shops were basement level and ground level and their inventory and fixtures were flooded and damaged. The residential buildings had boilers, and sewage pumps and PBXs and transformers in their basements. Those key pieces of equipment were zeroed out.
Those buildings are now uninhabitable until the repairs are done, and it has been tough since it has been a fairly cold winter.
So the specialty stores that attract visitors from other neighborhoods are closed. The local bars and restaurants depended upon foot traffic from shoppers as well as locals for business. The locals are also largely gone - living in hotels and with family because they are waiting for their buildings to get their residency certificates back.
It will be summertime before everything is repaired, and by then many businesses will have been forced to close their doors.
It will be years before that neighborhood thrives again.
They better get used to it. I can show you miles and miles of devastation yet to recover from Katrina 8 years hence. There are large chunks of New Orleans that look exactly like they did the day after Katrina, left to time and the Earth to reclaim.
We have adverted a catastrophe!
Wrong... he is a SOCIALIST...