Election Year To Do List
ELECTION YEAR TO DO LIST
ITEM No. 1:
ABOLISH THE BOARD OF STANDARDS AND APPEALS*
For many New Yorkers,
The BSA is
A totally unknown entity.
——-THE BOARD OF STANDARDS AND APPEAL
Yet its impact
Is felt in every neighborhood
In this City.
———–OARD OF STANDARDS AND APPEA
A quasi-judicial agency,
The BSA is comprised of 5 commissioners
Appointed by [...]

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Counsel for the Developer
In the future
You need partners
Not suppliers
Not customers
Not acquisition
Targets but
Partners
And partnerships
Should not
Be based
Solely on
Long
Legal
Agreements
But rather
On reciprocally
Fair deals
Oriented towards
Mutual interests
And maintained
In an atmosphere of
Good Will
(Bad news for lawyers).
c. 2008 Graziella Radici
(From Real Estate Development by Miles, Berens, Weiss. Washington, DC: Urban land Institute, 2000.)

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Skyscrapers in Your Backyard
Everything is education,
Parents.
The way you brush your teeth
Up and down,
Or side to side is
Seen and emulated by your little ones.
The way you sit in traffic
Fuming,
Is it polite to curse
The suffocation of skyscrapers
Growing,
In your backyard?

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Developers
are not
always
held in
high esteem
by the general
public, deserved or
not. Given [...]

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No Large Losses
good developers
have always relied
on a great deal
of background information
gleaned over a lifetime of
conversation,
observation,
and reading-
newsletters, newspapers,
academic journals,
and the like
data are fundamental to sophisticated players
in the marketplace and
will not make money
for a developer.
assimilation of such historical and current public information,
however,
can help developers
avoid large losses.*
c. 2008 Graziella Radici
*(from Real Estate Development 3rd edition by [...]

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Mr. and Mrs. Upper Zoner
(a.k.a.: “The C.G. Flibbertgibbets”)
How I love you
And respect you,
My historical CG neighborhood,
Let me count the ways:
Give me some FAR 2.43
And make it a double.
Give me back my FAR,
I am no:
Flibbertigibbet!
I want more FAR and I want you to
Throw in those front gardens,
Pass the pretzels,
And fill it to the top
With a slice [...]

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Floppy Hose Wraps
Floppy hose wraps
Rubber, spins
‘Round the living tree, sick and
More since hosting a noose
For the neighborhood,
Feeds the barren development site.
In long sleeping lines the re-bars await
On the shadows of a bottomless pit.
Back hoes sleep
A raindrop
Topples
Onto their apathetic
Windshield.
Coming down from the hill,
From the suburbs, comes the developer
His pocket empty
To the field of dollar signs.
Empty poles [...]

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Children
Have you ever noticed
How children wiggle and waggle,
Spinning down the grubby city slide
Like happy yellow snakes?
The sun shines on their little faces
As if the neighboring dark sounds
Are nothing but another laughing day
No matter how daunting.
Children throw themselves down
To slide again and again
Mindless of the ugliness
That might await them at the bottom.
As if the sun will [...]

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The Gala II
The children are all nestled in their beds
in the poorest quarters of Brooklyn, but
a few, special Brooklynites continue to celebrate
their triumphant creation,
their gift to the needier folks:
Affordable Housing
Yes, it is a well known fact
that the ability to generate affordable housing
can reduce human pain and suffering
by considerable amounts,
make poverty meaningful,
and maybe even raise a [...]

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Howl/The Condo Building
Goodbye GoodbyeI lost my sky,I spent the morningTrying to die.Goodbye GoodbyeYou made me cry.You stole my surroundingsAnd now I’ll fry.I spent the noontimeThinking instead,It’s the thunderous craneI wish be dead.Good bye good byeYou made me cryI took more meds and said,I’ll try.To fight you at the DOBDespite the force of entropyTo call the [...]

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Carpe Diem
Carpe diemSave the dayLet’s get BUILDINGAll the wayCarpe diemLonely nightFilled with back hoesWarm and brightCarpe diemFree the pastAll the yesteryearsAre excavated at lastLight the candlesPour the wineBuilding unregulatedIs divineCarpe diemSave the dayGet your brownstonesOut of my wayCarpe diemBe my loverI’ll never needAny other.–c. 2008 Graziella Radici
(GL Contributor Graziella Radici resides in [...]

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The Gala
Hypocrisy is lovely when surrounded by dollarsAnd other accoutermentsSalmon pate on dry white toast pointsLightly buttered, the real thing pleasedWeathered wine in sexy glassesSlipping down the throat so mellowA wonderful conversation pieceSpruces it up doesn’t itTurns a bare Charlie Brown Christmas treeInto a Park Avenue Douglas firDripping with tinsel and laceHypocrisy can then ooze [...]

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Ode to a Developer
Jesus never walked so tall,Nor I so infinitesimally smallNext to you, My dear.
The oceans never waved so high,Nor seagulls touched the starlit skyAs high as you, My dear.
Thunder never rang so loud,Nor lightning struck upon the crowdLike you upon me, My dear.
My dear, You are earthly supremacy,Peacock and strutLoud and belligerent,May you [...]

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Going Down
It is leaning….M’aaaammmmmm, notFalllinnggg downSaid the man from DEP.She looked at the leaning linden tree with fresh eyeseyes for continued growthupward movementpROGRESSBut still she saw the tree falling [...]

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Good Morning Rat Race (Carroll Gardens Version)
Good Morning.The BQE is closed.Due to flooding. Stay in bed where it’s dry.
There’s an accident on Smith Street, but the medivac unitJust arrived. The cars are huffing and puffing up the ramp,
Past the garbage left by yesterday’s bulldozer.Across the F train dangles a girder
That stood menacingly on an [...]

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