the curatorship of possibilities: a creed centered on the urban ethos
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On the subject of the Squatter Simon Jacobson. Sometime the headlines tell the story, or more than just a story. The Jewish Week converge of Simon by Sharon Udasin is a good example:
This is how it’s usually works.
On the subject of ongoing legal fight by Simon Jacobson for the Sixth Street Community Synagogue. To understand Simon’s modus operandi is to understand the psychology of a squatter. First obviously is his takeover of the offices above the 770 and now the aggressive ownership mongering on the Sixth Street. When I asked Simon to join me in the Reshimu, he demanded shares in the business. “We’ll draft an agreement”- he said. An agreement for what? For the vague funding promises or the famous writing, well that’s a different story.
Here is a dude who lived his entire life on the same Eastern Parkway block; yet somehow managed to think of himself as the most cosmopolitan person in Chabad. A person who ventures outside of the comfort of the alcohol stained basement only on the condition of an ownership. But the squatting in physical places is just the surface of the problem. The real squatting is the realm of the ideas and imagination. The milking of the proximity to the messianic bimah and the derivate mashups spun as a contemporary thinking, feeling and even “meaning”. No wonder I actually saw Simon’s book in a store advertised as a book by the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Fortunately for Simon the common ignorance about the Jewish ethos is so profound that he can pretty much get away with anything, He, like any shliach, just needs to be a “nice guy”.
Somewhere the brothers Jacobson made an unwritten pact. YY Jacobson supplies the bullshit for the internal consumption and Simon takes care of the outhouse, provided he can own the place. But considering that Simon Jacobson was actually born on Hey Teves, you might say that he was born under the litigious lucky star of the ownership of the buildings, books and ideas that never belonged to him by right.
Housing is the eternal challenge. It can make or break the entire economy. A home is always on our minds. Yet I don’t think you will find a place anywhere in the world where people talk so much about real estate. You can hardly have a conversation in New York without someone getting emotional about their homes or the homes they are in the middle of moving to. New York is a city where just few blocks separate persistent danger from the most expensive and sought after dwellings. But it seems also that people are moving around New York more that in any other city, even in America. In New York you are more than likely to engage in a high energy conversation about the search for the next home. And this anxiety cuts across all social classes. On Thursday I personally heard the agony of someone trying to unload at $20 mil apartment and the agony of semi homeless person wondering where is the next hospitable door. The struggle for food and dwelling is the theme of our lives, yet looks that the mind share it claims in New York is abnormally high. It takes more out of you.
The over the top experiment of the man made islands in the shape of the world is going under in Dubai. Times – Credit crunch signals end of The World for Dubai’s multi-billion dollar property deal:
“England is deserted, Australia and New Zealand have merged, and the man who bought Ireland has killed himself.” ►►►read more
Globes quotes Leviev:
“I like to concentrate on the future. What has happened has happened. But our main mistake was the investments in the US.”
My take on Leviev’s American mistake:
First there was a dramatic but not unexpected announcement by Africa-Israel this morning that they lost NIS 1.52 billion in just the second quarter. More importantly Africa-Israel’s financial release is bracing the creditors for possible eventuality when Africa-Israel will not be able to meet its debt obligation. Globes – Asset sales may not be enough to pay debts. Africa-Israel points to five problems:
What is the remarkable is the fear in the Israeli banking system is the insolvency of the individual oligarchs not the corporate bankruptcies. Globes reports:
“The main fear in Israel since the start of the crisis has been the collapse of one of the country’s biggest tycoons such as Africa-Israel controlling shareholder Lev Leviev. Israel’s two largest banks Bank Hapoalim and Bank Leumi are expected to be the worst hurt by Leviev’s woes. The estimate is that Leviev owes Hapoalim more than NIS 1.5 billion through his privately held Memorand Ltd. and an additional NIS 500 million to Leumi through companies he controls.”
Much has been written about the unholy symbiosis between the Israeli oligarchy and the financial and political systems. But what emerges is that the banks financed the oligarchs at an astonishing rate, this in turn fueled oligarchic expansion into the Russia, Europe and USA and now the chickens are coming home to roost. Let me just paraphrase this, at the time when Israeli banks had an opportunity for extending capital to local innovation, they extended billions in concentrated and centralized capital to the oligarchs to finance the international speculations.
WOW! Plaza Penthouse LLLP v CPS 1 Realty LP: “Plaintiff Plaza Penthouse LLLP signed a purchase agreement for $5.25 million, for what it thought was a two bedroom, park view apartment at the legendary restored Plaza Hotel, without ever laying eyes on the intended penthouse apartment. Upon finding out the apartment had only one bedroom and no park view, plaintiff commenced this action seeking, among other things, the return of its $1.05 million down payment.”
This is Yitzhak Tshuva’s building. There is no name of the actual depositor who plunked $1.05 mil deposit without ever seeing the property, just the front. I couldn’t find there the size of the property but it lists two bathrooms and one 1,393sf bedroom. The entire apartment must be just around 2,000 sf. That’s $2,626 per sf, holy cow! (via city life)
