Another Insert into the Music- Hands Joining Across Eras: Brooklyn Heights Unitarians and How a Historical Landmark Saved the Past For the Future

(Unitarian Universalist Congregation Church built 1838- Now the location of First Acoustics)

This post provides, in full, another insert we have written for a Noticing New York piece which is something of an extended idiosyncratic opus.

A recent Noticing New York post previewed a portion of another pending insert: See: Wednesday, March 9, 2011, An Insert Preview - Music Superstar Ethics: How Completely You Can Sell "You can say what you say, but you are what you are." Jay-Zzzzus! (Also, if you are keeping track you’ll be aware of some upcoming live performance’s that come with a Noticing New York recommendation:

Shepley Metcalf’s Fran Landesman show at the Metropolitan Room (two more performances this March):

Something Irresistible: New Songs by Fran Landesman
Music Director Ron Roy on piano
Chris Rathbun on bass, Gene Roma on drums
Sat March 19 at 7:00 pm
Sun March 20 at 4 pm

And Red Molly (with Pat Wictor) at the next First Acoustics event:

Red Molly
with Pat Wictor
March 19, 2011
All seats $30.00)

Where in the longer piece (Adding A few More Off Topic Notes (Or Are They Really?) does this insert come? It will be inserted after what is written about Jean-Paul Vignon and before the heading “Pasticheing With the Pizzarellis” under which heading there is Noticing New York coverage of two kings of England, one Roman emperor, the Academy Awards, and famous songwriters going to camp in the Adirondacks, not to mention Tony Bennet (except we just did).

Here we go. . . .

Unitarian Incubation of the City’s Historic Preservation

In hosting the First Acoustics concerts in its space at low cost, the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation is performing what urbanist Jane Jacobs identified as an incubator function, that is to provide assistance to the gestation of fledgling new enterprises. Decades ago the First Unitarian congregation (its minister who was involved at the time being Donald W. McKinney) provided the same space to incubate the launch of a local movement that became pivotal for New York City’s urban planning, a movement which, by its example, has also had significant import far beyond the city borders. The undercroft of the Unitarian Church is where Otis Pratt Pearsall, then a young lawyer living in Brooklyn Heights, met and organized with others in the late 1950s to fight for a law or form of zoning that would protect Brooklyn Heights as a historic district. (See: Old Brooklyn Heights: New York's First Suburb By Clay Lancaster, Edmund V. Gillon, Jr., Heights History: Brooklyn Heights Historic District, by Homer Fink on 13. Sep, 2006 in History, Landmark Preservation, New York Preservation Archive Project, Sages and Stages: Historic Districts, October 20, 2004 How Brooklyn Heights Became Our City’s First Historic District by Christopher Anderson (edit@brooklyneagle.net), published online 12-03-2005 and Battling for Brooklyn Heights, by Martin L. Schneider, Introduction by Anthony C. Wood.)

Crucial crew of 1950s Activists

The activists spearheaded by Pearsall included Martin Schneider (a producer for CBS News), William R. Fischer, Malcolm Chesney (an economist), Arthur Steinberg and Richard J. Margolis. Margolis, as publisher and editor of the Brooklyn Heights Press, provided a very essential form of support. In the 50s there were mimeograph machines but no blogs. (These days we do have blogs but the local papers have been bought up by developer (and Bloomberg) proponent Rupert Murdock and developer Forest City Ratner provides them with their office space. . . .apparently more cheaply than developer David Walentas did.)

Moses Supposes Erroneously

In the late 50s Robert Moses was breathing down the necks of these young activists and the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood with projects some then pending, some already underway, to tear down substantial portions of the Heights. Although there was enabling legislation for historic preservation already in place on the state level (the Bard Law enacted in 1956), New York City had not yet availed itself of this law to enact any actual legal protections. The group’s activism contributed significantly to the city’s finally adopting such historic preservation legislation. When it did so, Brooklyn Heights became the city’s first designated historic district in November of 1965.

Success went beyond that. Looking back, Pearsall wrote that one town meeting the group organized “was a major step in the downfall of Moses’s Slum Clearance Committee.” Let us go further and read into this that it was a major step in the downfall of Moses himself. It was an important time. The city was on the cusp of significant change in overall societal thinking about urban development. Moses had been in power implementing his mega-projects for multiple decades during which the city had suffered a sustained multi-decade downward slide in its population. The half-life of the negative effects from those projects persisted for years after their completion. This moment in history was the beginning of the end of an era when Moses in an accelerating decline would finally start losing most and then all of his power.

Cutting Edge Activism and the BHA as the Established Organ of Activism

Most of the crew of activists from the Unitarian undercroft were ultimately absorbed into the Brooklyn Heights Association, elected to its board as members. The activists had organized themselves as the “Community Conservation and Improvement Council” and the BHA very quickly initially constituted the “CCIC” in its entirety, a "special committee" of the BHA. Thereby the activists became the newest committee of the “oldest neighborhood association in the City.” Anthony C. Woods in his Preserving New York suggests that the activists formation of the CCIC was, however, important because the newcomers “were freed of institutional history” while the slow-to-react BHA “was fixed in its ways” and was slow to perceive the urgency of the unfolding threats.

What a difference a decade can make: The Brooklyn Heights Association is credited with taking an activist lead only a decade earlier. It was the BHA that in the early 1940s prevented Moses from running the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway straight through the middle of the Heights on Hicks Street. According to Woods, as that fight was fought it was even worried that the route Moses proposed for the BQE would result in demolition of- back to our starting subject- the First Unitarian Church. Maybe, in retrospect seeing what the church subsequently incubated, Moses may have wished he had succeeded in doing precisely that.* It was the compromise rerouting the BQE forced by the BHA that created the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.

(* In a similar twist, New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan on November 13, 2008 unveiled the details of her plan to retake for pedestrians much of the city street space Moses had turned over to cars with her Great Streets Plan at the AIA Center for Architecture on Greenwich Village's La Guardia Place where, as she talked, architect and urban design consultant Jan Gehl sat wondering at how the beautiful building in which they sat would not even have been there if the Greenwich Village community had not defeated Moses's plans for a ten-lane Lower Manhattan Expressway destroying Greenwich Village, SoHo, Little Italy and Chinatown. - That plan would have involved ramped clover-leafing midtown access from Fifth Avenue via Washington Square Park. See Gehl's essay "For You Jane" in "What We See: Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs.")

Beyond the Belief of Seeing?

There is a is a video about the history of designating the Heights as historic: “Brooklyn Is My Neighborhood/ The Story of New York’s First Historic District” produced by Martin L Schneider and Karl Junkersfeld and narrated by Mr. Schneider. (See: New Video: The Story of New York’s First Historic District, by brooklynheightsblog on 05. Apr, 2010.) You will note that Mr. Schneider is one of the original CCIC activists named in the list above.

Brooklyn Is My Neighborhood
- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

The video has some fascinating images, including this rendering of a never-built multi-block “luxury” housing extravaganza Moses had planned to have replace a portion of Brooklyn Heights (see below). No wonder Moses’ policies were chasing people out of the city in droves!

Ready For De Mille’s Close-Up?

Can absorption into art and culture be a measure of the public’s overall appreciation of those urban environments which we succeed in growing or preserving? A very recent Brooklyn Paper article reporting about filming of a new film in the Heights, “I Don’t Know How She Does It,” has this to say:

Brooklyn Heights has long been Hollywood’s leading lady. Fabled for its gorgeous apartments, scenic streets and killer views of Manhattan, America’s first suburb has been a backlot for Hollywood’s great moments.

It then goes on to list a few, including “Moonstruck,” and “The Age of Innocence.” It leaves out “Scent of a Woman”(OK that was really neighboring DUMBO) or many others like the B-Horror film “The Sentinel” (and didn’t at least one Woody Allen film use the Heights?). Though it mentions Jack Nicholson entering 57 Montague St. in “Prizzi’s Honor” (to go up to his apartment) if fails to disclose the cinematic legerdemain that when Nicholson walked out on the terrace of his apartment he was actually on the roof of 80 Cranberry Street five blocks to the north. (See also: January 12, 2010, Meet a true film celebrity — Brooklyn Heights, By Gersh, Kuntzman, The Brooklyn Paper- some of the BP’s recent article was a retread.)

To the best of our knowledge, Brooklyn Heights earns all its adulatory screen time without paying product placement fees like some corporately created “places” do. (See: Friday, May 21, 2010, Not So “Just Wright” (Because It Is after All “Not So Just”.))

Not Only Contribution of Historic Preservation, but Historic Unitarian Contributions As Well

The Unitarian congregation has an even longer history of contributing significantly to the city and surrounding neighborhoods. In the 1880s the congregation gave a home to wealthy businessman and perspicacious philanthropist Augustus Graham although Mr. Graham never formally became a member of the congregation (in those days a “communicant”). It appears too that Mr. Graham, or Mr. Graham in conjunction with his ostensible “brother” John Bell Graham (together with John’s wife, Maria Louisa Graham) provided the church with a home as well.

Cover for a Sale

Augustus Graham was a benefactor to the church in various ways but it was John Graham Bell, his Presbyterian brother, together with Maria Louisa Graham, who bought the site for the church from Hezekiah Pierpont (that family later changed their name to Pierrepont as in the street named after them on which you can now find the church) and then the Grahams sold the land to a family that represented the church more openly. This interceding purchase by the Grahams is considered to have been a cover because it was feared that community hostility to the Unitarian religion (considered far too unconventional at the time) would otherwise have impeded a sale.

Covering a “Dark Secret”?

Augustus Graham’s not becoming a member of the congregation likely had to do with mysteries about his life that extended to his sexuality: Graham was probably gay or maybe even polyamorous. A deathbed confession to his banker about a “dark secret” revealed that he and his “brother” were not using their original given names and that they were not brothers at all, neither having the last name Graham at birth. In this regard, rumors had cropped up earlier that the two men and their handsome “widowed sister” Maria Graham Taylor, all living together in their Brooklyn home until 1829, were not related.

Tackling the History of Tangled Family Relationships

Augustus Graham it appears had begun life anew more than once. In England he was born in 1776 as Richard King. In America he married under the name of Augustus Graham in Maryland and had two children with Martha Cock. Augustus moved to New York when he met John Bell, who then adopted the last name of Graham, although Augustus continued to support the family he left behind. Eventually he did leave his surviving daughter, Elizabeth Rebecca Graham and her family a sum that made her wealthy after his death. (Elizabeth married a Mr. Chester Coleman.)

It is possible that Maria Graham Taylor, who lived with the “brothers,” was actually related to John Bell. She joined the two men in Brooklyn after they had already been living together for a while. Augustus and John ceased living together after Maria Graham Taylor died. John thereupon married his housekeeper Maria Louisa Thompson, and she is the woman who was on the deed with him when they acquires the land for the church. It is interesting to think that Unitarians felt they needed that cover to build in the community but that Augustus Graham’s reasons for refraining from formally joining the congregation were likely out of concern that it would be a taint to the religious community.

Seminal Benefactor of Burgeoning Brooklyn

Notwithstanding, Augustus Graham was well known as a seminal benefactor of the burgeoning Brooklyn of the time. Uniting their capital, Augustus and John first made money in businesses that included brewery and distillery operations. They may also have made money selling supplies for the troops during the War of 1812. Retiring from the brewery business 1822 and dividing their fortunes. Augustus then made much more money establishing an important factory in the white lead industry. Viewed now a pollutant, white lead was then a state-of-the-art coloring for paint. Augustus is said to have created the factory because he was “determined to use his money to create jobs for the unemployed.”

Also about this time Augustus, joined the radical temperance movement and took steps to found what would ultimately become the Brooklyn Museum: He started the Apprentices' Library to lure young workingmen away from gambling and grogshops with books, lectures and entertainment. The Apprentices' Library became the Brooklyn Institute and later the Brooklyn Museum. (With generational drift, the Brooklyn Museum now hosts a monthly singles-oriented “First Saturdays” evening event that, with wine and beer available for purchase, has a intemperate cocktail party aspect to it.)

A Naughty Brooklyn Museum Apologizing Naught (Bruce Ratner)

At this point we must fulfill our Noticing New York duty to point out how in 2008 the Brooklyn Museum besmirched the memory of Augustus Graham by awarding the Augustus Graham award to real estate developer/subsidy collector and eminent domain abuser Bruce Ratner.

Henry Stiles who, according to historian Olive Hoogenboom, wrote the standard book on Brooklyn history says that Graham was deeply motivated by a concern "for the poor, the suffering, the young, and those" neglected "portions of the community" and his determination to secure for them a larger “share of the great moral and intellectual privileges.” The Unitarian congregation’s website (in an article by Ms. Hoogenboom) points out how this “made him a role model for that church's great settlement work, out of which grew the housing reforms of Alfred T. White.” All of this is quite incongruous with the likes of Bruce Ratner. The Brooklyn Museum has yet to apologize to the community for its errant and profoundly community-damaging award “honoring” Mr. Ratner, whose firm is now implicated in the illegal bribing of public officials for favoritism in two recent instances: with respect to his Atlantic Yards mega-monoply here in Brooklyn and buying approval for the $630 million, 1000-apartment, 81-acre Ridge Hill Forest City Ratner Project in Yonkers.

In addition to bequeathing a substantial amount of his fortune to support Unitarianism and being regarded as the founder of the Brooklyn Museum, Augustus Graham founded the Brooklyn Hospital and, traveling back to England at one point, he founded the Modbury Library and Scientific Institution in Devonshire, using his birth name.

Most of what I have reported here about Augustus Graham is from Olive Hoogenboom’s "The First Unitarian Church of Brooklyn: One Hundred Fifty Years" or other sources of her work I’ve linked to above.

Unitarian Seth Low, Another UU Link to the Historic Preservation Laws

However spurned in their arrival, the Unitarians went on to make more great contributions to the community. Congregation members Seth Low (born 1850) and Alfred Tredway White (born 1846) were friends, neighbors and members of two intermarrying families and two of the better known congregation members. Seth Low (actually Seth Low III in the congregation) was mayor of Brooklyn for two terms, president of Columbia University and was then the first reform mayor of the entire city upon the ouster of Tammany Hall following the power shifts resulting from the 1897 consolidation of Brooklyn with the rest of New York. His reforms in city administration are credited with making possible the wondrous original Pennsylvania Station (completed in 1910). Without his reforms that project would probably have been bled by graft and corruption down to something mundane. Donald Trump, who has expressed strong antipathy to New York’s historic preservation laws, has asserted that the creation of those laws was due to an indefensible overreaching of the real estate industry when it tore down Penn Station. (Demolition commenced in 1963.) So you might view this as another link between the Unitarians and the establishment of those laws, as if Seth Low had reached out over multiple decades to join hands with preservation activist Pearsall.

Unitarian Alfred Tredway White’s Multiple Contributions

Alfred Tredway White, Seth Lows’s co-congregationlist (no relation to me despite the fact that we have both worked to create many units of affordable housing), is famous for his housing reform movement work. He built affordable, innovatively designed housing for over a thousand working class families. Much of what he built is still coveted today for its beautiful (albeit low-cost) design. Some of what he built was destroyed when Moses put in the BQE. More of it might have been destroyed had that expressway not been rerouted. White also founded and supported the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The BBG has an Alfred T. White Amphitheater “that honors BBG’s first benefactor, Alfred T. White,” but its website has no other mention of White. It does, however, show him, (photo also below) unidentified, mustache and beard, in this picture of the laying of the cornerstone of the Laboratory Building in1916.

Here is more about White from Olive Hoogenboom:

Credited with cutting Brooklyn's infant mortality rate by half, White was also a founder of the Brooklyn Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. In 1878 he became the co-founder of the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities and was either its president or secretary for thirty years. . . . In 1893, while commissioner of public works in Brooklyn, White built the Wallabout Market which lasted until the nearby Navy Yard expanded during World War II.

It was also under White that the Unitarians expanded to build their Willow Place Chapel in 1875/1876. The Unitarians had a second offshoot congregation in Willow Town (in a downhill corner of southern Brooklyn Heights) which was established for the purpose of doing settlement-style social work for immigrants who lived near the docks. (Many low income people once lived in what is now considered Brooklyn Heights.) The Unitarian settlement school was moved into the new building. The Willow Place Chapel is no longer owned by the Unitarians but it too still exists and it also provides community art-incubating functions. Since 1962 it has been the home of the Heights Players a local theater group that often does musicals (playing Frost/Nixon February 4-20, 2011). That group’s website informs us that after White died the chapel passed through city hands and was for a time a brothel during World War II.

Here is an interesting tidbit with an echo of “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” mentioned here elsewhere: In her history of the church Olive Hoogenboom writes that White got along well with the children participating in their theatrical productions and “especially delighted them with his portrayal of Andrew Jackson at the battle of New Orleans.”

Soldiering On

Otis Pratt Pearsall still actively soldiers on to protect the historic assets in and around the Heights. He is supporting a proposed new Brooklyn Skyscraper district, “the obvious extension of Brooklyn Heights historic district, and a bit of unfinished business from the days when he and neighbors waged war against Robert Moses . . ” (See: Brooklyn Sounds Off on Skyscraper District: Neighbors and developers weigh in on potential designation of downtown historic district, by Tom Stoelker, 12.15.2010) And he recently wrote to the Brooklyn Eagle elucidating how “Demolition By Neglect” should not be used as an end run around the Heights’ historic protections (See: Letter to the Editor: Why Was Heights Landmark Allowed to Deteriorate? 05-27-2008.)

In another link back to the Unitarians, Mr. Pearsall is currently a Trustee of the Brooklyn Museum. Mr. Pearsall also serves as a commissioner on the “New York City Arts Commission,” recently rechristened the “Design Commission” which change of name risks making a somewhat obscure agency unfortunately more so. The commission doesn’t deserves to be obscure, see: The Politics of Urban Beauty: New York and Its Art Commission, by Michele H. Bogart. (It seems that they decided to change the name of the commission just as soon as Ms. Bogart wrote the definitive book on it!)

At the commission Mr. Pearsall gets to work with James P. Stuckey, because this somewhat obscure little commission is where Mr. Stuckey somehow managed to wind up as Chairman after working for developer Bruce Ratner. Mr. Stuckey is best known to many as one of the early heavies in the Atlantic Yards mega-theft. Stuckey, was the predecessor to, MaryAnne Gilmartin at Forest City Ratner. Before his abrupt departure from that post he was, once upon a time, president of the city’s own Economic Development Corporation. The information he absorbed while working as a public official with the city should be assumed to have assisted Stuckey in designing the abuses of eminent domain and urban renewal pursued in connection with Atlantic Yards when he took his private sector Ratner job.

BHA Annual Meeting- Ravaged Educational Policies Critiqued by Ravitch
(Above, Diane Ravitch at the BHA annual meeting. BHA President Jane McGroarty is on the right.)

This year the spirit of the activist heritage of the Brooklyn Heights Association was more in evidence at the BHA’s annual meeting (Monday, February 28, 2011) than in recent years prior. The keynote speaker was Diane Ravitch, historian of education, Research Professor of Education at NYU, and author of the best-selling book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education” (New York: Basic Books 2010). Ms. Ravitch was also the once-upon-a-time spouse of our just departed New York Sdtate Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch.

Ms. Ravitch’s book very consciously pays homage to Jane Jacobs' great book (which also helped turn the political tide for Moses): “The Death and Life of Great American Cities.” The Ravitch book, the subtitle of which is “How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education” takes aim at the Bloomberg school policies, including the charter school priviatizations (now figureheaded by Schools Chancellor Cathie Black) and G. W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind that have left Texas behind as now having one of the worst school systems in the nation. Ms. Ravitch attacked the statistics of the numbers-oriented Bloomberg/Black style approach and criticized the advent of a culture of educational blame and penalization in the system while a feel for true educational values are being shown the door.

Ms. Ravitch, a resident of Brooklyn Heights, is now making the talk show rounds so you are likely to catch her on something coming up, or you can see her YouTube style on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

(BTW: Not 100% related to Ms. Ravitch but I think one of the best contemplative hours about American education can be found on a prior-in-time This American Life: Episode 275: Two Steps Back, Originally aired 10.15.2004.)

BHA- Litigating: Brooklyn Bridge Park

Another important part of the evening vis-a-vis the BHA’s actions to protect the community was BHA President Jane McGroarty's report on the BHA's lawsuit (in conjunction with the Fulton Ferry Landing Association and the New York Landmarks Conservancy) against ESDC for its behind-the-scenes maneuvering to remove a portion of the Brooklyn Bridge Park from parkland designation without public knowledge or community input. (See: Groups Sue to Stop Transfer of Tobacco Warehouse to St. Ann's, by John Del Signore, January 18, 2011, St. Ann's Warehouse Gets Green Light on Tobacco Warehouse, By John Del Signore, February 15, 2011 4:24 PM and Review and Comment: Unfortunate Lawsuits, by Henrik Krogius, 01-26-2011.)

As Ms. McGroarty made clear, the lawsuit is not about opposing the immediate possible result that might be facilitated by such a demapping which, for the time being, involves a transfer of the St. Ann's Warehouse theater across the street into the now unroofed and open air Civil War-era Brooklyn Tobacco Warehouse. Instead, it is a matter of process. The first Gothamist article linked to above quotes a lawyer for the plaintiff’s putting it this way: “city and state officials ‘launched a secret plan to remove the Tobacco Warehouse from the park’s map so that it could be given to a private organization for free and for its sole and permanent use.’” After extensive public hearings on a park that was defined as including these acres those officials wrote to the Federal Government’s department of the interior without public notice or disclosure to request a demapping of the acreage. The plaintiffs have the support of a number of elected officials including State Senator Daniel Squadron whom the Gothamist quotes commenting on the lack of transparency and community input as saying, “If true, the issues being raised today are disturbing and call the process into further question; they must be dealt with swiftly.”

The BHA is walking something of a fine line with the park and park officials: A year ago the Brooklyn Heights Association was essentially promoting the officially touted version of the park at its annual meeting when it invited park designer Michael Van Valkenburgh to be its keynote speaker.

I’ve been informed that not all of the (some of them very powerful) board members of the BHA are pleased with the lawsuit and consider it, for instance, an attack on the integrity of ESDC-employed Brooklyn Bridge Park president Regina Myer. The Henrik Krogius “Review and Comment” article from the Brooklyn Eagle linked to above is essentially a promotion of those critiques of the lawsuit, calling the lawsuit “much ado about very little” that “impugns well-intentioned officials.” Krogius speaks up for Ms. Myers, saying, the park’s realization is "finally began progressing impressively two years ago under Regina Myer’s dedicated leadership.”

Noticing New York has another viewpoint: See: Monday, May 24, 2010, Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth? An Examination of Brooklyn Bridge Park in Terms of the Politics of Development, Part I . Ms. Myers has a history of being on the side of development and developers. It was she who made the city’s presentation of Atlantic Yards to the City Planning Commission and she was also central in the effort to substantially upzone Brooklyn’s downtown.

BHA- Atlantic Yards

And, of course, the BHA, as a member of the Brooklyn Speaks coalition of community groups, is now finally also involved in litigating against ESDC’s nefariously orchestrated approvals of Ratner's Atlantic Yards mega-monopoly before Judge Marcy Friedman. (More from those "well-intentioned officials" Mr. Krogius spoke up for above?)

BHA Community Service Awards- History to Blog About

With Tom Stewart (from Channel 13) as master of ceremonies the BHA also presented community service awards for to the Brooklyn Heights Blog and Riverside Tenants Association. (Tom Stewart's wife is the wonderful cabaret singer Maureen Kelly Stewart who will be performing as part of the First Acoustics 2011/12 season.)

The award to Riverside Tenants Association is for their fight in the courts to block the destruction and removal of a garden courtyard that is part of one of the masterpiece buildings for which we have Alfred Tredway White to thank. (The developer/owner want to put in a parking lot.) As the Brooklyn Heights Blog puts it:

. . . to preserve the Riverside Apartments, on Columbia Place between Joralemon and State streets, and, in particular, for the ongoing struggle to save the courtyard between the building and the BQE, and its grove of mature trees.

And the BHB recorded the award on video- If you are enamored of governmental acronyms you will have fun:

BHA Award To Riverside Tenants Association from Karl Junkersfeld on Vimeo.

And who is assisting the Riverside Tenants Association to defend the treasured Alfred Tredway White building in which they live?- - Historian and Unitarian Universalist Congregation member Olive Hoogenboom.

Steal This Blog Post: Ethics of Pop Star Moguls Seen Through the Lens of Atlantic Yards, Jay-Z and Beyoncé

The offer I am making in this blog post, echoing, the title of Abbie Hoffman’s 1970s book, may be particularly appropriate since I am working on a piece that, in one respect, examines the relationship of copyright and aspirations for publicity (i.e. that often one simply doesn’t care if people infringe your copyright without compensation so long as one gets sufficient publicity as a result).

I wrote a Noticing New York post (linked to below) that, in my opinion, has so far gotten far too little attention. To remedy that situation I offer my own coverage of that post which anyone is free to lift and print, in toto, without complaint by me about any copyright infringement.

Please feel free to print everything appearing below in your own blog/publication, whatever.

Noticing New York Looks at the Ethics of Pop Star Moguls Through the Lens of Atlantic Yards, Jay-Z and Beyoncé

Atlantic Yards takes its place front and center together with Jay-Z and his wife, Beyoncé as blogger Michael D. D. White examines the ethics of the music pop star business in this Noticing New York post from last week deserving of some extra attention.

It may get off to a slow start with cautions concerning the pitfalls of Jay-Z’s music industry-style “360 degree contract”. That’s probably because, as White confesses, this is actually part of a longer work White has in progress, but there is some dandy stuff here.

Atlantic Yards investor and pop-supporter figurehead Jay-Z is ripe for the comeuppance of this critical review given that his enigmatic "You can say what you say, but you are what you are" (whence comes the title to White’s post) whereby Jay-Z apparently is holding himself up to the rest of us as a moral philosopher.

Moral exemplar or simple sell-out? White comes up with some answers via some lamentable Libyan dictator related exploits on the part of Jay-Z’s wife, Beyoncé (and a choice Soundcheck episode that deserves coverage):

When it comes to living up to the standards of “You can say what you say, but you are what you are,” does it matter for whom you perform and who pays the piper?

Well, if you go by what (former) New York Times ethicist Randy Cohen says, it looks like we have an answer, and Mr. Cohen was willing to provide it for Jay-Z’s super-celebrity wife, Beyoncé Knowles on a recent broadcast of WNYC’s “Soundcheck.” (See: Soundcheck, Qaddafi's Entertainers, Thursday, March 03, 2011 and Qaddafi and Pop, Thursday, March 03, 2011.)

* * * *

Beyoncé performed for, and was paid by, members of the Gaddafi clan New Year’s Eve 2009 in St. Barts in the Caribbean. The exact amount Beyoncé received hasn’t been confirmed but, by extrapolation from what other performers received, it is believed that Beyoncé received an amount equal to, or exceeding, the $1 million that Mariah Carey received for similar services.

White enumerates 8 principles supplied by ethicist Cohen that apply similarly to Beyoncé performing for the Libyan dictator's clan or Jay-Z (assisted by Beyoncé) shilling for Bruce Rartner, among them:

1. The imprimatur given by our own governments' dealing with objectionable individuals does not cleanse the unethical act because governments, especially when you look, cannot be assumed to be behaving ethnically. “You have to make these decisions for yourself.”

2. “You as a million-dollar-commanding pop star have a great deal to say about who you give your services to. You have the luxury. You have the option. . . . not to give aid and comfort to a man who has done terrible things. . . You had every reason to know that this was a horrible, horrible regime. Is that what you want to use your talent for?”

* * * *

5. “There are two misdeeds here. One is being a court jester for Nero. The other thing is profiting from it. . . . .

6. . . . . . “There are certain people you just do not offer your talents to.”

7. “This ignorance defense is insulting to pop stars: `You are not evil; You’re stupid’ Some defense!”. . . “When someone is writing you a check for $1 million for one performance: Ask! That’s not demanding too much from any pop star. It’s not like Gaddafi [or Ratner] is obscure. He’s as big in the ruthless tyrant game as Mariah Carey is in the bland pop music game.” “It is possible to be fooled and there are certainly grey areas” but naiveté can just be a convenient and self-serving excuse to take the money and often things are pretty clear-cut evils. You might not have known but you realize when you get to the party.

As for that `realizing when you get to the party' admonition, White zeroes in:

. . . . Jay-Z and Beyoncé were both doing pop star duty by being on display at Forest City Ratner’s March 9, 2010 ground breaking for the Atlantic Yards basketball arena. I think, that’s the party at which they should have realized (if not before). The groundbreaking ceremonies were partially drowned out by the neighborhood demonstrators (I was among them) although the police were doing everything they could to keep those demonstrators back and to keep them as quiet as they legally could.

Jay-Z and Beyoncé can hardly still claim ignorance of the issues. They went to the party. They must have realized what was going on.

But White has also prepped us for these insights via another NPR report on Beyoncé’s Libyan performance that asserts how off-kilter the ethical structure of the music industry is:

Moral qualms and “pangs of conscience” are assertedly factored into the equation. The stars’ scruples are bought and paid for, signed, sealed and delivered as part of the deal and part of its price:

. . . "It's inherent in these situations that the act doesn't want to do it," industry analyst Bob Lefsetz says. "So the person who has the gig always overpays. The question is, how much do I have to pay you so you will overlook your inhibitions and say yes."

* * * *

According to the NPR story, a crucial 10 to 20% of stars’ revenue comes from gigs like these and that the agencies representing the stars usually have entire departments set up to handle them. To wit:

3) It's a storied part of the business.

The agencies who represent these stars usually have an entire department devoted to booking gigs like these. It's part of the business model. You don't do that business, your agency won't make money. This is the commodity that department is selling: access. They provide access to the stars that only the ridiculously wealthy can afford.

There’s more . . . To read click here: Wednesday, March 9, 2011, An Insert Preview - Music Superstar Ethics: How Completely You Can Sell “You can say what you say, but you are what you are.” Jay-Zzzzus!

More recent related coverage:

Friday, March 11, 2011, Lightning Keeps Striking: It Couldn’t Happen To Some More Deserving People . . Over and Over, Again- Ratner, Illegal Bribes and Jay-Z and Beyoncé

Lightning Keeps Striking: It Couldn’t Happen To Some More Deserving People . . Over and Over, Again- Ratner, Illegal Bribes and Jay-Z and Beyoncé

We wouldn’t want to indulge in speculation because sometimes you just don’t know . . . or do you?

Sometimes stories just have a way of coming together. . . and then you think about them. And when you think about them they come together even more.

Right now Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Reports is pulling together two parallel stories where the (speculative?) non-coincidence of repeated patterns is so clear that even the New York Times has begun to cover the community complaints that (Times real estate business partner) Forest City Ratner may have a pattern of getting a repeated pass in more than one scenario for making (and benefitting from) illegal bribes to government officials.

Attracting Lightning

It’s that OMG-lightning keeps striking in the same place phenomenon. It may startle you, but if you know your science then you know that not only can lightning keep striking the same place, if the conditions are there it is quite likely to.

Suspense and . .

It may also be described as the couldn’t happen to a better person phenomenon. That is to say that sometimes when you have watched the operations of a firm like Forest City Ratner closely for a long time you have found yourself wondering for just how long they are going to escape the consequence of a certain style of heinously cynical conduct. Looks like the answer may be not much longer. . . or, at least, not forever.

Background and Links to Research the Details

Here, quickly, are pertinent links to the two stories respecting Forest City payments going to bribe government officials for development benefits:

• Ridge Hill In Yonkers (involves buying approval for the $630 million,1000-apartment, 81-acre Ridge Hill Forest City Ratner Project in Yonkers). Thursday, January 7, 2010, Got “Bilked?” The New York Times Biased Report on Federal Investigation Involving Forest City Ratner, Thursday, March 11, 2010, The mystery of Ridge Hill: however FCR avoided indictment, does the developer remain (as per ESDC) "a good corporate citizen"?, Wednesday, January 06, 2010, Forest City Ratner, unnamed/unindicted, cited as giving indicted man consulting job after he got Yonkers Council Member to change vote on Ridge Hill, Saturday, April 10, 2010, Overstated allegation that Yonkers pol was indicted for "accepting a bribe from Ratner" subject of heated exchange among lawyers in remaining AY case, Friday, March 19, 2010, Legal payoffs, dubious payments, FCR's corporate ethics, and the continuing mystery of Ridge Hill

• Senator Carl Kruger Indictments (involves an effort to get Forest City Ratner excused from a $9 million obligation to fund its building of the Carlton Avenue Bridge for its Atlantic Yards mega-development.) Friday, March 11, 2011, Two unanswered questions in the Kruger case: Does the ESDC still trust FCR? Why did FCR try to get the state to pay for its bridge obligation?, Thursday, March 10, 2011, Yes, Kruger corruption charges involve Atlantic Yards; unnamed "Developer #1" is FCR; Bender: "I don't mind fucking the Carlton Avenue Bridge" March 10, 2011, Yes, Kruger corruption charges involve Atlantic Yards; unnamed "Developer #1" is FCR; Bender: "I don't mind fucking the Carlton Avenue Bridge" March 10, 2011, $leaze rap for top pol, March 10, 2011 Krugerpalooza!

As some of the links above will allow you to find out, Forest City Ratner has not yet been indicted with respect to the illegal bribes to government officials from which it benefitted substantially. We await the day. In that regard Mr. Oder observes about the Kruger indictments:

If Forest City Ratner, which is not named, is not a target, this might be a repeat of Ridge Hill, in which the developer benefits from apparent corruption but is not penalized.

Lightning Attracted Here- Lightning Attracted There- Let’s Link It Up

In terms of pulling things together on the lightning-keeps-striking front we’d like to do our Noticing New York bit to link the two now conjoining scenarios of Forest City Ratner bribing government officials with another set of lightning-keeps-striking scenarios that were the subject of our last Noticing New York post: An Insert Preview - Music Superstar Ethics: How Completely You Can Sell “You can say what you say, but you are what you are.” Jay-Zzzzus! (Wednesday, March 9, 2011).

In that last post we linked:

• the is-this-really-a-coincidence involvement of Jay-Z with both the Atlantic Yards and Aqueduct Race political scandals (and you might also throw in his problematic Yankee fandom represented by his signature Yankee hat), with

• the appearance that Jay-Z’s wife, Beyoncé, made performing for the delectation of Libyan Dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s family, for which she was paid an estimated $1 million or more.

With the help of ethicist Randy Cohen and a handy supplemental NPR report we went into an appreciable amount detail evaluating the ethics of these situations and describing why there is a lightning-strikes-here effect for this kind of conduct in the pop superstar music business together with what Jay-Z and Beyoncé really ought to be doing with respect to Muammar Gaddafi, and, more important for Brooklyn, what this husband and wife team should be doing with respect to Mr. Ratner, a man both of them have made pop-star appearances to support.

Our Noticing New York question for these superstars continues to be: When, for ethical reasons, are they going to stop supporting Mr. Ratner . . . and perhaps pay reparations to the community by donating moneys involved to an organization like Develop Don’t Destroy.

Come on, guys- - Come on, Jay-Z. How many incidents like these indictments involving Forest City bribes to government officials have to mount up before your ethics kick in and you and Beyoncé walk away from Mr. Ratner? As Norman Oder points out, these wiretapped “f**k the bridge” bribe conversations are evidence that Forest City Ratner is really “scrounging.” Small picture, they are scrounging in ways that show a lack of commitment to the bridge but that is just filling in the details because, big picture, Forest City Ratner, with all its shenanigans has always shown a lack of commitment for the community.

An Insert Preview - Music Superstar Ethics: How Completely You Can Sell “You can say what you say, but you are what you are.” Jay-Zzzzus!

This post provides a partial preview of a much longer piece that is in the works, but I think you will find that the preview stands well on its own. And it’s topical.

As I indicated in my last post (See: Monday, February 28, 2011, Private Sector Croynism Seeks to Replace Government in Wisconsin: Might New York Be Leading the Way?) I am involved in writing something time-consuming right now. What I am working on involves the admittedly idiosyncratic and ongoing augmentations I am making to an earlier post: Adding A few More Off Topic Notes (Or Are They Really?).

Those of you who are following the ongoing additions to A few More Off Topic Notes have doubtless figured out that the post meditates about the performance of music and how it interrelates the shape of the city. (Also, if you are keeping track you’ll be aware of some upcoming live performance’s that come with a Noticing New York recommendation:

Shepley Metcalf’s Fran Landesman show at the Metropolitan Room (two more performances this March):

Something Irresistible: New Songs by Fran Landesman
Music Director Ron Roy on piano
Chris Rathbun on bass, Gene Roma on drums
Sat March 19 at 7:00 pm
Sun March 20 at 4 pm

And Red Molly (with Pat Wictor) at the next First Acoustics event:

Red Molly
with Pat Wictor
March 19, 2011
All seats $30.00)

The preview that follows is only part of a much longer insert (I do mean much longer) I am working on. The insert will be placed just after the discussion of the Christina Milian copyright infringement lawsuit. That will lead into a discussion about copyright, music licensing rights, performer relationships with the community and then readers will find themselves reading this section about Jay-Z and the ethics of music superstar megadeals. . . .

Happy reading. . . .

* * * *

360 Degree Contracts

These days methods of making money in the music industry are in a state of flux and there are more ways to make money from music and its performance than from just the sale of the music alone. For instance, touring, appearance and merchandising fees are becoming much more important sources of income for artists. That’s probably a good jumping off place to start talking about what in the industry are known as “360 Deals.”

What are 360 Deals? Here’s an article to refer to: You Ask, We Answer: What Exactly Is A 360 Deal? November 24, 2010, by Tom Cole.

Also the image below makes things pretty clear:


(From: Tuesday, July 27, 2010, Music Publishers And The 360 Deal, Posted by Bobby Owsinski.)

Ergo, writes Mr. Cole, a 360 degree deal is:

. . . usually a deal with a record company in which the record company also participates in the income of all of the other aspects of the artist's work, such as songwriting and merchandise, in addition to making money off the records."

But Cole points out that deals are often individually tailored to include most rights while excluding some others so that, according to Glenn Peoples, Senior Editorial Analyst for Billboard magazine, “most deals are about 270, maximum.”

Corporations Picking Up on Shifting Revenues in the Industry

360 degree deals are picking up money from where it is shifting to in the industry. Cole notes that plummeting record sales are “half what they were a decade ago” while a recent earnings statements for Warner Music Group reported that non-traditional income accounted for “13% of revenue in its most recent quarter and 10% for the full year” when a few years ago it was “nothing.”

What Kind Of Grab?

Cole’s article reviews whether the deals are good for artists. With other sources of income becoming more important and “a bigger part of a record label's pie,” Peoples says these deals reapportion things so that the record companies are “taking revenue from artists. So, it's been called a land grab” (this is ironic phrasing considering what we will be discussing in a moment).

Quoting alternative industry experts, Cole’s article informs us of two things that seem almost contradictory: Danny Goldberg of Gold Village Entertainment representing 15 artists tells us that these “multi-rights deals” are rarely to the performer’s advantage (except perhaps in country music and overseas) but Peoples says that “in the U.S., multi-rights deals are standard now.”

Getting to the Grassroots of the Question

Whether these deals are good for artists depends on what kind of artist you are and how you are getting your publicity. Goldberg informs us that “the power of alternative media, touring and the Internet work to a smaller rock band's advantage.” According to Goldberg, such deals don’t make any sense for “most of the people I represent . . . .because they already make enough money live.” (Hmm, we are back to live music again.)

The question essentially comes to whether an artist wants to build a fan base from the top down or from the ground up. In other words, if you have a band that is being built up grassroots style via its relationship with the community it doesn’t make sense. Such a multi-rights deal might make sense, however, if you are what is described as a “baby band” where the hope is to have all the band’s popularity spring full blown by virtue of the record company’s promotion. (Does that sound reminiscent of the earlier discussion concerning the shortcomings of industry-created bands like the Monkees?)

Superstars Like Madonna and Jay-Z

Multi-rights deals are also being entered into- and this is very different- not only by people who want to be transformed overnight into stars by the publicity machines of record companies (or concert promoters) but by those performers who are already superstars, like Madonna and Jay-Z:

The first 360 or multi-rights deals that gained wide attention were not between artists and record labels but between performers and the giant concert promoter Live Nation. Madonna signed a 360 deal with Live Nation in 2007 that landed the performer a reported $120 million over 10 years and gave Live Nation a share of her touring revenue — but no money from recorded music. The following year, Jay-Z signed a deal with the concert promoter worth roughly $150 million over ten years.

(There’s been earlier Noticing New York coverage of Jay-Z, including how his signature Yankee baseball cap associates with a crime wave. In a just a moment we’ll be dealing with Jay-Z again in more detail.)

Trapped By What You Sign

But whether you are a baby band aspirationally seeking shortcuts to the top or already a superstar, you better be careful what you sign. Peoples describes the difference between what he calls “active” and “passive” deals. If you are going to sign away all your rights you want an “active” deal “where the music company owns a promoter or a merchandise company and is actually actively working the rights for those artists and taking a cut.” A passive multi-rights deal is essentially a trap, the “label could just take the money even though they're not providing any value” by providing publicity.

Active deals can still have their own set of traps to avoid, and here we are going beyond what the Cole article had to say. Why do you have to be careful what you sign? All those active obligations can run a lot of ways and cover a lot of things. For instance, when the corporations promote you that means you might have to appear somewhere. Just where that might be we’ll talk about in a minute. When all is said and done, if you sell too much, will you still own your soul?

Superstar in a Constellation of Lies

This Noticing New York discussion of the city-shaping aspects of music and the structure of the music industry could not be complete without discussing the city-shaping-size political scandals in which Jay-Z has been involved, Atlantic Yards and Aqueduct Raceway. Perhaps in these scandals we see the effect that 360 degree multi-rights deals can have in shaping our cities. It is easiest to see what this means in the case of Atlantic Yards. Through his appearances at strategic events Jay-Z has been giving cover to a ruthless developer’s abusive land-grabbing* seizures of private property in brownstone Brooklyn, whereby that developer is seeking to quash competition and alternative community development with 50 acres of high-density mega-monopoly. Thirty of those acres are contiguous acreage found at the Atlantic Yards site, the rest of them closely linked and sitting over the same ganglia of converging key Brooklyn subway lines. With Jay-Z’s help, the developer has been selling this project based on an outrageous constellation of falsehoods.

(* probably not exactly what Peoples meant when he referred to 360 degree contracts `land grabbing’ above.)

What Is Jay-Z?

“You can say what you say, but you are what you are.” This philosophical remark about how you conduct yourself in life is regularly attributed to Jay-Z by Tavis Smiley and a list of others.

OK, if that’s Jay’Z’s own quote then we clearly know what he `can say,’ but what actually IS Jay-Z if he’s involved with such scandals? Well, maybe with a 360 degree multi-rights contract you don’t know until you read all the fine print in the contract. Might we presume Jay-Z didn’t get himself involved in these scandals? What if, instead, it was his promoters that got him involved.? What if Jay-Z’s contract said for him to show up so Jay-Z just did? Who knows whether the particular contracts he signed allow him to still say what he wants to say but the real question is whether he still gets to be who he would otherwise choose to be.

Let’s slow down a minute. It is probably too fanciful to speculate that Jay-Z’s original multi-rights contracts got him into these messes. Nevertheless, Jay-Z, by this point, may, indeed, be constrained on matters like Atlantic Yards by other contracts he has entered. In style, content, even business approach and philosophy, those contracts’ clauses and obligations may actually have a lot in common with the kind of thing he was signing onto with a 360 degree deal. (Some other perspectives are available here.)

If Jay-Z is already under contractual constraint does that mean, game over?; that questions about `doing the right thing’ are now out of bounds? We’ll consider a conclusive answer on this involving Natalie Portman before we leave this subject. First let’s review some of the ethical basics.

Who Cares Who Pays the Piper? Jay-Z’s Wife, Beyoncé?

When it comes to living up to the standards of “You can say what you say, but you are what you are,” does it matter for whom you perform and who pays the piper?

Well, if you go by what (former) New York Times ethicist Randy Cohen says, it looks like we have an answer, and Mr. Cohen was willing to provide it for Jay-Z’s super-celebrity wife, Beyoncé Knowles on a recent broadcast of WNYC’s “Soundcheck.” (See: Soundcheck, Qaddafi's Entertainers, Thursday, March 03, 2011 and Qaddafi and Pop, Thursday, March 03, 2011.)

Beginning with Beyoncé rapping about wanting to be “shown the money,” the Soundcheck episode addresses a recently-in-the-news Wikileaks disclosure that Beyoncé is privileged to be amongst a small elite of top entertainers to be paid large sums of money to perform for the family of Libyan Dictator Muammar Gaddafi (alternate spelling used by the Times: Qaddafi).

The Facts:

Beyoncé performed for, and was paid by, members of the Gaddafi clan New Year’s Eve 2009 in St. Barts in the Caribbean. The exact amount Beyoncé received hasn’t been confirmed but, by extrapolation from what other performers received, it is believed that Beyoncé received an amount equal to, or exceeding, the $1 million that Mariah Carey received for similar services. (See: WikiLeaks Cables Detail Qaddafi Family’s Exploits, by Scott Shane, February 22, 2011, Mariah Carey, Nelly Furtado ‘embarrassed’ over Gaddafi performances, March 3, 2011, and Mariah, Beyoncé, Usher Face Calls to Donate Qaddafi Money to Charity, by Steve Knopper, February 28, 2011) Beyoncé (not giving details of pertinent amounts) recently publicized that she donated “all” of the money she received to earthquake relief efforts in Haiti in after she learned the promoter had links to Gaddafi. If you parse things to try to determine the matter from Beyoncé’s own admissions it is difficult to determine whether Beyoncé knew who she was going to be performing for when she was contractually committing herself, but it is quite unlikely that she actually went to her performance without being conscious of who she was performing for. In the Soundcheck episode Rolling Stone journalist Steve Knopper provided the facts.

The Ethical Analysis:

Ethicist Randy Cohen started by disparaging the ethical standards of the music industry in general. Mr. Cohen cleared up the applicable ethical issues with a number of definitive pronouncements:

1. The imprimatur given by our own governments' dealing with objectionable individuals does not cleanse the unethical act because governments, especially when you look, cannot be assumed to be behaving ethnically. “You have to make these decisions for yourself.”

2. “You as a million-dollar-commanding pop star have a great deal to say about who you give your services to. You have the luxury. You have the option. . . . not to give aid and comfort to a man who has done terrible things. . . You had every reason to know that this was a horrible, horrible regime. Is that what you want to use your talent for?”

3. “Donating the proceeds to charity does not cleanse you. An act that is wrong in itself remains wrong even if you do something virtuous later in the day. . . You still did wrong for taking it.”

4. While it may not cleanse a bad act, penance is possible for which you may get “partial credit” if you give away the money and acknowledge that you did something wrong, especially if you give the money to the victims of the bad person from whom you took the money. The closer you can come to giving the money to an organization that is determined to do work in this respect the better.

5. “There are two misdeeds here. One is being a court jester for Nero. The other thing is profiting from it. So giving away the money clears you of one of those wrongs but not the other.”

6. Even if Beyoncé had done it for free she still should not have done it. “There are certain people you just do not offer your talents to.”

7. “This ignorance defense is insulting to pop stars: `You are not evil; You’re stupid’ Some defense!”. . . “When someone is writing you a check for $1 million for one performance: Ask! That’s not demanding too much from any pop star. It’s not like Gaddafi [or Ratner] is obscure. He’s as big in the ruthless tyrant game as Mariah Carey is in the bland pop music game.” “It is possible to be fooled and there are certainly grey areas” but naiveté can just be a convenient and self-serving excuse to take the money and often things are pretty clear-cut evils. You might not have known but you realize when you get to the party.

8. Once there is an “organized boycott” the “stakes go way up” “to go against that is reprehensible.” [No organized boycott had been put in place with respect to Gaddafi.]

Radio listeners phoned in to the show and also provided comments on the Soundcheck website that you can read if you go there. You can even still add your own. But before you do, read on to consider how inextricably ingrained this kind of alleged misconduct purportedly is when you are in the high-paid pop star business.

Ingrained Against the Grain Conduct?

A more recent NPR report on Beyoncé’s problems makes it sound as if big pop stars routinely structure their business operations so as to be virtually deprived of the economic option to do the right thing, notwithstanding Randy Cohen’s carefully parsed qualms about ethical conduct. (See: Pop Stars, Private Shows And Political Consequences, March 8, 2011, by Zoe Chace and Jacob Ganz.)

This NPR report looks like it is the result of an effort at damage control by people in the music industry, people perhaps connected to the stars now being exposed. It doesn’t look like successful damage control; it seems to sort of backfire. (Note: if you listen, the on-air story- which begins, “This is a place you will probably never be. . . Beyoncé is on stage in a black leotard performing her chart-topping songs with the kind of production you expect at Madison Square Garden. . .”- is edited differently from the text found on the website quoted below.)

According to the NPR story, a crucial 10 to 20% of stars’ revenue comes from gigs like these and that the agencies representing the stars usually have entire departments set up to handle them. To wit:

3) It's a storied part of the business.

The agencies who represent these stars usually have an entire department devoted to booking gigs like these. It's part of the business model. You don't do that business, your agency won't make money. This is the commodity that department is selling: access. They provide access to the stars that only the ridiculously wealthy can afford. Ray Waddell, who covers live entertainment for Billboard magazine, says, of the stars who perform at gigs like these: "They come to count on it. It can be 10 to 20% of their touring revenue." . . . . As we've explored on this blog before, pop artists are increasingly reliant on big, highly produced shows to make money. Those shows are very expensive. They need gigs like this to supplement the fireworks their fans expect.

Moral qualms and “pangs of conscience” are assertedly factored into the equation. The stars’ scruples are bought and paid for, signed, sealed and delivered as part of the deal and part of its price:

. . . "It's inherent in these situations that the act doesn't want to do it," industry analyst Bob Lefsetz says. "So the person who has the gig always overpays. The question is, how much do I have to pay you so you will overlook your inhibitions and say yes."

But what may mitigate whether you can sleep at night with a disquieted conscience is the fact that it is all over so quickly and painlessly, almost as if you weren’t there for the secret performances at all:

"Usually they send a private plane, you perform for an hour, you get paid a million dollars, you can be back in your bed that evening," Lefsetz says.

What is this story’s take on whether Beyoncé knew what she was doing?

Did Beyonce and Mariah Carey and everyone else know Gadhafi’s son was footing the bill? It's hard to imagine that they didn't. The venue is small, and the Gadhafis have a notorious history of throwing ridiculous parties like the one Beyonce headlined.

Buried in all the bad news of this NPR story article is one smidgen of hope. Not all stars are indiscriminate in their moral choices:

. . . musicians are essentially forced to set their own standards. Some bands won't do shows for beer companies or tobacco.

Now, keeping things in perspective, Bruce Ratner is probably as bad or worse than a tobacco company and not as bad as Gaddafi or his sons.

Truly Giving Back to The Community?

Here’s something to wonder: Given what is depicted above about how these shows subsidize the stars’ overall operations and are a part of the economic model that keeps the supporting agencies in business, do you imagine that Beyoncé returned the entire $1 million (or plus) fee, or would you like to join in the suspicion that what she sent to charity was net after what was required to support her operations? No figures have been given so we don’t know.

Necessarily Becoming A Party to a Realization

When it comes to Jay-Z and Beyoncé, can they claim ignorance with respect to the Atlantic Yards scandals? I keep thinking about Randy Cohen’s statement that you can be fooled, naive, confused, or just plain stupid (and therefore have been excusably ignorant for a time) but, as he says, you realize when you get to the party. Jay-Z and Beyoncé were both doing pop star duty by being on display at Forest City Ratner’s March 9, 2010 ground breaking for the Atlantic Yards basketball arena. I think, that’s the party at which they should have realized (if not before). The groundbreaking ceremonies were partially drowned out by the neighborhood demonstrators (I was among them) although the police were doing everything they could to keep those demonstrators back and to keep them as quiet as they legally could.

Jay-Z and Beyoncé can hardly still claim ignorance of the issues. They went to the party. They must have realized what was going on.

Portman Important

And are you morally cleansed if you are already locked in by your pre-existing contracts? No. If the offense is great enough pre-existing contracts don’t have to matter. Case in point: Natalie Portman, who just won the Oscar for Best Actress, likely helped precipitate the firing of star designer John Galliano from the House of Dior when she stated she was refusing to be associated with him due to his antisemitic rant in Paris notwithstanding that she had already signed a deal to represent Dior’s perfume:

Natalie Portman, who recently signed a deal to represent Miss Dior Cherie perfume, said Monday: ““I am deeply shocked and disgusted by the video of John Galliano’s comments that surfaced today. In light of this video, and as an individual who is proud to be Jewish, I will not be associated with Mr. Galliano in any way.”

(See: John Galliano Fired From Dior, March 8, 2011, by Rebecca Leffler.)

* * * *

From this point on the Noticing New York article still being written continues with a further discussion of the effects of copyright laws on the structure of urban environments. (To be continued in future posts.)

Private Sector Croynism Seeks to Replace Government in Wisconsin: Might New York Be Leading the Way?

I am writing something else right now so . . . .
. . . I didn’t really wanted to be distracted by writing this.

But the thing is, as I am working on other things*, topical events keep getting reported in the news – far faster than I can write to keep up with them– that bring back memories of my earlier career and I find myself wondering whether I should take time out to comment on some of them. And then I read Paul Krugman’s column at the end of last week and that did it: I really have to say something now.

(* You may have a feel for some of what I up to, someday to made much more clear, if you have been paying attention to the idiosyncratic and ongoing augmentations to my earlier post, Adding A few More Off Topic Notes (Or Are They Really?), updating additions that pertain to everything from the dates for Shepley Metcalf’s upcoming performances at the Metropolitan Room in March, to “Over the Rainbow,” to more on Jean-Paul Vignon.)

Bagging Sachs?

One of the things reported in the news recently that caught my attention was the front page story in the New York Times and ensuing editorial (a carefully-“Times-ed” one day later) about Governor Andrew Cuomo’s close friend and advisor, Jeffrey A. Sachs. (See: Cuomo Adviser Takes Pay From Health Industry, by Nicholas Confessore, February 22, 2011 and Editorial: Gov. Cuomo’s Friend, February 24, 2011 plus this follow-up article Pressure Put on Adviser to Cuomo, by Nicholas Confessore, February 23, 2011.) Back in the day, I worked with Jeffrey when he was involved in Cuomo’s HELP projects that provided housing for the homeless. I rather liked him, which is not to comment in any way on the Times articles or to say that I ever got to know Mr. Sachs very well.

Looking For The Silver Lining When It Comes To Public Employee Unions

What has brought back far more memories for me are the stories about Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s effort to take collective bargaining rights away from that state’s government workers. I used to negotiate on behalf of management with public employee unions of the New York State’s public finance authorities. I actually have a perspective from both sides because, before I did that, I was a member of one of those municipal unions.

All the same, I didn’t think I had much to say that would add enough to the debates such that it would be worthwhile to write it up and post. How exactly, after all, would it relate to the Noticing New York concerns that I try to make my focus?

I figured that, if I wrote, I could point out that public employees should have a basic right to organize and that they should also have a right to participate in politics, but there are problems when they have both: It can be a form of unfair extra power during the negotiation process. I know it is problematic because I have been in the situation of being told from on high (as in from a political on-high), not to negotiate a deal that management considered was fair, workable and the most conducive to a good workplace environment. Instead we were told to capitulate to union demands. By quirk of fate and electoral fortune the capitulation didn’t actually happen. I am sure there are corrective fixes for concerns about such meddling but I don’t offer them here.

I am sympathetic to some things that unions negotiate for; I am not sympathetic to all of them. I remember having a special personal antipathy to the idea that pay escalations, beyond cost of living, should be awarded for longevity of service. I think that the pay increases that individuals receive should be handed out by management and earned only in connection with promotions and recognition of merit. On the other hand, negotiating for general benefits is entirely fair. More important, last-in-first-out layoff rules and protections against improper dismissals are especially appropriate, given the uglier vicissitudes of politics. I am sure that little "p" politics can also get rough in the private sector, but at least in the private sector people are supposed to be keeping their eye on the bottom line, not political affiliations.

The last thing I was going to point out was that government unions, pain in the ass that they might be, can be a bulwark against senseless privatizations of government functions that far too often involve some politically connected private company lurking in the background ready to shaft the taxpayers.

The Krugman Revelation

That was about all I figured I was going to be able to say until I read Paul Krugman’s Friday Op-Ed column: Shock Doctrine, U.S.A., by Paul Krugman, February 24, 2011. Krugman points out that Governor Walker is not only trying to bust the government unions but that the 144- page-long piece of legislation with which he is attempting to do it has “hidden deep inside” some “extraordinary things,” among them:

“Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state-owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (b).”

In other words, as Krugman points out, the proposed law contains a “setup for cronyism and profiteering” whereby the governor could sell the state’s public facilities and capital assets (plants supplying heating, cooling, and electricity to state-run facilities):

without taking bids, to anyone he chooses. And note that any such sale would, by definition, be “considered to be in the public interest.”

How to Outfox the Fox That Has Invited Itself In

Privatizing the government’s functions without taking bids? One of my jobs while in government was to fend off the improper privatization of government functions and one of the ways we did that was to initiate a bid process that would be followed if and when functions might be privatized. That was enough; we didn’t have to actually go forward with the bid process (and there wasn’t any ensuing privatization) because once those on the outside who were pressing for the privatization knew it would be subject to a bid process they stopped pressing for the privatization. They apparently didn’t believe that the business would land in their lap if they had to prove through a bid that they could do it better and at less cost than anyone else. Land in their lap? They probably didn’t think they had a chance to get the business at all.

It was good that the functions were never privatized. The ideological vision of privatization was, at the time, a newly promoted idea in the air, but the notion of privatizing these particular functions didn’t originate within the government. It was politically connected schemers on the outside looking for something easy to pick off, but the proposed privatization, a transfer for mortgage portfolio management would have created a disjuncture similar to what ultimately helped cause Wall Street’s financial crisis: Those who were originating a mortgage portfolio would have lost touch with feedback and accountability for the product they were creating, whether it was a successful one or met its intended public purpose.

Fending off this kind of privatization involved sailing through very treacherous waters. There were, of course, the wishes being communicated, politically from on high. I also found that I had to watch out for subordinates theoretically working under me (and the others officially in charge of the Agency) who, paying attention to the political tea leaves, looked to curry favor with the outside schemers by trying to get past us things they suspected would be stymied if they came to my attention. Was our New York State Governor at the time involved when pressure came from on high? I am not saying he was or that he wasn’t, but I will say that even if you are the governor, when faced with external pressure for such privatizations you need political cover and tools to fend them off when the proposals harm the public and don’t make sense. That’s why you want competitive bids to be in your defensive arsenal.

Incredible Legal Fictions

Here above all else is what caught my eye in the Krugman piece: That when these privitizations are done without bid, which is clearly NOT in the public interest, they will by law be deemed “by definition” to be “in the public interest.” It just seems impossible that sensible Wisconsinites could propose to indulge in such legal absurdities and fictions. Then I realized how closely this situation parallels one of the worst abuse situations in New York:

• The Atlantic Yards mega-monopoly was handed out to developer Forest City Ratner at Ratner’s initiative and without any bid. (Ratner is winding up with contiguous ownership of about 30 acres of Brooklyn real estate over the subway lines and a monopoly on about 50 acres of interrelated high-density real estate total.)
• The megadevelopment is essentially a privatization of the much of Brooklyn together with (through abuse) what is supposed to be the public function of eminent domain.
• In order to allow Ratner this cronyistic seizure, New York State public officials, with New York State court justices affirming their pretextual fiction, have similarly had to legally deem this privatization to be “in the public interest.”

So whatever fight is going on in Wisconsin, maybe New York led the way. (The proposed expansion of Columbia University into West Harlem involves a set of misdeeds quite similar to Ratner’ s Atlantic Yards.)

Question for Our Times: Does the Public Get “Sach”ed?

Back to Andrew Cuomo’s friend Jeffrey A. Sachs: I suppose I should care about what the Times is claiming are the questionable things Mr. Sachs has used his inside influence to lobby for. As my family resides in Brooklyn Heights, I should probably care in particular that Sachs is accused of lobbying to close Long Island College Hospital rather than have it merge with SUNY Downstate Medical Center because “Brooklyn Hospital Center, a Sachs client . . . . stood to absorb most of LICH’s patients should that hospital close down.”

The many visits our family members have suddenly needed to make to the emergency room have all been to LICH. The Brooklyn Heights Association (whose annual meeting is tonight) has fought to keep LICH open. I could expand this discussion to go into some Noticing New York how-the-city-is-shaped background about LICH: community parks and playgrounds that were reaarnged to give it needed space, how its recently donated-to endowment is no longer there, the proposed sell-off of LICH buildings to create more condos and co-ops. . . . But I won’t.

The Times’ Blind Eye Toward Blatancy

Let me instead note this: The Times has gotten on its editorial high horse about Jeffrey Sachs. The position on LICH attributed to Sachs in the Times (by vicarious report) is “‘You’re dealing with one hospital. We have four or five there. Why are you dealing with one hospital when the others are falling like dominos?’ ” I’ve worked in the health care area (in fact, in government, I worked on the financing of LICH). I have also worked in the area of more straightforward subsidized development like Ratner’s. The difficult issues respecting which hospitals to close are far more nuanced. (The fingerprints of lobbyists are, consequently, probably harder to detect.) Here though is what the Times editorial on the subject had to say about Cuomo’s ethics in the Sachs situation:

As he pushes for ethics reform, he should call for a tougher lobbying law — one without loopholes. He must also ensure that his good friend does not get — or appear to get — special treatment.

But the Times has had a blind eye when it comes to the issue of “special treatment” when it comes to the more blatant exploits of Forest City Ratner, its real estate business partner in building the Times building. When it comes to Atlantic Yards the issues of abuse are far more stark. And just in case anyone is forgetting: Forest City Ratner is also lobbying Mr. Cuomo. During his campaign for governor Mr. Cuomo took money from Ratner that was never returned by Cuomo despite a number of conflicts of interests pursuant to which it should never have been accepted at all.

What would George Santayana say?

What would George Santayana say?: Should those who do not remember the past accurately be condemned for reenacting it? . . . . See: Marking Davis’s Confederate Inauguration, By Campbell Robertson, February 20, 2011.

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Also on the subject of history and the ability to remember it, see: The Doctor’s World: When Alzheimer’s Waited Outside the Oval Office (Reagan Memoir Raises the Difficulty of Confirming Alzheimer's Disease) By Lawrence K. Altman, M.D., February 21, 2011.

Ronald Reagan died of Alzheimer's Disease on June 5, 2004. His last day in office as President was January 20, 1989. According to this Times article, Reagan was diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s (a exceedingly difficult diagnosis to pin down) in 1993, four years after he left office and that Reagan began taking annual mental-status tests starting in1990. These mental-status tests reportedly were started "a year after" a 1989 horseback riding accident after which a subdural hematoma blood clot removed from Reagan’s brain was examined and (this is confusingly not-quite-explained) may or may not have shown signs of the disease. Reagan’s disease was very much apparent by 1994 when he, with evident difficulty, wrote a letter to the American public announcing his retirement from public life because of his decline. Even if Reagan had been showing symptoms of the onset of the disease during his presidency it does not mean that he would have been rendered legally incompetent. What Reagan was or was not able to remember became a central topic of discussion during the Iran/Contra affair (and ensuing legal persecutions) that came to the public’s attention in 1996.

The recent HBO documentary "Reagan" by Eugene Jarecki spends a fair amount of time pointing out how the political Right has been consciously constructing a mythology about of Reagan that is largely contrary to facts (in order to be consistent with their own agenda). The documentary cleverly uses Reagan’s own voice-over to inveigh against mythologies that ignore factual reality. The Jarecki documentary treats Reagan’s eventual dementia as being squarely outside of his span of years in office implying that there was no overlap.