The contenders for New York’s top job appeared at the annual meeting of the Metropolitan Waterfront Association, which held its meeting aboard Hornblower Infinity – tethered to the pier in the morning, and then cruising around Manhattan in the afternoon.
Like any high profile political contest, the crowded field will be winnowed down through a war of primary votes and financial attrition. The candidates looked good: well-dressed and well-coiffed, and well-spoken.
There were various shades of plans for ferries around the harbour, and some talk of the widely-imagined cross-harbour tunnel that would revive the Brooklyn docks.
The MWA assembled a group of influential planners and urban experts in its efforts to guide the politicians; its fund-raising infrastructure is first rate. Yet, looking around the room, during my moments of non-concentration during the political-speak, there were not very many business faces that I recognised. Sadly, one MWA guiding light and major financial supporter, John Neu (of the scrap metal and one-time shipowning behemoth Hugo Neu & Sons) had passed away about a month before the meeting.
I’ve written about the importance of networks around port communities, indeed New York gets high marks for bringing together a group of responders who ably handled two emergencies: Irene in 2011 and the bigger sister Sandy in 2012.
The guy who would get my vote for Mayor (if I were still an in-town resident) would be John Catsimitides, a self-made billionaire retailing magnate who hangs out with Greek shipowners and envisions a highway of ferries and a burgeoning cruise ship port.
Catsimitides, who also owns a fuel dealer located on Newtown Creek – an industrial waterway separating Brooklyn and Queens – is not considered an electable candidate by some observers. That’s really a shame, because in a city where the waterfront is ‘out of sight and out of mind’, a man of vision (with the harbour very much in his sights) would do a lot to further the dialogue between groups like the MWA, and the business community, including leaders (not facility managers) of maritime related businesses.
As luck would have it, maritime lawyer- and banker-dominated New York Maritime (NYMAR) has been recently making noises about building such a coalition across the harbour, including forging ties with politicians. Bring it on, I say.
