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Swiss Ask Jews For Help With Fund

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

February 14, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

The Swiss government yesterday invited the World Jewish Congress to Switzerland next week to help administer and distribute a fund set up for aged Holocaust survivors.

It was the first gesture by the Swiss, under increasing pressure to compensate Holocaust victims for looted World War II assets, to reach out to Jewish groups.

Ambassador Alfred Defago, the Swiss consul general in New York, offered the invitation at a hearing conducted by the state Assembly’s Standing Committee on Banks at the New York Bar Association in Manhattan.

The hearing was held to examine how the state can help heirs of victims reclaim assets deposited in Swiss banks during the war.

Israel Singer, secretary general of the Jewish Congress, accepted the invitation and called it a “turning point” as he addressed the hearing, led by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and Assemblywoman Aurelia Greene (D-Bronx), the committee’s chairwoman.

Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress, said the invitation moves the two sides “from confrontation to cooperation.”

“The trouble is that the investigation into the looted assets can take many, many years, and the survivors are aged,” Steinberg said. “So that their immediate desperate needs can be taken care of, this fund has been established.”

Switzerland has been weathering accusations from Jewish groups for 18 months that the nation was more than a neutral bystander during the war and that its banks hoarded up to $7 billion left in the country for safekeeping by families who later died in Nazi concentration camps.

The Swiss government established a fund — which now stands at $71 million but is expected to grow as banks, industries and individuals contribute to it — to meet the needs of elderly Holocaust survivors and heirs of Nazi victims.

American and Swiss officials will attend a meeting of the Jewish Congress today to discuss the disbursement of the fund.

Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R-N.Y.), who has been pressuring the Swiss about the assets, has more recently softened his stance after, for instance, accusing Swiss Foreign Minister Flavio Cotti of “arrogance and contempt for history” for announcing that the Swiss government would administer the fund.

Yesterday, D’Amato said he is reassured that Switzerland will do the right thing about the fund, especially now that Jewish groups will be involved.

February 14, 1997
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Poll: Wild About Mayor, Not Rudy

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

February 12, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN and FRANK LOMBARDI, Daily News Staff Writers

City voters soundly approve of Mayor Giuliani’s job performance and would reelect him in a walk, even though they aren’t wild about his personality, according to a new poll.

The Quinnipiac College Poll showed 62% of voters approved of the first-term Republican’s performance as mayor, while 32% disapproved and 6% were undecided. That’s the best showing for Giuliani since the Quinnipiac mayoral surveys began nearly two years ago.

With the help of his high job approval rating, Giuliani would rout any of five potential Democratic challengers in a head-to-head match, the survey showed. That includes former Mayor David Dinkins — who was to announce today if he would take on Giuliani for a third time.

Dinkins, Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer and Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger would lose to Giuliani by at least 20 percentage points if the election were held now, the poll showed.

Giuliani would beat Dinkins 55% to 34%, the poll found. Ferrer would lose 53% to 33%, and Messinger would lose 54% to 34%, it showed. The remaining Democratic contenders, Brooklyn City Councilman Sal Albanese and the Rev. Al Sharpton, would fare even worse.

Still, the survey wasn’t all good news for Giuliani. It found voters split on his hard-charging personal style — with 43% describing him as likeable and 52% disagreeing.

“I can deal with that,” said Giuliani, noting that the poll gave him high marks for leadership and getting things done.

While cautioning that poll results fluctuate, Giuliani said “it always feels a little better [to be ahead] by 20% than to be behind by 20%.”

The survey showed Giuliani has not bridged racial and gender gaps as he tries to expand the narrow margin he won over Dinkins in 1993.

While white voters gave him 77% approval on job performance, that dropped to 52% among Hispanics and 34% among blacks.

Among male voters, 71% gave Giuliani thumbs up on job performance, compared with 55% among women.

White New Yorkers were evenly split on his personal style; 48% liked it and 47% didn’t. Hispanics were equally split, with 49% approving and 48% disagreeing. Among black voters, 29% liked his personality and 66% did not.

“New Yorkers like the way the mayor does his job,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac College Polling Institute. “But they don’t think he’s a likeable guy.”

The poll of 845 voters was conducted Feb. 3 to 9 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

Original Story Date: 021297

February 12, 1997
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Rudy Hedges Bets On Riverboat

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

February 9, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

Mayor Giuliani yesterday said he could support riverboat gambling under some conditions but would have to study its effect on neighborhoods near where the boats dock.

The mayor also said he would need to be assured the venture is free of organized crime — and that the city pockets a large share of the profits.

Giuliani, responding to an idea by City Council Speaker Peter Vallone, (D-Queens), said the city should work out “an acceptable fee” that would help it “at least make back the amount it is going to cost us in the burdens that it creates.”

But, Giuliani cautioned, the city has yet to hear public debate on the issue and how it would affect communities.

“The assumption is that you are going to make so many dollars back that it’s worth the inconvenience,” Giuliani said. “I believe that’s probably true but . . . we should spend more time looking at it.”

Vallone said the City Council, which studied the idea about a year ago, will move ahead with the plan.

“It is going on now,” Vallone said, pointing out that gambling boats sail from Sheepshead Bay and Manhattan’s West Side. . “Why would we not want to capitalize on it?”

The City Council is set to vote this week on a bill that would set up a commission to regulate Liberty I, which docks in Sheepshead Bay.

Giuliani said he favors gambling but fears the city might get into a situation like that of Atlantic City, which sees little in casino revenues while the State of New Jersey gets about $320 million annually from taxes on gambling.

The Council’s Finance and Economic Development committees will hold hearings on the issue within months.

Original Story Date: 020997

February 9, 1997
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City Has Net For Deadbeats

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

February 7, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

The city yesterday launched a cyberspace hunt for deadbeat parents who owe tens of thousands of dollars in child support payments.

Computer users around the city and the world can now access the Internet and view a “Deadbeat Hall of Shame” with names, photographs and other data on the 25 most-wanted deadbeat parents, Mayor Giuliani said.

“With a click of a mouse on the picture of the deadbeat parent or parents,” Giuliani said, computer users can get vital statistics, the amount owed and other information on each nonpayer.

“These are people who we are seeking and we have warrants for and that will be arrested once they are found,” said Nicholas Scoppetta, head of the city Administration for Children’s Services.

The city is seeking about 65,000 New Yorkers for failure to pay as much as $750 million in support owed for 90,000 city children, officials said.

Paul Milson, a 51-year-old marketing executive whose last known address was in Long Valley, N.J., holds the top spot in the new hall of shame. He owes a whopping $205,000.

Also high on the list is Eric King, son of millionaire boxing promoter Don King. He has yet to make a single support payment for his daughter, and now owes more than $175,000, city officials said.

The computer effort, similar to programs already launched by the state and federal government, features identifying traits similar to “Wanted” posters hung in post offices.

For instance, computer users who click on the photo of Peter Paul Lynch, 51, learn that he sports tattoos of cartoon characters Yogi Bear and Boo Boo on each arm and is now believed to be living in Florida.

The information represents an international expansion on the Top 10 poster of worst deadbeats that the city distributed in government offices and libraries last year.

City officials said the poster helped nab three deadbeats, who either coughed up what they owed or are negotiating to pay up, ACS officials said. Two others have been located, and their cases are pending.

Giuliani announced that the city office of child support enforcement collected $235 million from absent parents on behalf of 135,000 children during 1996, up $29 million, or 14%, from 1995.

To view the deadbeat list, click on the Administration for Children’s Services site.

February 7, 1997
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Roommate Linked To PAL Slay

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

February 2, 1997

by PETE DONOHUE and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers

Police Athletic League coach Anthony Pickens was killed because a woman selling drugs out of his Queens apartment was annoyed that Pickens had fallen behind in his rent, law enforcement sources said yesterday.

Police were hunting yesterday for the roommate, a woman neighbors identified only as Bernadette, and at least two accomplices who allegedly beat Pickens, 38, to death last week, then tried to get rid of the body by soaking it in a bathtub filled with muriatic acid.

Two other men, Guy Daquin, 19, and Eric (Black) Williams, 22, were arrested Friday and charged in the crime.

Pickens, a father of three, interned last year in the domestic violence unit of the Queens district attorney’s office.

The woman used the room as a crack den, the source said. But Pickens’ financial troubles and possible eviction put the location in jeopardy.

The killing occurred after Pickens and the woman argued last weekend, the law enforcement source said.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said the assailants beat Pickens in the head and torso. The body was then dumped in the tub.

Original Story Date: 020297

February 2, 1997
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Big Banks Charging Big Bucks

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

January 31, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

The city’s biggest banks are continuing to take the biggest bite out of depositors’ wallets. Chase Manhattan and Citibank top the list of the most expensive banks in the city, according to a new survey released yesterday by Public Advocate Mark Green and State Sen. Franz Leichter (D-Manhattan).

Chase retained the dubious title of the most expensive bank for fees for checking accounts, money orders and stopping payment on checks, even though it slashed minimum-balance requirements.

The banks offering the best bang for depositors’ bucks are small, neighborhood institutions such as Fourth Federal Savings and Maspeth Federal Savings, the survey showed.

Green said consumers could reap big savings if they comparison-shop for banks the same way they shop for food, clothing and services.

The survey rated banks by gauging how much depositors would gain or lose in one year, based on the most advantageous combination of checking, savings and money market accounts.

A mid-level depositor, defined as someone with bank balances between $800 and $3,000, would come out $100 ahead at Fourth Federal Savings because of interest paid. But at Chase, that same depositor would probably face $130 in annual fees.

“That’s a $230 shift in savings,” Green said. “It’s like getting a salary increase.”

Chase spokesman Ken Herz called the survey “ridiculous,” saying that it failed to include the bank’s self-service checking account, which has a $1,500 minimum-balance requirement.

Herz also criticized the comparison of small banks with few services to large, full-service institutions like Chase that have branches all over the city.

“New Yorkers are smart,” Herz said. “That’s why we have by far more customers than anyone else in the city.”

Chase recently merged with Chemical Bank.

Citibank is the city’s only bank offering home banking and free and unlimited electronic bill payment, said spokeswoman Susan Weeks.

“Our customers are looking at the total value they derive,” she said.

January 31, 1997
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SLOWDOWN NOT THE TICKET; Rudy sez cops’ll be punished

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

January 25, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN Daily News Staff Writer

Mayor Giuliani yesterday escalated his contract fight with city cops, warning rank-and-file officers not to engage in a ticket slowdown — or else.

“If a police officer absolutely refuses to do his or her job, then that police officer will have to be disciplined,” he said. “But that isn’t for me to do. That is for the police commissioner.”

It was Giuliani’s first direct threat to street cops after a week of blasting union leaders for rejecting the package of wage and benefit hikes offered by the city Tuesday.

“My advice to police officers would be: Don’t push this too far, otherwise you are going to be in serious trouble,” he said.

Giuliani’s remarks, made at a Harlem mosque, came a day after thousands of chanting, sign-waving cops took their contract fight to the streets outside police stationhouses in all five boroughs.

Dennis Sheehan, a Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association spokesman, declined to comment on the mayor’s salvo.

Giuliani visited the mosque just four days after he was heckled, taunted and booed during a Martin Luther King Day celebration at a Harlem church.

It was Giuliani’s second visit to the Malcolm Shabazz Mosque, which hosted him a year ago in the wake of the fatal fire at Freddy’s Fashion Mart on 125th St. that killed eight people, including the arsonist.

Mayoral spokesman Colleen Roche said that yesterday’s trip had been planned “a couple of months ago.” The mosque’s leader, Imam Izak-El M. Pasha, is friendly with the administration.

Afterward, at a news conference on the first floor of the mosque, the mayor again blamed the PBA for lack of leadership and not doing a better job of presenting the city’s contract offer to the rank and file.

The city offered cops a five-year contract with no raises the first two years and increases totaling 15.8% in the final three years.

The city’s proposal to the PBA is 2.5% over what had been offered any other municipal union, the mayor said.

“I did that because I believe that the police officers deserve some special consideration for the risk that they take and for the job that they do,” Giuliani said.

“I can’t say yes to everything one group wants because that will take away from what other groups also deserve,” he said. “This is a fair program; it’s a balanced one. It’s a shame that there isn’t any leadership there at the PBA to explain this to the police officers.”

Giuliani said arrests are up compared to a year ago and that essential law enforcement work has not slowed down. Ticket-writing is a little trickier to gauge, and it will take about a week before the city can tell if cops are involved in a slowdown, he said.

Police Commissioner Howard Safir will monitor ticket-writing, the mayor said.

“If we have police officers that, over a period of several days, are so far off of what they should be doing, I’m sure they are going to be taking disciplinary actions,” Giuliani said.

January 25, 1997
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MONEY, MONEY, MONEY AND FUN IN FUN CITY; We Spend Our Lives Focusing On the Dollars

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

Tuesday, January 21, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN AND PAUL SCHWARTZMAN, Daily News Staff Writers

Money is at the root of all that troubles and excites New Yorkers. They fight about it and dream about it–far more, even, than sex.

Many spend more than they have, and a large number have no savings at all.

It is the biggest source of stress in New Yorkers’ lives, followed closely by job and career pressures.

But New Yorkers don’t measure success primarily in dollars and professional achievement.

Most look for success at home, in a happy family life or in achieving a balance between work and their households.

And, perhaps most surprising, by an overwhelming margin New Yorkers say they are happy in their jobs and careers. The sentiment stretches from the working poor to the well-to-do although the more you make, the more likely you are to say you are happy in your occupation.

The role of money in New Yorkers’ lives emerged vividly in the Daily News lifestyle poll as it examined ambitions and dreams in the world’s most competitive city.

“New York is an expensive town to live in,” said Julie Weprin of Blum & Weprin Associates Inc., which conducted the poll for The News. “So it’s not surprising that economic concerns are key to daily lives.”

The findings of the poll proved, yet again, a truism about money: No one has enough. The more you have, the more you think you need.

Asked how much money a family of four needs to live comfortably in the city, 43% of the poll respondents said $ 50,000. The percentage was highest, though, among people who make less than that and dropped sharply among those making more.

Those making $ 100,000 and up said they needed at least that much to survive.

The tax situation and the cost of living here is extraordinary compared to some place down South,” said Dan Patsiner, 24, a Queens media planner whose annual household income is more than $ 100,000.

“And just to add to that,” he continued, “for a family of four, you’ve got to think about college and other major expenses.”

At all income levels, many New Yorkers appear to be spending to the limit. Whether they earn $ 25,000 or $ 100,000, more than four in 10 say they carry a balance on their credit cards.

With at least 10 credit cards to her name, Nelsie Wharton, 32, a lab technologist from the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx, knows what it’s like to have to bump against financial limits.

“I owe so much,” she said. “I’m paying it off little by little.”

At the same time, about a third of New Yorkers have no savings at all. Those on the bottom of the economic ladder save the least, and those doing better save more.

What are people saving for? Their first goal is to pay for retirement, especially those over 30; their second is to cover the cost of their children’s education.

“I would like my son to have the opportunity to go to college, which I didn’t,” said guard Wayne Knight, 37, of Flatbush, Brooklyn, “and to be able to be free to have the choice of a profession that he wants to get into.”

Against this backdrop, it’s not surprising that New Yorkers focus constantly on money.

Asked what they daydream about, the largest number of poll respondents by far 28% said money. Sex finished far down the pack, cited by a paltry 8% of New Yorkers. Only those making more than $ 100,000 focused on anything other than money: They daydreamed most about vacations, followed closely by romance.

Typical of the daydreamers is 27-year-old student-teacher Isaac Stein of Staten Island. With a career in teaching, he said, he does not expect to get rich.

So, “When I close my eyes,” Stein said, “I see myself sitting in the lap of luxury, being able to go wherever I want and do whatever I want whenever I want to do it.”

And nothing causes more tension for New Yorkers than money. Asked what stresses them out, poll respondents said, first, money; and second, their jobs and careers. Family circumstances followed except for those earning less than $ 25,000, who cited home pressures the most.

“In today’s society, the family becomes less important because it’s so important to have two incomes,” said Walter Tuft of Queens, whose annual household income is more than $ 100,000.

“On Christmas Day, the kids were up and I wasn’t there because I had to work. Maybe I should have picked a different career,” he added.

On the other end of the spectrum, Michael Dickerson of Brooklyn reflects the concerns of people on the lowest rung of the economic ladder.

“My biggest thing is not only money, but love, love for my children,” said the 37-year-old man, who makes less than $ 10,000 a year delivering milk part-time. “Money just helps you get certain things for them. You can’t live without money.”

Finally, with all this stress, it is perhaps no surprise that when asked how they would spend an extra $ 1,000, most of those polled said they’d take a vacation.

Notes: Graphics by Trine Giaever, Jim Willis and Jeff Rosenkrantz Daily News showing statistics pertaining to New Yorkers and money not available electronically.

Series: NEW YORKERS THIS IS YOUR LIFE. Third of five-parts

January 21, 1997
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IN THE CITY, SEX IS A RICH EXPERIENCE; Borough Of Queens Sits Atop the Lust List

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments
Monday, January 20, 1997
by MICHAEL O. ALLEN and PAUL SCHWARTZMAN, Daily News Staff Writers

The rich are different from the rest of us and not just because they have more money. They have more sex, more fantasies about sex and more sex partners. But, then again, so do people living in Queens.

Yes, Queens, that bastion of single-family homes and front lawns, is New York’s most libidinous borough, edging out the reputedly licentious Manhattan and putting Staten Island positively to shame.

So say the findings of the Daily News lifestyle poll on matters sexual.

Overall, the poll found, New Yorkers’ sexual appetites tend more toward the regular than ravenous.

And their thinking is more conventional than kinky on questions like when it’s appropriate to lose your virginity.

“We might like to think of ourselves as being wilder than the rest of the country, but we’re not,” said Julie Weprin, of Blum & Weprin, which conducted the poll.

Still, respondents revealed a wide array of habits and attitudes. Not surprising, perhaps, men and women differ on everything from the frequency of sex to the number of partners.

More surprising, perhaps, the number of New Yorkers not having sex is almost twice the national average.

There also are differences according to age, ethnicity, education, income and residence.

Now, then, everything you wanted to know about New York’s sex life but didn’t know where to ask:

The Don Juan Index

Maybe it’s the potholes, or those long subway rides home, but New Yorkers are not frequent lovers.

Less than half 46% say they have sex at least once a week, and only 20% report three to five sexual encounters weekly.

A tiny minority 4% say they have sex daily, while nearly one in five say they have not had sex in the last year.

The poll also found that New Yorkers, by and large, are not promiscuous.

About half 44% say they have had five or fewer sex partners in their lives, with four being the median number. A minority 15% say they’ve had more than 10 partners, and about the same number report having had only one.

Men vs. Women

Look at how male and female New Yorkers describe their sex lives, and you could fairly conclude that one is from Mars and the other, Venus.

New York men report they have sex far more often than New York women. Nearly 60% of men say they have sex at least once a week, but only 36% of women do. And very few men admit to having had no sex over the past year, compared with a quarter of women.

Men also claim to get around far more than women. Nearly 30% say they’ve had more than 10 partners, but only 4% of women do.

“Men are told from when they’re kids to be with a lot of women,” said Eddie Assad, 45, a Staten Island electrician who claimed he has had 60 sex partners. “It starts in school, how’d you do with this girl, how’d you do with that girl. I don’t think it’s like that for girls.”

Edna Dyepp, 75, of Brooklyn, said she has had only two sex partners in her life her first and second husbands.

“I can only be with one man at a time,” she said. “Men like to prove themselves by being with many women. Women have other ways, cooking or cleaning.”

How the Boroughs Stack Up

While the results were close, Queens residents said they have sex the most, with half the poll respondents reporting they have sex at least once a week. Following by a hair were Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan.

“I’m at a loss to explain it, but I guess it’s a good thing,” chuckled Sherman King, 30, a UPS supervisor who lives in Laurelton, Queens, with his wife and children. “Maybe we got more married people, or more younger people. I know it’s not the air or the water that does it.”

Staten Islanders, on the other hand, may be the borough of the perpetual bedtime migraine. Slightly more than a third of Staten Islanders say they have sex at least once a week. And a quarter have had only one sex partner.

“Maybe it’s the garbage dumps out here, the aroma will kill your desire,” said Edith Jones, 83, a retired nursing attendant who lives on Staten Island. “Who wants to be involved in any pleasure with all that stuff around?”

The Money Factor

No one is more sexually active than those earning more than $ 100,000 a year. Nearly 70% of the big earners say they have sex at least once a week. And almost half have had six or more lovers.

Nearly one in five say they have had more than 20 lovers.

Russ Brink, 28, a Queens businessman, earns more than $ 100,000 and says he has had 20 sex partners.

But he says it has nothing to do with money.

“I had all my partners before I started working, when I was in college,” said Brink, who attended Oneonta College. “College was all about going to bars and meeting women. You were bound to sleep with five or six in a year. All you had to do was keep drinking.”

New York’s wealthiest are more likely to have carnal daydreams, with 14% saying they regularly fantasize about sex. In contrast, only 5% of those earning between $ 10,000 and $ 25,000 say they daydream about sex.

When to Start

The prevailing view is that young people should wait until they are at 17 to 19 years old before they have sex. But that attitude is not shared equally among New Yorkers of all ages. For example, most poll respondents under 30 said they think it appropriate to begin having sex in the late teen years.

“If you start at 18, it gives you experience,” said Jose Ramos, 22, a plumbing salesman from Sunset Park, Brooklyn. “I started when I was 15, I can’t remember who it was, but I think that was maybe too early. I could have made a mistake, gotten the girl pregnant, then what would have happened?”

Elderly New Yorkers, on the other hand, feel that young people should wait until they are married before having sex.

“I’m from the old school, people shouldn’t do it unless they’re married,” said one Queens respondent who asked to be identified only as Pauline, 75. “That’s the way I was brought up. Morally, it’s the thing to do. It’s proper.”

Getting to Know You

More than half 65% say couples should date for at least a year before getting married. Blacks show the most support for long-term courtship, with 75% saying couples should be involved for at least a year before heading to the altar. Fewer than 60% of whites and 46% of Jews agree.

“You need at least a year to really know someone, so you don’t rush into anything and make mistakes,” said Mary Gonzolez, 26, a children’s store manager from Queens.

At the same time, though, Gonzolez is unlike most New Yorkers 54% who believe couples should live together before marrying.

Respondents earning more than $ 100,000 are the most likely to endorse cohabitation. But less than half of those earning between $ 10,000 and $ 25,000 agree. And men are more likely than women to favor the idea, by 62% to 47%.

“If you live together, there’s less incentive to get married,” Gonzolez said. “Then marriage is just a piece of paper, it’s not something that you grow into.”

Sidebar: ITS OWN WORLD

Staten Island has the fewest people who:

Have sex at least once a week.

Have had more than five sexual partners in their lives.

Say 17 is a good age to start having sex.

Say living together before marriage is a good idea.

Admit having affairs.

It has the most people who:

Have had one sex partner.

Say you should be married before having sex.

Say it’s wrong to have an affair.

Would tell if the spouse of a good friend were having an affair.

Sidebar: NEW YORK CITY vs. AMERICA

Look to your left on the subway, look to your right nearly one out of every five of your fellow straphangers hasn’t had sex in the last year.

According to the Daily News poll, 18% of New Yorkers say they have gone that long without making love.

That statistic is nearly double the national average.

In other respects, though, New Yorkers are typical Americans. They have sex with about the same frequency and have about the same number of partners as everyone else.

“They are neither more or less sexually active than the larger number of folks in the society,” said John Gagnon, a sociologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and co-author of “Sex in America,” a comprehensive 1994 study of sexual behavior.

Why, then, does the city have so many people going without sex for so long?

The answer is likely the city’s demographic composition.

“There are more single people and elderly people in New York, and those are the people who tend to have the least sex,” Gagnon said.

Notes: Graphics by TRINE GIAEVER DAILY NEWS are not available electronically.

Graphics include:

NEW YORKERS WHO SAY THEY HAVE SEX AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK

NUMBER OF SEX PARTNERS

SEX AND MONEY

WHEN TO START

Series: NEW YORKERS THIS IS YOUR LIFE. Second of five parts.

January 20, 1997
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City Shoppers Do the (Tax) Waive

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

January 19, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN and DEAN CHANG, Daily News Staff Writers

The Great Sales Tax Experiment began yesterday in a deep-freeze frenzy, as cost-conscious shoppers and media-conscious politicians flooded city stores to be among the first to cash in on the one-week tax waiver on clothing.

“That’s why we’re here,” said Darryl Grayson of Manhattan, his arms filled with dress shirts and ties at Macy’s at Herald Square.

“We wanted to try to beat the rush, so we got here when the store opened at 10 a.m., but I guess a lot of people had the same idea,” he said.

Under the moratorium, the 8.25% city and state sales tax is being waived on clothing purchases under $500. The waiver is expected to cost the state $20 million in lost tax revenue, but supporters, including Gov. Pataki and Mayor Giuliani, contend that the loss would be offset by employment and economy gains.

“If you drop this tax, you are going to bring more commercial activity to New York City,” said Giuliani.

But the new math seemed to puzzle some retailers and shoppers, unsure of what was taxable and what wasn’t.

“Everyone keeps asking, ‘Is this taxable? Is that taxable?’ so we’ve got to check the list,” said Karina Gonzalez, a Macy’s sales associate. “The minute we came in yesterday, they gave us the list.”

New Yorkers — always dubious of bargains that seem too good to be true — still had their complaints about the tax waiver. Some found fault with the weather, wondering why the state and city couldn’t spend their generosity in, say, April or May.

Others also found fault with the timing of the waiver.

Jacqueline Baird, a Daily News reader from Manhattan, said her credit cards were still overburdened with purchases she had made before Christmas.

Marilyn Dankins, 25, of Brooklyn, complained that the best of the winter clothes are long gone.

“They do this right after the holidays, when there’s no new clothing in the stores. They’re weeding out all the winter clothes, so all that’s left is leftovers.”

Still, she yielded to temptation and bought a pair of $40 gloves that were 50% off. Without the tax, she paid $19.99.

The tax waiver temporarily puts New York on an even footing with New Jersey and Connecticut, which imposes no tax on clothing. Dankins, like many shoppers yesterday, admitted traveling out of state just to get a better deal on clothes.

So throughout the city, clothing retailers tried to capitalize on the tax hiatus. Department stores put up tax-free signs throughout their buildings and in newspaper ads; smaller off-price stores made do with handmade signs.

“Everybody knows about it already,” said Susie Song, manager of Jumping Jumping Casuals and Sharon, two clothing stores on W. 34th St.

“On Friday, everyone was already asking me to not charge them sales tax. I told them I couldn’t, that they should take it up with the government.”

Yesterday, it wouldn’t have been very hard to find a member of the government.

In Astoria, Queens, City Council Speaker Peter Vallone shopped for a new tuxedo, shirts and ties on Steinway St.

In Manhattan Mall, Giuliani heralded the tax-free week by sounding a gong in the mall’s lower level, then headed to Modell’s, where he dropped $95.48 for Knicks home and away jerseys for his son, Yankees World Championship turtleneck for his daughter, a jogging bra for his wife and a pair of gloves and some socks for himself.

Giuliani then went to The Children’s Place, topping off his tax-free day with a purple shirt and multi-colored leggings for his daughter.

“It’s a Valentine’s Day gift,” said the mayor. “If you can keep it a secret.”

Total tax savings for the mayor: $9.36.

Gov. Pataki brought his wife, Libby, and his 12-year-old daughter, Emily, to Macy’s at Herald Square for some winter clothes.

In 20 minutes, the governor dropped $151.39 on a winter wardrobe — gloves, mittens, a scarf, three turtlenecks, a sweater and a light jacket. Total tax savings: $12.49.

“It’s a great way to shop,” said Pataki.

Better still, Pataki and Giuliani enjoyed more than a tax-free day; they also took advantage of something that mere mortal shoppers can only dream of — shopping without cash-register lines.

In both cases, stores magically opened up lines and registers for the governor and mayor of New York.

January 19, 1997
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