NYC is a city begging for high-density housing as a matter of both equity and efficiency. It has a dedicated water supply, 21 bridges into Manhattan alone with another 40 bridges in the outer boroughs, two tunnels, multiple subway lines, several rail lines, ferry lines, two airports, and a network of streets and highways. Who are the taxpayers that fund this expensive infrastructure? The federal taxpayer, the state taxpayer, and the city taxpayer all deserve a say in the taxation of NYC as they have all funded the complicated and expensive infrastructure of the city. Housing density has become more of an issue as of late as young people are finding it very difficult to find housing. I recently asked a college-age person why they did not move to NYC as it was an excellent place to start a career. I was told it was too expensive. When did this change occur? When did we close down NYC to all but the likes of Baron Trump, son of President Trump and Ella Emhoff, stepdaughter of VP candidate Kamala Harris? When I went to college in NYC in the 70s, it was not impossibly expensive, now it seems that many of the young people who do make it into the city are helped out by their parents. The change has occurred mainly because essentially no new housing has been built since the 60s. The housing that has been built has catered to the likes of our modern-day Robber Baron class. And the applications for apartments now include a “guarantor” section to make it easier for Robber Baron babies such as Ella Emhoff to fill out. 

Current mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani (Mamdani) has called for a freeze on rents but where does that get you? I have seen too many videos on Tiktok of apartments with ceilings falling down and roaches crawling out, of apartments without front door locks, and similar horror stories to see rent freezes as nothing more than a temporary stop-gap measure. Are there laws against such things? Of course, but get in line and wait for nothing. Rent freezes also dampen incentives to build and lead to unkempt even dangerous buildings. And I believe with all my heart that the current landlords of NYC are quite up to stepping up as slumlords if called upon to do so. What do we see promoted by the other mayoral candidates? The other candidates for mayor have all promised to increase housing in various ways but the same folks or their political forefathers have presided over the freeze in building apartments over the last 50 years, so I am not confident in their promises. And neither are the voters as everything seems to be pointing to Mamdani as the next mayor. How incredibly stupid do these other mayoral candidates think the voters of NYC are? 50 plus years of hollow promises and on the 51^st year they really mean it?

About 100 years ago, actions such as the Antitrust Clayton Act (1914) , the Federal Trade Commission (1914), the 16^th Amendment (1913 – established the income tax), new laws supporting unions (National Labor Relations Board -1935) , and the National Housing Act (1934) led to the reining in of unbridled monopolies, safety in products, improved working conditions, rules making it easier to buy a house,  and greater protections of working people. Please note that the early 20^th century Robber Barons (Andrew Carnegie, Andrew W. Mellon, John D. Rockefeller) did not come begging to Congress for an income tax or any of these other items so we should not expect the current day Robber Barons to offer to pay a fair property tax. Who exactly are the current day Robber Barons? I put forth the following individuals as representative of what we are dealing with. They are especially tied to NYC housing and industry and in my opinion are the rightful descendants of the Robber Barons of the early 20^th century:  

1. Jeffrey Epstein – practiced money laundering and sex trafficking. From the money and people involved, it appears that these are very important and lucrative industries in today’s world. One ex-president flew on the Lolita Express more than 24 times, a plane with a back room with a bedroom and a bar. Interestingly, the security detail flew on separate flights. Jeffrey owned a 9-story townhouse on the Upper East Side, and we are told he committed suicide in jail in 2019. 
2. Madonna – is a singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. She owns three adjacent 5-story townhouses on the Upper East Side which have been joined into one townhouse.
3. Anna Wintour – is the former editor of Vogue and the Director of the annual fashion galas at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met). She owns a 3-story townhouse in Southern Manhattan.
4. Anne Abel – is an author, influencer, and storyteller. She frequently gets depressed and is, in my opinion, somewhat of a hypochondriac. I can say this as I am somewhat of a hypochondriac myself and see the signs in Anne. She and her husband live in a luxurious open view apartment in Midtown. Her source of wealth is unknown. This is always a red flag. She does not maintain her lifestyle with book sales of “Mattie, Milo and Me” or from the earnings of a teaching job in a Philadelphia community college which she describes walking out of in one of her videos. 

Some have said that these folks will leave NYC if they are overtaxed. I see it highly unlikely that any of our current day Robber Barons would move to the rural Midwest where you can buy a house for the price of a pick-up truck. They may complain bitterly, as they are all supremely entitled individuals, but when push comes to shove, they will not move. I come to this conclusion as a friend of mine who owned an apartment building in San Francisco would complain bitterly about the laws and taxes concerning housing for years and years but never did sell his building. Manhattan is a grand dame whose allure is captivating. Nearly 50 years ago, I left NYC with regrets only after having been mugged 3 times (once with a knife) to attend graduate school in Boston as I did not want to see if this cat actually had 9 lives or if that was just a superstition. And I am currently looking to get back in! Those who say people will flee are deluding themselves. I actually meandered to San Francisco and Cape Cod but am now back in NYS looking to get back into NYC. Mamdani has proposed a whopping 2% additional tax on incomes above $1 Million and, even if this is passed by the NYS legislature, I do not see this tax as chasing them out of NYC. I love Florida and its beaches but the competition for the millionaire set is London, Paris, and Shanghai, where the tax on income is 45% at the top tier. The top federal income tax rate is 37% and the top city and state combined income tax rate is 14% so tax away brother Mamdani, you are hovering over 45% but not enough to make a difference to our Robber Barons. 

What do I want from the current day Robber Barons? I am not proposing confiscatory taxes but simply that they pay their fair share of the property taxes of NYC. If Madonna and Anna Wintour want to have  homes large enough to allow for bowling allies (bowling allies are about  100 feet long , including 18 feet for the Approach, 60 feet for the Lane, and 7 feet for the Pin Deck and Service Area ) , Madonna and Anna Wintour will have to either pay their fair share of the property taxes or they will have  to  move and go bowling in a local bowling alley. I am recommending that they go to Bowler City at 85 Midtown Bridge in Hackensack, New Jersey. It has a retro flair and is accessible from the Port Authority Bus terminal in Manhattan where they need only jump on the #165 bus and 40 minutes later, they will be at Bowler City. Anna Wintour and Madonna both have homes that meet the 100ft long requirement for a bowling alley. I have never been invited in so I cannot really say for sure that they do have in-house bowling allies but if they do, and are unwilling to pay a fair property tax, I am suggesting that they make the best of it and form a team and go to New Jersey to bowl. Anna Wintour could design the uniforms and Madonna could do a pep song for the team. This could be a creative win for both Anna and Madonna! 

I am not opposed to that favorite American sport, land speculation, but our cities must now support an expensive infrastructure which calls for changes to the current Assessed Value method of taxing property in NYC. This method worked over 100 years ago when NYC did not have an expensive infrastructure, but it is now beyond antiquated. I propose a replacement of the Assessed Value method with a much fairer method which I call the Use Tax method to recognize that we are not charging only for the land but for the maintenance of the associated infrastructure. For Manhattan, to which this example will be limited, I would raise the height limit to 20 stories for the entire island for the Use Tax. In other words, the tax at a minimum would be the tax paid if the lot in question had a 20-story condominium development (taxed at the Class 2 Rate, which is for condos). With a 20-story minimum, the taxpayer would pay the minimum tax if the building he or she lived in was lower than 20 stories. If the building was 20 stories or over, there would be no change in the property tax. No more paying low tax until you see a deal that aligns with your financial plans, which may stretch for generations. The trains must run and the water must flow every day even if you have a vacant lot. Why do land speculators get the Robber Baron treatment? A vacant land tax was proposed by former Mayor Bill DeBlasio but never passed the NYS legislature. Subsequent proposals were also shot down. And I note that city owned lots are tax-exempt. Why? To me all this indicates that our Robber Barons are not packing their suitcases but are long term invested in Manhattan real estate. 

Let’s go over some examples so you can see how the Use Tax on property works:

1. Jeffrey Epstein – He owned a 9-story townhouse on the Upper East Side with a 7000 square foot footprint with an approximate value of $54 Million. Since I am not giving a course on taxation, we will disregard abatements, exemptions, transitional assessed value (for townhomes the NYC tax authority eases folks in to jumps in value – this is only available to townhomes in this wokest of cities), and estate tax influences. A property valued at $54 Million (Tax Class 1, which is for single family homes) would pay: $650,754 = $54,000,000 X 6% (assessment ratio for Class 1 properties) x 20.085% (tax rate for Class 1 properties). For Use Tax purposes, we will calculate the tax paid based on extending the property to 20 stories filled with 700 square foot condos valued at $800,000 per condo. For each condo, the tax is $45,000 = $800,000 x 45% (assessment ratio for Class 2 properties, which is for condos) x 12.5% (tax rate for Class 2 properties). Each floor holds 10 condos with a tax of $45,000 per condo so we get a tax of $450,000 per floor. If we extend this to 20 floors, we get $9 Million = $450,000 x 20. So, Robber Baron Jeffrey would owe NYC an additional $8,349,246 if NYC had a fair property tax system. $9 Million – $650,754 = $8,349,246. Mr. Epstein gets a 93% discount on his property taxes. (1-650,754/9,000,000 = 93%).
2.  Madonna – She has 3 joined 5 story townhouses on the Upper East Side whose value is approximately $40 Million and whose footprint is 12,000 square feet. A property valued at $40 Million would pay $482,040 in property tax. $40,000,000 x 6% (assessment ratio for Class 1 properties) x 20.085% (tax rate for Class 1 properties) = $482,040. As we did for fellow Robber Baron Jeffrey Epstein, we will fill that 12000 square foot footprint with 700 square foot condos valued at $800,000 each to approximate the Use Tax. Each floor would hold approximately 17 700 square foot condos with a tax of $45,000 per condo so extending this to 20 floors we get $15,300,000 = 17 condos per floor x $45,000 x 20 floors. So, Robber Baron Madonna would owe an additional $14,817,960 if NYC had a fair property tax system. ($15,300,000 – $482,040 = $14, 817,960). Madonna gets a 97% discount on her property taxes. (1-482,040/15,300.000 = 97%). 
3. Anna Wintour – For Anna Wintour’s analysis, I shelled out $10.82 from my own pocket to get accurate current figures from Propertyshark. Her property tax for 2024/2025 is listed as $54,926 for her 3-story townhouse in lower Manhattan which has a footprint of 2202 square feet and a value of $11,695,000. The taxable assessed value of $273,466 is lower than the actual assessed value of $701,700 but as I said earlier, I am not teaching a tax course so I will not research the 35-page Property Shark report for clues as to what exemptions and exclusions she is taking. As we did for our Robber Barons above, we will fill that 2202 square foot footprint with condos worth $800,000 each and extend that to 20 stories to find out what Robber Baron Anna would pay under the Use Tax method of property taxation. Three condos would fill her 2200 square foot footprint and if we extend that to 20 stories we get 60 condos. I calculate a Use Tax of $2,700,000 (3 condos x $45,000 x 20 stories = $2,700,000). So, Robber Baron Anna Wintour would owe an additional $2,645,074 if NYC had a fair property tax system ($2,700,000 – $54,926 = $2,645,074). Anna Wintour gets a 98% discount on her property taxes. (1-54,926/2,700,000 = 98%).
4.  Anne Abel is the only Robber Baron who is paying a fair tax as she lives in a standard condo. Her high-rise luxury apartment has an expansive view of the skyline. How does Anne gain Robber Baron status? If she stations herself at her window and looks up and sees, not an expansive view, but my smiling face holding up a teacup with one hand and beckoning her over with the other hand, what would her reaction be? Would she stomp her feet and have a fit (probably, as she is very self-centered, but I still love her) and then press a button to shut the window shades? Or would she hold up her hand and point to herself and come running over to my house when I nodded my head up and down, signaling yes, come on over? I would serve her favorite chocolate chip cookies from Whole Foods. For myself I would have frosted roll out sugar cookies on hand that I had made from scratch. I really do not like chocolate chip cookies or anything where the chocolate is baked such as brownies. I feel baking gives chocolate a slightly bitter flavor. Mind you, I will not pass up a brownie, but I am just stating my preferences. I understand that most Americans like chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cake, and brownies and I respect their choice but for me I’d much rather have, say, yellow cake with chocolate fudge frosting. As for beverages, black tea for myself, I am not sure for Anne. She did a Tiktok green tea tasting but did not seem to be that enthused about green tea. I would just have coffee, water, herbal teas, black teas, and green teas available. And while we are talking about dietary preferences, has Anne ever seen a holistic nutritionist? She and her husband are both as thin as rails and profess to work out so there is apparently some interest in health. They buy takeout food from Whole Foods and from restaurants, to me this is a diet bound to be loaded with seed oils and other unsavory ingredients. Health is more than being thin as a rail. I would recommend a holistic nutritionist, along with some spiritual work but I digress.

Let us get back to Anne Abel and her Robber Baron status. What does Anne do to earn Robber Baron status? She mentions a plethora of reasons she is depressed: because her husband is happy in the morning and so is her dog, while she feels down. She may have broken a bone in her foot walking across the apartment and needs extensive physical therapy which will interfere with her regular workout routine. Then there is the guilt aspect, she feels bad for not being able to indulge her grandchildren because of her dispute with her daughter-in-law. We hear a lot about her reasons for being depressed, but she never mentions she is depressed because young people are having difficulty finding an apartment in NYC. Or that she is taking away from the housing needs of young creative people. She blithely lives in a billionaire’s lair while young people struggle to find even the most basic of housing needs met. She is the billionaire class’s answer to Marie Antoinette for our day. I love Anne Abel, and I believe I would have loved Marie Antoinette, but I also love the silly dreams of our current crop of young people who are having a difficult time finding housing in Manhattan. To Anne, Manhattan is a playground for wealthy billionaires, and we can include them, but does it have to be only for billionaires? I think not. What I find so sad about Anne is that the person who I revered as being open and honest turned out to be a liar about the most important issue in America. She advised in one of her videos that she moved to NYC because she found Chicago too cold. The difference in average temperature is 3 degrees Celsius with Chicago being cooler, but in my opinion, this is not the major reason she moved. I think she found the weekly gun fights of Chicago too intimidating but was too woke to be truthful about expressing this. She is open and honest but only as far as a woke person can be open and honest and that is not very far at all. I still love you, Anne. 

 What would happen to the functioning of the city if everyone received the property tax discounts that our Robber Barons receive under the antiquated Assessed Value method of property taxation? Let’s choose the lowest discount received, that would be the deceased Jeffrey Epstein’s 93%, bless his soul. What would happen if everyone in NYC took a 93% discount on their property tax bill? NYCs $112.4 Billion 2025 budget would suddenly drop to $7.9 Billion. I would partially fund public safety ($11.8 Billion), the Department of Sanitation ($1.9 Billion) and the mayor’s office ($85.5 Million) with instructions to the mayor to make the cuts to public safety and sanitation as he saw advisable by working with the Police Chief, the Fire Chief, and the head of the Department of Sanitation. At a budget of $29.3 Billion, school would be cancelled for the year, so kids, no school! Aside from cancelling school, NYC would have to forgo paying for streets, parks, hospitals, housing assistance, pensions, and debt servicing. Could the federal government or state government help out? At least with the hospitals? It’s quite a sticky situation. 

Young people are putting their feet down in this election, which, frankly, I did not do when I was that age. To me it is further indication of their frustration. Will they be successful or will they become depressed and quietly melt away like the Blacks? Why has NYC built only for the millionaire class in the last 50 years? Realtor.com lists the average house price in Manhattan as $1.4 Million. Do we want a NYC that is an expensive museum (orchestra left, row B ballet tickets are $909 for the New York City Ballet’s Nutcracker), or do we want a thriving city full of life and new ideas and jobs? While we want the Robber Barons such as Anna Wintour, Madonna, Jeffrey Epstein (within the limits of the law), and Anne Abel to have a happy life, I feel that young people, who are our future, should also have some fun in Manhattan. I know the wokesters frown upon the concept of fun and under no circumstances would support it, but I am going to go out on a line and support fun for today’s young people. And from reminiscing about my own past life in NYC, I would say that young people get the most fun out of living in NYC. I never had so little money and so much fun as I did when I lived in Manhattan many moons ago, and from watching hours of TikTok videos (I am guilty I must confess) , it appears that the current set of young people, at least those that manage to get in,  are having a delightful time as well. And the ones who are getting in are I fear heavily subsidized. And I am also seeing TikTok videos of young people who are leaving because Manhattan has become unaffordable for them. This makes me sad. Some young people may want the “Little House on the Prairie” lifestyle and that is fine, but I do think we could do better at providing the opportunity to pursue happiness in NYC for our current crop of young folks who do want to immerse themselves in Manhattan. However, I see major obstacles to this setup by the Robber Barons that must be overcome:  an antiquated property tax system, “historic preservation” (which I see as a wokonian phrase which translates into standard English  as “Blacks Not Allowed”) and “zoning” (devoid of any safety or health reasons, again I translate this wokonian phrase into standard English as “Blacks Not Allowed”). 

Madonna adopted several Black children from Malawi several years ago. If she had only walked a few blocks north of her Upper East Side home, she would have found plenty of American Black children who would have been delighted to have been adopted and saved her the expense of importing Malawi kiddos. Anna Wintour, who is good at spotting trends, must have been getting nervous this year as her Met gala showcased Black Dandies. I really don’t care how many Black Dandy shows Anna Wintour puts on at the Met or if Madonna fills each one of her three townhouses to the brim with kiddos imported from Malawi, I hold these Robber Barons as racist as any self-respecting South African apartheidist. Could it be because they are afraid of becoming the next Iryna Zarutska? Iryna was stabbed to death on a Charlotte North Carolina light rail vehicle by a Black gentleman who had committed multiple felonies, had spent time in jail, and had been released by a magistrate, Teresa Stokes, who accepted his written note that he would return for a court date, knowing full well that he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and would likely not return. Are the Blacks ready to discuss why their brethren act as they do and take steps to remedy it so that the late Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska would have been able to take the train home from her pizza job? I fear not. And I doubt that Anna Wintour, Madonna, and Anne Abel will ever leave their woke fog, just as the American Blacks will not leave their woke fog. But I am not prepared to deny young people the opportunity to fully experience NYC because these two groups of stick in the muds are wandering in a woke fog.

Zoning in NYC,  the wokest of cities, is predominantly done for  racial reasons , so if our Robber Barons decide not to budge, which I expect as their hearts are just as open as the Robber Barons of the past ( how many times do we have to go through this? ) so I am looking at the filing of a Civil rights lawsuit against the zoning in Manhattan.  The Upper East Side, the Upper West Side, and the Village are generally zoned as R-6, R-7, and R-8. These zones have height limits respectively of 5 to 8 stories, 8 to 10 stories and 8 to 15 stories. These zones have nothing to do with safety or health but in the wokest of cities are meant to keep the area “pretty” or in other words to keep Blacks out. By “pretty” I mean to limit the housing to what I call the hoity toity la de dah snooty snoots and the Robber Barons. Ultimately, since the Robber Baron set is not going to budge, we will have to file a federal anti-discrimination lawsuit to bring back some semblance of sanity to the housing situation in Manhattan. I am proposing that zoning R-6, R-7, and R-8 be either vacated or changed to R-10. R-10 would allow the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side and the Village to have at least 20 story buildings. If these areas were brought to 20 stories, based on 700 square foot apartments, and 2.5 folks per apartment, we would have housing for 4 million additional people with provisions for setbacks and elevators. Manhattan currently has about 1,694,000 million people so adding housing for 4 million more people would I think would be a good first step in solving the housing crisis.      The current day Robber Barons are very talented individuals but are also very entitled and will fight tooth and nail to keep the housing laws as they are. I think it very odd that the wokest of cities is the city where the biggest battle of the Civil Rights Act has to be fought. The wokey NYC Democrats are still crossing that bridge in Selma, Alabama in an annual march when they need to be looking in their own back yard. So, with none of the current mayoral candidates offering anything approaching a realistic solution to the very real needs of our young people and our sleepy Blacks who are quite happy to give the Robber Barons another 100 years of having their way, I see an  anti-discrimination case against the R-6, R-7, and R-8 zoning laws covering the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side, and  the Village as the solution.  The discrimination suit would be filed at the federal level as NYS is completely woke and has quietly supported the effects of discriminatory housing laws over the past 50 years. It’s going to be a big catfight. The Robber Barons are all supremely entitled and also supremely out of touch with what real people are experiencing just as the Rockefellers, Carnegies, and Mellons were. The Department of Justice will need to use the Fair Housing Act, codified as Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 at 42 U.S.C., Sections 3601-3619. While the city happily fills the midtown Roosevelt Hotel with Latino refugees overnight, American Black families have been zoned out of housing for generations. This needs to stop and it will take federal court action to do so.