Strauss-Kahn's allies cheer his release

New York City hotel maid who accused former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique-Strauss Kahn of sexual assault has allegedly worked as a prostitute, the New York Post reports.

A source close to the defense investigation told the Post that the Sofitel Hotel housekeeper would have sex with male guests at the hotel for money.

On Friday, Strauss-Kahn walked out of court free on bail after prosecutors said an extensive background investigation of the hotel housekeeper accusing him of sexual assault gave them pause.

The hotel maid accused Strauss-Kahn of chasing her through his luxury suite in May, trying to pull down her pantyhose and forcing her to perform oral sex.

Strauss-Kahn had been free on $6 million in cash and bond but under house arrest for weeks in a ritzy Manhattan loft. The charges, which include attempted rape, have not been reduced, but the move signals that prosecutors do not believe the accusations are as ironclad as they once seemed.

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office revealed that the 32-year-old woman had committed a host of minor frauds to better her life in the U.S. since arriving in the country seven years ago, including lying on immigration paperwork, cheating on her taxes, and misstating her income so she could live in an apartment reserved for the poor.

Former French government minister Jack Lang says he spoke with Strauss-Kahn's wife Anne Sinclair to offer the couple moral support. Lang told The Associated Press on Saturday that she is relieved but wouldn't go into detail about the couple's upcoming plans.

Lang, who has known Strauss-Kahn since the 1970s, urged him to come back to France and join the 2012 presidential race.

"He could be a good candidate" Lang said, dismissing concerns that Strauss-Kahn's image has been sullied by charges he tried to rape a hotel maid in New York.

A New York judge freed him without bail Friday after prosecutors expressed doubts about the accuser's credibility.

Manhattan Apartment Sales Slow as Buyers See No Need

Purchases were down 3.8% compared with the same period last year, to just 2,650, according to a report by New York appraiser, Miller Samuel Inc. and brokers Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. The median price of condominiums and co-ops has fallen by 5.5% to $850,000.

This effect is at least partially due to the lack of any federal tax credit, as last year buyers were in a hurry to close deals before June 30th, which is when the federal tax credit expired. This credit was worth up to $8,000, and it artificially inflated sale prices and volumes.

Jonathan Miller feels that the sales prices and volumes for the second quarter are about average, and are what could have reasonably been expected last year had there not been any tax credit available.

Pamela Liebman, chief executive officer of The Corcoran Group says “People don’t feel as though prices are going down, but there’s not this overwhelming feeling that prices are increasing by the day. People feel that they can wait a bit to find out what they want.”

The unemployment rate in New York is currently at a 25 month low, at 8.6% in May, which is 1% less than a year ago. The financial industry in New York registered a gain of 10,400 jobs from May 2010 to May 2011.

Reports issued today on the Manhattan apartment market showed mixed results for sales and values in the second quarter. Corcoran Group said purchases of condos and co-ops declined 14 percent from a year earlier to 3,180. The median price of units that changed hands climbed 6 percent to $830,000.

StreetEasy.com, a service that compiles broker listings, said the median price increased 7.8 percent to $810,000, while completed deals fell 12 percent. Brokerage Brown Harris Stevens and its sister firm, Halstead Property LLC, reported a median price of $835,000, a 1 percent drop from 2010.

"My opinion of prices throughout the market is they're not going up and they're not going down," said Hall Willkie, president of New York-based Brown Harris Stevens. "Buyers are buying but they are very price-sensitive. The confidence that real estate is going to be worth more tomorrow is not that common. It's very possible that in the immediate future prices will remain flat."

'Even Playing Field'

For Lindsay Luppino and her parents, this spring was as good as any time to make a purchase.

"They wanted to buy because the market is on its way back up," said Luppino, 29, a musical-theater performer whose parents bought her a one-bedroom co-op in April.

We have a lot of investments in stocks at the moment, so we thought it'd be good to invest where it's low," said Sarah Bengzon, 42, a quality director for technology consulting company Accenture Plc. "The rates were great, the housing prices were great. We'd been looking a while for where we could put our money."

One, Two Bedrooms

Two-bedroom apartments comprised 38 percent of all properties that sold in the quarter, according to Miller Samuel and Prudential. The median price rose 5 percent to $1.31 million from a year earlier. One-bedrooms accounted for 36 percent of sales, with the median price dropping 1.8 percent to $627,500.

The median price of three-bedrooms climbed 20 percent to $3.1 million, while apartments with four or more bedrooms climbed 18 percent to $5.5 million.

On the Upper East Side, the median price of existing co-ops climbed 3 percent to $840,000 from a year earlier, according to Corcoran. Condo prices in the neighborhood rose 12 percent to 1.2 million. On the Upper West Side, the median price of co-op resales climbed 7 percent to $772,000, while condo resale prices fell 14 percent to $898,000.

Prosecutors could still pursue case against DSK

NEW YORK—The newly surfaced problems in the sexual-assault prosecution against Dominique Strauss-Kahn represent the latest of several recent high-profile setbacks for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.

On Friday, Mr. Vance's office reduced most of the onerous bail restriction on Mr. Strauss-Kahn, the former director of the International Money Fund and onetime French presidential hopeful, because of deep concerns about the credibility of the maid who accused him of sexually assaulting her in a posh Midtown Manhattan hotel in May. Mr. Strauss-Kahn has denied any wrongdoing.

Erin Duggan, the spokeswoman for the district attorney's office, defended its handling of the case Friday. "At every step of the way, the district attorney's office made the right decisions. We pursued an account of a sexual assault that was corroborated by witnesses, electronic evidence and DNA evidence. That evidence was more than enough to present to a grand jury, which indicted the defendant. After the indictment, the district attorney made clear that the investigation would continue and prosecutors would take the case wherever the facts led. Today, we did just that."

The news of the problems with the case capped a difficult month for Mr. Vance, 56 years old, who was elected in the fall of 2009 to succeed Robert Morgenthau, a legendary prosecutor who served for 35 years as Manhattan's district attorney. Mr. Vance's late father, also named Cyrus, served as secretary of the Army under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, and later served as secretary of state under President Jimmy Carter.

No DA can be expected to win every case," said a defense lawyer who served on the transition team when Vance took the reins from the legendary Robert Morgenthau.

He said it made sense that Vance sought to indict Strauss-Kahn before his accuser could be fully vetted because "there was a fear that if he left the U.S., they would lose all control over his return."

The probe was marked from the outset by bitter debate between Friel and Alonso, two sources said. Alonso wanted to charge DSK fast. Friel said the case was still shaky. She lost the argument and the investigation was taken out of her hands, the sources said.

"Sex crimes are notorious for being difficult," a former prosecutor said. "There was no need to rush to the grand jury."

Strauss-Kahn, who was arrested May 14, was indicted June 6.

Friel, inside sources said, was pulled off the Strauss-Kahn case because she refused to work on the Sunday after his arrest.

"I am in a golf tournament," Friel told her bosses, according to one source.

Friel supporters insist she was in the office on Day One and hasn't hit the links since knee surgery in December.

Friel left the DA's office this week amid accusations she compromised another case - the prosecution of Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata, the cops accused of rape.

While an HBO camera crew was filming the documentary "Sex Crimes Unit," Friel and her investigators were discussing that case.

Defense lawyers accused the DA's office of not turning over the footage, which had not made the final cut, to them as the law requires.

Friel had no comment yesterday, but in an email to her staff, she said she left "for financial and other reasons."

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York. The borough and county consist of Manhattan Island and several small adjacent islands: Roosevelt Island, Randall's Island, Wards Island, Governors Island, Liberty Island, part of Ellis Island, Mill Rock, and U Thant Island; as well as Marble Hill, a very small area on the mainland bordering the Bronx. The original city of New York began at the southern end of Manhattan, expanded northwards, and then between 1874 and 1898, annexed land from surrounding counties.

The County of New York is the most densely populated county in the United States, and one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with a 2008 population of 1,634,795 living in a land area of 22.96 square miles (59.47 km²), or 71,201 residents per square mile (27,485/km²). It is also one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, with a 2005 personal income per capita above $100,000. Manhattan is the third-largest of New York's five boroughs in population, and its smallest borough in size.

Manhattan is a major commercial, financial, and cultural center of both the United States and the world. Anchored by Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City vies with the City of London as the financial capital of the world and is home of both the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. Many major radio, television, and telecommunications companies in the United States are based here, as well as many news, magazine, book, and other media publishers.

Manhattan has many famous landmarks, tourist attractions, museums, and universities. It is also home to the headquarters of the United Nations. It is the center of New York City and the New York metropolitan region, hosting the seat of city government and a large portion of the area's employment, business, and entertainment activities. As a result, residents of New York City's other boroughs such as Brooklyn and Queens often refer to a trip to Manhattan as "going to the city", despite the comparable populations between those boroughs.

Economy

Manhattan is the economic engine of New York City, with its 2.3 million workers drawn from the entire New York metropolitan area accounting for almost two-thirds of all jobs in New York City.Manhattan's daytime population swells to 2.87 million, with commuters adding a net 1.34 million people to the population. This commuter influx of 1.46 million workers coming into Manhattan was the largest of any other county or city in the country, and was more than triple the 480,000 commuters who headed into second-ranked Washington, D.C.

Its most important economic sector is the finance industry, whose 280,000 workers earned more than half of all the wages paid in the borough. The securities industry, best-known by its center in Wall Street, forms the largest segment of the city's financial sector, accounting for over 50% of the financial services employment. Before the financial crisis of 2008, the five largest securities-trading firms in the U.S. had their headquarters in Manhattan.

In 2006, those in the Manhattan financial industry earned an average weekly pay of about $8,300 (including bonuses), while the average weekly pay for all industries was about $2,500. This was the highest in the country's 325 largest counties, and the salary growth of 8% was the highest among the ten largest counties. Pay in the borough was 85% higher than the $784 pay earned weekly nationwide and nearly double the amount earned by workers in the outer boroughs. The health care sector represents about 11% of the borough's jobs and 4% of total compensation, with workers taking home about $900 per week.

New York City is home to the most corporate headquarters of any city in the nation, the overwhelming majority based in Manhattan. Midtown Manhattan is the largest central business district in the United States. Lower Manhattan is the nation's third-largest central business district (after Chicago's Loop) and is home to the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange (Amex), the New York Board of Trade, the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) and NASDAQ.

Seven of the world's top eight global advertising agency networks are headquartered in Manhattan."Madison Avenue" is often used metonymously to refer to the entire advertising field, after Madison Avenue became identified with the advertising industry after the explosive growth in the area in the 1920s.

Manhattan's workforce is overwhelmingly focused on white collar professions, with manufacturing (39,800 workers) and construction (31,600) accounting for a small fraction of the borough's employment.

Historically, this corporate presence has been complemented by many independent retailers, though a recent influx of national chain stores has caused many to lament the creeping homogenization of Manhattan.

The Bronx

Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated. Located north of Manhattan and Queens, and south of Westchester County, the Bronx is the only borough that is located primarily on the mainland (a very small portion of Manhattan is located on the mainland named Marble Hill). The Bronx's population is 1,400,761 according to the 2010 United States Census. The borough has a land area of 42 square miles (109 km2), making it the fourth most populated of the five boroughs, the fourth-largest in land area, and the third-highest in density of population.

Bronx is divided by the Bronx River into a hillier section in the west, closer to Manhattan, and the flatter East Bronx, closer to Long Island. The West Bronx was annexed to New York City (then largely confined to Manhattan) in 1874, and the areas east of the Bronx River in 1895. The Bronx first assumed a distinct legal identity when it became a borough of Greater New York in 1898. Bronx County, with the same boundaries as the borough, was separated from New York County (afterwards coextensive with the Borough of Manhattan) as of January 1, 1914. Although the Bronx is the third-most-densely-populated county in the U.S., about a quarter of its area is open space, including Woodlawn Cemetery, Van Cortlandt Park, Pelham Bay Park, the New York Botanical Garden and the Bronx Zoo in the borough's north and center, on land deliberately reserved in the late 19th century as urban development progressed northwards and eastwards from Manhattan with the building of roads, bridges and railways.

The Bronx River was named for Jonas Bronck, an early settler from Småland in Sweden whose land bordered the river on the east. The borough of the Bronx was named for the river that was "Bronck's River". The indigenous Lenape (Delaware) American Indians were progressively displaced after 1643 by settlers from the Netherlands and Great Britain. The Bronx received many Irish, German, Jewish and Italian immigrants as its once-rural population exploded between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries. They were succeeded after 1945 by African Americans and Hispanic Americans from the Caribbean basin — especially Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, but also from Jamaica. In recent years, this cultural mix has made the Bronx a wellspring of both Latin music and hip hop.

The Bronx contains one of the five poorest Congressional Districts in the U.S., (the 16th), but its wide variety of neighborhoods also includes the affluent Riverdale and Country Club. The Bronx, particularly the South Bronx, saw a sharp decline in population, livable housing, and the quality of life in the late 1960s and the 1970s, culminating in a wave of arson, but has shown some signs of revival in recent years.

The Bronx street grid is irregular. Like the northernmost part of upper Manhattan, the West Bronx's hilly terrain leaves a relatively free-style street grid. Much of the West Bronx's street numbering carries over from upper Manhattan, but does not match it exactly; East 132nd Street is the lowest numbered street in the Bronx. This dates from the mid-19th century when the southwestern area of Westchester County west of the Bronx River, was incorporated into New York City and known as the Northside.

The East Bronx is considerably flatter, and the street layout tends to be more regular. Only the Wakefield neighborhood picks up the street numbering, albeit at a disalignment due to Tremont Avenue's layout. At the same diagonal latitude, West 262nd Street in Riverdale matches East 237th Street in Wakefield.

Three major north-south thoroughfares run between Manhattan and the Bronx: Third Avenue, Park Avenue, and Broadway. Other major north-south roads include the Grand Concourse, Jerome Avenue, Sedgwick Avenue, Webster Avenue, and White Plains Road. Major east-west thoroughfares include Mosholu Parkway, Gun Hill Road, Fordham Road, Pelham Parkway, and Tremont Avenue.

Most east-west streets are prefixed with either East or West, to indicate on which side of Jerome Avenue they lie (continuing the similar system in Manhattan, which uses Fifth Avenue as the dividing line).

The historic Boston Post Road, part of the long pre-revolutionary road connecting Boston with other northeastern cities, runs east-west in some places, and sometimes northeast-southwest.

Mosholu and Pelham Parkways, with Bronx Park between them, Van Cortlandt Park to the west and Pelham Bay Park to the east, are also linked by bridle paths.

Approximately 61.6% of all Bronx households do not have access to a car. Citywide, the percentage of autoless households is 55%.

Highways

Several major limited access highways traverse the Bronx. These include:

the Bronx River Parkway

the Bruckner Expressway (I-278/I-95)

the Cross-Bronx Expressway (I-95/I-295)

the New England Thruway (I-95)

the Henry Hudson Parkway (NY-9A)

the Hutchinson River Parkway

the Major Deegan Expressway (New York Thruway) (I-87)

Cuomo calls special election in Weiner's former district

Fulfilling the wishes of local political leaders, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Friday that a special election to fill the seat of former Representative Anthony D. Weiner would be held on Sept. 13.

The special election means that party leaders will select the candidates to represent the Ninth Congressional District, which covers parts of Queens and Brooklyn. Some good-government advocates had hoped that there would be open primaries to allow for more candidates, even though they conceded that there was no legal consensus as to whether such primaries could be held to fill a Congressional seat.

Mr. Weiner, a seven-term Democrat who was once viewed as a rising star in the party, resigned on June 16 after being felled by a scandal over his lewd online behavior. Whoever wins the Sept. 13 special election would serve out the rest of Mr. Weiner’s term, through the end of 2012.

But that candidate’s status as a freshman member of Congress could be short-lived. New York is set to lose two House seats because of the 2010 census, and many believe that Mr. Weiner’s territory will be carved up to benefit Democratic incumbents in adjoining districts.

Weiner vacated his seat in the 9th Congressional district, which covers parts of Queens and Brooklyn, on June 16 after being caught in a "sexting" scandal that spurred bi-partisan calls for the Democratic congressman's resignation.

But whoever wins the September election may not have the job for long. Due to the state's population loss, the 9th district could be pushed out in a redistricting plan that's set to finalize in 2013.

The governor's announcement comes less than seven weeks after another special election was held in the Empire State. Rep. Kathy Hochul won the 26th Congressional race in a widely-covered election that turned a Republican seat over to the Democrats.

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents,and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, after New York County (Manhattan). It is also the westernmost county on Long Island.

Brooklyn was an independent city until its consolidation with New York City in 1898, and continues to maintain a distinct culture, independent art scene, and unique architectural heritage. Many Brooklyn neighborhoods are ethnic enclaves where particular ethnic groups and cultures predominate.

Brooklyn's official motto is Eendraght Maeckt Maght. Written in the early modern spelling of the Dutch language, it is inspired by the motto of the United Dutch Provinces and translated "Unity makes strength". The motto is displayed on the borough seal and flag, which also feature a young robed woman bearing fasces, a traditional emblem of republicanism. Brooklyn's official colors are blue and gold.

Brooklyn's job market is driven by three main factors: the performance of the national and city economy, population flows and the borough's position as a convenient back office for New York's businesses.

Forty-four percent of Brooklyn's employed population, or 410,000 people, work in the borough; more than half of the borough's residents work outside its boundaries. As a result, economic conditions in Manhattan are important to the borough's jobseekers. Strong international immigration to Brooklyn generates jobs in services, retailing and construction.

In recent years, Brooklyn has benefited from a steady influx of financial back-office operations from Manhattan, the rapid growth of a high-tech and entertainment economy in DUMBO, and strong growth in support services such as accounting, personal supply agencies, and computer services firms.[10]

Jobs in the borough have traditionally been concentrated in manufacturing, but since 1975, Brooklyn has shifted from a manufacturing-based to a service-based economy. In 2004, 215,000 Brooklyn residents worked in the services sector, while 27,500 worked in manufacturing. Although manufacturing has declined, a substantial base has remained in apparel and niche manufacturing concerns such as furniture, fabricated metals, and food products. The pharmaceutical company Pfizer has a manufacturing plant in Brooklyn that employs 990 workers.

First established as a shipbuilding facility in 1801, the Brooklyn Navy Yard employed 70,000 people at its peak during World War II and was then the largest employer in the borough. The Missouri, the ship on which the Japanese formally surrendered, was built there, as was the Maine, whose sinking off Havana led to the start of the Spanish-American War. The iron-sided Civil War vessel the Monitor was built in Greenpoint. From 1968-1979 Seatrain Shipbuilding was the major employer Later tenants include industrial design firms, food processing businesses, artisans, and the film and television production industry. About 230 private-sector firms providing 4,000 jobs are at the Yard.

Construction and services are the fastest growing sectors. Most employers in Brooklyn are small businesses. In 2000, 91% of the approximately 38,704 business establishments in Brooklyn had fewer than 20 employees. As of August 2008, the borough's unemployment rate was 5.9%.

Brooklyn is also home to many banks and credit unions. According to the FDIC, there are 37 banks and 21 credit unions operating in Brooklyn.

Queens

Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area, and second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States.

Located on the western portion of Long Island, Queens is home to two of the three major New York City area airports, JFK International Airport and LaGuardia Airport. It is also the location of the New York Mets baseball team, the US Open tennis tournament, Flushing Meadows Park, Kaufman Astoria Studios, Silvercup Studios, and Aqueduct Racetrack.

As of the 2005 American Community Survey, immigrants comprise 47.6% of Queens residents. With a population of 2.3 million it is the second most populous borough in New York City (behind Brooklyn) and the tenth most populous county in the United States. It is also the nation's fourth-most-densely populated county (after the counties covering Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx). The 2.3 million figure is the highest historical population for the borough. Were each borough an independent city, Brooklyn and Queens would be the country's third and fourth largest cities, respectively, after Los Angeles and Chicago.

Queens was established in 1683 as one of the original 12 counties of New York and was supposedly named for the Queen consort, Catherine of Braganza (1638–1705), the Portuguese princess who married King Charles II of England in 1662.

The borough is considered one of the more suburban boroughs of New York City. The neighborhoods in eastern Queens have a look and feel similar to the bordering suburbs of western Nassau County. In its northwestern section, however, Queens is home to many urban neighborhoods and several central business districts. Long Island City, on the Queens' waterfront across from Manhattan, is the site of the Citicorp Building, the tallest skyscraper in New York City outside of Manhattan, and the tallest building on geographic Long Island.

Borough of Queens

The New York City Borough of Queens was authorized on May 4, 1897, by a vote of the New York State Legislature after an 1894 referendum on consolidation. The eastern 280 square miles (730 km2) of Queens that became Nassau County was partitioned on January 1, 1899.

Queens Borough was established on Jan 1, 1898. Long Island City, the towns of Newtown, Flushing, and Jamaica, and the Rockaway Peninsula portion of the Town of Hempstead were merged to form the new borough, dissolving all former municipal governments (Long Island City, the county government, all towns, and all villages) within the new borough. The areas of Queens County that were not part of the consolidation plan, consisting of the towns of North Hempstead and Oyster Bay, and the major remaining portion of the Town of Hempstead, remained part of Queens County until they seceded to form the new Nassau County on January 1, 1899, whereupon the boundaries of Queens County and the Borough of Queens became coterminous. With consolidation, Jamaica once again became the county seat, though county offices now extend to nearby Kew Gardens also.

From 1905 to 1908 the Long Island Rail Road in Queens was electrified. Transportation to and from Manhattan, previously by ferry or via bridges in Brooklyn, opened up when the Queensboro Bridge was finished in 1909, and with railway tunnels under the East River in 1910. From 1915 onward, much of Queens was connected to the New York City subway system. With the 1915 construction of the Steinway Tunnel carrying the IRT Flushing Line between Queens and Manhattan, and the emergent expansion of the use of the automobile, the population of Queens more than doubled in the 1920s, from 469,042 in 1920 to 1,079,129 in 1930. Queens was the site of the 1939 New York World's Fair and the 1964 New York World's Fair. LaGuardia Airport, in northern Queens, opened in 1939. Idlewild Airport, in southern Queens and now called JFK Airport, opened in 1948.

See also: History of New York City, List of former municipalities in New York City, and List of streetcar lines in Queens

Geography

Queens County is in the western part of Long Island and includes a few smaller islands, most of which are in Jamaica Bay and form part of Gateway National Recreation Area, which is in turn one of the National Parks of New York Harbor.

The Rockaway Peninsula sits between Jamaica Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The western and northern edge of the borough is defined a watery continuum made up of Newtown Creek which flows into the tidal estuary known as the East River, which includes the associated Flushing Bay and Flushing River. The East River opens into Long Island Sound. The mid-section of Queens is crossed by the Long Island straddling terminal moraine created by the Wisconsin Glacier. This feature evolved into a land use pun due to the siting of many cemeteries.

The tallest tree in the New York metropolitan area, called the Queens Giant, is also the oldest living thing in the New York metro area. It is located in northeastern Queens, and is 450 years old and 132 feet (40 m) tall as of 2005.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the county has an area of 178.3 square miles (462 km2); 109.2 square miles (283 km2) of this is land and 38.7% is water.

Landmarks of Queens

Further information: List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Queens

Queens is home to many historical landmarks. The Unisphere, shown often during the U.S. Open, sits adjacent to the Queens Museum of Art. P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center is a museum devoted to contemporary art. Housed in a former public high school, P.S.1 has managed to keep cutting the cutting edge even as it has matured as an institution.