Greenpoint oil spill

The Greenpoint oil spill is one of the largest oil spills ever recorded in the United States. Located around Newtown Creek in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, between 17 million and 30 million gallons of oil and petroleum products have leaked into the soil from crude oil processing facilities over a period of several decades.

History of the area

 Greenpoint, Brooklyn and Newtown Creek

The areas of the northeast industrial section of Greenpoint along Newtown Creek were home to oil refineries from the 1840s, and by 1870 boasted more than 50 petroleum processing plants, many of which were incorporated into the Standard Oil Trust towards the end of the century. Standard Oil's successors (Mobil and later ExxonMobil) used the refining facilities until 1966 and later operated a bulk petroleum storage facility and a distribution terminal on the site until 1993. Other petroleum companies operating in the area were Amoco (later part of BP) and Paragon Oil (now part of ChevronTexaco).

Discovery of the spill

In September 1978, a United States Coast Guard helicopter on a routine patrol discovered a plume of oil flowing in the creek, originating from a bulkhead at Meeker Avenue.A subsequent study revealed the large-scale soil contamination, which was estimated in excess of 50 acres (0.20 km2) and a spillage volume of more than 17 million gallons.

Cleanup efforts and seepage mitigation

The first pumps were installed at the site in late 1979, and recovery efforts have increased over the years. The pump systems are operated by the site owners ExxonMobil, BP and, more recently, ChevronTexaco. Environmentalist organizations have said that there was little effort until the early 1990s and have labelled the clean up operations "rudimentary". In January 2006 the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, backed[clarification needed] by the involved companies, asserted that 9 million gallons of free product had been recovered and cleaned up.

In 2007 a report by the United States Environmental Protection Agency on the spill raised the estimated size of the contaminated area to 100 acres (0.40 km2) and the estimated spillage volume to 30 million gallons, three times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill. The report also criticized the recovery efforts and a recent slowdown of the clean up.

According to an Environmental Protection Agency study, "the American Petroleum Institute (2002) indicates that 40% to 80% of a product spill may be retained in soils as residual product".:42 The Department of Environmental Conservation's website states that petroleum companies participating in the cleanup have used a Free Product Recovery System for groundwater, rather than the soils.

A New York State Department of Health study, completed in May 2007, indicated that no vapor was coming from the spill into homes. The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) "Newtown Creek/Greenpoint Oil Spill Study Brooklyn, New York" states that vapor concentrations in “some commercial establishments” were found “above the Upper Explosive Limit”.:7 The study also said, "A review of the data collected by the NYSDEC shows that, in general, chemicals were detected at all locations in each home, but not in a pattern that would typically represent a vapor intrusion phenomenon."

A recent[when?] New York State Department of Environmental Conservation reported that tested residential blocks above the spill area concluded that there is no evidence of either oil or dangerous vapors seeping into people’s homes. Brooklyn Paper columnist Tom Gilbert wrote, "This stands to reason, as the spilled oil tends to lie deep underground, capped by a nearly impermeable layer of clay." Soil vapor tests by both the DEC and the non-profit environmental organization Riverkeeper have come out positive.

As reported by NYU's ScienceLine, ExxonMobil's testing indicates that the existence of oil vapors remains unclear: "This summer, a contractor for Exxon Mobil conducted a soil vapor study in Greenpoint. It took ten samples from a residential area; of five samples that detected benzene, one was from an area above the oil plume at a level below 5.4 parts per billion."

Litigation

On October 20, 2005, local residents within the area of the oil recovery operation, which is located in the predominantly commercial/industrial eastern section of Greenpoint near the East Williamsburg Industrial Park, filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil, BP and Chevron in Brooklyn State Supreme Court, alleging they have suffered adverse health consequences. ExxonMobil asserts that the oil was spilled by Paragon Oil. In 2006 Chevron was dropped from the case.

(source:wikipedia)

Tourism in New York City

The Circle Line XVII touring the Harlem River

European visitors at Rockaways shore

Tourists gather round a busker in Columbus Circle

Tourism in New York City includes nearly 47 million foreign and American tourists each year. Major destinations include the Empire State Building, Ellis Island, Broadway theatre productions, museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and other tourist attractions including Central Park, Washington Square Park, Rockefeller Center, Times Square, the Bronx Zoo, South Street Seaport, New York Botanical Garden, luxury shopping along Fifth and Madison Avenues, and events such as the Tribeca Film Festival, and free performances in Central Park at Summerstage and Delacorte Theater. The Statue of Liberty is a major tourist attraction and one of the most recognizable icons of the United States. Many New York City ethnic enclaves, such as Jackson Heights, Flushing, and Brighton Beach are major shopping destinations for first and second generation Americans up and down the East Coast.

New York City has over 28,000 acres (110 km2) of parkland and 14 linear miles (22 km) of public beaches. Manhattan's Central Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, is the most visited city park in the United States. Prospect Park in Brooklyn, also designed by Olmsted and Vaux, has a 90 acres (36 ha) meadow.Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, the city's third largest, was the setting for the 1939 World's Fair and 1964 World's Fair.

New York's food culture, influenced by the city's immigrants and large number of dining patrons, is diverse. Jewish and Italian immigrants made the city famous for bagels, cheesecake and New York-style pizza. Some 4,000 mobile food vendors licensed by the city, many immigrant-owned[clarification needed], have made Middle Eastern foods such as falafel and kebabs standbys of contemporary New York street food. The city is also home to many of the finest haute cuisine restaurants in the United States.

The famed Dakota on Central Park West

View from Central Park of buildings along Central Park South, including Essex House

Tour guide lecturing in Italian at Morris-Jumel Mansion

Sporting events are also tourist events. Major venues include Yankee Stadium, Citi Field, and Madison Square Garden. Street fairs and street events such as the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village, and New York Marathon also attract tourists.

Industry

Tourism in New York City is a large industry. According to NYC & Company (the official destination marketing organization for the city of New York), the top producing countries for international visitors to New York City in 2005 were the United Kingdom (1,169,000), Canada (815,000), Germany (401,000), Japan (299,000), Italy (292,000), France (268,000), Ireland (253,000), Australia (235,000), Spain (205,000), Greece (148,000), and the Netherlands (147,000).

Unlike many other destinations, New York City does not have a distinctive tourist season. With the exception of slight peaks around Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's, visitor arrival rates are roughly the same year-round. New York also has one of the highest hotel-occupancy rates in the country. Arrivals have remained relatively high even since the global economic crisis, due to heavy discounting and value-added pricing.

Spearheading the city's tourism efforts is NYC & Company, the city's official convention and visitor bureau currently headed by George Fertitta. It has offices in 14 countries, including Argentina, Britain, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, The Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Japan, Korea and China. NYC & Company is the official source of tourism statistics for the city. The research department develops and distributes comprehensive information on NYC domestic and international visitor statistics and monitors the travel industry's impact on New York City's economy. The department also produces 14 official New York City tourism marketing publications that feature information on member hotels, museums, attractions, theaters, stores, restaurants, meeting venues, and service providers.

Double decker tour buses and boats with tour guides bring sightseers to various parts of Manhattan and other boroughs, while pedicabs and horse cabs serve those with a taste for more personal service. More adventurous tourists rent bicycles at neighborhood shops or along the Hudson River Greenway or simply walk, which is often the quickest way to get around in congested, busy commercial districts and always the best way to appreciate street life.

Many visitors investigate their genealogy at historic immigration sites such as Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Other tourist destinations include the Empire State Building, for 41 years the world's tallest building after its construction in 1931, Radio City Music Hall, home of The Rockettes, a variety of Broadway shows, the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, housed on a World War II aircraft carrier, and city landmarks such as Central Park, one of the finest examples of landscape architecture in the world. New York City has encouraged tourist shopping by eliminating its sales tax on clothing and footwear.

The World Trade Center was an important tourist destination before the September 11, 2001 attacks, which devastated the city and its tourist industry. Tourists were scarce for months, and it took two years for the numbers to fully rebound with fewer international, but more domestic visitors, due in part to an emphasis on "patriotic tourism". The World Trade Center site itself became an important place to visit.

mportant place to visit.

New York City Tourism Statistics

Year	Total Visitors (millions)	Domestic Visitors	International Visitors	Total Visitor Spending Billions(US$)
1991	29.1	23.6	5.5	10.1
1995	28.5	23.1	5.4	11.7
1998	33.1	27.1	6.0	14.7
1999	36.4	29.8	6.6	15.6
2000	36.2	29.4	6.8	17.0
2001	35.2	29.5	5.7	15.1
2002	35.3	30.2	5.1	14.1
2003	37.8	33.0	4.8	18.5
2004	39.9	33.8	6.2	21.1
2005	42.6	35.8	6.8	22.8
2006	43.8	36.5	7.3	24.7
2007	46.0	37.1	8.8	28.9
2008	47.0	37.2	9.8	30.0

(source:wikipedia)

Federal Reserve Bank of New York

William C. Dudley, the current (10th) president of Federal Reserve Bank of New York and vice-chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is one of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks of the United States. It is located at 33 Liberty Street, New York, NY. It is responsible for the Second District of the Federal Reserve System, which encompasses New York state, the 12 northern counties of New Jersey, Fairfield County in Connecticut, Puerto Rico, and the U. S. Virgin Islands. Working within the Federal Reserve System, the New York Fed implements monetary policy, supervises and regulates financial institutions and helps maintain the nation's payment systems.

The New York Fed and its president are considered first among equals. It is by far the largest (by assets), most active (by volume) and most influential of the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks.

Largest regional Federal Reserve Bank

Map of Federal Reserve districts

Since the founding of the Federal Reserve banking system, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in Manhattan's Financial District has been the place where monetary policy in the United States is implemented, although policy is decided in Washington, D.C. by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The New York Federal reserve is a private bank and the largest in terms of assets of the twelve regional banks. Operating in the financial capital of the U.S., the New York Fed is responsible for conducting open market operations, the buying and selling of outstanding U.S. Treasury securities. The Trading Desk is the office at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that manages the FOMC Directive to sell or buy bonds. Note that the responsibility for issuing new U.S. Treasury securities lies with the Bureau of the Public Debt. In 2003, Fedwire, the Federal Reserve's system for transferring balances between it and other banks, transferred $1.8 trillion a day in funds, of which about $1.1 trillion originated in the Second District. It transferred an additional $1.3 trillion a day in securities, of which $1.2 trillion originated in the Second District. The New York Fed is also responsible for carrying out exchange rate policy by buying and selling dollars at the discretion of the United States Treasury Department. The New York Federal Reserve is the only regional bank with a permanent vote on the Federal Open Market Committee and its president is traditionally selected as the Committee's vice chairman. The current president is William C. Dudley. The New York Fed opened for business on November 16, 1914 under the leadership of Benjamin Strong Jr., who was previously president of the Bankers Trust Company. He led the Bank until his death in 1928. The Bank grew rapidly during the early years, bringing about the need for a new home. The New York Fed's three-class Board of Directors, bank membership, and organization and legal status are the same in structure, for the New York region, as those of the other eleven Fed districts, which collectively cover the rest of the country.

33 Liberty Street

Federal Reserve Bank of New York building

Main article: 33 Liberty Street

A public competition for design of the building was held and the architectural firm of York and Sawyer submitted the winning design. The bank moved to its current location in 1924. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York maintains a vault that lies 80 feet below street level and 50 feet below sea level, resting on Manhattan bedrock. By 1927, the vault contained ten percent of the world's official gold reserves. Currently, it is reputedly the largest gold repository in the world (though this cannot be confirmed as Swiss Banks do not report their gold stocks) and holds approximately 7,000 metric tons of gold bullion ($270 billion as of July 2010), more than Fort Knox. The gold is owned by many foreign nations, central banks and international organizations. The Federal Reserve Bank does not own the gold but serves as guardian of the precious metal, which it protects at no charge as a gesture of goodwill to other nations.

Current Board of Directors

The following people serve on the board of directors as of 2010: All terms expire December 31.

Class A

Class A

Name Title Term Expires

Richard L. Carrión Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Popular, Inc.

San Juan, Puerto Rico 2013

Charles V. Wait President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

The Adirondack Trust Company

Saratoga Springs, New York 2011

Jamie Dimon Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

JPMorgan Chase & Co.

New York City 2012

Class B

Class B

Name Title Term Expires

James S. Tisch President and Chief Executive Officer

Loews Corporation

New York, New York 2010

Jeffrey R. Immelt Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

General Electric Company

Fairfield, Connecticut 2011

Jeffrey B. Kindler Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Pfizer, Inc.

New York, New York 2012

Class C

Class C

Name Title Term Expires

Kathryn S. Wylde President and Chief Executive Officer

Partnership for New York City

New York, New York 2010

Denis M. Hughes

(Chair)

President

New York State AFL-CIO

New York, New York 2011

Lee C. Bollinger

(Deputy Chair)

President

Columbia University

New York, New York 2012

Former Board members

Indra K. Nooyi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PepsiCo. Inc., left the Board when her term expired in 2009, and Kindler now fills the seat. Bollinger's and Dimon's three-year terms were renewed in 2009. Tisch and Wylde filled partial-term vacancies, the latter for Stephen Friedman's seat, in the year.

Resignation of Stephen Friedman, Chair

Stephen Friedman resigned as Chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Thursday, May 7, 2009 effective immediately. Friedman, former CEO of Goldman Sachs and then-chairman of Stone Point Capital, LLC, Greenwich, Conn., was criticized for seemingly benefiting from his role as Chair of the New York Fed branch due to the US Government's aid to Goldman Sachs in recent months. He had "remain[ed] on the board of Goldman even as he was supposedly regulating [Goldman]; in order to rectify the problem, he applied for, and got, a conflict of interest waiver from the government. Friedman was also supposed to divest himself of his Goldman stock after Goldman became a bankholding company, but thanks to the waiver, he was allowed to go out and buy 52,000 additional shares in his old bank, leaving him $3 million richer," as one report put it. Friedman's resignation announcement came within an hour of the government's release of the stress tests for 19 US banks. Denis Hughes, formerly Deputy Chair, was designated as Interim Chair following Friedman's resignation.

Presidents

 Presidents of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Presidents of the bank since its founding have been:

10. William C. Dudley, 2009-

9. Timothy Geithner, 2003–2009

8. William J. McDonough, 1993–2003

7. E. Gerald Corrigan, 1985–1993

6. Anthony M. Solomon, 1980–1985

5. Paul Volcker, 1975–1979

4. Alfred Hayes, 1956–1975

3. Allan Sproul, 1941–1956

2. George L. Harrison, 1928–1940

1. Benjamin Strong Jr., 1914–1928

1. Strong (1914–1928)

2. Harrison (1928–1940)

3. Sproul (1941–1956)

4. Hayes (1956–1975)

5. Volcker (1975–1979)

6. Solomon (1980–1985)

7. Corrigan (1985–1993)

8. McDonough (1993–2003)

9. Geithner (2003–2009)

10. Dudley (2009- )

Branches

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York Buffalo Branch used to be the only branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, but it was closed on October 31, 2008.

(source:wikipedia)