Mario’s Sons’ Holiday Dick Moves

Andrew Cuomo. Governor of the state of New York, colossal prick.

The last few weeks have seen a flurry of sudden proactivity from the son of Mario, Governor Andrew Cuomo. Although it truly cannot cloak the sorry desperation inspiring it. This is following the recent indictments of all his long-time cronies consisting of his honorary brother, Joseph Percoco and his favorite visionary guru,  Alain Kaloyeros (“He has economic visions that other mere mortals can’t actually see”  not long ago remarked, Andy) in the ambitious and now squandered Buffalo Billion solar power venture upstate.

After Mario’s son somehow escaped unscathed from the thievery committed by those idiot assholes, who have ties that go back when his dad in the 90’s, Andy somehow had an epiphany that a lot of services and other programs he has jurisdiction, make that lord over, were way behind schedule.

So he deigns to come down to the city and demands that the century long dormant 2nd avenue line must get done, stat. Suddenly, what was a dark and hazardous 40 block gauntlet for a year got fast-tracked and will make it’s new year’s day opening. How this happened was miraculous, as there were 5 times more contractors than before and the streets were clear a week after Mario’s son made his walk through underground. Stupidly sans helmet of course. The stations, for some reason, contains wall to wall modern art displays by the top artists of today which includes Chuck Close. Some of them look like Banksy rip-offs. Which may be the reason why there were so many delays and costs getting higher trying to complete this on schedule, in addition to the cars unable to fit through the tunnels. Andy was so agog he came off like an auctioneer trainee at Sotheby’s when he was describing it, or an unscrupulous realtor trying to swindle some hipsters at an overpriced 5 story walk-up studio apartment with graffiti on the side of the building. But more like Ralphie’s dad from A Christmas Story when he got his major award.

From Curbed:

“The Second Avenue subway provides New Yorkers with a museum underground and honors our legacy of building engineering marvels that elevate the human experience,” Cuomo said in a statement. “Public works projects are not just about function—they’re an expression of who we are and what we believe. Any child who has never walked into a museum or an art gallery can walk the streets of New York and be exposed to art and education simply by being a New Yorker. That is where we came from and that is what makes New York special.”

The last time expression like this was used on our trains was a thing called graffiti, an art form while reviled, despised and persecuted, was representative of the blighted and broke although way more creative times of that era, and is a certainly an influence on the artists contributions to these stations. That will inevitably will be defaced by other expressionist types or by the effects of continuing income inequality with people looking for a place to sleep and place their shopping cart of recyclables and personal belongings. And piss and vomit too. One installation actually shows the effect of papers being blown from the subway, so when real newspaper detritus is thrown away on the platform or from the streets it will blend in seamlessly.

The last time the governor got really needy for efficiency of our transit system was when the 7 extension to the hudson got done, subsequently and immediately there were leaks and escalator breakdowns. This rush job is already getting complaints without even running, since all those workers were so busy getting the roads done they forgot to cut a block long curb.

Now that it’s done after a century of misfortunes and fiscal neglect, well not really done,  the original plan was to get to 125st, but they broke it in phases, and I have to wonder if Mario’s son, Governor Andy, will take his new found proactive helmetless casual Friday style down to the Dirty Southeast Of Queens and get a look at the Lefferts Blvd. station. Where it takes longer to build a pair of stairs than it is to stuff big trains into little tunnels and have big time artists take months making portraits of themselves.

    

This was supposed to be completed by Thanksgiving, it should be noted that the other staircase was supposed to be finished last year too and got done in fucking June. I don’t have much hope for the MTA, the worst fucking transit system in the universe, to get it done, even if they have the technology for time travel. Look at that sign taped indelicately to the partition wall.

That’s right, January 2016. That is just awfully discouraging. If only the governor makes the time to assemble a garrison of contractors down to Richmond Hill to fix this miscue.

But that’s a long shot, because these images were taken today, and Mario’s son had to go back to Albany to deal with his new assembly leaders for a new salary. The recently frugal and diligent governor did some flexing and refused to give these officials the raise they actually don’t deserve, even though these positions have not had a substantial pay increase in 40 years. Being the amount of corruption that has gone on and the recent busts of Skelos and Silver and dozens of others, Andy gets to be a hero here with the optics of his decision because these electeds aren’t actually fighting for $15. Unfortunately this has led to a legislative lockdown coming at the expense of startup business and the slight chance to alleviate the monumental homeless crisis in the 5 boroughs.

Andy, apparently still in the zone and a sudden awareness for ethics and accountability, will appoint a special pseudo independent prosecutor answering only to him to overlook any profligate spending by the assembly. This from the guy who terminated the last independent investigative body of his adminstration, the Moreland Commission, which did it’s job too well and got to close to Andy. Something of this nature is akin to being unconstitutional.

With the new year and state of the state address coming, he has embraced populism and wants to engage with the norms (that’s citizens, or people to us, the norms) for 6 individual speeches in different locales. Keeping up his unconstitutional and hubristic theme and taking an American custom as addressing the status of the state and reducing it to going on the lam. Is he trying to avoid being in Albany?

Well, I hope one of his stops is this slow crawl renovation. Because this station is in a heavily and densely populated town. And it gets really cramped and intolerable going up and down those stairs when the train arrives. So get down here and bring your contractor battalion and build these stairs and have them clean that pigeon shit-sty by the turnstiles, Governor. If you really are the governor.