An Interesting Take on the Fare Hike.

From East Village Idiot:

Today, the MTA will vote to raise fares again… this time to the tune of 23%. Your monthly Metrocard that cost you $81 this month will cost you $103 in June.

Yes, it’s outrageous. Yes, it’s unfair. But no, it’s not entirely the MTA’s fault. In fact, this fare hike could have been easily prevented by Albany in the past and present, but everyone finds it easy to blame the MTA for this. Stop blaming the MTA, and blame the people who deserve to be blamed.

There’s a whole lot more in the article.   New York is in trouble, folks.   I was in a meeting the other day in which a city employee said, in so many words, “New York doesn’t have any money.”  Budgets are being cut left and right, folks are being laid off, and now the subway’s going to cost more.  It’s scary.

And this, my friends, is the stuff that’s going to eventually impact Broadway and the rest of the theater industry.

Bloop Bloop.

Swiped from Wooster Collective.

The Broadway Tax.

Last week, Ken Davenport (the coolest blogging producer Broadway has) wrote this:

It’s common for governments to increase sumptuary or sin taxes during times of economic stress, but it looks like Patterson is so stressed out, he’s expanding the usual definition of sins to include a lot more “luxury” items and services, i.e. taxis, massages, and movie tickets?

Did anyone else get a little nervous that Mr. Gov. would be knocking on our door any minute?

And today, The Post tells us that he’s already knocking:

FACING “Black Tuesday” – when the first six of 13 shows slated to close go dark on Jan. 6 – Broadway has been hit with a final indignity: a 4 percent tax on theater tickets.

The hike was not given top billing when Gov. David Paterson’s proposal of 137 new and increased taxes to address state budget shortfalls was released last week – but producers discovered it buried in there.

Executives say the fee could be the final blow to an industry reeling from dwindling ticket sales.

Let’s be clear for a second: this is not the final blow.

Broadway is not going to shut down.

This could represent a five dollar ticket increase, which is substantial, but is not going to bankrupt the business.  It’s going to be a tough year or so, but the big shows will be there.  There will be theater to see.

And of course, this is just a proposed tax — who knows if it will even pass?

The big thing that this speaks to, I think, is that New York is in big, big trouble.  Remember how Disney came in to Times Square and everyone bemoaned the loss of the good old dirty days (myself included, even though I hadn’t really experienced the good old dirty days)?  Take a walk down Eighth Avenue around 11pm some night.  It’s not the way it used to be, but you’re sure to see some of it creeping back in.

And now there’s going to be a lot less tax revenue.

Art. Economy.

Very interesting set of articles in Time Out New York recently on how the arts in NYC are being impacted by the financial crisis. Way too much for me to thoroughly comment on here, but I wanted to highlight this passage from Karen Brooks Hopkins, President of BAM:

“Everyone in the country is concerned, but in our particular sector, we are concerned obviously about the chain reaction on this whole situation. Start off with the fact that we already took a very substantial cut in city funding in the June budget plan because the mayor was concerned about the tax revenues. Now you also see a second cut to city agencies, and we’re very concerned that there’s going to be an additional government cut. Then you see the corporate sector also with diminishing resources, and particularly so many of the companies that are headquartered here in New York. That will add another layer of misery to this whole situation for us. And then you have individuals, which are the heart of support for most of the arts organizations—and it’s not only that people will have less wealth, it’s that they will feel like they have less wealth, and that will also, in many cases, impact a lot of the end-of-the-year giving. You have many board members who are so focused on their corporate business that they’re not as able to put the time and attention into the problems of the organizations they serve on. But the foundation sector will probably see the fallout later. They make their grants based on earnings over a certain period so the impact of this is probably going to hit them later.”

I think that pretty much sums up the state of the not-for-profits.