House of Deceit

When we were in full throttle over the BTM development one of the aspects of the deal that really burned us was the swapping of the House of Detention, a property that was appraised at $41 million, to the Related Company for land valued at a great deal less. As it now turns out, however, this deal is a good deal worse than we first realized.

It is so because we now find out, thanks to testimony from the Department of Corrections yesterday, that the city is going to build a new jail in the Oakpoint section of the Bronx for, hold your hats, $377 million! So a perfectly functional jail is being handed over to a private developer, an entity that was just about given the BTM for a song, and the taxpayers are stuck with a humonguos bill for a new facility.

This is the biggest rape of the taxpayer we've seen in along time and Deputy Dan and Steve Ross should be the first occupants of the new jail. In actuality, the city will probably give Related the contract to build it.