But beneath these numbers, the feuds among core developers over resolving longstanding issues have simmered on, most critically how to increase block size.
Streets are clean, the houses freshly painted, and there are construction sites on most residential blocks as well as "help wanted" signs in many shops.
While procedures were tightened up later on, most coal blocks were allocated to private companies without any competitive bidding.
Over the next hour or so, the group used the stencils to create ersatz bike lanes on most of the blocks between 50th and 42nd Streets, skipping an area near 48th Street where a police vehicle was posted outside the News Corporation building.
When I considered the issue of safety, albeit briefly and naively, I reasoned that there were police cars more often than not on most of the blocks I traversed during daylight hours.
The hotel is on one of the most happening blocks on one of the most happening streets in the city.
It was hard to find a spot there until the city began experimenting with a program that uses technology to raise the price of parking on the most crowded blocks and lower it on its emptiest blocks.
However expensive, the deal clears the way for Mr. Durst to build a $1 billion, 2.1-million-square-foot office tower that would serve as the New York headquarters for the Bank of America, on most of the block bounded by 42nd and 43rd Streets, between Broadway and the Avenue of the Americas.
NetCash intends to spend $12.8 million over the next year installing Internet terminals in 2,500 padarias -- shops that are a combination of bakery, minimarket, lunch counter and bar that appear, at least one every block, on most Sao Paulo streets.
