A year into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Newsweek checks in with a few local loan recipients. The big question: Did the money doled out by the government work as a stimulus or stopgap? The Polytechnic Institute of New York University picked up $4.2 million to put towards research on renewable energy, which could eventually result in new jobs and cheaper energy resources. However, for Peter Byrners, owner of the seven-person graphic design firm Lúgh Studio Inc. (at 138 Union Street, near Columbia Street), the $150,000 loan he received “enabled him to pay an outstanding American Express bill and payroll taxes, and provided a much-needed cash cushion. But it did not help him hire new workers, restore his company’s health insurance, or reinstate the employees’ 20 percent pay cut.” Greenwich Street Equities took out a loan to build Choice Hotel (at 611 DeGraw St, between Third and Fourth avenues), but it’ll be spent entirely on temporary jobs: “The $1.5 million loan for the boutique hotel will employ 50 to 60 subcontractors and construction workers until the property is completed.”
The Stimulus in My Neighborhood [Newsweek]
Photo from WSDM.
Sizing Up Stimulus Results
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