Company Bertelsmann AG (first package)
Date Announced 3/1/1992
Site 1540 Broadway @ 45th St.
Total Subsidy $10.7 million

Amount tied to job creation

???
Promised Job Creation ???
Promised Job Retention 500
Length of Contract ???
Competing Sites Chicago
Conditions Media conglomerate Bertelsmann agreed to set aside up to 50,000 square feet of low-cost office space in its new, subsidized building to be used as an incubator for mid-sized international companies that want to set up outposts in New York.
Notes This 44-story Times Square office building at 1540 Broadway had been built using property tax abatements. The developers of the building were in bankruptcy proceedings, so the city offered property tax reductions to Bertelsmann. Once the deal was made, then-Mayor David Dinkins cited the sale of a vacant Times Square building to the German conglomerate as evidence that the city was "on the upswing." Bertelsmann had been considering moving most of its New York City operations to Chicago.
Corporate Notes Bertelsmann's New York City-based divisions include RCA Records, Bantam Doubleday Dell publishing and Parents Magazine.
Critics
A note on sources -- or why many of these profiles appear incomplete. They are. Good Jobs New York compiled the numbers in these profiles from press releases and news accounts of the deals. Unfortunately, more detailed information on these subsidies is very difficult to obtain -- even though it should be readily available to the public. In many cases, neither the company nor the city nor state released certain information, particularly the terms of the agreement, i.e., the conditions which the company had to meet in order to receive the subsidy. It should also be noted that the value of the subsidy may not end up being equal to the value estimated at the time of the agreement. And it should not be assumed that the actual number of jobs retained and created will be the same as the numbers predicted.

Because the public deserves easy access to information about how taxpayer dollars are being spent, Good Jobs New York will update these profiles as we uncover more information.

Good Jobs New York  - May 25, 2001