Business Desk
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

CITYWIDE
MANHATTAN CONDOMINIUM SALES HIT RECORD Condominium sales in Manhattan reached a record 1,374 transactions in the second quarter, an 18% jump over last year. The average sale price of $1,026,885 was 21% higher than in 2003, and the median sale price rose 14% to $660,000, according to a report published yesterday by the Real Estate Board of New York.
Other record breakers include the median price per square foot of both prewar and postwar apartments, with prewar units up 19% to a median of $786, and postwar condos up 16% to $765.
Average sale prices on the West Side were especially strong, surging 48% to $1.29 million. Postwar apartments in the neighborhood reached $1.364 million, a 45% hike, and prewar units increased 38% to $886,000. The median price per square foot on the West Side also broke the $800 record, with prewar condos rising 34% to $861 and postwar condos rising 13% to a record $829.
The West Side power market “can be attributed to the successful sales of condominiums at the Time Warner Center, which added a substantial number of units and value to the market,” said the president of the Real Estate Board, Steven Spinola, in a statement.
– Staff Reporter of the Sun
NEW YORK ATTORNEY MORGENTHAU AIDING BRAZIL WIRE-TRANSFER PROBE
Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said he is helping Brazilian authorities with an investigation into illegal wire transfers that led to the arrest of more than 60 moneychangers this week. “We’re delighted with the interest of the Brazilian authorities and their aggressiveness,” Mr. Morgenthau, 85, said in an interview from New York. Mr. Morgenthau said he provided Brazil information from his prosecution of Beacon Hill Services Co., a wire-transfer company found guilty by a Manhattan jury in February on four counts of transmitting money without a license.
Prosecutors said Beacon Hill moved more than $9 billion through JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Authorities in Brazil believe money sent through Beacon Hill came in part from former Sao Paulo Mayor Paulo Maluf, Mr. Morgenthau said. Mr. Maluf, a former governor of Sao Paulo state who is running for mayor in October elections, hasn’t been charged with any crime related to the case. His press secretary, Adilson Laranjeira, said allegations that Mr. Maluf is involved are false. “This is all politically motivated,” Mr. Laranjeira said in a telephone interview from Mr. Maluf’s campaign headquarters in Sao Paulo. “People have been trying to involve Paulo Maluf in this operation for a long time, and there is not a shred of evidence that he is involved or even has a bank account abroad.”
Eight hundred Brazilian federal police this week raided currency-exchange houses in eight Brazilian states and arrested 62 moneychangers or “doleiros” on tax-evasion, money-laundering and other charges, Paulo Roberto Falcao, the federal police officer responsible for the investigation, said in a statement read by his press spokeswoman. The probe is turning its focus to the clients of the doleiros, Falcao said. “Not only was it important that we got the doleiros, but we also wanted to get their documents,” Falcao said. “We also want to get those who used the doleiros services to send money abroad.” The name of the police operation is Farol da Colina, or Beacon Hill in Portuguese.
– Bloomberg News
STATE
NEW YORK UNEMPLOYMENT DROPS IN JULY State unemployment dropped in July to 5.9% after a brief rise earlier in the summer, according to state Labor Department statistics released Thursday.
Private sector jobs grew by 400 in July, adjusted for the summer season, which was the 11th straight month of growth. Pataki administration economist Stephen Kagann said that shows continued strength in the economy.
Unemployment dropped from 6.2% in June, while the national jobless rate fell to 5.5% in July from 5.6% the month before. Those rates are on a seasonally adjusted basis, which account for normal fluctuations in unemployment from month to month.
Mr. Kagann had blamed June’s unemployment rise to 6.2%, from 5.8% in May, on an “anomaly” that belied overall improvements in the state’s economy. He says July’s job growth proves that strength.
In New York City, July unemployment was 7.5%, down from 7.8% in June and 8.4% a year ago.
“New York has been one of the nation’s biggest regional beneficiaries of the president’s tax cuts, which have helped stimulate the city’s financial markets, while also improving local employment,” Mr. Kagann said.
Private-sector jobs grew by 1.1% in July over June. In New York City, the jobs grew faster – by 1.5% – according to the labor statistics.
Without New York City, the state’s jobless rate appears better. The rate for outside the city is 4.9%, down from 5.1% the month before and 5% a year ago.
– Associated Press
TRAVEL WEB SITES AGREE TO BE MORE ACCESSIBLE TO BLIND In one of the first enforcement actions of the Americans with Disabilities Act on the Internet, two major travel services have agreed to make sites more accessible to the blind and visually impaired.
Priceline.com and Ramada.com have agreed to changes that will allow users with “screen reader software” and other technology to navigate and listen to the text throughout their Web sites, according to New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
Although the software and other devices, including a vibrating mouse that lets the blind “feel” boxes and images on the computer screen, have been available for years, Web sites must have specific coding that allows the equipment to operate, Spitzer said.
“This is a precedent-setting decision,” said Carl Augusto, president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind. “We hope it’s going to be influencing other companies throughout the United States so that the 10 million blind and visually impaired people can fully participate in our society at all levels.”
“It’s the right thing to do, and it’s good business,” said Augusto, who is visually impaired.
Mr. Spitzer’s settlement follows investigations over the last two years to determine if Web sites conform to the federal act and state law that require all “places of public accommodation” and all “goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations” be accessible to the disabled.
Priceline.com, which is based in Norwalk, Conn., has already made the Web site accessible for the visually disabled to get airline tickets, said the firm’s spokesman, Brian Ek. By the end of the year, the entire travel site will be accessible, he said.
– Associated Press
NATIONAL
US AIRWAYS’ MACHINISTS UNION WON’T DISCUSS MORE GIVEBACKS The machinists union at US Airways Inc. won’t discuss further contract concessions despite comments from the company’s chief executive that the airline could be liquidated.
“We will meet with the company on August 31,” said a representative of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Joe Tiberi.
The union continues to believe the burden is on management to cut operating costs, he said. “
We can show them how to save $80 to $100 million by operating more efficiently,” he said, but that won’t include cuts in machinists’ wages or benefits.
US Airways’ chairman, David Bronner, said in interviews Wednesday that the financially-strapped airline faces bankruptcy or liquidation if employees don’t agree to wage and benefit cuts of $800 million within 30 days. That would include givebacks of $263 million from the machinists.
Four unions, representing 28,000 employees at the nation’s sixth-largest airline, made $1 billion in concessions last year. That allowed US Airways, then in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, to reorganize its finances.
The Air Line Pilots Association and the Association of Flight Attendants unions now are in talks with the airline for another round of cuts. But the IAM and the Communications Workers of America, representing other ground workers, have been reluctant to talk about concessions. The airline is seeking to defer about half of a $130 million pension contribution payment due on September 15.
Without additional financing, the airline won’t be able to make the September 30 payment. Retirement Systems of Alabama, a state pension fund headed by Mr. Bronner, took a $240 million controlling stake in US Airways to help it emerge from Chapter 11 in 2003.
– Dow Jones Newswires