Maybe~ a misery loves company thing
Here's my 2 cents
From the German phrase> Schadenfreude
is pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.
two examples to this thought of reasoning;
Example 1
"When person A is unhappy, they don't get satisfaction from other people being happy and cheerful, in fact that can be annoying. Instead, unhappy person A may take a certain dismal pleasure in someone else experiencing a misfortune, especially a similar one."
another
Example:2
"Bob is running a race, and is winning, although Joe is just a step behind him. But Bob falls down and loses the race, and is extremely unhappy - until he notices that Joe fell down, too, and then Bob cheers up, because misery loves company."
(from jasonnocks)
note;
The Buddhist concept of mudita, "sympathetic joy" or "happiness in another's good fortune," is cited as an example of the opposite of schadenfreude. Alternatively envy (or its German near-equivalent "Glückschmerz"), which is unhappiness in another's good fortune, could be considered the counterpart of schadenfreude. Completing the quartet is "unhappiness at another's misfortune", which may be termed empathy, pity or compassion.
The transposed variant "Freudenschade" seems to have been multiply invented to mean sorrow at another person's success.
(from Wikipedia)
But since New York is quite liberal, and is cash poor and all business and commerce is (way- way) down
~ Maybe this is another ploy to get the Chinese too reach (even more deeper) into its pockets? Sort of like~ a real estate deal~ like what was offered (done) too the Arabs back in the 1980's by those savy New Yorker' s
