EXTRA: N.Y. ‘dropping dead’ becoming a headline writing cliché

News reports emanating from New York indicate that other recent reports had a bit of truth to them – as in Amazon.com being peeved with the Big Apple and people skeptical of the financial perks the city was willing to offer the company to get them to locate a corporate headquarters there.

The Internet can be at its best … 

Specifically, in the borough of Queens – which will have to revert back to being the location of J.F.K. Airport and the ballpark of the New York Mets. Along with the television settings for the “All in the Family” and “The King of Queens” programs that continue to live on in reruns.

… when it follows sprit of 'the press'

BUT IN KEEPING with the modern-day sentiment of corporations expecting to having their every whims catered to, Amazon.com let it be known they’re upset that New York isn’t doing more for them.

They let it be known that they’re giving up on plans for a new corporate headquarters in New York to supplement their existing facility in Seattle.

Which has officials elsewhere thinking that maybe they can get Amazon.com to bring some of their business to within their boundaries – including Chicago. Which actually led Crain’s Chicago Business to give us the hedline “Amazon to New York: Drop dead.”

Which isn’t even all that clever, as it’s a direct rip-off of the 1975 New York Daily News’ headline “Ford to city: Drop dead.”

IT WAS MEANT to play up a story of then-President Gerald Ford rejecting any kind of financial assistance to New York City, with the sentiment being that the president had literally cast off the nation’s largest city.

Was this an 'Olympics to Chicago: Drop dead' moment?

Somehow, the idea that New York has people willing to stand up to Amazon.com’s corporate desires sounds more like a plus to me. I suspect many of the activist-types concerned with corporate welfare (their other favorite cliché) will take great pride in the fact that the deal is now doomed.

Just like all those people locally who take a certain amount of pride in the fact they were able to derail former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s dreams of bringing the 2016 Olympic Games to Chicago.

Ouch!!!

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