Most of the Bidding Firms Well Established according to Trade Association

As far as collecting information about bidders go, I made a little headway by contacting the General Contractor's Association of New York, at the recommendation of my contact at New York's Dept of Transportation.

I spoke with the trade association's PR person, Felice Farber, and she was very helpful. She said five of the seven firms, Difazio Industries, Grace Industries, Lomma Constuction, Crisdel Industries and Beaver Concrete are all member companies and have been around awhile but couldn't provide specifics in terms of how old they each are or how many employees they have. She said she'd ask around about Shamrock and Paul Scariano.

Farber was familiar with the Eltingville project and said the extra parking was needed. But she also admitted that the project wasn't necessarily the highest priority or "best use of money" in terms of infrastructure projects. "In New York City, we're so desperate for transportation dollars that those stimulus [funds] went to shovel-ready projects. If you want to spend a huge amount of infrastructure money fast, it's going to be bridge painting and 'mill and fill,' or paving roads."