Click here: Columbia Spectator - How Far Can You Go Against Hugo?
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/09/19/432e363625020?in_archive=1
Opinion
How Far Can You Go Against Hugo?
Talking Turkey
By Dennis Schmelzer
September 19, 2005
Mr. Bollinger, tear down this wall!
No, I am not talking about Columbia�s gates; McKim, Mead, and White may have sought an open academic village, but a closed campus is fine by me. That is, of course, provided that it is closed to unwelcome intruders, not unwelcome ideas. Unfortunately, as a few students found out this week when they tried to organize a demonstration against the policies of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who later canceled his visit to campus, sometimes Columbia�s administration intentionally shuts out ideas.
The wall I am referring to, then, consists of administrative hurdles designed to prevent students from exercising their rights to free speech.
For instance, to get permission to demonstrate at the Sundial for a �level 3� event on campus, a student group must reserve the space a week ahead of time; conveniently, for the Chavez event, notice was only posted on the World Leaders Forum Web site on Sept. 13, more than a week after most other speakers were listed and just three days before the event. So much for the week-long notice for the protest.
At first, some of those requirements make a lot of sense; after all, one can understand that Hugo Chavez would have legitimate security concerns, particularly after Pat Robertson�s comments. Yet other speakers listed earlier included Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who has survived at least four assassination attempts in as many years. The Musharraf event, however, was listed much earlier, even though�as the World Leaders Forum Webmaster confirms�the Chavez event was planned earlier than it was actually announced.
With the help of some concerned administrators, this group of students managed to jump most of these hurdles. Some in Public Safety, in particular, were admirable in their assistance, expressing their support of the request and even providing contact information for the NYPD should the students fail to get final administrative approval and, as a result, want to demonstrate outside Columbia�s gates instead.
With security concerns addressed, though, the worst hurdle was saved for last. Claiming there was not enough time for a meeting to discuss the demonstrations, certain administrators resorted to their last line of defense; while the sponsoring student group was not told they could not demonstrate, they were warned of certain �disciplinary action� that would follow. As one advisor suggested, Columbia would have to take action against the demonstration because it could jeopardize Columbia�s ability to attract further controversial speakers. Out of fear of the consequences, the student group canceled the protest.
There were clear reasons the student group involved wanted to protest the Chavez regime�if anything, to show solidarity with students who could not freely do the same in Venezuela. As Amnesty International wrote in a recent press release on Chavez�s government, �The security forces have reportedly used excessive force, and detained large numbers of opposition supporters, during nationwide street protests against the government of President Hugo Chavez.� As for those who question such abuses, AI�s 2005 report notes further, �President Hugo Chavez suggested at the beginning of the year that the activities of human rights defenders were intended to fuel political turmoil. These allegations exposed human rights defenders to serious dangers, including threats and intimidation.�
By seeking to silence such opposition on our campus, however, those involved have shown a complicity in that repression. This is Columbia, not Colombia. I commend President Bollinger for bringing leaders like Chavez to our campus for discussion, but the opportunity to interact with such leaders is certainly not worth sacrificing the freedom of speech that Chavez�s own society so sorely lacks. Sure, Columbia students may like to hear what the Venezuelan president has to say, but not at the cost of our right to demonstrate against his actions.
In the end, this small battle behind the scenes may make little difference; Chavez ended up canceling his visit to our campus in order to have tea time with Kofi Annan, and the lucky demonstrators did not have to wait in the rain for a motorcade that never came. Still, students should never have been threatened when they sought to demonstrate in the first place. While President Bollinger teaches a class on free speech every fall semester, it is a shame that some of his administrators are not among his students. Perhaps then they would understand the chilling effect that such threats can have on speech as a whole.
While Bollinger was not directly involved with this process, in the words of President Truman, for Bollinger as both President of the University and an influential free speech advocate, �The buck stops here.� It is his responsibility to make sure that Columbia, as a center of academia, is a welcoming rather than threatening environment for free speech.
Mr. Bollinger, please tear this wall down.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Let The People Decide: 'TONY, WE HARDLY KNEW YE,' NOW WE MUST WAIT 4 YEARS
Subject: Let The People Decide
Date: 9/17/2005 12:40:47 A.M. Eastern Standard Time
From: starquest@nycivic.org
To: reysmontj@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)
'TONY, WE HARDLY KNEW YE,'
NOW WE MUST WAIT 4 YEARS
Opening Note: In the midst of paragraph 3, Weiner is shifted from the third person to the second person. Whether the change works for you or not, you should know that it is intended rather than careless. Sometimes art (or artifice) tops grammar.
By Henry J. Stern
September 16, 2005
The most important political news this week, perhaps overshadowing the Democratic primary whose outcome was widely predicted, was the unexpected withdrawal of Congressman Anthony Weiner from the race for Mayor, twelve hours after he celebrated his remarkably strong showing in the primary by vowing a strong effort in the runoff.
Opinions vary widely about the political effect and moral justification of the astonishing abdication by candidate Weiner, for whom the primary had been an enormous success. Normally, losers withdraw after a primary defeat; the people having spoken in the negative, the struggle is abandoned. Another reason for withdrawal is inability to raise funds to mount a campaign; both Ed Koch in 1973 and Fernando Ferrer in 1997 aborted their first attempts to become mayor.
Out of warm feelings for Anthony Weiner, and out of respect for his intelligence and wit, we have restrained ourselves for several days from commenting on his public self-immolation. But the more we look at the situation, the more ridiculous it becomes. If you run in an election, enlist thousands of volunteers to work to help you, raise millions of dollars from contributors, and above all take $1.7 million out of the city treasury through the Campaign Finance Board, you can reasonably be expected to let the people decide whether they want you to be elected or not. Your candidacy, once launched and funded and successful, does not belong entirely to yourself, to be disposed of at will to suit your future ambitions.
Our educated guess is that you might well have defeated Fernando Ferrer in the runoff, and then lost to Mayor Bloomberg in the general election. You had the momentum, you would have received the Miller vote and a substantial percentage of the Fields vote. But, even if you had lost, the result would be satisfactory for the democratic process because the people would have made the decision as to who they wanted to be the Democratic mayoral nominee.
The general belief is that you impaled yourself on the advice of your mentor, Senator Schumer. First, the generally excellent Senator's principal interest is himself, not you. Do you believe that he will support you for mayor in 2009 over City Comptroller Thompson, an African-American being term limited out of his current job? Do you believe he is acting in your interest when he advises you to pull out prematurely? Do you believe one man, even if he is a parent surrogate, is more important than the 132,644 people who voted for you, in the belief that you were a serious candidate? How many of them would have voted for you if they knew you were going to withdraw the next day? How many of them do you think will vote for you next time, after you have sought and received their support, and then walked out on them?
In this case, "party unity" sounds like a code message for Democrats, whose meaning is that any campaign by candidates of different ethnicity is an affront to party solidarity, and will result in post-election bitterness. That was true in 2001, when Mark Green's ill-fated campaign foundered on a vulgar New York Post cartoon about Ferrer and Sharpton that Green's minions circulated in Brooklyn, after which he refused to take action against them. But you would have run a clean campaign, leaving Al Sharpton to get his own publicity. You could have accepted the voters' decision, either victory or defeat, with courage and pride. Win or lose, New Yorkers would have praised you after the runoff if you conducted yourself with dignity and ever-so-slightly toned down the Borscht belt shtick you do so well.
You also did an enormous injustice to Gifford Miller. Most of your votes were likely to have been taken from him. If you were not serious about running, he should have had the chance to compete with Ferrer and Fields in a three-person race. Where is the morality in destroying one qualified candidate and then handing the election to someone else. While our readers will know that we are not among Miller's devoted admirers, (Go to our home page and google him), he deserved the chance to compete without a kamikaze candidate knocking him out and then self-destructing on cue.
There are both good and bad aspects to this situation. It is sad that you withdrew and thus denied the public a choice, but if you are the sort of person who would pull out on demand, then you really are not ready to be Mayor in 2005. How do we know you could resist other pressures that are placed on an incumbent Mayor, from good people like Randi Weingarten. You have to be strong, for our sake as well as your own.
The good part is that you are, in our judgment, a promising young politician, still a work in progress. By the will of the people, you hold a wonderful job in the United States Congress. Better still, your seat is only at risk in even-numbered years, so you can run for Mayor again without fear of unemployment. Of course, if you ever become Mayor you will be subject to term limits, which are not a problem for Members of Congress.
Whether you win or not next time you run will depend, in large part, on what you do with yourself over the next four years. You need wise counselors, but they are hard to find, you have to be smart enough to understand them, and they have to know that you are the client. Try not to appear foolish by making ephemeral remarks. If you can, do the serious studying that will enable you to master public issues in all their complexity. You were the policy wonk in this campaign, but that was by comparison with your opponents.
Anthony, take it easy for a while, and, above all, eat.
Closing Notes: (1) This column is written with affection for the Congressman. Can you imagine what we would say if we didn't like him? (2) In the article, we anticipate future events which may or may not take place. His withdrawal may turn out to be an act of political genius. It was also perfectly legal. We just stumble over the ethics of it.
#253 9.16.05 1105wds
Henry J. Stern
starquest@nycivic.org
New York Civic
520 Eighth Avenue
22nd Floor
New York, NY 10018
(212) 564-4441
(212) 564-5588 (fax)
www.nycivic.org
Date: 9/17/2005 12:40:47 A.M. Eastern Standard Time
From: starquest@nycivic.org
To: reysmontj@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)
'TONY, WE HARDLY KNEW YE,'
NOW WE MUST WAIT 4 YEARS
Opening Note: In the midst of paragraph 3, Weiner is shifted from the third person to the second person. Whether the change works for you or not, you should know that it is intended rather than careless. Sometimes art (or artifice) tops grammar.
By Henry J. Stern
September 16, 2005
The most important political news this week, perhaps overshadowing the Democratic primary whose outcome was widely predicted, was the unexpected withdrawal of Congressman Anthony Weiner from the race for Mayor, twelve hours after he celebrated his remarkably strong showing in the primary by vowing a strong effort in the runoff.
Opinions vary widely about the political effect and moral justification of the astonishing abdication by candidate Weiner, for whom the primary had been an enormous success. Normally, losers withdraw after a primary defeat; the people having spoken in the negative, the struggle is abandoned. Another reason for withdrawal is inability to raise funds to mount a campaign; both Ed Koch in 1973 and Fernando Ferrer in 1997 aborted their first attempts to become mayor.
Out of warm feelings for Anthony Weiner, and out of respect for his intelligence and wit, we have restrained ourselves for several days from commenting on his public self-immolation. But the more we look at the situation, the more ridiculous it becomes. If you run in an election, enlist thousands of volunteers to work to help you, raise millions of dollars from contributors, and above all take $1.7 million out of the city treasury through the Campaign Finance Board, you can reasonably be expected to let the people decide whether they want you to be elected or not. Your candidacy, once launched and funded and successful, does not belong entirely to yourself, to be disposed of at will to suit your future ambitions.
Our educated guess is that you might well have defeated Fernando Ferrer in the runoff, and then lost to Mayor Bloomberg in the general election. You had the momentum, you would have received the Miller vote and a substantial percentage of the Fields vote. But, even if you had lost, the result would be satisfactory for the democratic process because the people would have made the decision as to who they wanted to be the Democratic mayoral nominee.
The general belief is that you impaled yourself on the advice of your mentor, Senator Schumer. First, the generally excellent Senator's principal interest is himself, not you. Do you believe that he will support you for mayor in 2009 over City Comptroller Thompson, an African-American being term limited out of his current job? Do you believe he is acting in your interest when he advises you to pull out prematurely? Do you believe one man, even if he is a parent surrogate, is more important than the 132,644 people who voted for you, in the belief that you were a serious candidate? How many of them would have voted for you if they knew you were going to withdraw the next day? How many of them do you think will vote for you next time, after you have sought and received their support, and then walked out on them?
In this case, "party unity" sounds like a code message for Democrats, whose meaning is that any campaign by candidates of different ethnicity is an affront to party solidarity, and will result in post-election bitterness. That was true in 2001, when Mark Green's ill-fated campaign foundered on a vulgar New York Post cartoon about Ferrer and Sharpton that Green's minions circulated in Brooklyn, after which he refused to take action against them. But you would have run a clean campaign, leaving Al Sharpton to get his own publicity. You could have accepted the voters' decision, either victory or defeat, with courage and pride. Win or lose, New Yorkers would have praised you after the runoff if you conducted yourself with dignity and ever-so-slightly toned down the Borscht belt shtick you do so well.
You also did an enormous injustice to Gifford Miller. Most of your votes were likely to have been taken from him. If you were not serious about running, he should have had the chance to compete with Ferrer and Fields in a three-person race. Where is the morality in destroying one qualified candidate and then handing the election to someone else. While our readers will know that we are not among Miller's devoted admirers, (Go to our home page and google him), he deserved the chance to compete without a kamikaze candidate knocking him out and then self-destructing on cue.
There are both good and bad aspects to this situation. It is sad that you withdrew and thus denied the public a choice, but if you are the sort of person who would pull out on demand, then you really are not ready to be Mayor in 2005. How do we know you could resist other pressures that are placed on an incumbent Mayor, from good people like Randi Weingarten. You have to be strong, for our sake as well as your own.
The good part is that you are, in our judgment, a promising young politician, still a work in progress. By the will of the people, you hold a wonderful job in the United States Congress. Better still, your seat is only at risk in even-numbered years, so you can run for Mayor again without fear of unemployment. Of course, if you ever become Mayor you will be subject to term limits, which are not a problem for Members of Congress.
Whether you win or not next time you run will depend, in large part, on what you do with yourself over the next four years. You need wise counselors, but they are hard to find, you have to be smart enough to understand them, and they have to know that you are the client. Try not to appear foolish by making ephemeral remarks. If you can, do the serious studying that will enable you to master public issues in all their complexity. You were the policy wonk in this campaign, but that was by comparison with your opponents.
Anthony, take it easy for a while, and, above all, eat.
Closing Notes: (1) This column is written with affection for the Congressman. Can you imagine what we would say if we didn't like him? (2) In the article, we anticipate future events which may or may not take place. His withdrawal may turn out to be an act of political genius. It was also perfectly legal. We just stumble over the ethics of it.
#253 9.16.05 1105wds
Henry J. Stern
starquest@nycivic.org
New York Civic
520 Eighth Avenue
22nd Floor
New York, NY 10018
(212) 564-4441
(212) 564-5588 (fax)
www.nycivic.org
Friday, September 16, 2005
CB9 Welcomes New Members, Old Debates
Columbia Spectator -
CB9 Welcomes New Members, Old Debates
CB9 Meeting Addressed Housing, Plans to Relocate �Grange�
by Lindsay Schubiner
Spectator Staff Writer
September 16, 2005
At Community Board 9�s general meeting last night, the board heard a presentation from the National Park Service about its plans to relocate Columbia alumnus Alexander Hamilton�s home from its current tight quarters between a church and an apartment building to neighboring St. Nicholas Park, where it would be set against a background more similar to Hamilton�s original sprawling estate.
Hamilton�s home, nicknamed �The Grange� and designated a National Memorial in 1962, now sits sideways in its lot on Convent Avenue between 141st and 142nd Streets.
�This is a national shrine. This is irreplaceable,� James Pepper the superintendent of National Parks in Manhattan, said.
The relocation would be accompanied by a restoration of the original stairs and certain floors of the building. The project did not get federal funding this year, so the National Park Service was at the board meeting to garner further community support for the project in hopes of getting funding in the future.
In his report, District Manager Lawrence McClean spoke about the board�s confusion after hearing from the police department that New York�s Office of Emergency Management was planning to set up a �processing center� for victims of Hurricane Katrina at 520 West 135th St. Upset that CB9 had not been informed directly of this matter, McClean placed an angry call to the mayor, after which the Office of Emergency Management let the board know that the center was set to open yesterday. McClean had not verified if the center had in fact opened or how many people it planned to aid, but promised to let board members know of any new information.
Board Chairman Jordi Reyes-Montblanc also confirmed that he was reflecting the board�s opinion when he testified in support of a Borough Board resolution that would attempt to wrest control of New York City rent regulations from the state government and return it to city government, a position the board seemed to support enthusiastically. Although several similar resolutions have consistently been approved by the city dominated New York State Assembly in the past, the State Senate, led by an upstater, has never passed them.
�To me, it�s incredible that a city like New York cannot regulate its own rents and instead people 300 miles away who have no conception of New York are making our rules,� Reyes-Montblanc said. �It�s time to get control back.�
At the end of the meeting, five new board members who were appointed in April and May stood up and introduced themselves. Among them was Anne Whitman, the president of Hudson Moving and Storage and a vocal member of the West Harlem Business Group, which has organized to oppose the use of eminent domain in Columbia�s proposed expansion into Manhattanville.
CB9 Welcomes New Members, Old Debates
CB9 Meeting Addressed Housing, Plans to Relocate �Grange�
by Lindsay Schubiner
Spectator Staff Writer
September 16, 2005
At Community Board 9�s general meeting last night, the board heard a presentation from the National Park Service about its plans to relocate Columbia alumnus Alexander Hamilton�s home from its current tight quarters between a church and an apartment building to neighboring St. Nicholas Park, where it would be set against a background more similar to Hamilton�s original sprawling estate.
Hamilton�s home, nicknamed �The Grange� and designated a National Memorial in 1962, now sits sideways in its lot on Convent Avenue between 141st and 142nd Streets.
�This is a national shrine. This is irreplaceable,� James Pepper the superintendent of National Parks in Manhattan, said.
The relocation would be accompanied by a restoration of the original stairs and certain floors of the building. The project did not get federal funding this year, so the National Park Service was at the board meeting to garner further community support for the project in hopes of getting funding in the future.
In his report, District Manager Lawrence McClean spoke about the board�s confusion after hearing from the police department that New York�s Office of Emergency Management was planning to set up a �processing center� for victims of Hurricane Katrina at 520 West 135th St. Upset that CB9 had not been informed directly of this matter, McClean placed an angry call to the mayor, after which the Office of Emergency Management let the board know that the center was set to open yesterday. McClean had not verified if the center had in fact opened or how many people it planned to aid, but promised to let board members know of any new information.
Board Chairman Jordi Reyes-Montblanc also confirmed that he was reflecting the board�s opinion when he testified in support of a Borough Board resolution that would attempt to wrest control of New York City rent regulations from the state government and return it to city government, a position the board seemed to support enthusiastically. Although several similar resolutions have consistently been approved by the city dominated New York State Assembly in the past, the State Senate, led by an upstater, has never passed them.
�To me, it�s incredible that a city like New York cannot regulate its own rents and instead people 300 miles away who have no conception of New York are making our rules,� Reyes-Montblanc said. �It�s time to get control back.�
At the end of the meeting, five new board members who were appointed in April and May stood up and introduced themselves. Among them was Anne Whitman, the president of Hudson Moving and Storage and a vocal member of the West Harlem Business Group, which has organized to oppose the use of eminent domain in Columbia�s proposed expansion into Manhattanville.
Subject: Transatlantic Dialogues Series
Date: 9/16/2005 2:59:44 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From: kjc.spain.today@nyu.edu
To: reysmontj@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)
TO: Invited Guests
DATE: September 16, 2005
FR: Transatlantic Dialogues --> -->
RE: Transatlantic Dialogues Series --> -->
The King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center of New York University invites you to the second in a series of encounters with politicians, intellectuals, business leaders and government officials, moderated by the current holder of the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Chair, Judge Baltasar Garz�n. This series is presented thanks to the support of the Banco Santander Central Hispano and the patronage of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science of New York University.
Monday, September 26th, 6:00 PM-8:00 PMSpain, Latin America, the United States and the Communications Media - a dialog with Carmen Caffarel, Director General of RTVE (National Spanish Television); Juan Lu�s Cebri�n, CEO Prisa Media Group (El Pa�s), Spain; Susan Chira, Foreign Editor, The New York Times; Chris Crommett, Senior Vice-President of CNN; Leopoldo G�mez, Vice President of Televisa News, MexicoWhat influence does the communications industry exercise on relations between Spain, the United States and Latin America?
What does the media bring to the development of an integrated community between countries united by historical, economic, political and cultural ties?
What impact are the new technologies (internet, satellite radio, web-blogs, etc.) having on public opinion?
EXTREMELY LIMITED SEATING WILL BE AVAILABLE. PLEASE RSVP AT THE FOLLOWING WEBSITE: http://www.nyu.edu/spain.today/
Date: 9/16/2005 2:59:44 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From: kjc.spain.today@nyu.edu
To: reysmontj@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)
TO: Invited Guests
DATE: September 16, 2005
FR: Transatlantic Dialogues --> -->
RE: Transatlantic Dialogues Series --> -->
The King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center of New York University invites you to the second in a series of encounters with politicians, intellectuals, business leaders and government officials, moderated by the current holder of the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Chair, Judge Baltasar Garz�n. This series is presented thanks to the support of the Banco Santander Central Hispano and the patronage of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science of New York University.
Monday, September 26th, 6:00 PM-8:00 PMSpain, Latin America, the United States and the Communications Media - a dialog with Carmen Caffarel, Director General of RTVE (National Spanish Television); Juan Lu�s Cebri�n, CEO Prisa Media Group (El Pa�s), Spain; Susan Chira, Foreign Editor, The New York Times; Chris Crommett, Senior Vice-President of CNN; Leopoldo G�mez, Vice President of Televisa News, MexicoWhat influence does the communications industry exercise on relations between Spain, the United States and Latin America?
What does the media bring to the development of an integrated community between countries united by historical, economic, political and cultural ties?
What impact are the new technologies (internet, satellite radio, web-blogs, etc.) having on public opinion?
EXTREMELY LIMITED SEATING WILL BE AVAILABLE. PLEASE RSVP AT THE FOLLOWING WEBSITE: http://www.nyu.edu/spain.today/
Thursday, September 15, 2005
NYC OPENS SERVICE CENTER FOR HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUEES
OEM News and Events & Information for Community-Based Organizations
NYC OPENS SERVICE CENTER FOR HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUEES
Today the City opened a Disaster Assistance Service Center (DASC) in upper Manhattan to better serve Hurricane Katrina evacuees who have relocated to New York City. Staffed by representatives of several City, State and federal agencies and disaster relief organizations, the DASC will address the needs of those displaced by last month's storm, including housing, clothing, and financial recovery.
Evacuees who require assistance should first report to the Katrina Welcome Center located at The City College of New York's Great Hall at Convent Avenue and 138 Street to schedule an appointment with a case specialist and fill out initial paperwork. Following a basic case assessment, visitors may also receive counseling and information about City services before they are transferred to the DASC. The Welcome Center opened Thursday, September 15, at 12 p.m., and will remain open Monday-Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
On arrival at the DASC for their scheduled appointments, evacuees can expect to meet with staff from a host of government and voluntary agencies to discuss disaster housing, school enrollment, banking, financial assistance for food, clothing and emergency expenses, and more.
The City urges evacuees to register with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) before reporting to the DASC Welcome Center. FEMA estimates it will take at least 20 minutes to complete the registration process via phone (800-621-FEMA; TTY: 800-462-7585) or internet (www.fema.gov).
Opening the DASC is just the latest in the City's string of efforts to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. Requests for resources to support the Katrina recovery continue to pour in, and an OEM task force has been working to meet these requests since the storm's early aftermath. Among the measures the City has taken to support Katrina relief so far:
A team of more than 100 NYPD officers continues to support law enforcement efforts in New Orleans, and more than 300 FDNY firefighters are stationed in New Orleans to help fight area fires.
FDNY has contributed five vehicles, including the Spirit of Louisiana engine donated to New York after September 11.
The Department of Correction has sent cots, clothing, and more than 50 uniformed staff to assist Louisiana State Correction with perimeter patrol, inmate transport.
The NYC Department of Education, the Teachers and Principals Unions, and DC 37 launched a Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund in the City's public schools on September 8.
On September 4, 70 MTA buses and more than 200 MTA personnel were sent to New Orleans to help transport evacuees to Texas and Arkansas.
On August 30, the City's Urban Search and Rescue Team, which is made up of NYPD, FDNY, and OEM personnel, was deployed to Mississippi at FEMA's request to support rescue efforts along the Gulf Coast.
The City urges New Yorkers who want to help victims of Katrina to make monetary donations to established charities, such as the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army, or through the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City, which will distribute donations to disaster relief agencies. Call 311 or visit NYC.gov to learn more about making donations, or send a contribution to Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City, City Hall, New York, NY, 10007, and note on the check that the donation is for hurricane relief. For volunteer opportunities, visit New York Cares' website at www.nycares.org.
For more information about the City's efforts to support victims of Hurricane Katrina, call 311 or visit NYC.gov.
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Click here: NYC Office of Emergency Management - Katrina DASC http://nyc.gov/html/oem/html/other/sub_news_pages/2005.09.15_katrinadasc.html
News and Events > Press Releases> Katrina DASC
For Immediate Release
Release 05-017
September 15, 2005
NYC OFFICE OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT OPENS DISASTER ASSISTANCE SERVICE CENTER FOR HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUEES
Today Office of Emergency Management (OEM) Commissioner Joseph F. Bruno, in partnership with the Human Resources Administration, The Department of Homeless Services, and American Red Cross in Greater New York, announced a Disaster Assistance Service Center (DASC) will open in upper Manhattan to better serve Hurricane Katrina evacuees who have relocated to New York City. Staffed by representatives of several City, State and federal agencies and disaster relief organizations, the DASC will address the needs of those displaced by last month's storm, including housing, clothing, and financial recovery.
"Hundreds of victims of Hurricane Katrina have already arrived in New York City to begin the long recovery process. The City is committed to helping them in the coming weeks and months," Commissioner Bruno said. "We have assembled a range of disaster-related resources under one roof to help meet these individuals' needs as soon as possible."
Evacuees who require assistance should first report to the Katrina Welcome Center located at The City College of New York's Great Hall at Convent Avenue and 138 Street to schedule an appointment with a case specialist and fill out initial paperwork. Following a basic case assessment, visitors may also receive counseling and information about City services before they are transferred to the DASC. The Welcome Center will open Thursday, September 15, at 12 p.m., and remain open Monday-Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., until evacuees' needs are met. The center may be easily reached by public transportation via the 1 train to 137 Street-City College, A,B,C, or D trains to 145 Street or the BX-19, M4, M5, M18, M100 or M101 buses, and is wheelchair accessible. The City encourages evacuees to bring as much documentation as possible with them to prove their identity and residency in the affected area.
On arrival at the DASC for their scheduled appointments, evacuees can expect to meet with staff from a host of government and voluntary agencies to discuss disaster housing, school enrollment, banking, financial assistance for food, clothing and emergency expenses, and more. Since the DASC offers a wide array of resources, the City encourages evacuees to allow plenty of time for their visit.
The City urges evacuees to register with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) before reporting to the DASC Welcome Center. FEMA estimates it will take at least 20 minutes to complete the registration process via phone (800-621-FEMA; TTY: 800-462-7585) or internet (www.fema.gov).
Opening the DASC is just the latest in the City's string of efforts to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. Requests for resources to support the Katrina recovery continue to pour in, and an OEM task force has been working to meet these requests since the storm's early aftermath.
The City urges New Yorkers who want to help victims of Katrina to make monetary donations to established charities, such as the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army, or through the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City, which will distribute donations to disaster relief agencies. Call 311 or visit NYC.gov to learn more about making donations, or send a contribution to Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City, City Hall, New York, NY, 10007, and note on the check that the donation is for hurricane relief. For volunteer opportunities, visit New York Cares' website at www.nycares.org.
For more information about the City's efforts to support victims of Hurricane Katrina, call 311 or visit NYC.gov.
American Red Cross in Greater New York
Association to Benefit Children
Disaster Chaplaincy Services - NY
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CONTACT: Jarrod Bernstein/OEM Press Office 718-422-4888
News and Events > Press Releases > Katrina DASC
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Applications Available for 179 Condominium Apartments in Hamilton Heights, Manhattan
Subject: Applications Available for 179 Condominium Apartments in Hamilton Heights, Manhattan
Date: 9/14/2005 11:48:56 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: MyNYC@nyc.gov
Reply To: msngrprdb2-1.52zsn.4s8v.rs.0.4u89o.-nc2thg@popcsms.csc.nycnet
To: reysmontj@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)
"Apartments for Sale"
Applications Available for 179 Condominium Apartments in Hamilton Heights, Manhattan
The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) has updated its web content concerning listings for apartments for sale.
Applications are available for 179 condominium apartments in Hamilton Heights in Manhattan. For more information , visit the HPD website at www.nyc.gov/hpd
The City itself does not sell apartments, but works with real estate professionals and community sponsors who market them. You will need to contact them directly to fill out an application and enter it in the lottery. There are no broker fees and no application fees.
We suggest you look at HPD's home and apartment lists at least once a month.
This is the NYC.gov News You Requested For:
Apartments for Rent and Homes for Sale
To subscribe please go to this link:
https://www.nyc.gov/portal/signin.jsp
Comment on this news service:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/misc/html/news_feedback.html
PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE!
Apartment Listings (The Affordable Housing Hotline) When apartments created under HPD's affordable housing programs are ready to be rented or sold they are advertised in both local and major newspapers. The apartments are also listed on HPD's Affordable Housing Hotline, which you may reach by calling 311 (311 can be accessed outside of New York City by dialing (212) NEW YORK).
The City itself does not rent apartments, but works with real estate professionals and community sponsors who market them. You will need to contact them directly to fill out an application and enter it in an apartment lottery. There are no broker fees and no application fees.
If you would like to receive an e-mail when the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development has updated its web content concerning apartment and home listings for City-sponsored housing in the five boroughs, please register for this feature at www.nyc.gov/hpd
The full descriptions of the apartments listed below are available in .PDF format. To download these descriptions, you will need the latest copy of the Adobe Acrobat Reader. This program can be downloaded for free from this link: "Acrobat and the Web."
Borough Neighborhood Apartment Size Apart-ments Available Annual Gross Income Application Deadline
Full Description (will open a PDF document)
Brooklyn
Crown Heights area
one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms, three-bedrooms
32
See advertisement
September 20, 2005
click to open
Brooklyn
West Bushwick
one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms, three-bedrooms
52
See advertisement
October 7, 2005
click to open
Manhattan
Central Harlem
studios, one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms
25
See advertisement
October 13, 2005
click to open
Manhattan
Hamilton Heights
one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms, three-bedrooms
179
See advertisement
November 11, 2005
click to open
No apartment listings at this time.
-->
The New York City Housing Development Corporation (HDC) also has a variety of programs that finance the development of low-, middle-, and mixed-income apartments. For more information, visit the apartment-seekers section of the HDC Web site.
Supportive Housing:The Supportive Housing Network of New York provides a list of SRO units and studio apartments operated by non-profit agencies which provide some level of on-site supportive services. The majority of the units are for single individuals who are currently homeless in the NYC shelter system and/or who have a disability. Visit the website of the Supportive Housing Network for a New York City Intake List. There are very few vacancies.
Last Updated: September 13, 2005
Date: 9/14/2005 11:48:56 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: MyNYC@nyc.gov
Reply To: msngrprdb2-1.52zsn.4s8v.rs.0.4u89o.-nc2thg@popcsms.csc.nycnet
To: reysmontj@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)
"Apartments for Sale"
Applications Available for 179 Condominium Apartments in Hamilton Heights, Manhattan
The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) has updated its web content concerning listings for apartments for sale.
Applications are available for 179 condominium apartments in Hamilton Heights in Manhattan. For more information , visit the HPD website at www.nyc.gov/hpd
The City itself does not sell apartments, but works with real estate professionals and community sponsors who market them. You will need to contact them directly to fill out an application and enter it in the lottery. There are no broker fees and no application fees.
We suggest you look at HPD's home and apartment lists at least once a month.
This is the NYC.gov News You Requested For:
Apartments for Rent and Homes for Sale
To subscribe please go to this link:
https://www.nyc.gov/portal/signin.jsp
Comment on this news service:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/misc/html/news_feedback.html
PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE!
Apartment Listings (The Affordable Housing Hotline) When apartments created under HPD's affordable housing programs are ready to be rented or sold they are advertised in both local and major newspapers. The apartments are also listed on HPD's Affordable Housing Hotline, which you may reach by calling 311 (311 can be accessed outside of New York City by dialing (212) NEW YORK).
The City itself does not rent apartments, but works with real estate professionals and community sponsors who market them. You will need to contact them directly to fill out an application and enter it in an apartment lottery. There are no broker fees and no application fees.
If you would like to receive an e-mail when the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development has updated its web content concerning apartment and home listings for City-sponsored housing in the five boroughs, please register for this feature at www.nyc.gov/hpd
The full descriptions of the apartments listed below are available in .PDF format. To download these descriptions, you will need the latest copy of the Adobe Acrobat Reader. This program can be downloaded for free from this link: "Acrobat and the Web."
Borough Neighborhood Apartment Size Apart-ments Available Annual Gross Income Application Deadline
Full Description (will open a PDF document)
Brooklyn
Crown Heights area
one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms, three-bedrooms
32
See advertisement
September 20, 2005
click to open
Brooklyn
West Bushwick
one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms, three-bedrooms
52
See advertisement
October 7, 2005
click to open
Manhattan
Central Harlem
studios, one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms
25
See advertisement
October 13, 2005
click to open
Manhattan
Hamilton Heights
one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms, three-bedrooms
179
See advertisement
November 11, 2005
click to open
No apartment listings at this time.
-->
The New York City Housing Development Corporation (HDC) also has a variety of programs that finance the development of low-, middle-, and mixed-income apartments. For more information, visit the apartment-seekers section of the HDC Web site.
Supportive Housing:The Supportive Housing Network of New York provides a list of SRO units and studio apartments operated by non-profit agencies which provide some level of on-site supportive services. The majority of the units are for single individuals who are currently homeless in the NYC shelter system and/or who have a disability. Visit the website of the Supportive Housing Network for a New York City Intake List. There are very few vacancies.
Last Updated: September 13, 2005
MTA Won�t Sell M�ville Depot
Click here: Columbia Spectator - MTA Won�t Sell M�ville Depot
News
STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER/CDS
The MTA and Columbia have
had discussions over the
purchase of a bus depot
located in the University�s
proposed Manhattanville
expansion zone.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MTA Won�t Sell M�ville Depot
NYC Transit Officials Balk in Letter Regarding Sale of Manhattanville Bus Depot; CU Maintains Negotiations Are Ongoing
By Tanveer Ali and Erin Durkin
Spectator Staff Writers
September 13, 2005
Transit officials have indicated to Columbia that the Manhattanville Bus Depot, located on the northern end of the University�s proposed expansion zone, is not for sale.
According to two documents acquired from New York City Transit by Spectator under the Freedom of Information Law, University administrators and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority have held various meetings discussing the possible sale of two MTA-owned properties�the bus depot and a small support facility�to Columbia. This could eliminate a full block from the proposed development area.
As Columbia prepares to enter a major review process about Manhattanville�where it hopes to acquire a 17-acre area and build a contiguous campus�the documents provide a unique window into the quiet processes of acquiring the land necessary to develop and drew strong reactions from other key players in the expansion.
University officials would not confirm or deny the contents of the documents.
A Nov. 1, 2004 letter from the NYCT�the subsidiary of the MTA responsible for buses and subways�to Columbia suggests that the University now plans to accommodate the bus depot as it stands into its development of Manhattanville.
�The need to maintain our service standards is paramount. Thus, we were happy to see the acknowledgement in your scoping document that the Depot will remain at its current location and that it will be incorporated, in its current capacity, into the University�s future plans,� says the letter, which was signed by NYCT President Lawrence Reuter and addressed to Columbia Senior Executive Vice President Robert Kasdin.
An internal memo written by Theodore Orosz, director of Manhattan/Bronx Bus Planning, described a Sept. 10, 2003 meeting between Columbia and MTA officials and outlined the authority�s stance on the bus depot.
�[Columbia] inquired if Transit would be interested in parting with, relocating, or allowing joint development over Manhattanville Depot. While nobody from Transit gave an absolute no, our response was most negative,� the internal memo says. Charles Seaton, a spokesman for NYC Transit, said the MTA and NYC Transit have not altered their stance.
University officials downplayed the significance of the two documents, saying that discussions are ongoing.
�Columbia remains engaged in discussions with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority New York City Transit and it is the University�s policy not to discuss ongoing negotiations. We will continue to discuss available options with all property owners in the proposed Manhattanville development area,� University spokeswoman Liz Golden said. �The bus depot site falls within a later phase of the proposed development, anticipated to take place over the next 25-30 years.�
Though the MTA is not willing to sell the Manhattanville Bus Depot, the letter to Kasdin suggests that NYC Transit would be willing to vacate a small support facility located on West 131st St. if it were provided with a replacement facility meeting its operational needs. The MTA requested that the replacement facility �must be located within close proximity to a major highway or commercial vehicle thoroughfare,� provide facilities for 50 employees, parking for large vehicles and 50,000 square feet of storage space.
Columbia officials declined to comment on whether they planned to offer such a replacement facility.
One business owner who has refused to sell to Columbia said he doubted Columbia would be as willing to accomodate him and other private business owners as the MTA.
�It shows once again how the big boys beat up on the little kids,� said Nick Sprayregen, owner of Tuck-It-Away Storage, which owns several buildings in the proposed expansion area.
He added that while large institutions can wring concessions from Columbia, �it�s different ground rules for everyone else.�
�They are given the choice [to stay], but not us,� he said.
Anne Whitman, owner of Hudson Moving and Storage, responded a bit more optimistically to signs of Columbia�s flexibility.
�It�s a very positive sign for the businesses and residents that are there. I would hope that the next step would be to have some real dialogue with the community that remains,� she said. �Maybe there�s a little light at the end of the tunnel.�
Jordi Reyes-Montblanc, the chairman of Community Board 9, had a similar response to the contents of the documents.
�I suspect that the bus depot will continue to be there,� Reyes-Montblanc said. �That�s not going to make anyone happy.�
Susan Russell, chief of staff to Councilman Robert Jackson (D-West Harlem), said that allowing the bus depot to stay put would be a sensible compromise on Columbia�s part.
�I think Columbia has to be practical, and certainly if they want to develop land owned by the MTA, they have to be flexible,� she said, �They can�t force the MTA to let them develop the land. It would be foolish if they refused to compromise.�
Russell said that the practical issues posed by the bus depot were too complex to take a simple position on whether the facility should remain at its current location.
�We have to get a better look at what Columbia�s plans are and how it will be incorporated,� she said, �We�ve been working very closely with the mayor�s office and the Community Board in terms of how to handle all these issues, and this [the fate of the bus depot] will be part of it.�
News
STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER/CDS
The MTA and Columbia have
had discussions over the
purchase of a bus depot
located in the University�s
proposed Manhattanville
expansion zone.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MTA Won�t Sell M�ville Depot
NYC Transit Officials Balk in Letter Regarding Sale of Manhattanville Bus Depot; CU Maintains Negotiations Are Ongoing
By Tanveer Ali and Erin Durkin
Spectator Staff Writers
September 13, 2005
Transit officials have indicated to Columbia that the Manhattanville Bus Depot, located on the northern end of the University�s proposed expansion zone, is not for sale.
According to two documents acquired from New York City Transit by Spectator under the Freedom of Information Law, University administrators and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority have held various meetings discussing the possible sale of two MTA-owned properties�the bus depot and a small support facility�to Columbia. This could eliminate a full block from the proposed development area.
As Columbia prepares to enter a major review process about Manhattanville�where it hopes to acquire a 17-acre area and build a contiguous campus�the documents provide a unique window into the quiet processes of acquiring the land necessary to develop and drew strong reactions from other key players in the expansion.
University officials would not confirm or deny the contents of the documents.
A Nov. 1, 2004 letter from the NYCT�the subsidiary of the MTA responsible for buses and subways�to Columbia suggests that the University now plans to accommodate the bus depot as it stands into its development of Manhattanville.
�The need to maintain our service standards is paramount. Thus, we were happy to see the acknowledgement in your scoping document that the Depot will remain at its current location and that it will be incorporated, in its current capacity, into the University�s future plans,� says the letter, which was signed by NYCT President Lawrence Reuter and addressed to Columbia Senior Executive Vice President Robert Kasdin.
An internal memo written by Theodore Orosz, director of Manhattan/Bronx Bus Planning, described a Sept. 10, 2003 meeting between Columbia and MTA officials and outlined the authority�s stance on the bus depot.
�[Columbia] inquired if Transit would be interested in parting with, relocating, or allowing joint development over Manhattanville Depot. While nobody from Transit gave an absolute no, our response was most negative,� the internal memo says. Charles Seaton, a spokesman for NYC Transit, said the MTA and NYC Transit have not altered their stance.
University officials downplayed the significance of the two documents, saying that discussions are ongoing.
�Columbia remains engaged in discussions with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority New York City Transit and it is the University�s policy not to discuss ongoing negotiations. We will continue to discuss available options with all property owners in the proposed Manhattanville development area,� University spokeswoman Liz Golden said. �The bus depot site falls within a later phase of the proposed development, anticipated to take place over the next 25-30 years.�
Though the MTA is not willing to sell the Manhattanville Bus Depot, the letter to Kasdin suggests that NYC Transit would be willing to vacate a small support facility located on West 131st St. if it were provided with a replacement facility meeting its operational needs. The MTA requested that the replacement facility �must be located within close proximity to a major highway or commercial vehicle thoroughfare,� provide facilities for 50 employees, parking for large vehicles and 50,000 square feet of storage space.
Columbia officials declined to comment on whether they planned to offer such a replacement facility.
One business owner who has refused to sell to Columbia said he doubted Columbia would be as willing to accomodate him and other private business owners as the MTA.
�It shows once again how the big boys beat up on the little kids,� said Nick Sprayregen, owner of Tuck-It-Away Storage, which owns several buildings in the proposed expansion area.
He added that while large institutions can wring concessions from Columbia, �it�s different ground rules for everyone else.�
�They are given the choice [to stay], but not us,� he said.
Anne Whitman, owner of Hudson Moving and Storage, responded a bit more optimistically to signs of Columbia�s flexibility.
�It�s a very positive sign for the businesses and residents that are there. I would hope that the next step would be to have some real dialogue with the community that remains,� she said. �Maybe there�s a little light at the end of the tunnel.�
Jordi Reyes-Montblanc, the chairman of Community Board 9, had a similar response to the contents of the documents.
�I suspect that the bus depot will continue to be there,� Reyes-Montblanc said. �That�s not going to make anyone happy.�
Susan Russell, chief of staff to Councilman Robert Jackson (D-West Harlem), said that allowing the bus depot to stay put would be a sensible compromise on Columbia�s part.
�I think Columbia has to be practical, and certainly if they want to develop land owned by the MTA, they have to be flexible,� she said, �They can�t force the MTA to let them develop the land. It would be foolish if they refused to compromise.�
Russell said that the practical issues posed by the bus depot were too complex to take a simple position on whether the facility should remain at its current location.
�We have to get a better look at what Columbia�s plans are and how it will be incorporated,� she said, �We�ve been working very closely with the mayor�s office and the Community Board in terms of how to handle all these issues, and this [the fate of the bus depot] will be part of it.�
Monday, September 12, 2005
VIDEO: Earwitness tells ABC explosives blew Industrial Canal levee
DAVID MUIR, ABC NEWS: This is the actual levee that runs along the canal on the eastern side of the city. And when the hurricane hit, the water came through at such force, it was apparently too much. You can see the massive breach here, and when you look around the corner you can see what the water did to the Lower Ninth Ward. It compleetley destoryed neighborhoods.
JOE EDWARDS, JR., 9TH WARD RESIDENT: I heard something go BOOM!
MUIR: Joe Edwards rushed to get himself and as many neighbors as possible into his truck. They drove to this bridge, where they've been living ever since
EDWARDS: My house broke in half. My mother's house just disintegrated. It was a brick house. All the houses down there floated down the street like somebody's guiding 'em
MUIR: Was it solely the water that broke the levee, or was it the force of this barge that now sits where homes once did? Joe Edwards says neither. People are so bitter, so disenfranchised in this neighborhood, they actually think the city did it, blowing up the levee to save richer neighborhoods like the French Quarter.
MUIR: So you're convinced . . .
EDWARDS: I know this happened!
MUIR: . . . they broke the levee on purpose?
EDWARDS: They blew it!
MUIR: New Orleans' mayor says there's no credence to this.
NEW ORLEANS MAYOR RAY NAGIN: That storm was so powerful and it pushed so much water, there's no way anyone could have calculated what levee to dynamite to have the kind of impact to save the French Quarter.
MUIR: An LSU expert who looked at the video today says, while the barge may have caused it, it was most likely the sheer force of the water that brought the levee along the Lower Ninth Ward down.
===========================================
I have read news reports of this from seperate sources and it needs certain clarification and the details of the shooting deaths of the contract workers on the levee need explaination in light of these reports. -- Mary
JOE EDWARDS, JR., 9TH WARD RESIDENT: I heard something go BOOM!
MUIR: Joe Edwards rushed to get himself and as many neighbors as possible into his truck. They drove to this bridge, where they've been living ever since
EDWARDS: My house broke in half. My mother's house just disintegrated. It was a brick house. All the houses down there floated down the street like somebody's guiding 'em
MUIR: Was it solely the water that broke the levee, or was it the force of this barge that now sits where homes once did? Joe Edwards says neither. People are so bitter, so disenfranchised in this neighborhood, they actually think the city did it, blowing up the levee to save richer neighborhoods like the French Quarter.
MUIR: So you're convinced . . .
EDWARDS: I know this happened!
MUIR: . . . they broke the levee on purpose?
EDWARDS: They blew it!
MUIR: New Orleans' mayor says there's no credence to this.
NEW ORLEANS MAYOR RAY NAGIN: That storm was so powerful and it pushed so much water, there's no way anyone could have calculated what levee to dynamite to have the kind of impact to save the French Quarter.
MUIR: An LSU expert who looked at the video today says, while the barge may have caused it, it was most likely the sheer force of the water that brought the levee along the Lower Ninth Ward down.
===========================================
I have read news reports of this from seperate sources and it needs certain clarification and the details of the shooting deaths of the contract workers on the levee need explaination in light of these reports. -- Mary
Friday, September 09, 2005
CB9�s Summer Spent Preparing
Click here: Columbia Spectator - CB9�s Summer Spent Preparing
News
CB9�s Summer Spent Preparing
Later This Fall, CB9 Will Weigh in on Columbia�s Proposed Manhattanville Expansion Project, as CU Seeks Zoning Approvals in Preparation
By Lindsay Schubiner
Spectator Staff Writer
September 09, 2005
Community Board 9 members spent a busy summer learning about the city approval processes through which proposed developments, including Columbia�s plan for expansion into Manhattanville, must pass.In the coming months, these procedures will have a large role in determining the future shape and character of both Manhattanville and Community District 9 as a whole.
CB9 is preparing for the release of Columbia�s environmental impact statement later this fall and the public review period during which the board will be able to comment on the statement. Though the community board does not have veto power over Columbia�s plan, it can make recommendations that are typically responded to in the final draft of the environmental impact statement.
�CB9 has been using the summer to prepare itself,� board chair Jordi Reyes-Montblanc said.
The Department of City Planning held multiple information sessions for community members to explain the City Environmental Quality Review. This process mandates the creation of an environmental impact statement, which identifies the effects that proposed actions, such as development or rezoning, may have on the environment. The sessions also covered the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, which New York City instituted in 1976 to ensure public review of proposed land use changes. All major developments in the city must pass both of these reviews in order to obtain final approval.
�We accomplished a lot of things,� Reyes-Montblanc said of CB9�s summer. �We were particularly successful in educating our board and community in the process and procedures of the ULURP and [the environmental impact statement].�
The environmental review will force Columbia to disclose its exact plans for the expansion area because the environmental impact statement must include not only the zoning changes that Columbia seeks, but also all of the construction projects Columbia is currently planning for the new campus.
Once the environmental review has completed a number of steps, Columbia will initiate the land use review procedure in order to rezone parts of Manhattanville from manufacturing to mixed use, which would allow the construction of the taller buildings Columbia�s expansion plans involve.
As it readies itself to hear presentations on Columbia�s plans for expansion, CB9 is drafting its own 197-a plan for the neighborhood, which does not implement zoning changes but provides general guidelines that influence future development projects and land use decisions. If the community board�s 197-a plan is completed before Columbia�s plan is approved, the City Planning Commission must give important consideration to the consistency of Columbia�s plan with the goals of the 197-a plan.
In July, Councilman Robert Jackson announced that he had secured $150,000 from the City Council�s 2006 fiscal budget to complete CB9�s 197-a plan.
�We�re very pleased with our council member�s support of and commitment to the completion and submission to ULURP of Community Board 9�s 197-a plan,� Pat Jones, chair of the board�s 197-a plan committee, told Spectator in July.
CB9 will use the money for technical assistance from experts and other costs of finalizing the 197-a plan, which was approved by the community board in October and will come under threshold review from city planning this fall. Threshold review is one of the early steps in the approval process for 197-a plans, in which city planning staff make sure that the plan meets their standards for content and sound planning policy.
News
CB9�s Summer Spent Preparing
Later This Fall, CB9 Will Weigh in on Columbia�s Proposed Manhattanville Expansion Project, as CU Seeks Zoning Approvals in Preparation
By Lindsay Schubiner
Spectator Staff Writer
September 09, 2005
Community Board 9 members spent a busy summer learning about the city approval processes through which proposed developments, including Columbia�s plan for expansion into Manhattanville, must pass.In the coming months, these procedures will have a large role in determining the future shape and character of both Manhattanville and Community District 9 as a whole.
CB9 is preparing for the release of Columbia�s environmental impact statement later this fall and the public review period during which the board will be able to comment on the statement. Though the community board does not have veto power over Columbia�s plan, it can make recommendations that are typically responded to in the final draft of the environmental impact statement.
�CB9 has been using the summer to prepare itself,� board chair Jordi Reyes-Montblanc said.
The Department of City Planning held multiple information sessions for community members to explain the City Environmental Quality Review. This process mandates the creation of an environmental impact statement, which identifies the effects that proposed actions, such as development or rezoning, may have on the environment. The sessions also covered the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, which New York City instituted in 1976 to ensure public review of proposed land use changes. All major developments in the city must pass both of these reviews in order to obtain final approval.
�We accomplished a lot of things,� Reyes-Montblanc said of CB9�s summer. �We were particularly successful in educating our board and community in the process and procedures of the ULURP and [the environmental impact statement].�
The environmental review will force Columbia to disclose its exact plans for the expansion area because the environmental impact statement must include not only the zoning changes that Columbia seeks, but also all of the construction projects Columbia is currently planning for the new campus.
Once the environmental review has completed a number of steps, Columbia will initiate the land use review procedure in order to rezone parts of Manhattanville from manufacturing to mixed use, which would allow the construction of the taller buildings Columbia�s expansion plans involve.
As it readies itself to hear presentations on Columbia�s plans for expansion, CB9 is drafting its own 197-a plan for the neighborhood, which does not implement zoning changes but provides general guidelines that influence future development projects and land use decisions. If the community board�s 197-a plan is completed before Columbia�s plan is approved, the City Planning Commission must give important consideration to the consistency of Columbia�s plan with the goals of the 197-a plan.
In July, Councilman Robert Jackson announced that he had secured $150,000 from the City Council�s 2006 fiscal budget to complete CB9�s 197-a plan.
�We�re very pleased with our council member�s support of and commitment to the completion and submission to ULURP of Community Board 9�s 197-a plan,� Pat Jones, chair of the board�s 197-a plan committee, told Spectator in July.
CB9 will use the money for technical assistance from experts and other costs of finalizing the 197-a plan, which was approved by the community board in October and will come under threshold review from city planning this fall. Threshold review is one of the early steps in the approval process for 197-a plans, in which city planning staff make sure that the plan meets their standards for content and sound planning policy.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
BANNED PHOTOS FEMA DOESN'T WANT YOU TO SEE
The horror FEMA is trying to hide!
FEMA is kicking the press out of N.O. for 1 reason ... if Americans see what the WHOLE WORLD is seeing this government will be in danger.
This German website is one that is showing how the dead remain unburied in close proximity to where victims are forced to stay (even children!). Photos are wrenching and if they don't expose rascism by this gov't.... well, decide for yourselves:
Hurrikan Katrina: Eine Stadt versinkt in Dreck und Gestank
please send this link to everyone you know.
FEMA is kicking the press out of N.O. for 1 reason ... if Americans see what the WHOLE WORLD is seeing this government will be in danger.
This German website is one that is showing how the dead remain unburied in close proximity to where victims are forced to stay (even children!). Photos are wrenching and if they don't expose rascism by this gov't.... well, decide for yourselves:
Hurrikan Katrina: Eine Stadt versinkt in Dreck und Gestank
please send this link to everyone you know.
Before the Flood - New York Times
Op-Ed Contributor
Before the Flood
By SIMON WINCHESTER
Published: September 8, 2005
THE last time a great American city was destroyed by a violent caprice of nature, the response was shockingly different from what we have seen in New Orleans. In tone and tempo, residents, government institutions and the nation as a whole responded to the earthquake that brought San Francisco to its knees a century ago in a manner that was well-nigh impeccable, something from which the country was long able to derive a considerable measure of pride.
Skip to next paragraph
Joseph Hart
This was all the more remarkable for taking place at a time when civilized existence was a far more grueling business, an age bereft of cellphones and Black Hawks and conditioned air, with no Federal Emergency Management Agency to give us a false sense of security and no Weather Channel to tell us what to expect.
Nobody in the "cool gray city of love," as the poet George Sterling called it, had the faintest inkling that anything might go wrong on the early morning of April 18, 1906. Enrico Caruso and John Barrymore - who both happened to be in town - and 400,000 others slumbered on, with only a slight lightening of eggshell-blue in the skies over Oakland and the clank of the first cable cars suggesting the beginning of another ordinary day.
Then at 5:12 a.m. a giant granite hand rose from the California earth and tore through the city. Palaces of brick held up no better than gold-rush shanties of pine and redwood siding; hot chimneys, electric wires and gas pipes toppled, setting a series of fires that, with the water mains broken and the hydrants dry, proceeded over the next three dreadful days and nights to destroy what remained of the imperial city. In the end, at least 3,000 were dead and 225,000 homeless.
Everyone who survived remembered: there was at first a shocked silence; then the screams of the injured; and then, in a score of ways and at a speed that matched the ferocity of the wind-whipped fires, people picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, took
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
September 2005 Civil Service Exam Application Schedule
Subject: September 2005 Civil Service Exam Application Schedule
Date: 9/7/2005 1:56:07 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: MyNYC@nyc.gov
Reply To: msngrprdb2-1.4zbif.4qp5.rs.0.4qljh.-nc2thg@popcsms.csc.nycnet
To: reysmontj@aol.com
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September 7, 2005
City exams now open for filing include City Planner, Motor Vehicle Operator and Correction Officer.
Visit the DCAS home page for the complete Civil Service Examination Application schedule. www.nyc.gov/dcas
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Date: 9/7/2005 1:56:07 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: MyNYC@nyc.gov
Reply To: msngrprdb2-1.4zbif.4qp5.rs.0.4qljh.-nc2thg@popcsms.csc.nycnet
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Sent from the Internet (Details)
September 7, 2005
City exams now open for filing include City Planner, Motor Vehicle Operator and Correction Officer.
Visit the DCAS home page for the complete Civil Service Examination Application schedule. www.nyc.gov/dcas
This is the NYC.gov news you requested for: City Jobs and Civil Service Announcements
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In Manhattan, Poor Make 2� for Each Dollar to the Rich
Subject: Fwd: NYTimes.com: In Manhattan, Poor Make 2� for Each Dollar to the Rich
Date: 9/7/2005 7:47:58 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: SBaileymcc
To: Reysmontj
September 4, 2005
In Manhattan, Poor Make 2� for Each Dollar to the Rich
By SAM ROBERTS
Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue is only about 60 blocks from the Wagner Houses in East Harlem, but they might as well be light years apart. They epitomize the highest- and lowest-earning census tracts in Manhattan, where the disparity between rich and poor is now greater than in any other county in the country.
That finding, in an analysis conducted for The New York Times, dovetails with other new regional economic research, which identifies the Bronx as the poorest urban county in the country and suggests that the middle class in New York State is being depleted.
The top fifth of earners in Manhattan now make 52 times what the lowest fifth make - $365,826 compared with $7,047 - which is roughly comparable to the income disparity in Namibia, according to the Times analysis of 2000 census data. Put another way, for every dollar made by households in the top fifth of Manhattan earners, households in the bottom fifth made about 2 cents.
That represents a substantial widening of the income gap from previous years. In 1980, the top fifth of earners made 21 times what the bottom fifth made in Manhattan, which ranked 17th among the nation's counties in income disparity.
By 1990, Manhattan ranked second behind Kalawao County, Hawaii, a former leper colony with which it had little in common except for that signature grove of palm trees at the World Financial Center. The rich in Manhattan made 32 times the average of the poor then, or $174,486 versus $5,435.
The analysis was conducted for The Times by Dr. Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociology professor at Queens College of the City University of New York.
The growing disparity in Manhattan helped drive New York from 11th among cities with the biggest income disparities in 1980 to fifth in 1990 and fourth in 2000, behind Atlanta; Berkeley, Calif.; and Washington, according to the analysis. "The gains are all going to the top," Dr. Beveridge said. "It's a massive class disparity."
Last week, the Census Bureau reported that even as the economy grew around the nation, incomes stagnated and poverty rates rose. The Bronx, with a poverty rate of 30.6 percent, was outranked only by three border counties in Texas where living costs are lower.
Swollen, in part, by the earnings of commuters who work in New York City, median household income among the states was highest in New Jersey ($61,359) and Connecticut ($60,528). It was $47,349 in New York State, also above the national median.
A separate analysis, being released this weekend by the Fiscal Policy Institute in Albany, warns that the middle class is being depleted while the rich are getting richer and the poor are growing in number and barely getting by - more so in New York State and particularly upstate.
The loss of good-paying jobs, especially in manufacturing, "has meant that the 'hollowing out' of the middle of the income distribution continued at a rapid pace," the institute, a union-backed research group, concluded. It said the number of families earning between $35,000 and $150,000 declined by 50,000 from 2000 to 2003 while the number that earned above $150,000 and below $35,000 increased.
Dr. Mark Levitan, senior policy analyst for the Community Service Society, a liberal research and advocacy group, said he did not believe the city's economy was "uniquely weak," but said an increase in the poverty rate from 19 percent to 20.3 percent, as measured by the census's new American Community Survey, "is fundamentally a story about stagnant wages."
Edward Wolff, a New York University economist, attributed the growing disparity to ballooning Wall Street incomes and declining wages for lower skilled workers. "Though these forces are at work across the country," he said, "the heavy preponderance of corporate headquarters, the financial sector and the legal sector in New York City has made the increase in the ratio of income between the top and bottom quintile more extreme than in other parts of the country."
Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, said the income gap, which in Manhattan has historically been large, can endure indefinitely.
"The elites, the top sliver of the income scale, can drive consumption and investment forward while the bottom half slogs along," he said. "If inequality had embedded within it its own seeds of destruction, it would implode sooner than later. But that doesn't appear to be the case. Many who have fallen behind have a skewed notion of their prospects for upward mobility."
Manhattan, he said, is "an amplified microcosm" of conditions elsewhere in the country.
The income gap in Manhattan was far wider than in any other county. In tiny Clay County, Georgia, which has only 1,355 households and ranked second, the rich, on average, made about 38 times what the poor made.
Compared with the poorest Manhattanites, those in the top fifth are disproportionately male, non-Hispanic white and married. Roughly equal proportions among rich and poor are immigrants, are employed by private profit-making companies and work in sales.
The lowest-income census tract in the city is a triangular patch of East Harlem east of First Avenue and north of East 119th Street, where, despite a hint of gentrification in a renovated brownstone or two, the neighborhood is dominated by the mammoth though generally well-tended public housing project called the Wagner Houses. The median household income there is $9,320, most of the residents are black or Hispanic and do not have high school degrees, 56 percent live below the poverty level and about one in 10 are foreign born.
Darryl Powell, a 43-year-old automobile mechanic, said that most were struggling just to get by. "They're trying to keep a roof over their head," he said. "People are trying to hold onto what they've got."
Sheila Estep said she was facing eviction because she was working as a full-time mother raising three sons rather than returning to her earlier jobs as an electrician, plumber and cosmetologist. "If I fail at my job, they'll fail at theirs," she said.
Sharon Hammond, who sells cosmetics, said she and other tenants wished their neighborhood were better and that she had a working stove instead of a temporary hotplate in her apartment, but added: "Everybody can't be rich."
Manhattan's highest-income census tract is a six-square-block rectangle bounded by Fifth and Park Avenues and East 56th and 59th Streets. The median household income in this mostly commercial section of East Midtown is $188,697 (average family income is $875,267); none of the residents identified themselves as black; nearly one-third have advanced degrees and more than one in three are foreign born. Even there, though, the poverty rate is 16 percent.
"The income gap, while supposedly increasing, seems to be a natural phenomenon," said the developer Donald J. Trump, who lives in Trump Tower. "Times have been good, but times have been good for many people and many classes of people. I think there is a very large middle class - but not in this section, by the way."
Date: 9/7/2005 7:47:58 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: SBaileymcc
To: Reysmontj
September 4, 2005
In Manhattan, Poor Make 2� for Each Dollar to the Rich
By SAM ROBERTS
Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue is only about 60 blocks from the Wagner Houses in East Harlem, but they might as well be light years apart. They epitomize the highest- and lowest-earning census tracts in Manhattan, where the disparity between rich and poor is now greater than in any other county in the country.
That finding, in an analysis conducted for The New York Times, dovetails with other new regional economic research, which identifies the Bronx as the poorest urban county in the country and suggests that the middle class in New York State is being depleted.
The top fifth of earners in Manhattan now make 52 times what the lowest fifth make - $365,826 compared with $7,047 - which is roughly comparable to the income disparity in Namibia, according to the Times analysis of 2000 census data. Put another way, for every dollar made by households in the top fifth of Manhattan earners, households in the bottom fifth made about 2 cents.
That represents a substantial widening of the income gap from previous years. In 1980, the top fifth of earners made 21 times what the bottom fifth made in Manhattan, which ranked 17th among the nation's counties in income disparity.
By 1990, Manhattan ranked second behind Kalawao County, Hawaii, a former leper colony with which it had little in common except for that signature grove of palm trees at the World Financial Center. The rich in Manhattan made 32 times the average of the poor then, or $174,486 versus $5,435.
The analysis was conducted for The Times by Dr. Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociology professor at Queens College of the City University of New York.
The growing disparity in Manhattan helped drive New York from 11th among cities with the biggest income disparities in 1980 to fifth in 1990 and fourth in 2000, behind Atlanta; Berkeley, Calif.; and Washington, according to the analysis. "The gains are all going to the top," Dr. Beveridge said. "It's a massive class disparity."
Last week, the Census Bureau reported that even as the economy grew around the nation, incomes stagnated and poverty rates rose. The Bronx, with a poverty rate of 30.6 percent, was outranked only by three border counties in Texas where living costs are lower.
Swollen, in part, by the earnings of commuters who work in New York City, median household income among the states was highest in New Jersey ($61,359) and Connecticut ($60,528). It was $47,349 in New York State, also above the national median.
A separate analysis, being released this weekend by the Fiscal Policy Institute in Albany, warns that the middle class is being depleted while the rich are getting richer and the poor are growing in number and barely getting by - more so in New York State and particularly upstate.
The loss of good-paying jobs, especially in manufacturing, "has meant that the 'hollowing out' of the middle of the income distribution continued at a rapid pace," the institute, a union-backed research group, concluded. It said the number of families earning between $35,000 and $150,000 declined by 50,000 from 2000 to 2003 while the number that earned above $150,000 and below $35,000 increased.
Dr. Mark Levitan, senior policy analyst for the Community Service Society, a liberal research and advocacy group, said he did not believe the city's economy was "uniquely weak," but said an increase in the poverty rate from 19 percent to 20.3 percent, as measured by the census's new American Community Survey, "is fundamentally a story about stagnant wages."
Edward Wolff, a New York University economist, attributed the growing disparity to ballooning Wall Street incomes and declining wages for lower skilled workers. "Though these forces are at work across the country," he said, "the heavy preponderance of corporate headquarters, the financial sector and the legal sector in New York City has made the increase in the ratio of income between the top and bottom quintile more extreme than in other parts of the country."
Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, said the income gap, which in Manhattan has historically been large, can endure indefinitely.
"The elites, the top sliver of the income scale, can drive consumption and investment forward while the bottom half slogs along," he said. "If inequality had embedded within it its own seeds of destruction, it would implode sooner than later. But that doesn't appear to be the case. Many who have fallen behind have a skewed notion of their prospects for upward mobility."
Manhattan, he said, is "an amplified microcosm" of conditions elsewhere in the country.
The income gap in Manhattan was far wider than in any other county. In tiny Clay County, Georgia, which has only 1,355 households and ranked second, the rich, on average, made about 38 times what the poor made.
Compared with the poorest Manhattanites, those in the top fifth are disproportionately male, non-Hispanic white and married. Roughly equal proportions among rich and poor are immigrants, are employed by private profit-making companies and work in sales.
The lowest-income census tract in the city is a triangular patch of East Harlem east of First Avenue and north of East 119th Street, where, despite a hint of gentrification in a renovated brownstone or two, the neighborhood is dominated by the mammoth though generally well-tended public housing project called the Wagner Houses. The median household income there is $9,320, most of the residents are black or Hispanic and do not have high school degrees, 56 percent live below the poverty level and about one in 10 are foreign born.
Darryl Powell, a 43-year-old automobile mechanic, said that most were struggling just to get by. "They're trying to keep a roof over their head," he said. "People are trying to hold onto what they've got."
Sheila Estep said she was facing eviction because she was working as a full-time mother raising three sons rather than returning to her earlier jobs as an electrician, plumber and cosmetologist. "If I fail at my job, they'll fail at theirs," she said.
Sharon Hammond, who sells cosmetics, said she and other tenants wished their neighborhood were better and that she had a working stove instead of a temporary hotplate in her apartment, but added: "Everybody can't be rich."
Manhattan's highest-income census tract is a six-square-block rectangle bounded by Fifth and Park Avenues and East 56th and 59th Streets. The median household income in this mostly commercial section of East Midtown is $188,697 (average family income is $875,267); none of the residents identified themselves as black; nearly one-third have advanced degrees and more than one in three are foreign born. Even there, though, the poverty rate is 16 percent.
"The income gap, while supposedly increasing, seems to be a natural phenomenon," said the developer Donald J. Trump, who lives in Trump Tower. "Times have been good, but times have been good for many people and many classes of people. I think there is a very large middle class - but not in this section, by the way."
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Questions about Katrina
Subject: Apr�s le D�luge
Date: 9/6/2005 5:14:07 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: starquest@nycivic.org
To: reysmontj@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)
Questions about Katrina
By Henry J. Stern
September 6, 2005
Everyone is writing about Hurricane Katrina, the storm and its aftermath. Rather than expound on the disaster from far away, we would simply like to ask questions which occur to us.
There has been a torrent of words and pictures describing what has been called the worst natural disaster in American history. Actually, the meteor that fell in Arizona about fifty thousand years ago may have been worse, but we don't have written records to prove it.
Here are the questions we would like you to consider, and the authorities to answer, authoritatively if they can. If they cannot answer the questions, they should search for people who can, before they step aside and receive their Medals of Freedom.
1. It appears to be absolutely nutty that the arrival of the hurricane was predicted days in advance and so little was done in preparation for it. Is there any rational explanation for this apparent lapse? Was it the responsibility of the state or federal government, or both?
2. It is said to have been fortunate for New Orleans that the hurricane, pushed by a cold front from the west, veered thirty miles east and struck Mississippi hardest. If the eye of the storm had struck New Orleans, as originally projected, would the death toll have been closer to 100,000 than 10,000, the current estimate?
3. The fact that the President stayed on vacation in Crawford until Wednesday is difficult to assimilate. Even if there was nothing he could have done about the disaster, the king must appear to be concerned when his subjects are losing their lives en masse. Waiting seven minutes to finish reading a children's book on 9/11 is nothing compared with spending two days flitting around the West while New Orleans was drowning. Who tells the President what to do when Cheney and Card are on vacation?
4. FEMA chief Michael D. Brown is utterly unqualified for his office, his previous experience having consisted of the unsatisfactory management of an Arabian Horse Association. He probably got the job because he was a drinking buddy of Joe M. Allbaugh, a major Bush contributor. It has been the practice, in a number of administrations, to give political donors Ambassadorships to small countries in places where the State Department people do the work anyway. But is this the proper way to choose an individual for a position as agency head, where the lives of Americans may depend on his competence and expertise?
5. Michael Chertoff is the puzzle here. He is supposed to be very smart, that is why he was appointed after the Kerik affair. What did he know, when did he know it, and what did he do about it? The Third Circuit was a much cushier spot than the one he has now.
6. Why didn't the city of New Orleans or the state of Louisiana provide buses to take out the people who had no other transportation? It was obvious that there would be thousands of people with this problem. How can you tell people to leave a city if they have no practical way of doing that?
7. Since Amtrak has a station in New Orleans, why didn't they take people out by train?
8. Why didn't they airdrop supplies into the Superdome; if it is true that thousands of people went without food and water for days?
9. What are tens of thousands of people displaced by the flood and scattered in different states supposed to do now?
10. How can we make it reasonably certain that this undeniably inept government response to a predictable and predicted natural catastrophe never occurs again? Are officials aware that, although Katrina was climatic and climactic, it will not be the last hurricane to strike the United States? If so, what are they going to do about such situations now that they would not have done before New Orleans?
If you, or a friend, has an answer to any of the ten questions, please let us know.
Your comments on Katrina are invited, and will be placed on our blog so they can be shared with other readers. We will use your initials, unless you advise us that you prefer your full name, anonymity, or pseudonymity. Use of the names of other people or animals, whether real or fictional, is inappropriate..
#250 9.6.05 730wds
Henry J. Stern
starquest@nycivic.org
New York Civic
520 Eighth Avenue
22nd Floor
New York, NY 10018
(212) 564-4441
(212) 564-5588 (fax)
www.nycivic.org
Date: 9/6/2005 5:14:07 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: starquest@nycivic.org
To: reysmontj@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)
Questions about Katrina
By Henry J. Stern
September 6, 2005
Everyone is writing about Hurricane Katrina, the storm and its aftermath. Rather than expound on the disaster from far away, we would simply like to ask questions which occur to us.
There has been a torrent of words and pictures describing what has been called the worst natural disaster in American history. Actually, the meteor that fell in Arizona about fifty thousand years ago may have been worse, but we don't have written records to prove it.
Here are the questions we would like you to consider, and the authorities to answer, authoritatively if they can. If they cannot answer the questions, they should search for people who can, before they step aside and receive their Medals of Freedom.
1. It appears to be absolutely nutty that the arrival of the hurricane was predicted days in advance and so little was done in preparation for it. Is there any rational explanation for this apparent lapse? Was it the responsibility of the state or federal government, or both?
2. It is said to have been fortunate for New Orleans that the hurricane, pushed by a cold front from the west, veered thirty miles east and struck Mississippi hardest. If the eye of the storm had struck New Orleans, as originally projected, would the death toll have been closer to 100,000 than 10,000, the current estimate?
3. The fact that the President stayed on vacation in Crawford until Wednesday is difficult to assimilate. Even if there was nothing he could have done about the disaster, the king must appear to be concerned when his subjects are losing their lives en masse. Waiting seven minutes to finish reading a children's book on 9/11 is nothing compared with spending two days flitting around the West while New Orleans was drowning. Who tells the President what to do when Cheney and Card are on vacation?
4. FEMA chief Michael D. Brown is utterly unqualified for his office, his previous experience having consisted of the unsatisfactory management of an Arabian Horse Association. He probably got the job because he was a drinking buddy of Joe M. Allbaugh, a major Bush contributor. It has been the practice, in a number of administrations, to give political donors Ambassadorships to small countries in places where the State Department people do the work anyway. But is this the proper way to choose an individual for a position as agency head, where the lives of Americans may depend on his competence and expertise?
5. Michael Chertoff is the puzzle here. He is supposed to be very smart, that is why he was appointed after the Kerik affair. What did he know, when did he know it, and what did he do about it? The Third Circuit was a much cushier spot than the one he has now.
6. Why didn't the city of New Orleans or the state of Louisiana provide buses to take out the people who had no other transportation? It was obvious that there would be thousands of people with this problem. How can you tell people to leave a city if they have no practical way of doing that?
7. Since Amtrak has a station in New Orleans, why didn't they take people out by train?
8. Why didn't they airdrop supplies into the Superdome; if it is true that thousands of people went without food and water for days?
9. What are tens of thousands of people displaced by the flood and scattered in different states supposed to do now?
10. How can we make it reasonably certain that this undeniably inept government response to a predictable and predicted natural catastrophe never occurs again? Are officials aware that, although Katrina was climatic and climactic, it will not be the last hurricane to strike the United States? If so, what are they going to do about such situations now that they would not have done before New Orleans?
If you, or a friend, has an answer to any of the ten questions, please let us know.
Your comments on Katrina are invited, and will be placed on our blog so they can be shared with other readers. We will use your initials, unless you advise us that you prefer your full name, anonymity, or pseudonymity. Use of the names of other people or animals, whether real or fictional, is inappropriate..
#250 9.6.05 730wds
Henry J. Stern
starquest@nycivic.org
New York Civic
520 Eighth Avenue
22nd Floor
New York, NY 10018
(212) 564-4441
(212) 564-5588 (fax)
www.nycivic.org
APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE FOR 25 AFFORDABLE RENTAL APARTMENTS IN CENTRAL HARLEM
"Apartments for Rent"
Applications Available for 25 Affordable Rental Apartments in Central Harlem
The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) has updated its web content concerning listings for apartments for rent.
Applications are available for 25 affordable rental apartments in Central Harlem. The studios and one- and two-bedroom apartments are for households with annual incomes ranging from $18,363 to to $62,800, depending on the size of the household. For more information , visit the HPD website at www.nyc.gov/hpd
The City itself does not rent apartments, but works with real estate professionals and community sponsors who market them. You will need to contact them directly to fill out an application and enter it in the lottery. There are no broker fees and no application fees.
We suggest you look at HPD's home and apartment lists at least once a month.
This is the NYC.gov News You Requested For: Apartments for Rent
To subscribe please go to this link: https://www.nyc.gov/portal/signin.jspComment on this news service: http://www.nyc.gov/html/misc/html/news_feedback.html
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Apartment Listings (The Affordable Housing Hotline) When apartments created under HPD's affordable housing programs are ready to be rented or sold they are advertised in both local and major newspapers. The apartments are also listed on HPD's Affordable Housing Hotline, which you may reach by calling 311 (311 can be accessed outside of New York City by dialing (212) NEW YORK).
The City itself does not rent apartments, but works with real estate professionals and community sponsors who market them. You will need to contact them directly to fill out an application and enter it in an apartment lottery. There are no broker fees and no application fees.
If you would like to receive an e-mail when the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development has updated its web content concerning apartment and home listings for City-sponsored housing in the five boroughs, please register for this feature at www.nyc.gov/hpd
The full descriptions of the apartments listed below are available in .PDF format. To download these descriptions, you will need the latest copy of the Adobe Acrobat Reader. This program can be downloaded for free from this link: "Acrobat and the Web."
Borough Neighborhood Apartment Size Apart-ments Available Annual Gross Income
Application Deadline
Full Description (will open a PDF document)
Brooklyn
Crown Heights area
one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms, three-bedrooms
32
See advertisement
September 20, 2005
click to open
Brooklyn
West Bushwick
one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms, three-bedrooms
52
See advertisement
October 7, 2005
click to open
Manhattan
Central Harlem
studios, one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms
25
See advertisement
October 13, 2005
click to open
No apartment listings at this time.
-->
The New York City Housing Development Corporation (HDC) also has a variety of programs that finance the development of low-, middle-, and mixed-income apartments. For more information, visit the apartment-seekers section of the HDC Web site.
Supportive Housing:The Supportive Housing Network of New York provides a list of SRO units and studio apartments operated by non-profit agencies which provide some level of on-site supportive services. The majority of the units are for single individuals who are currently homeless in the NYC shelter system and/or who have a disability. Visit the website of the Supportive Housing Network for a New York City Intake List. There are very few vacancies.
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Luring Fashionistas Uptown To Hamilton Heights
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
September 4, 2005
Luring Fashionistas Uptown
[To Hamilton Heights]
By PENELOPE GREEN
EXACTLY two weeks before the start of the New York Spring Collections, otherwise known as Fashion Week, Malcolm Harris, a 37-year-old designer, was inching toward the debut of a solo line that he is calling Mal Sirrah (his own name, written backward) and describing an unanticipated stumbling block: his new neighborhood.
Joyce Dopkeen/The New York TimesMalcolm Harris is paying $2,800 a month
for an apartment in a Harlem town house
Mr. Harris is living, working and showing in a rotund brick-and-limestone Romanesque Revival town house on Convent Avenue between 143rd and 144th Streets, the bucolic center of the landmarked Harlem neighborhood of Hamilton Heights.
His second-floor 1,000-square-foot one-bedroom, where he lives with his boyfriend, Tyson Perez, a fashion stylist, rents for $2,800, which includes the use of the back parlor downstairs. His is one of only three floor-through apartments here. "It's Melrose Place," said Mr. Harris, who had dinner last spring in the top apartment and fell hard for the house.
The building's owner has kept the first-floor parlor and Gothic wood-paneled center hall and staircase as a common area for her tenants. It is here that Mr. Harris will set out 200 or so gilt chairs Wednesday evening at 6.
"Think early Chanel," he urged, meaning Coco, "and the models wafting down the stairs with me at the top, smoking a cigarette." Yet for the crowd of fashion press and buyers whose geographic limits were sorely tested by Miguel Adrover's East Village and Lower East Side shows a few years back, Harlem at first seemed to be a destination too far for the Town Cars.
"I've been calling the buyers to come up for a preview," explained Mr. Harris, sitting before the broad bow windows of his apartment.
His workroom is the richly paneled back parlor on the first floor below. "Everyone is so wonderful: 'Where are you showing?' they ask. And I say, 'In a lovely town house in Harlem.' Then it's like when the D. J. lifts the needle at 4 a.m.: this horrible dead silence."
That day, he had a notion to corral the fashion press into red double-decker tour buses and shuttle them uptown, but he had been tangled in the tour company's voice mail and couldn't get a human being to call him back.
Joyce Dopkeen/The New York Times On Wednesday at 6 p.m., Malcolm Harris will introduce a new fashion
line, Mal Sirrah, at a show in the house's first-floor common area.
Mr. Harris was elegantly macho in silk camouflage pants and a carefully slashed T-shirt with the words "The Myrmidons" written across its chest - tough enough for his business, unfazed by its challenges.
Behind him, a dress form wore a slight pale green silk gingham baby doll dress with a delicate ruffled tuxedo front. If you looked very closely, you might see the sequins embedded in those silk organza ruffles, a treat for the sharp-eyed.
Ten years ago, Mr. Harris and his best friend, Katsumi Edono, were living together in a loft in NoHo and introducing their girlish clothing line, Katsumi & Malcolm.
Two years later, the two had enjoyed a bit of fame - Madonna had bought a dress, and even invested in their company for a spell - and moved into the top floor of the Vanderbilt mansion at 35 West 57th Street. The J Sisters - the seven Brazilian beauticians who brought the phrase "the full Brazilian" (translation: the ultimate bikini wax) into the metropopular lexicon - had the two floors below them, a great boon to business, Mr. Harris said.
"One Sunday morning at 7 a.m., they ring us up and say, 'You'll never guess who's here,' " he continued, "and our door opens and there's Kirstie Alley. I don't know what she had done that early in the morning, but there she was, all over our clothes and the dogs."
By 2000, they had $10 million to $12 million in yearly sales, were represented by 30 stores in this country and were thoroughly over the whole "fashion" thing.
"We decided to take the money and run," Mr. Harris said. They bought a condo on Ocean Drive in South Beach and hung out for an entire year.
"It was so decadent, it put everything in perspective," Mr. Harris continued. "And then the reality sets in: South Beach is only 20 blocks long and six blocks wide. You've got to move again."
Ms. Edono went home to Tokyo, and Mr. Harris moved to Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. Katsumi & Malcolm became Kat & Mal, a more playful version of itself. The two collaborated long-distance, and Ms. Edono sold the line from Tokyo.
"We sold more T-shirts than anything else," said Mr. Harris, describing a signature T printed with stick figure cartoons of himself and Ms. Edono. "There was not much design effort."
Brooklyn, he said, felt just as far from Manhattan as Miami. "Out there, I felt disconnected from the reason I'd moved to Manhattan in the first place. I felt disconnected from fashion."
When his lease in Brooklyn ran out, in 2002, Mr. Harris moved to Tokyo to be with Ms. Edono and raise money for a future solo venture. He loved the anonymity of Tokyo, the utter strangeness of it. "People thought I was either a visiting rapper," he said, "or working in the military. I did Kat & Mal and saved money, squirreling away every single dollar."
He returned to New York in 2004 and sublet his way around the city, from the Lower East Side to the Upper West, trawling for just the right spot. He and Mr. Perez found a one-bedroom in a town house on 123rd Street and Lenox Avenue that rented for $1,650. They had seen it during a movie shoot, when every day the street was as quiet and as empty as any in a leafy suburb.
"Then, the movie wraps after we've moved in," Mr. Harris said, "and chaos ensues. There are still pockets of Harlem where things are not cleaned up, and that was one of them. It was awful."
A friend who worked in marketing offered to help him draw up a business plan for his new line and asked him to dinner in her Convent Avenue town house apartment. He and Mr. Perez moved into the second floor on May 1, after its tenant suddenly, serendipitously, decided to move downtown.
It is a bit of a stretch to imagine two grown men and two dogs living in this pristine and empty space. (Chance and Chandler, two young toy poodles, were vibrating and squeaking from their crate in the bedroom the other day.) "I used to be about all of that stuff," Mr. Harris said. "Now we have just the basics."
The sun was pouring through the three huge bow windows, flickering off the diamonds in Mr. Harris's ears, the mirrored front of a white leather desk and the satin ribbon edge on that green gingham shift.
"Success is different for everybody," Mr. Harris said. "For me, my best moments are working on something like this dress, in this room, in this light."
By last Monday, he had abandoned the tour bus idea and was instead planning a marketing stunt, a blizzard of T-shirts sent to fashion editors with the words "Naomi Campbell Slapped Me/And I Slapped Her Right Back," except that the shirt used a harsh female noun instead of the third person pronoun.
It worked: by last Wednesday 200 invitees had confirmed their attendance, he said, including Ivanka Trump, Andre Leon Talley and Kim Cattrall. Even Naomi Campbell's office had called, requesting tickets to the show.
He was tickled that he had secured Eva Pigford, a star of "America's Next Top Model," as a mannequin for his own show. "She defied the 15-minute rule," he said, "She has this attitude: 'I know you think I got here because of that, but I would have got here anyway.' "
Friday, September 02, 2005
Subject: Rethinking Community-Facilities Zoning
Date: 9/2/2005 10:25:52 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: Reysmontj
To: NYC-CB9M@juno.com
The Manhattan Institute's Center for Rethinking Development
Ideas that shape the city's planning, housing, and development
A Monthly Newsletter by Julia Vitullo-Martin, MI Senior Fellow
Rethinking Community-Facilities ZoningJulia Vitullo-Martin, August 2005
"Residential neighborhoods are being destroyed all over New York," says Councilman Tony Avella of Queens, chair of the City Council's Zoning and Franchises Committee. "The neighborhoods' quality of life is being ruined, their character undermined, old houses are being knocked down, and bulky things put in their place."
Councilman Avella isn't complaining about conventional, for-profit development. He's talking about so-called "community facilities," such as doctors' offices, that are built under a special "bonus" provision of the city's zoning code.
A community facility can be just about anything that is vaguely tied to public sector services-hospitals, churches, schools, colleges, day care centers, museums, libraries, dormitories, settlement houses, nursing homes, homeless shelters, medical offices. In one form or another, community facilities zoning has affected most prime residential neighborhoods-where the bonus is most valuable.
Under this rubric, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital has erected massive buildings deep into residential streets adjacent to the medical center in the east 60s. New York University has built at least eleven outsized dormitories and school facilities downtown. Cooper Union has announced an immense plan to cover much of Astor Place. Columbia University has built an outsized school on the West Side at Broadway and 110th Street.
"Community facility zoning is very destructive to the community," says activist Elizabeth Ashby, who lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. "It's grossly unfair to treat one set of property owners one way, and another an entirely separate way. And then to let that special set ruin our neighborhood." Ashby's concern extends beyond the extra bulk to the peculiar problem besetting brownstone neighborhoods-that the city allows community facilities to build in rear yards on side streets that are otherwise protected.
NO PROTECTION FOR LIGHT AND AIR
Even as the city's 1961 zoning code set strict standards to maintain light and air in residential neighborhoods, it exempted nonprofits from these requirements, as if they didn't really matter so long as the social purpose was high enough. In other words, what was forbidden to private development in the name of protecting light and air was allowed to nonprofit development in the name of the public interest.
The city's justification for such "bulk bonuses" is that community facilities by their nature enhance the general welfare and belong appropriately in the residential neighborhoods that they serve. Zoning lawyer Norman Marcus, who was general counsel to the City Planning Commission from 1963 to 1985, says that in passing the provision, the Wagner administration's thinking was that "community facilities were vulnerable and less competitive than profit-making companies, and that this disparity could be equalized somewhat through a zoning subsidy." But the institutions that have benefited most from the bonus subsidies are among the wealthiest and most powerful in the world. What's more, they are largely closed to neighborhood residents.
Further, since the facilities nearly always remove property from the tax rolls, the Department of City Planning's current zoning handbook argues that the city has an interest in letting them erect bulkier buildings in order to use less land. Thus, the over concentration of institutional uses that is feared and deplored by so many neighborhood residents (and by Jane Jacobs in her Death and Life of Great American Cities) is in fact encouraged as good policy by City Planning itself. It's no accident that powerful institutions seem to be eating their neighborhoods-they're doing this under official city policy and through tax subsidies.
"Community facility zoning has been a problem for as long as I've been active in zoning, since 1963, and probably before then," says Marcus. "It's caused some terrible problems, encouraging development that just shouldn't have happened-like the scads of nursing homes in the Rockaways and the subsequent nursing home scandals in the 1970s that led people to question whether the subsidy was justified. It became clear that nonprofits could and did make money.
But the solution was strictly a band-aid-City Planning was to check to see whether a particular community was oversaturated. Each community was supposed to have a fair share. If it had more than its fair share, then residential bulk would be limited. That was in the early 90s-and was the last solution enacted." Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, argues that the city as a whole would benefit from wealthy institutions dispersing facilities into less developed neighborhood. City officials "should work with institutions to help them site secondary and auxiliary campuses where they are needed, in areas well-connected by mass transit," he says. "Right now there are no limits on many supersized, nonprofit structures can be built in a neighborhood."
WHAT IS A COMMUNITY FACILITY ANYWAY?
Because the bonuses in prime areas are extremely valuable and the definition of community facility very loose, it was probably inevitable that highly questionable community facilities would be proposed-even actually built-before city agencies got around to tightening standards.
One of the more egregious cases is now being fought out on the Lower East Side-a neighborhood that has received more than its fair share of questionable facilities in the past. An old school, P.S. 64 at 605 East 9th Street, was bought for $3.1 million at a city auction in 1998. Because it had been a school and a center for community activities, the Giuliani administration continued a previous community facility restriction, which was agreed to by the buyer, Gregg Singer. Whatever use he proposed had to be a community use.
Singer intends to build a 19-story, 222-unit dormitory, including a 45-car underground garage. But he has no university affiliation, and claims he doesn't need one. The Department of Buildings, which has refused him a building permit, disagrees, saying he must show an "institutional nexus" to get the community facilities bonus. He has appealed for a variance to the Board of Standards and Appeals, which held a standing-room-only public hearing on August 18. Preservationist Andrew Berman calls this a "Trojan-horse dorm" which, after getting into the gates under pretense, will throw off its cover and announce itself for what it is: an out-of-scale, illegal residential building. At least two other builders of dorms have already gotten away with this tactic downtown.
PERMANENT BULK, IMPERMANENT BENEFIT
Community facility status offers extra bulk to a builder. But this extra bulk in no way entails the property, which can be subsequently sold to another user. A doctor's office, for example, can fill in a rear yard behind a brownstone and erect an outsized building-which can remain even after the property is sold. The neighborhood ends up permanently marred, but without any permanent benefit from the community facility.
Indeed, so accepted is this impermanence by city officials that the Department of Buildings is proposing that a builder who seeks the community facility bonus show a mere ten-year lease or commitment to obtain the extra bulk-making the bonus even more valuable than before.
WHAT'S NEXT
The point of zoning is to protect light and air by limiting the size and bulk of new development. If these limits are justified-and many of them are-why should they be eliminated for non-profit uses? The P.S. 64 case is particularly outrageous, since the community use is so strained. If allowed, it will stand as a major precedent. The BSA will hand down its ruling on October 19. Zoning insiders say it will almost surely rule against the developer, who will then appeal all the way to the Court of Appeals-which may well rule in his favor.
August 2005
---------------------------------
PRINT THIS EMAIL THIS
---------------------------------
NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE
---------------------------------
LINK OF THE MONTH
The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
---------------------------------
LINKS
Community Facilities Zoning Text
Zoning Reform Amendments: Bulk Changes
City Laws: Community Facility Zoning
Know Your Limits: Do supersized churches and schools have to be a menace?
East Village Community Coalition
Greater Astoria Historical Society
Gregg Singer pleads his case for his 19-story 'Acme dorm'
Caught in the twilight zone
---------------------------------
UPDATES
Report on Mitchell-Lama Buyout Program by Office of State Comptroller
Campaign 2005: Candidates Vie over Affordable Housing and Homelessness Prevention Plans
Campaign 2005: Three Ways the Next Mayor Could Improve the Waterfront
Cruel to be Kind
Queens Officials, Jets Agree on Park
Winning Construction Jobs for Local Residents
Audit of the Administration of Payments in Lieu of Taxes under Economic Development Corporation and Industrial Development Agency Leases
A Home for All New Yorkers
---------------------------------
FEEDBACK
---------------------------------
"The current zoning generally sets appropriate controls on the amount of floor area that can be built, but the rules governing building height and massing reflect several competing visions of the city's development, often applied simultaneously in the same zoning districts."Joseph B. Rose,Director, Department of City Planning, Unified Bulk Program, 1999
"The listings for community facility uses are vague and overly broad. For example, 'nonprofit institutions' is listed as a community facility use. This includes facilities such as the YMCA or the New York Road Runners Club, but can be virtually any not-for-profit organization. The only limitation on nonprofit institutions in residence districts is that 'the number of persons employed in central office functions shall not exceed 50.' Overly broad language may allow community facilities with widely varied impacts to be treated similarly. For example, a 'nonprofit institution' could apply to a residential treatment center for a few persons or several hundred, to a facility for scholarly study, or to a drop-in center for homeless persons. Current zoning treats these facilities the same, notwithstanding the facility size, its functional characteristics, or the populations served."Richard L. Schaffer,Chairman, Department of City Planning, Community Facilities Zoning Study, 1993
"Nowhere else in the State of New York or, for that matter, in most of the rest of the country, does a community facility receive an automatic, as-of-right use and bulk exemption to site itself in a residential zone. Most jurisdictions use the special permit process to review the propriety of any use or bulk variances given to community facilities."Sean M. Walsh,President, Queens Civic Congress
"If the necessary elements of a dormitory or other community facility residence are not demonstrated prior to permit, a large investment is at risk, and individuals are at risk of losing their homes. The Department of Buildings has seen, all too often, abuse by developers seeking to build the generic dormitory on speculation, only to find that there may be no institution ready and willing to assume control after the building is built. This has left over-size buildings without the necessary community facility users, and the innocent residents who reside therein are at risk of losing their homes."Felicia Miller,Deputy General Counsel, Department of Buildings, testifying before Board of Standards & Appeals opposing variance for P.S. 64, August 16, 2005
If you would like to unsubscribe, please reply to us and type "Unsubscribe" in the subject line.
Date: 9/2/2005 10:25:52 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: Reysmontj
To: NYC-CB9M@juno.com
The Manhattan Institute's Center for Rethinking Development
Ideas that shape the city's planning, housing, and development
A Monthly Newsletter by Julia Vitullo-Martin, MI Senior Fellow
Rethinking Community-Facilities ZoningJulia Vitullo-Martin, August 2005
"Residential neighborhoods are being destroyed all over New York," says Councilman Tony Avella of Queens, chair of the City Council's Zoning and Franchises Committee. "The neighborhoods' quality of life is being ruined, their character undermined, old houses are being knocked down, and bulky things put in their place."
Councilman Avella isn't complaining about conventional, for-profit development. He's talking about so-called "community facilities," such as doctors' offices, that are built under a special "bonus" provision of the city's zoning code.
A community facility can be just about anything that is vaguely tied to public sector services-hospitals, churches, schools, colleges, day care centers, museums, libraries, dormitories, settlement houses, nursing homes, homeless shelters, medical offices. In one form or another, community facilities zoning has affected most prime residential neighborhoods-where the bonus is most valuable.
Under this rubric, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital has erected massive buildings deep into residential streets adjacent to the medical center in the east 60s. New York University has built at least eleven outsized dormitories and school facilities downtown. Cooper Union has announced an immense plan to cover much of Astor Place. Columbia University has built an outsized school on the West Side at Broadway and 110th Street.
"Community facility zoning is very destructive to the community," says activist Elizabeth Ashby, who lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. "It's grossly unfair to treat one set of property owners one way, and another an entirely separate way. And then to let that special set ruin our neighborhood." Ashby's concern extends beyond the extra bulk to the peculiar problem besetting brownstone neighborhoods-that the city allows community facilities to build in rear yards on side streets that are otherwise protected.
NO PROTECTION FOR LIGHT AND AIR
Even as the city's 1961 zoning code set strict standards to maintain light and air in residential neighborhoods, it exempted nonprofits from these requirements, as if they didn't really matter so long as the social purpose was high enough. In other words, what was forbidden to private development in the name of protecting light and air was allowed to nonprofit development in the name of the public interest.
The city's justification for such "bulk bonuses" is that community facilities by their nature enhance the general welfare and belong appropriately in the residential neighborhoods that they serve. Zoning lawyer Norman Marcus, who was general counsel to the City Planning Commission from 1963 to 1985, says that in passing the provision, the Wagner administration's thinking was that "community facilities were vulnerable and less competitive than profit-making companies, and that this disparity could be equalized somewhat through a zoning subsidy." But the institutions that have benefited most from the bonus subsidies are among the wealthiest and most powerful in the world. What's more, they are largely closed to neighborhood residents.
Further, since the facilities nearly always remove property from the tax rolls, the Department of City Planning's current zoning handbook argues that the city has an interest in letting them erect bulkier buildings in order to use less land. Thus, the over concentration of institutional uses that is feared and deplored by so many neighborhood residents (and by Jane Jacobs in her Death and Life of Great American Cities) is in fact encouraged as good policy by City Planning itself. It's no accident that powerful institutions seem to be eating their neighborhoods-they're doing this under official city policy and through tax subsidies.
"Community facility zoning has been a problem for as long as I've been active in zoning, since 1963, and probably before then," says Marcus. "It's caused some terrible problems, encouraging development that just shouldn't have happened-like the scads of nursing homes in the Rockaways and the subsequent nursing home scandals in the 1970s that led people to question whether the subsidy was justified. It became clear that nonprofits could and did make money.
But the solution was strictly a band-aid-City Planning was to check to see whether a particular community was oversaturated. Each community was supposed to have a fair share. If it had more than its fair share, then residential bulk would be limited. That was in the early 90s-and was the last solution enacted." Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, argues that the city as a whole would benefit from wealthy institutions dispersing facilities into less developed neighborhood. City officials "should work with institutions to help them site secondary and auxiliary campuses where they are needed, in areas well-connected by mass transit," he says. "Right now there are no limits on many supersized, nonprofit structures can be built in a neighborhood."
WHAT IS A COMMUNITY FACILITY ANYWAY?
Because the bonuses in prime areas are extremely valuable and the definition of community facility very loose, it was probably inevitable that highly questionable community facilities would be proposed-even actually built-before city agencies got around to tightening standards.
One of the more egregious cases is now being fought out on the Lower East Side-a neighborhood that has received more than its fair share of questionable facilities in the past. An old school, P.S. 64 at 605 East 9th Street, was bought for $3.1 million at a city auction in 1998. Because it had been a school and a center for community activities, the Giuliani administration continued a previous community facility restriction, which was agreed to by the buyer, Gregg Singer. Whatever use he proposed had to be a community use.
Singer intends to build a 19-story, 222-unit dormitory, including a 45-car underground garage. But he has no university affiliation, and claims he doesn't need one. The Department of Buildings, which has refused him a building permit, disagrees, saying he must show an "institutional nexus" to get the community facilities bonus. He has appealed for a variance to the Board of Standards and Appeals, which held a standing-room-only public hearing on August 18. Preservationist Andrew Berman calls this a "Trojan-horse dorm" which, after getting into the gates under pretense, will throw off its cover and announce itself for what it is: an out-of-scale, illegal residential building. At least two other builders of dorms have already gotten away with this tactic downtown.
PERMANENT BULK, IMPERMANENT BENEFIT
Community facility status offers extra bulk to a builder. But this extra bulk in no way entails the property, which can be subsequently sold to another user. A doctor's office, for example, can fill in a rear yard behind a brownstone and erect an outsized building-which can remain even after the property is sold. The neighborhood ends up permanently marred, but without any permanent benefit from the community facility.
Indeed, so accepted is this impermanence by city officials that the Department of Buildings is proposing that a builder who seeks the community facility bonus show a mere ten-year lease or commitment to obtain the extra bulk-making the bonus even more valuable than before.
WHAT'S NEXT
The point of zoning is to protect light and air by limiting the size and bulk of new development. If these limits are justified-and many of them are-why should they be eliminated for non-profit uses? The P.S. 64 case is particularly outrageous, since the community use is so strained. If allowed, it will stand as a major precedent. The BSA will hand down its ruling on October 19. Zoning insiders say it will almost surely rule against the developer, who will then appeal all the way to the Court of Appeals-which may well rule in his favor.
August 2005
---------------------------------
PRINT THIS EMAIL THIS
---------------------------------
NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE
---------------------------------
LINK OF THE MONTH
The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
---------------------------------
LINKS
Community Facilities Zoning Text
Zoning Reform Amendments: Bulk Changes
City Laws: Community Facility Zoning
Know Your Limits: Do supersized churches and schools have to be a menace?
East Village Community Coalition
Greater Astoria Historical Society
Gregg Singer pleads his case for his 19-story 'Acme dorm'
Caught in the twilight zone
---------------------------------
UPDATES
Report on Mitchell-Lama Buyout Program by Office of State Comptroller
Campaign 2005: Candidates Vie over Affordable Housing and Homelessness Prevention Plans
Campaign 2005: Three Ways the Next Mayor Could Improve the Waterfront
Cruel to be Kind
Queens Officials, Jets Agree on Park
Winning Construction Jobs for Local Residents
Audit of the Administration of Payments in Lieu of Taxes under Economic Development Corporation and Industrial Development Agency Leases
A Home for All New Yorkers
---------------------------------
FEEDBACK
---------------------------------
"The current zoning generally sets appropriate controls on the amount of floor area that can be built, but the rules governing building height and massing reflect several competing visions of the city's development, often applied simultaneously in the same zoning districts."Joseph B. Rose,Director, Department of City Planning, Unified Bulk Program, 1999
"The listings for community facility uses are vague and overly broad. For example, 'nonprofit institutions' is listed as a community facility use. This includes facilities such as the YMCA or the New York Road Runners Club, but can be virtually any not-for-profit organization. The only limitation on nonprofit institutions in residence districts is that 'the number of persons employed in central office functions shall not exceed 50.' Overly broad language may allow community facilities with widely varied impacts to be treated similarly. For example, a 'nonprofit institution' could apply to a residential treatment center for a few persons or several hundred, to a facility for scholarly study, or to a drop-in center for homeless persons. Current zoning treats these facilities the same, notwithstanding the facility size, its functional characteristics, or the populations served."Richard L. Schaffer,Chairman, Department of City Planning, Community Facilities Zoning Study, 1993
"Nowhere else in the State of New York or, for that matter, in most of the rest of the country, does a community facility receive an automatic, as-of-right use and bulk exemption to site itself in a residential zone. Most jurisdictions use the special permit process to review the propriety of any use or bulk variances given to community facilities."Sean M. Walsh,President, Queens Civic Congress
"If the necessary elements of a dormitory or other community facility residence are not demonstrated prior to permit, a large investment is at risk, and individuals are at risk of losing their homes. The Department of Buildings has seen, all too often, abuse by developers seeking to build the generic dormitory on speculation, only to find that there may be no institution ready and willing to assume control after the building is built. This has left over-size buildings without the necessary community facility users, and the innocent residents who reside therein are at risk of losing their homes."Felicia Miller,Deputy General Counsel, Department of Buildings, testifying before Board of Standards & Appeals opposing variance for P.S. 64, August 16, 2005
If you would like to unsubscribe, please reply to us and type "Unsubscribe" in the subject line.
New York Council Calendar for the week of 09/05/2005 to 09/09/2005
Subject: RE: Council Calendar
Date: 9/2/2005 4:29:57 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: webmaster@council.nyc.ny.us
To: ReysmontJ@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)
New York Council Calendar for the week of 09/05/2005 to 09/09/2005:
*************************************************************
DATE: Wednesday, September 07, 2005
*************************************************************
COMMITTEE: Zoning & Franchises, Chairperson(s):Tony Avella
TIME: 9:30 AM LOCATION: Committee Room - City Hall
DETAILS: See Land Use Calendar Available Thursday, September 1, 2005, Room 5 City Hall
COMMITTEE: Landmarks, Public Siting & Maritime Uses, Chairperson(s):Simcha Felder
TIME: 11:00 AM LOCATION: Committee Room - City Hall
DETAILS: See Land Use Calendar Available Thursday, September 1, 2005, Room 5 City Hall
COMMITTEE: Planning, Dispositions & Concessions, Chairperson(s):Miguel Martinez
TIME: 1:00 PM LOCATION: Committee Room - City Hall
DETAILS: See Land Use Calendar Available Thursday, September 1, 2005, Room 5 City Hall
*************************************************************
DATE: Thursday, September 08, 2005
*************************************************************
COMMITTEE: Land Use, Chairperson(s):Melinda R. Katz
TIME: 10:00 AM LOCATION: Committee Room - City Hall
DETAILS: All items reported out of the subcommittees
AND SUCH OTHER BUSINESS AS MAY BE NECESSARY
*Selected Commitees are not listed.
This is an automated mailer, so please confirm these dates by checking the Hearings and Meetings Calendar on our website, for the schedule may change at the last minute. Thank you.
Sincerely,
The Webmaster of the New York City Council
Date: 9/2/2005 4:29:57 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: webmaster@council.nyc.ny.us
To: ReysmontJ@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)
New York Council Calendar for the week of 09/05/2005 to 09/09/2005:
*************************************************************
DATE: Wednesday, September 07, 2005
*************************************************************
COMMITTEE: Zoning & Franchises, Chairperson(s):Tony Avella
TIME: 9:30 AM LOCATION: Committee Room - City Hall
DETAILS: See Land Use Calendar Available Thursday, September 1, 2005, Room 5 City Hall
COMMITTEE: Landmarks, Public Siting & Maritime Uses, Chairperson(s):Simcha Felder
TIME: 11:00 AM LOCATION: Committee Room - City Hall
DETAILS: See Land Use Calendar Available Thursday, September 1, 2005, Room 5 City Hall
COMMITTEE: Planning, Dispositions & Concessions, Chairperson(s):Miguel Martinez
TIME: 1:00 PM LOCATION: Committee Room - City Hall
DETAILS: See Land Use Calendar Available Thursday, September 1, 2005, Room 5 City Hall
*************************************************************
DATE: Thursday, September 08, 2005
*************************************************************
COMMITTEE: Land Use, Chairperson(s):Melinda R. Katz
TIME: 10:00 AM LOCATION: Committee Room - City Hall
DETAILS: All items reported out of the subcommittees
AND SUCH OTHER BUSINESS AS MAY BE NECESSARY
*Selected Commitees are not listed.
This is an automated mailer, so please confirm these dates by checking the Hearings and Meetings Calendar on our website, for the schedule may change at the last minute. Thank you.
Sincerely,
The Webmaster of the New York City Council
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Protest the Federal non-response to Katrina
what: Protest the Federal non-response to save lives in the Katrina
aftermath. The lack of Federal help is killing survivors.
when: noon til late afternoon or dusk
Friday Sept.2 and Sat. Sept.3
where: 26 Federal Plaza
lower Manhattan
directions:
in lower Manhattan, Broadway between Duane and Worth Streets.
Subway N/R to City Hall and walk a few blocks north on Broadway.
astonishing (banned) photos
http://cryptome.org/kat01/katrina-01.htm
___________________________
There will also be a seperate Katrina protest at 5 pm FRIDAY at the Times Square recruiting Station.
aftermath. The lack of Federal help is killing survivors.
when: noon til late afternoon or dusk
Friday Sept.2 and Sat. Sept.3
where: 26 Federal Plaza
lower Manhattan
directions:
in lower Manhattan, Broadway between Duane and Worth Streets.
Subway N/R to City Hall and walk a few blocks north on Broadway.
astonishing (banned) photos
http://cryptome.org/kat01/katrina-01.htm
___________________________
There will also be a seperate Katrina protest at 5 pm FRIDAY at the Times Square recruiting Station.
Pieces For Peace Mosaic at Jacob H. Schiff Playground in Hamilton Heights
Invites you, your family & friends to participate in the creation of
Pieces for Peace Mosaic
with Youth from around the World
A public art project produced by CITYarts in collaboration with New York City Parks & Recreation
What? A permanent large-scale outdoor Mosaic
Where? Jacob H Schiff Playground, between
Amsterdam Ave & Broadway, on 138th Street
In Hamilton Heights
When? NOW!!!! We are at the wall every day from 10am to 5pm, except for Saturdays through October 2005!
Who? We welcome anyone willing to donate a few hours to take an active role and help transform this neighborhood � we also offer community service hours and/ or internship credit for students.
Interested? Simply come to the site & ask to speak to Dakota (fabricating artist),
contact Maria at the office t: (212) 966 0377; email: admin@cityarts.org or
visit the website: http://www.cityarts.org/p4p_project/index.htm
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