Monthly Archives: April 2017

From Neighbors to Save Rivington House:

Hello Friends of Rivington House,

We are pleased to let you know that Neighbors to Save Rivington House has won a 2017 Neighborhood Grant from Citizens Committee for New York City.

It will allow us to begin planning the next phase of the Visioning plan to give our community a chance to reimagine what care needs to look like in our community.

We join nearly 300 grassroots groups across the city working to build community and improve our neighborhoods. Good company to be in! (You can learn more about Citizens Committee here)

We are excited to begin planning to invite the neighborhood, our steadfast electeds: Council Member Chin, Senator Squadron, Manhattan Borough President Brewer, and Yuh-Line Niou 

and all those with specific skills and information who have been deeply committed to the issue of care for disabled and/or elders.

When we return Rivington House to its rightful ‘owners’, it will be the perfect location to put into practice what we come up with!

Congrats to us all.

Neighbors to Save Rivington House

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Twitter #CareNotCondos #RivingtonHouse

Petition

A cautionary tale.

From the NYTimes:

“[Jacobs] feared the collusion and self-dealing that can accompany [certain] projects. She looked around her at urban renewal, and at housing projects in particular, and saw only disastrous outcomes for the poor and enrichment for the developer class.

…“monstrous hybrids,” for the unhealthy partnerships that can arise between governments and big businesses. From the earliest days of his career, Trump has operated on the precise model…relying on contacts in state and city government,…In the 1970s, in a deal with the Urban Development Corporation, Trump acquired the Commodore Hotel, near Grand Central Terminal, in exchange for big tax breaks that would extend for decades. …this was the beginning of the end for New York — the beginning, as she puts it, of displacement for working-class New Yorkers as the city sought to save itself from further decline by ingratiating itself to the wealthy, here and abroad. Oligarchs didn’t just arrive on West 57th Street in 2013; they had, in fact, been systematically courted for a very long time.”

Ted Glass, turtle wrangler, and Bud Shalala, Critter Committee, did the heavy lifting for the M’Finda Garden to the delight of all who came. More photos should be coming on M’Finda Kalunga website.

Red-eared Sliders

Thanks to Charles and LUNGS for the dirt for gardens in SDR Park!

Anyone wanting to pitch in to help redistribute the wealth please join gardeners this Saturday. Ask for Bob Humber or Kate or Carol!

From Daily News:

“A red-tailed hawk died after it ate rat poison that was likely left in a city park, according to a necropsy report the Daily News obtained Wednesday.

The majestic male was found ill inside Sarah Roosevelt Park in lower Manhattan and brought to the Animal Medical Center in Lenox Hill on Jan. 4.

The city’s Parks Department has agreed to use old-fashioned snap traps during the hawk breeding season, from April to August”

We’ve had juvenile Red Hawks die of eating poisoned rats before. We have asked the Dept of Health to allow dry ice to be used to stop rats (they have final say – not Parks). It works and is poison-free. Better for Hawks, People, Animals and Environment.

Wellington Chen and The Chinatown Partnership have worked for this for decades. Nice to see it coming to fruition!

One of the Structures is slated to be on Grand/Chrystie near Sara Roosevelt Park.

From DNAinfo‘s Allegra Hobbs:

“The city is now accepting applications from designers to craft a public art piece to signal the entrance to Chinatown — part of a larger initiative to create artistic markers for several points of entry to the neighborhood.”

From the Gateways to Chinatown website:

“The project will provide a new marker for Chinatown, Little Italy, and the surrounding neighborhoods in Lower Manhattan to engender pride of place, foster connectivity and cultural and social identity, and stimulate economic development. Straddling art and architecture, symbolism and function, the new structure and public space aims to become a vibrant place of exchange at the center of one of New York City’s most dynamic and historically-rich areas.

The project organizers ask prospective design teams to consider the following questions:

• How can the site serve as a “gateway” responding to tradition as well as adapting to ever-changing cultural and generational demographics and technology?
• How can the gateway connect and bring together existing communities and create new opportunities for both locals and visitors to experience the area in fresh ways?
• How can the gateway site link to other gateways within Chinatown, across the city and around the world?

This project was initiated by Chinatown Partnership and is made possible by a grant from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which is funded through Community Development Block Grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Manhattan Borough President’s Office.”

From DNAinfo:

“American Sign Language interpreters and tablets with video-based interpreting will be provided to officers in the East Village, Jackson Heights and northwestern Staten Island as part of the program…

“This has been a long-standing issue. It’s been a long road to even get to this point,” Antony Gemmell with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest told DNAinfo New York….

Several DHH people have sued the NYPD in recent years.

If an interpreter is not available, police will be able access an interpreter service through a video program on their tablet…”

The mayor has admitted that we will not solve homelessness in NYC for many years. Homelessness in parks is here to stay – for a while. How do we make that current reality work as best we can? How do we keep parks safe and working for everyone to enjoy in this period and not pit people against one another – especially against already marginalized and vulnerable groups?

The reality is that the homeless use our parks as…home. All hours. And there aren’t enough PEP officers or police patrols to change that fact.

One issue that comes up repeatedly is the need for functional bathrooms for park users. For the homeless it becomes even more important. Desperate people will use the park as a bathroom if there isn’t another viable option.

We think that we need our Park bathrooms to be accessible 24/7  with security personnel there at all times and a maintenance crew that can be summoned quickly if needed.

The United Nations recognizes the right to sanitation. How will NYC, our ‘progressive’ city, meet that ‘right’. How do we help people who have no home and/or no safe shelter maintain their dignity?

And …having public bathrooms that are clean and working for all New Yorkers and park visitors is kind of a good idea anyway.