Third Workshop: Land! Money! Power!
We of the Stanton Building Task Force are grateful for the community response and look forward to working even more effectively in concert with all of Community Board 3’s Park and Green Space activists, leaders (that’s YOU!) and stewards.
We thank *NYCommons, all of our interpreters last night, (Jina Porter, Francisco Miranda, Tony Zheng, and Lai Chung) the BRC Center, Dee Myers, Bob Humber, our interns Chyna Krouse, Tony Deyao Zheng, Michael Pimentel, and Eddie Glass.
We also thank Christine Datz-Romero of the Lower East Side Ecology Center, Susan Stetzer District Manager of CB3, Leah Worrel of Partnerships for Parks, and Emily Walker from NYers for Parks for generously sharing their hard-won, hands-on, decades-in-the-making knowledge.
We thankBorough President Gale Brewer and Assembly Member Alice Cancel for sending their representatives. We thank the facilitators whose mission was to ensure that everyone’s voice was heard. Tremendous expertise and experience was shared by our communities with one another!
And thank you to the DOE Fund and Danny for providing the delicious food!
The Steering Committee of the Stanton Building Task Force (Green Map System, University Settlement House and the Sara Roosevelt Park Community Coalition) again wish to thank our partner’s *NYCommons (Common Cause/NY, 596 Acres and Urban Justice Center) for all their support and assistance.
The Villager: Push to restore Stanton storehouse to community
The Villager by Michael Ossorguine
July 21, 2016
“The park building at Stanton St. in Sara D. Roosevelt Park was promised as a public resource in 1998, but it is currently being used for Parks Department storage and parking. The Stanton Building Task Force and NYCommons project is campaigning to restore the building to community use, which could also include acting as a safe haven in “times of disruption,” such as Hurricane Sandy….
…..Ray, a member of the S.D.R. Park Coalition, remembers playing ping pong when the Stanton building was a rec center decades ago. But in the 1980s, the Parks Department took the structure over for its own uses.”
Parks Good News
Good news! Big Belly Solar Compactor Garbage Can installed in front of 30 Delancey BRC
New Zealand just crowdfunded a new national park!
BY JEREMIAH BUDIN JUL 19, 2016
New Zealanders raised $1.7 million during a crowdfunding campaign this year—including $254,000 from the country’s government—to save a beach from a potentially unfriendly buyer and turn it into a national park, in the feel good property buying story of…honestly, probably the past century.
Businessman Michael Spackman purchased Awaroa beach in 2008 for $1.4 million, and while he was cool and let the public use it, once he put it on the market people worried that the next buyer would not be. Their fears were proven true when another businessman named Gareth Morgan tried to buy private use of the beach from the very crowdfunding campaign that had been set up to prevent that exact thing from happening. The campaign rejected his sizable “donation” and was able to raise enough to buy the beach from Spackman anyway.
Meanwhile, in the United States, there is talk of ending federal protection of public parkland!!!
Third and final series workshop advocating for all CB3 (any?) Parks
Welcome to our third and final workshop in a series on public park buildings (the focus was on Stanton Street for the first two)!
“On July 27, the Stanton Building Task Force will host a workshop for LES park-goers and residents to learn how to advocate for our parks while staying responsive and rooted in our local communities – in the midst of rapid neighborhood change. Topics will include getting access to underutilized buildings, influencing public funding, working with the Parks Department, elected officials and the community board, forging coalitions and learning from one another to build power.
The Land! Money! Power! workshop will take place at the BRC at Sara D Roosevelt Park, 30 Delancey St (between Forsyth and Chrystie) on Wednesday July 27 from 6:30-9pm. Food and Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese and ASL interpretation will be provided.
The Workshop is part of the NYCommons project, a collaboration between 596 Acres, the Community Development Project at Urban Justice Center and Common Cause/NY developing tools to guide New Yorkers protecting and expanding the City’s public places.”
We especially thank Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and her representative and Council Member Margaret Chin’s and Alice Cancel’s representatives for taking part two weeks ago!
Our coastal community needs places to anchor our communities, organize for better parks, generate relationships and build resiliency in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods.
We need tools and real information to remain or become ‘defenders of the commons’ for our parks and greenspaces. Our public buildings, especially those located outside flood zones, could function as refuges in times of disruption. Our parks are in the heart of communities that are being priced out of financially viable democratic spaces.
…stop by if you get a chance….!
Stanton Building Task Force
To RSVP, contact apple@greenmap.org
Follow us on Twitter at #StantonBldg.
News on Rivington House (5 more sites)
From Neighbors to Save Rivington House (Petition and Facebook Page):
June/July press on: The DOI report, The Mayor’s proposed safeguards to deed restriction liftings, $16 million offer for LES, CM Chin and MBP Brewer Press Release re: deed restriction safeguards going forward, and Neighbors to Save Rivington House Petition.
Ed Litvak and the Lo-Down win on number of articles. Start here for an accurate accounting of this issue.
Press (in no particular order): There are many many more prior to this recent batch.
http://www.gothamgazette.com/index.php/city/6448-calls-grow-louder-for-new-deed-restriction-process
https://nypost.com/2016/07/20/even-the-speaker-smells-a-rat-in-team-de-blasios-coverup/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/de-blasios-playbook-nobody-gets-fired-1468628263
http://benkallos.com/press-release/rivington-investigation-statement-council-member-kallos
http://bedfordandbowery.com/2016/07/deed-restriction-changes-under-reform/
http://www.boweryboogie.com/2016/07/knew-rivington-house-deal-just-didnt-care/
https://nypost.com/2016/07/14/a-new-stench-from-city-hall/
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20160714/REAL_ESTATE/160719921
https://nypost.com/2016/07/14/city-hall-shouldve-known-about-shady-nursing-home-deal-doi/
http://gothamist.com/2016/07/14/doi_rivington_house_report.php
https://nypost.com/2016/07/08/city-seemingly-admits-to-bungling-nursing-home-property-deal/
http://gothamist.com/2016/07/09/rivington_house_deed_changes.php
http://therealdeal.com/2016/07/08/city-to-invest-16m-from-rivington-deed-change-in-senior-housing/
http://www.boweryboogie.com/2016/07/rivington-house-roundup-everyone-seemed-know-mayor/
https://nypost.com/2016/06/30/city-official-asked-about-controversial-nursing-home-well-before-sale/
http://gothamist.com/2016/06/27/rivington_house_les.php
and a little history…