LoDown

“The moment has finally arrived. Fifty years after hundreds of homes were demolished in the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA), the first affordable apartments are becoming available on the site.

At midnight last night (Thursday, March 2), the housing lottery for site 5 of Essex Crossing as SPURA is now known, went live on the city’s housing website.”

Grand Street Guild Residents Suspect Their Owners Are Planning Two New Towers 

“The Lower East Side is in the midst of its biggest construction boom in decades.  Several projects now underway are reshaping the neighborhood. Now residents fear another large-scale residential development is about to be unleashed on a community weary of pile driving, barricaded sidewalks and cranes.”

Check out the full stories on the LoDown.

Parks Without Borders Panel:

Learn more about the thinking behind the push to lower fences, etc. in Parks.

Thursday March 9th at 6 p.m. Thursday, the Department of Parks and Recreation will host author Peter Kageyama for its “Parks Without Borders” discussion series. Kageyama will speak with Department Commissioner Mitchell Silver about how “emotionally connecting with parks and public space can make communities stronger, healthier, and happier.”

Stanton Building Task Force

NYC Park’s Department is moving ahead with design plans to restore, make available and accessible bathrooms for the Stanton Street Parks Building (known as Building “A”).

The bathrooms are much needed. We are grateful that these will get underway and hope for an even more rapid completion than 2019.

We thank Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and Council Member Margaret Chin for all their efforts and funding to realize these desperately needed facilities. Including showing up to visioning events and advocating for them!

Park’s Department will present the Designs for the Upcoming Bathrooms at the Community Board 3 Park’s Committee @ 6:30pm @ 30 Delancey Street at the BRC within Sara Roosevelt Park

Our Position on the Stanton Building:

We would like to see these bathrooms (or one of the Park’s staffed building’s bathrooms) opened 24/7 with security and maintenance staffing so that our homeless population has a place to use those facilities. It is the only humane, sanitary, dignified and safe way to address a very real need for the homeless and a real problem for those of us who try to keep this park clean. As the mayor has just said – homelessness isn’t going away anytime soon. So let’s provide folks with a bathroom that works and that is maintained. Thus making the bathrooms truly usable for the basketball & soccer players from the courts, children and parents from the playground and spray shower, Citi-bike users, casual park goers  – everyone.

We think it would ensure that the homeless who are struggling already, are not set up to be targeted by (rightly) upset parents who fear using the bathrooms with their children or who fear the condition of the bathrooms.

We continue to advocate for the return of the building to community use as it is one of three out of four park buildings here that serve the borough of Manhattan and/or the entire 5 Boroughs of NYC. 

We love to share with all of NYC, but it’s really too big a burden for this neighborhood and narrow park to be asked to have almost all of our buildings resources devoted to out-of-neighborhood needs.

Many of us also support, pending further community input, the idea of a shared building space that could be a drop-in center for those homeless in our park and a resiliency/bike repair/solar powering station.

This would rid us of the unsafe truck and car parking, thru-traffic on the ‘parkway’ of Stanton Street and the large unsightly and unsafe container outside the building. 

The active community use would provide a sorely needed anchor for this section of the park. A section that is used by those who are in need of a daytime place to be (often because they live in shelters). It would make it safer and bring in more volunteer upkeep and beautifying for this section.

We would like to see a local, competent not-for-profit given a lease to manage the building and its programming and that would share space with other non-profits for meeting space, etc.

We received a D rating from NYer4Parks. We have to focus on how we realistically face our very real problems.

Join La Plaza Cultural:

8th Annual Chaharshanbe Sori (AKA the Persian/Zoroastrian fire-jumping holiday)
Tuesday, March 14th, 2017 – 5:30-8:30PM
La Plaza Cultural, SW corner 9th Street and Avenue C

“What we will do: We will light small fires at sunset, then jump through the fire. It is customary to sing the phrase, “zardi-ye man az toh, sorkhi-ye toh az man” as you jump. Literal translation: my yellow is yours, your red is mine. This is a purification rite. Loosely translated, it means you want the fire to take your pallor, sickness, problems and winter blues and in turn give you health, warmth, and energy.

Background: The ancient Persian New Year, Nowruz falls on the spring equinox, March 20th, on the Gregorian (western) calendar. Nowruz is based on the solar calendar, which is the direct descendant of the Zorastrian calendar. Chah?rshanbeh-S?ri is an ancient festival dating to the Zoroastrian past of Persia, going back circa 2600 BC. It is a prelude to the ancient Persian New Year festival, which marks the arrival of spring. On the last eve of Wednesday of the Zoroastrian year, just before the spring equinox bonfires are lit in the streets from dusk to early hours of dawn. People jump through the fire, to exorcise the old year and its misfortunes and bring about regeneration.

In Farsi, Chaharshanbeh means Wednesday and Suri means red. The bonfires are lit at sunset to keep the sun alive till early hours of the morning. From among the Zoroastrian festivals some of the most important ones pertained to fire, a symbol of good health, cultivation, light, and purity. With the help of fire and light, we hope to see our way through to the end of the year, to the arrival of spring’s longer days. The human faces her ultimate fear by jumping over the fire. That cleansing act is necessary before the advent of spring and the Vernal Equinox.

Another ceremony this night is Ghashogh zani, (spoon banging). Traditionally, many, specially children, wrap themselves in cloaks and run through the streets banging on pots with spoons, and knocking on doors for treats, symbolically reenacting visits from the spirits of the ancestors. Possibly, Halloween is a Celtic variation of this night. It is customary to offer “ajeel”, a mix of nuts and dried fruit to people on this night.
In Iran Chah?rshanbeh-S?ri serves as a cultural festival for Persians, Jews, Muslims, Armenians, Kurds, Turks and Zoroastrians who celebrate it and other Zoroastrian traditions Shabe Cheleh, the longest night of the year in December, or Jashne-Mehregan, the fall festival.

•Parents are responsible for their kids safety! We make all efforts to keep event safe, but we need your help. Please keep an eye on your children.

Rain date will be Wednesday, March 15th. Feel free to bring dried fruits, juice or any other treats to share.”

From BoweryBoogie:

“After 30 Years, the City Finally Returning the ‘Stanton Storehouse’ to the Community“

“After a protracted battle spanning decades, it appears the so-called Stanton Storehouse in Sara D. Roosevelt Park will finally return to community use. Gradually, at least. The Parks Department is set to outline its proposal this month to reactivate the onsite public bathroom. In the works for a few months, it’s a plan that could curb the excess excrement consistently found around the park….

…The Stanton Storehouse – once upon a time a youth center – was seized by the government around thirty-some-odd years ago. Its current function remains Parks Department storage (it serves Manhattan Parks) and de-facto parking lot for city vehicles. Since 1994, though, the eponymous Sara D. Roosevelt Park Coalition has fought to reactivate this structure for community accessibility. Four years later – in 1998 – the city even promised to return the brick box to the community.”

Community Board 3 Parks Committee Meeting with design plans on March 16th @ 6:30pm @ BRC 30 Delancey Street.

From Mashable’s website:

“The main components of the house, including the walls, partitions and building envelope were printed solely with a concrete mixture….

The total construction cost of the house? $10,134. The company has claimed that the house can last up to 175 years.

“We want to change public views that construction can’t be fast, eco-friendly, efficient and reliable at the same time,” says founder Nikita Chen-yun-tai…

“Our goal is to become the biggest international construction company to solve problems of accommodation around the globe.”

From Sanctuary Homes:

Organize where we live!

WHY #SANCTUARYHOMES?

Living our politics begins at home. For those of us who are employers of domestic workers—among the people who have been and will be most targeted in this political moment—one big thing we can do is support the women, people of color, and/or immigrants who work in our homes.

For those of us who aren’t employers or care consumers, our homes can still serve as a center of moral action, transforming where we live into a foundation for building the world as we believe it should be.

Together, our homes can be an important frontline in opposing and resisting the policies of the administration and 115th Congress.

WHAT IS #SANCTUARYHOMES?

At the heart of #SanctuaryHomes are 5 steps … [to] take to answer the call to create sanctuary by ensuring the dignity and integrity of every individual is respected and preserved.

They include ways to:

1. Be visible and vocal in your daily life, from posting a sign to offering concrete support.
2. Educate and prepare yourself to provide timely practical and legal support
3. Organize and invite your people in to support targeted communities
4. Connect your groups to trainings, actions and community defense efforts.
5. Maintain a fair home and caring workplace. 

SOLIDARITY BEGINS HERE

We ask you to do your best to make your home a Sanctuary Home. Sign the #SanctuaryHomes commitment and let us know how you’ll bring sanctuary to your home and community.

Text HOMES to 877-877 to receive action alerts from the #HereToStay campaign.

Important read from DNAinfo: What You Need to Know if You Can’t Pay Your Rent, and How the City Can Help

“Mayor Bill de Blasio’s new plan to tackle the skyrocketing homeless population across the city includes an expanded effort to keep at-risk New Yorkers in their homes through rental assistance programs, he said Tuesday.”

For those who have heard of a rally at Rivington House on March 3rd we are not participants nor do we endorse it. It appears to be organized by another group on behalf of their own agenda – not ours nor the people we are fighting for and alongside.

There were decades of work done by our organizations on behalf of and in partnership with Rivington House staff and residents. This is a cynical co-opting of the site, our people, our neighborhood, our labor, our battle in the service of someone else’s agenda.

It’s fine to have an agenda – not fine to exploit the extensive labor of others when you’ve had no part in those labors.

Neighbors to Save Rivington House

For those who have heard of a rally at Rivington House on March 3rd we are not participants nor do we endorse it. It appears to be organized by another group on behalf of their own agenda – not ours nor the people we are fighting for and alongside.

There were decades of work done by our organizations on behalf of and in partnership with Rivington House staff and residents. This is a cynical co-opting of the site, our people, our neighborhood, our labor, our battle in the service of someone else’s agenda.

It’s fine to have an agenda – not fine to exploit the extensive labor of others when you’ve had no part in those labors.

Neighbors to Save Rivington House

The Museum at Eldridge Street

Exhibition opening: Thursday, March 16 from 6-8 pm

The Museum at Eldridge Street presents an exhibition of vintage postcards of Central and Eastern European synagogues from Prague-based collector Frantisek Bányai. These remarkable images depict a world that was all but destroyed during the Second World War. The exhibition will be on view at the Museum through June 8, 2017.

“From Prague-based collector František Bányai comes a remarkable collection of historic postcards on Jewish themes. Both beautiful and poignant, the postcards offer a view of a time and place that no longer exist – synagogues, many destroyed during the Second World War, people on their way to prayer, celebrating and sending greetings in a vanished Eastern Europe of a century ago. On View through June 8, 2017. Included with Museum Admission.”

There is no charge for the event, but they ask that you please RSVP.