Thank you to Ed Litvak and the Lo-Down for an exhaustive reporting job.

“After months of silence from the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio, city officials finally appear to be taking at least a somewhat serious look at the loss of a community facility on Rivington Street.

As The Lo-Down first reported Dec. 18, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) lifted a deed restriction on the former Rivington House nursing home building at 45 Rivington St. The onetime facility for AIDS patients, was sold to the Allure Group last year. The firm briefly operated a general services nursing home from the building but re-sold the property to luxury developers in a $118 million deal that came to light last month.

Last night at a meeting of Community Board 3, a representative of NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer passed out a letter written to DCAS Commissioner Lisette Camilo on March 7. “Based on the facts and circumstances of the sale as we understand them,” Stringer wrote, “this matter requires greater transparency and disclosure to the general public.”

to read more:

http://www.thelodownny.com/leslog/2016/03/comptroller-investigates-citys-role-in-sale-of-former-rivington-house-facility.html

Other coverage:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/manhattan-land-deal-is-examined-1458694201

http://therealdeal.com/2016/03/23/stringer-examining-deal-that-led-to-vankes-116m-purchase-of-les-dev-site/

http://www.habitatmag.com/Publication-Content/Legal-Financial/2016/2016-March/Nursing-Probe

https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/TDJNDN_2016032214173/manhattan-land-deal-is-examined.html

It looks like we have a volunteer Sign Language interpreter (English)! Thank you Jina (and Wendy).

APRIL 12th @ 2pm at the BRC Senior Center

This is your chance to weigh in on this proposal. If this matters to you, your small business, your senior community, your sightless community, children’s community, deaf community let the City know what you think!

32^nd GreenThumb GrowTogether

Saturday, March 19^th, 2016

8:30am-4:00pm

Hostos Community College

500 Grand Concourse

Bronx, NY 10451

 Train: 2, 5 trains at 149^th Street-Grand Concourse

If you plan on attending, please pre-register by clicking here, it’s an affordable $5 and you get breakfast, lunch, and a t-shirt!  We do accept walk-ins for $7, however you are not guaranteed breakfast, lunch, or a t-shirt.

I hope to see many of you there!  Download the full PDF of the conference guide to help you get an idea of the many amazing workshops that will be on offer that day.

Anthony Reuter is the Lower Manhattan & Staten Island Outreach Coordinator for GreenThumb
T 212.602.5324 C 929.295.1369 F 212.602.5334 E anthony.reuter@parks.nyc.gov

NYC Parks
GreenThumb
100 Gold Street, Suite 3100
New York, NY 10038
www.greenthumbnyc.org

Mailing Address:

The Arsenal

Attn: GreenThumb

830 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10065
Follow GreenThumb on: Facebook | Twitter | Flickr | Instagram

Follow Parks on: Facebook | Twitter | Periscope | Instagram | YouTube 

32nd GreenThumb GrowTogether- March 19th 2016

We had a good evening listening to one another about what we’ve learned as active Parks organizations. Terrific group of new Park advocates in attendance at The Arsenal.

Thanks Partnership for Parks!

PARTNERSHIPS ACADEMY (A joint program of City Parks Foundation and NYC Parks) offers TRAININGS AND WORKSHOPS.

HOW TO START OR JOIN A COMMUNITY PARK GROUP

Panelists:

Sally Fisher and Chris Whitney from Inwood Hill Park

Diana Carulli from East River Coalition

K Webster Sara Roosevelt Park Community Coalition

SDR Coalition is grateful to NYCommons for the chance to collaborate on an important undertaking in NYC. We thank member Wendy Brawer of Green Map System for spearheading our application!

We also welcome Kevin Tobar Pesantez of University Settlements’ Project Home as organizer for the SDR Park Coalition’s Stanton Street Park Building Task Force. You can contact Kevin at ktpesantez@universitysettlement.org for more information.

SDR has been invited to collaorate with NYCommons  on workshops to help New Yorkers learn to protect and expand publicly owned and controlled land and buildings in our neighborhoods. NYCommons is a collaboration between Common Cause/NY, the Community Development Project (CDP) at the Urban Justice Center, and 596 Acres, Inc. The next phase of our work includes focusing on 2-3 neighborhoods to pilot workshops where we spotlight means to participate effectively in current land use processes, as well as challenges shared by many community groups working around local land use struggles.

Background. NYCommons spent a year conducting research through meetings with over 100 organizations and community activists across NYC. Through the initial outreach and research, they identified public assets that present important opportunities for public participation and community input in many communities.

SDR Coalition will join with NYCommons as co-hosts of workshops focused on helping to foster an understanding of what neighbors can do to ensure that public assets continue to be a resource for their communities.

NYCommons will collaborate with us to help local residents learn how decisions about these properties are made and how residents can participate in the process.

NYCommons has developed a deep network of New Yorkers focusing their advocacy on public real estate assets, land use, housing rights, community participation, and neighborhood-based advocacy.

Gotham Gazette: “First Look At The Two-Way Bike Lane Proposed For Chrystie Street”

Manhattan Community Board 3 Transportation Committee Meeting

March 8, 2016   6:30 pm   

Grand Street Settlement Cornerstone

Seward Park Extension

56 Essex Street (corner of Grand)

Chinese Progressive Association (CPA) is going to be participating in Student Voter registration day.

If you turn 18 by December 31, 2016, you can vote in any of the 2016 elections.

Friday March 18 from 9:15-11:30am. 

They will be registering students (18 year old 12th graders) at Pace High School (not for the general public!). Students will gather in the library. There will be a short program, a talk and then voter registration right there.  

Once you’ve registered to vote, there is the link to go to check that you’re in the voter rolls : voterlookup.elections.state.ny.us  

CPA will need a few volunteers who are free that morning to help register the students.  The students will be given the forms to fill out themselves. CPA will collect them, but they will need people to help collect and do a quick check of the form.

If any coalition members are free that morning to help please contact the Chinese Progressive Association: cpanyc@cpanyc.org or 212-274-1891

For those interested in volunteering, there will be a training: Thurs. Mar 10 at 10am or 2:30 pm.  The trainings are being held at the  NYC campaign finance board.

 CPA has launched an exciting 2016 campaign!
“2016 will be an exciting year.  We will vote for President, and our representatives in Congress and the State Assembly.  Join us to get our voice and vote heard! 

• Register new voters
• Get the word out about community involvement in local forums.
• Chinese language skills are welcome but not necessary.
• Training provided. You will learn about voting and community empowerment, how to have a conversation to help more people participate and vote!
• Work in a team and have fun.
• Community service credits provided.

Contact us at cpanyc@cpanyc.org or 212-274-1891 to volunteer.”

“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

The Goldman Environmental Prize is given to grassroots environmental activists from each of six world regions. The 2015 year winner included Honduran indigenous rights leader Berta Caceres and her organization. They were fighting not just governments, but some of the world’s most powerful corporations to protect their land and livelihood. They faced death death threats and repression.

Wednesday, Berta Caceres was shot and killed in her home in La Esperanza, Intibuca. While the killers’ ID remains unknown, activists, media observers and the Cáceres family pointed to the increasingly reactionary and violent Honduran government, which has frequently clashed with Cáceres over her high-profile activism against land dispossession and mining, and her defense of indigenous rights.

“…the struggles around the world — whether we call it environmental activism, or struggles around indigenous rights to their commons (and rights-to-their means-of-livelihood)– are the target. These are also as much struggles against various violations of women’s ESC rights. Women, whether in the leadership of these struggles, or participants, are physically harmed/ sexually abused.”- Shiney Varghese

There is a petition to end the US military aid to Honduras and stop the murder of environmental activists that reads:

“Secretary Kerry:

I have recently learned of the murder of Berta Cáceres, co-founder of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, and winner of the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize.

Her tragic death is emblematic of the grave human rights situation in Honduras today. Although we do not know who her assailants were, we believe her murder is the latest in a growing trend of state suppression against social movement leaders like Berta.

We urge the State Department to promote a truly independent investigation into the killing of Berta and the many other environmental and land defenders in Honduras, and begin subjecting Honduras to vetting process under the Leahy law, and to enforce the law by immediately stopping military aid to the country.

Sincerely,”

From the Houston Street Center an Art experience for families called PACT (Parents and Children Together with Art)! 

5-13 years old children (and their parents)

Free

8 Weeks 

Every Friday starting March 18th

Enrollment deadline THIS FRIDAY, March 11^th

Chinese translation in each course. 

Parents! This is an 8 week commitment -come consistently.

For more information: University Settlement’s Houston Street Center

Flyers are below in English, Spanish & Chinese. 

Each session begins with exposure to a professional work of art that serves as an inspiration image, followed by an art-making experience, and concludes with a sharing circle. PACT activities are designed to increase parental involvement and graduate in complexity to encourage positive forms of family communication and sustained teamwork. With a 1:2 or 1:3 volunteer to family ratio, Professional Facilitators lead trained Volunteer Coaches to implement a creative arts curriculum that requires families to develop ideas and work collaboratively. .