Protecting and improving the community for the people who live and work here

Borough President Brewer and the City  Council under the leadership of  Council Member Chin have filed a lawsuit against City Planning to have these projects properly brought before the community. You are invited to join the rally Wednesday morning to support the positions before the hearing.

COUNCIL MEMBER CHIN TO JOIN BOROUGH PRESIDENT BREWER TO RALLY SUPPORTERS BEFORE HEARING OF TWO BRIDGES LAWSUIT

What: Wednesday, June 5 at 9:00 am, Council Member Margaret S. Chin will join Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer to rally supporters before a hearing regarding the lawsuit Brewer and Chin filed against the City and the developers of the site.

The Department of City Planning contended in a 2016 ‘staff level determination’ that the proposed projects for the Two Bridges site, which would soar over the current low-rise neighborhood as tall as 80 stories–are merely “minor modifications” of the base-level zoning, and do not require a full public review process. The lawsuit brought by Brewer and the City Council contends that the “minor modification” analysis is simply nonsense and that these projects effectively rewrite the Special Permits granted in the area, and demands that these projects be placed before the community for a public review.

Who: Council Member Margaret Chin and Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer

When: Wednesday, June 5, 2019 9:00 AM

Where: 1 Centre Street, North Side (North of the kiosks)

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Haywood, NYC Parks Department Gardener:

Other help today from an anonymous worker, Bob, Prince, Tessa, and K

Thanks to Park’s Staff for quick removal of trash we hauled out!

Dedicated volunteers (some for 40 years!) work hard to create a safe, beautiful park. Respect!

Below: Thelma and Prince working on the side plots in the Stanton Street Area.

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The basketball courts and soccer fields were full all weekend.

Congratulations to a sister Park for all the efforts “Parks Without Borders” recipients!

Borough President Gale Brewer, Council Member Margaret Chin, Parks Commissioner Silver, Manhattan Parks Commissioner Castro, the Seward Park Conservancy and Community Board 3 Parks Chair Trevor Holland among others who spoke.

The Lo-Down

From Mother Jones:

MAY 26, 2019

Plankton tells us a lot about what went wrong [in the past].

Originally published by Wired and is shared as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. 

“Plankton… tiny organisms (phytoplankton…plant-like cells that produce much of the world’s oxygen, zooplankton being little animals) float around at the mercy of currents and form the very foundation of the ocean food web. …whales…eat krill, which eat…plankton…Phytoplankton soak up CO2 and spit out oxygen, helping keep the planet a pleasant human habitat…Life on Earth shares its fate with the littlest organisms in the sea.”

“But plankton don’t do well in warmer waters, which carry fewer nutrients. One study has shown that phytoplankton alone have declined by 40 percent since 1950…”

Read more Here.

Chinatown Partnership

Check Newsletter:

From NYT By Nikita Stewart

“..There are still thousands of people living in the open overnight. An annual count conducted in late January estimated 3,588 people fell into that category…”

“[they] represent a persistent challenge. Since an annual count began more than a decade ago, that population has never fallen below about 2,300, and it hit near-record levels under Mayor Bill de Blasio.

..But there has been some recent cause for cautious optimism. For the second year in a row, the number of people known as chronically homeless, or “unsheltered,” has fallen.

The decline, while modest, may be traced to more intense outreach efforts and an expansion of so-called safe havens. These specialized shelters have fewer restrictions and a streamlined application process to try to quickly place people into permanent housing…

“..Some of the homeless on the street struggle with a constellation of problems, which may include mental illness and a drug or alcohol addiction. Others prefer the independence of living in the street and balk at having to comply with the rules of the city’s shelter system, such as curfews or sobriety…”…helping them means not only providing shelter but perhaps finding a drug rehabilitation program, a psychiatrist, a medical doctor or even guidance in a getting birth certificate or Social Security card…”

“A lot of us were saying, ‘We need beds, and we need these kinds of beds,’” said Muzzy Rosenblatt, the chief executive of the Bowery Residents’ Committee [The BRC] , a nonprofit that first started the safe haven model…”