The Deconstruction of Park West Village on Manhattan's Upper Left Side
Last Updated: 7/29/2011 (New Photos showing the Hell of getting new windows installed)

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Media Alert – Press Coverage Requested for Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Contact: Hillel Hoffman phone: (212) 866-0184 email: hillelhoffman@verizon.net
Paul S. Bunten phone: (212) 932-2239 email: president@wppnyc.org

OUTRAGED PARK WEST COMMUNITY MEETING JULY 12 TO EXAMINE PLANS
FOR PHANTOM NURSING HOME TOWER ON OVER-BUILT BLOCK

State Department of Health Rejects Pleas, Warnings

A broad coalition of neighbors, opposed to the latest attempt by Jewish Home Lifecare (JHL) to build an unprecedented 24-story nursing home tower in the already over-developed and congested Park West Village/Columbus Square area, will hold a community meeting at Holy Name School Auditorium (entrance on Amsterdam Avenue between 96th and 97th Streets), Manhattan, on Tuesday, July 12, at 7:30 p.m.

Neighbors are outraged that the State Department of Health rejected a petition, signed by more than 1,000 community stakeholders, which requested a public hearing on a previous JHL plan to move the nursing facility from its current West 106th Street location to a postage stamp of land on West 100th Street. JHL's latest decision to move instead to 97th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam has neighbors even more incensed.

That block of West 97th Street is already home to overcrowded PS 163, a community health clinic, a Whole Foods loading dock, numerous underground parking garages, and residential buildings with almost 2,000 apartments. West 97th also serves as the westbound exit from the 96th Street Central Park Transverse, is designated by signage as a conduit to the West Side Highway, and is partially closed daily at school recess and dismissal.

The July 12 meeting is in immediate response to a filing by JHL with the City Department of Buildings, stating its intent to build its 24-story 97th Street tower, even though no contract has apparently been signed and no money changed hands with elusive Park West Village landlord Joseph Chetrit.

The community rallied last year when the State DOH rubber-stamped JHL's first plan to move from West 106th Street to West 100th Street. The approved blueprints for West 106th Street had detailed a 12-story building, while the West 100th Street plans unveiled a then-unprecedented 20-story nursing home design, with the sick and elderly confined to uppermost floors.

"Every time we look up, they have moved this phantom nursing tower, and now they've chosen a third site that threatens the safety of schoolchildren, neighbors, motorists and nursing home residents alike," said Dean Heitner, an attorney who lives in a rent-stabilized Park West Village apartment building. "We've bombarded state and city agencies with documentation supporting our objections to no avail."

In 2006, Heitner added, when the owners of Park West Village announced plans to build the treeless, cement-bound residential/retail complex "Columbus Square" on the superblock from 97th to 100th Streets along Columbus Avenue, Chetrit had pledged to build greenspace and a playground on the land now slated for the nursing home.

”Nursing home residents with limited mobility would be confined to upper floors of the tower, isolated from the neighborhood and deprived of fresh air and sunshine, while the schoolchildren and others below are choked with traffic and noise from ambulances, deliveries and trash pick-ups, staff and visitors' cars and more," added Cathy Unsino, LCSW, a national expert on nursing home reform who also lives in Park West Village. "It's unacceptable."

Community groups sponsoring the town meeting include the Park West Village Tenants Association, Westgate Tenants Association @ Stonehenge Village and the PS 163 PTA.

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July 11, 2011

 

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We need to be heard on this!

Dear Friends,

I have just read and signed the online petition:

"Jewish Home Approval Requires Public Participation"

hosted on the web by PetitionOnline.com, the free online petition service, at:

PetitionOnline.com

I personally agree with what this petition says, and I think you might agree, too. If you can spare a moment, please take a look, and consider signing yourself.
Best wishes,
Jean Green Dorsey

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Picketing at 808 Columbus Avenue

Solidarity?

You may have seen the small picket lines in front of 808 Columbus recently—and/or heard the chanting and banging on drums. I walked over the other day to discuss the issues with someone on the line and I spoke with James Taylor, an organizer for 32BJ of the SEIU. He gave me a copy of the attached flyer. Unfortunately, I think, the flyer doesn’t fully explain the situation.

Taylor told me that the building had [predictably] hired all non-union staff for porters, concierges, etc., but that the union had obtained, he said, enough signatures on their petition to oblige management to recognize the union as representing the workers. But [predictably] management said, ‘screw you,’ obliging the union to petition a ruling from the NLRB. Such rulings can take a long time, and of course, management will use every trick to delay unionization—appeals, etc.—I’m sure. If they are ever forced to recognize the union, they could, I think, even fire the entire staff and start over, although that would be illegal. These are nasty greedy people.

I find the note at the bottom of the union’s flier a bit disappointing—“This is not a request to cease deliveries or services.” As you probably noticed when the carpenters’ union was picketing against the non-union staffing of the construction on the new buildings, other unions did not honor the picket lines. Years (and years) ago, no union teamster would have made deliveries to such a construction site. Those days—Solidarity Forever—are over.

Taylor gave me his business card and I was planning to copy him on this, but alas, there’s no email address. I will look for him again in front of 808 to talk further. He said they intend to keep returning and they are hoping to organize a big demonstration with local politicians, etc. I told him that I think that a lot of people in Park West would come out for that in support—but we need to be kept informed. In the meantime, I think it would be helpful if we would join the line from time to time.

His phone # 646-249-4352, in case you want to try to help, or whatever.

(just in case you don’t know the words—incredibly and sadly so accurate these days, except for the feeble strength of the unions)

When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun,
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,
But the union makes us strong.

CHORUS:
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
For the union makes us strong.

It is we who plowed the prairies; built the cities where they trade,
Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid,
Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made,
But the union makes us strong.

They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
That the union makes us strong.

In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold,
Greater than the might of armies, magnified a thousand-fold.
We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old
For the union makes us strong.

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Dear Neighbor and Community Advocate:

Westsiders for Public Participation (WPP) believes that those who are affected by a decision have the right to be involved in the decision-making process, and that the public's contribution should influence the decision.

WPP also believes that the New York State Department of Health and the New York State Hospital Review and Planning Council have each acted improperly in approving the application by Jewish Home and Hospital to construct a 20-story nursing home on West 100th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues, and that both agencies should have granted the residents of the Park West Village neighborhood the opportunity for public participation in a decision that affects them directly.

WPP has created an online petition that calls upon the heads of both agencies to respect the rights of Park West Village neighborhood residents to public participation and to respect the rule of law, by holding public hearings on Jewish Home's application to construct a 20-story nursing home on West 100th Street. Learn more by reading the petition.

1. Click on this link to open and read the petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/wppnycjh/petition.html.

2. Add your name to the petition by clicking on the button at the bottom of the screen that says "Click Here to Sign Petition." (You may need to scroll down to find the button.)

3. Make the petition your own! Consider adding your personal comment after your name to help create the most compelling, community-based document possible. You can exceed the short comment space provided on the signature page.

4. Ask your friends and neighbors without access to email for permission to add their names to the petition on their behalf.

5. Forward this message to everyone you know, along with your personal message about why you believe it's important for them to add their names to this petition.

Thank you in advance for collaborating in this powerful act of public participation.

Check the petition link often over the coming weeks to read the personal comments that will be received by the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health, the Chair of the New York State Hospital Review and Planning Council, and the elected representatives of the Park West Village neighborhood.

Sincerely,

Paul S. Bunten

President, Board of Directors
Westsiders for Public Participation, Inc.
http://wppnyc.org

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Borders bails on new NYC opening

Bloomberg

Last Updated: 12:26 PM, September 25, 2010

Posted: 12:18 AM, September 25, 2010

Borders Group Inc. scrapped plans to go ahead with a store opening on Manhattan's Upper West Side, a few weeks after Barnes & Noble Inc.
said it would close its superstore in the neighborhood.

Borders, the No. 2 US book chain, has suspended store openings as it shuts underperforming locations in a bid to turn a profit after four straight annual losses. The Manhattan location, which was set to open in 2011, was part of an earlier expansion plan.

Both chains reported losses in their most recent quarters, as they respond to consumers' increasing appetite for digital books and for buying books over the Internet. Barnes & Noble has spent millions developing its own digital-book reader, the Nook.

With the uptown closure, Barnes & Noble will have seven Manhattan outlets remaining, while Borders has five.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/borders_bails_on_new_nyc_opening_0JqDg2O9DniigFNTKaSp6H#ixzz10wPlP3ye

 

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Some Suggestions for Greening Park West Village

The following suggestions were submitted to the Board of Managers of 392 last June, but they could apply to all 7 buildings.

1. Lights in the compactor rooms could be door activated so that they aren’t on 24 hours a day. Think of 38 lights x 24 hours, etc. (I was informed that the lights keep the cockroaches from coming out.... Just think it!)
2. In fact, what about doing this all around the building? In my office building the lights in the public bathrooms are motion activated. Same could be done for the bathrooms in the basement and perhaps for the laundry room as well.
3. Even the hallway in the basement doesn’t have to have all of the lights on 24/7. And perhaps throughout the whole building! Maybe there can be a night-time mode with one light on permanently in front of the elevators on each floor and the rest activated by motion, for instance from midnight to 6 AM every day. Or all day long! In apartment buildings in Europe, for instance, they don’t leave lights in the hallways burning 24/7. They either are motion activated or one pushes a button (that is on a timer). And it works!
4 . Similarly, lights in the bike and storage rooms ought to be on timers because many people walk out without turning them off. One alternative is to put up signs, “Please turn off the lights when exiting,” but I think timers are better. Right now we have neither.
5 . Unplug or replace the water cooler in the Fitness Center with a plain water fountain. The present refrigerator recycles 24/7 and the cold water coming into the building is cold enough without wasting so much electricity and generating heat on top of it. Yes, it’s only pennies a day, but for the next 100 years?

Needless to say, the Board has not yet finished implementing these recommendations!

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Check out the new pictures & movie clips at: Park West Village Destruction Pictures   
For more info on neighborhood issues: Preserve Park West North
For a view of the future--Schematics of the new buildings The Future Aint What It Used to Be! 
But let's not forget how it was!
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Should you wish follow the NYC DOB status of the five construction sites controlled by the Developer, you may click on the URLs below (do not retype them):