Keep the pressure on... Join us for "The People's Response to the State of the City" and speak on topics such as the destruction and displacement of our communities for big business and real estate interests!
A Tale of Two Cities
Keep the pressure on... Join us for "The People's Response to the State of the City" and speak on topics such as the destruction and displacement of our communities for big business and real estate interests!
Alliance Against Displacement
“From all across the city, we’re concerned about displacement and we’re concerned about the mayor’s development policies. We’re here today to say that his complete development policy is a complete sham. It’s not building more affordable housing — it’s actually leading to more displacement and gentrification in the most vulnerable communities.” -David Tieu, Coalition To Protect Chinatown And The Lower East Side
On January 21st dedicated activists from a handful of community groups (organized by the Citywide Alliance Against Displacement) braved the cold to protest the Real Estate Board Of New York outside their 120th Annual Banquet, which was attended by members of City Hall including Bill de Blasio and Melissa Mark-Viverito. The gathered activists stood to denounce the underhanded deals between developers and NYC elected officials who receive large campaign contributions from them. The protestors called for a rejection of Mayor de Blasio’s zoning plan which they say promotes luxury development, pushing out local businesses and services, displacing more people of color and working families, and eliminating more affordable units than it claims to create.
Take Back Our City!
The Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), a notorious culprit responsible for luxury development and displacement in New York City, will be holding their 120th Annual Banquet on Thursday, January 21st. The banquet is expected to be well attended by members of City Hall, including "Mayor of Two Cities," Bill de Blasio himself. REBNY has found Mayor de Blasio's administration to be "an open door," while over the past two years, the people of New York City have found Mayor de Blasio to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
We denounce the underhanded deals between developers and NYC elected officials who receive large campaign contributions from them. We reject Mayor de Blasio’s zoning plan for NYC that promotes luxury development, pushing out our local businesses and services, displacing more people of color and working families, and eliminating more affordable units than it claims to create. We call on all New Yorkers to join in a grassroots alliance to stop Mayor de Blasio’s developer-led zoning plans, and demand a People First plan for our communities that will protect us against displacement.
Event organized by Citywide Alliance Against Displacement
A Community Comes Together
"With its low-slung market-style buildings, metal awnings and battered bricks,
[Gansevoort Street] is one of the most recognizable spots in the city for location
scouts, tourism bureaus, and Instagram users. It is also one of the few
in the district to remain unchanged. So far." -New York Times
[Gansevoort Street] is one of the most recognizable spots in the city for location
scouts, tourism bureaus, and Instagram users. It is also one of the few
in the district to remain unchanged. So far." -New York Times
On Tuesday November 11th, 150 people turned out for the Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing on the development of the Gansevoort Market Historic District (also known as the Meatpacking District). Of the 50 who testified, only two were in favor of the plan to build two massive buildings on the historic street. The proposed project threatens the unique character of Gansevoort Street, its historic streetscape, low buildings and market-style architecture, the very reason the Landmark Preservation Commission decided in 2003 to landmark the area. The fight continues, so please be sure to sign the Save Gansevoort petition here.
Photos courtesy of Save Gansevoort
Stand Against The Shadows
Are you tired of the reckless overbuilding of New York City? Do you feel that too many insanely tall buildings are coming up; that we have lost enough light, air, and iconic views to this real estate madness? Are you sickened by the way public spaces get handed over to real estate developers for luxury housing that ends up casting the rest of us in shadows? Do you think that the takeover of so many retail spaces by developers, banks and chain stores is harming the character of your neighborhood?
We feel all those things, so we have joined together as New Yorkers For A Human-Scale City to fight back, and created a petition to tell the Mayor what we think. Please join us by signing and spreading the word.
Initial sponsors: Art Loisada Foundation, Bedford Stuyvesant Society for Historic Preservation, Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, Citizens Emergency Committee to Preserve Preservation, Citizens Defending Libraries, Coalition for a Livable West Side, Committee for Environmentally Sound Development, Community Action Alliance on NYU2031, Concerned Citizens for Community Based Planning, Defenders of the Historic Upper East Side, East Harlem Preservation, Fiske Terrace Association, Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus, Friends of Brook Park, Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park, Friends of City Hall Park, Friends of Greenwich Street, Friends of Lamartine Place Historic District, Friends of South Street Seaport, Friends of Tribeca Park, Historic Districts Council, Historic Park Avenue, LANDMARK WEST!, Lower East Side Preservation Initiative, Lower West Side Association, Madison-Marine-Homecrest Association, Movement to Protect the People in Crown Heights, North Avenue A Neighborhood Association, NYU Faculty Against the Sexton Plan, Preservation League of Staten Island, Project for Public Spaces, Save Chelsea, Save Harlem Now!, #SaveNYC, Save The View Now, Save Our Seaport, SoHo Alliance, South Bronx United, South Village Neighbors, Sullivan-Ludlam-Stoddard Neighborhood Association, TakeBackNYC, TenantNet, Tribeca Trust, 29th Street Association, Vinegar Hill Neighborhood Association, West 80’s Neighborhood Association, and Women of Woodlawn.
Yes To Commercial Rent Control!
At yesterday's MAS Summit for New York City, the vast majority of people in the audience said "yes" to commercial rent control during a panel discussion. The callous reaction of Alicia Glen (Deputy Mayor for housing and economic development): "I’m not sure that necessarily adopting commercial rent control would lead to solve the problem that people think the problem is. There are some small businesses that are probably going to just fail because they’re not very good businesses."
More on the corporate takeover of New York City: Darwinian City?
Photography by J. Brash
March Against Displacement
On September 25th, close to one-thousand residents, workers, small businesses, students, and others from Chinatown, the Lower East Side, and across the city marched to City Hall to demand that Mayor de Blasio protect our community from displacement. We must show the Mayor that we will not stop until our Chinatown and the Lower East Side receives the equal protection they deserve. We call on everyone to join the march on Wednesday, October 28th! Click here for more details and to RSVP.
Preserving the Fabric of New York City's Vanishing Streetscape
As part of the sixth annual MAS Summit for New York City, Jeremiah Moss (Vanishing New York blogger and founder of #SaveNYC) will narrate a pre-recorded piece about the recent history of New York City, suggesting a death by hyper-gentrification via the loss of key small businesses and cultural touchstones. Alongside startling before-and-after streetscape photographs by James and Karla Murray, Moss will make a case for halting what is happening to the city and then outline how it can be saved.
Thursday, October 22nd at 11:05AM
The Times Center, 242 West 41st Street
Dear Mayor de Blasio
The largest employer of New York City residents are its 185,000 small businesses. A majority of New Yorkers rely on steady jobs from local employers to survive the increasing cost of living. Yet the most secure jobs for low and middle income New Yorkers are being lost every day as long established core businesses are forced to close when their leases expire.
New York City faces a jobs crisis that must be addressed immediately as our job creators fight for their livelihood. Exorbitant rent increases and no rights to negotiate fair lease terms with their landlords are driving our local economies into the ground.
We believe a real solution has been presented that will give our local entrepreneurs — in storefronts, manufacturing, not-for-profit organizations, performing arts and theater groups, art spaces and studios, recording and rehearsal studios, retail and service businesses, professional medical offices, commercial tenants — the single most powerful tool to stay in business: equal rights in commercial lease renewal negotiation. If our small businesses face a crisis, their employees face a crisis, and that means we all face it. Give small business owners rights, so that their employees can have stability and our economy can continue to flourish.
We are calling on you, New York City Council Speaker Mark-Viverito, and all New York City Council Members, to unequivocally support the Small Business Jobs Survival Act (File #: Int 0402-2014), the only real solution to ensure we are saving and protecting all of our small business jobs and in turn, the local economy.
This SBJSA will allow small business owners the right to:
- A 10 year minimum lease with the right to renewal, so they can plan for the future of their business, continue to employ staff, and provide their service to the community.
- Equal negotiation terms during the lease renewal process with recourse to binding arbitration by a 3rd party if fair terms can't be agreed upon.
- Restrictions to prevent landlords from passing their property taxes on to small business owners.
- An end to rent-gouging, illegal extortion of unscrupulous landlords, and unconscionably high rent increases that affect ALL businesses.
On behalf of NYC's single largest employer and revenue generator for our neighborhoods, we ask that you do the right thing for your city and local communities.
Please support the Small Business Jobs Survival Act.
New York City faces a jobs crisis that must be addressed immediately as our job creators fight for their livelihood. Exorbitant rent increases and no rights to negotiate fair lease terms with their landlords are driving our local economies into the ground.
We believe a real solution has been presented that will give our local entrepreneurs — in storefronts, manufacturing, not-for-profit organizations, performing arts and theater groups, art spaces and studios, recording and rehearsal studios, retail and service businesses, professional medical offices, commercial tenants — the single most powerful tool to stay in business: equal rights in commercial lease renewal negotiation. If our small businesses face a crisis, their employees face a crisis, and that means we all face it. Give small business owners rights, so that their employees can have stability and our economy can continue to flourish.
We are calling on you, New York City Council Speaker Mark-Viverito, and all New York City Council Members, to unequivocally support the Small Business Jobs Survival Act (File #: Int 0402-2014), the only real solution to ensure we are saving and protecting all of our small business jobs and in turn, the local economy.
This SBJSA will allow small business owners the right to:
- A 10 year minimum lease with the right to renewal, so they can plan for the future of their business, continue to employ staff, and provide their service to the community.
- Equal negotiation terms during the lease renewal process with recourse to binding arbitration by a 3rd party if fair terms can't be agreed upon.
- Restrictions to prevent landlords from passing their property taxes on to small business owners.
- An end to rent-gouging, illegal extortion of unscrupulous landlords, and unconscionably high rent increases that affect ALL businesses.
On behalf of NYC's single largest employer and revenue generator for our neighborhoods, we ask that you do the right thing for your city and local communities.
Please support the Small Business Jobs Survival Act.
•••
[Click here to send this letter to Mayor de Blasio and Council Speaker Mellisa Mark-Viverito]
Rally Against The Corporate University
"NYU is now an institution driven not by a concern for education, but by an elite financial calculus that ends up hurting all of us in many ways: the students, faculty and staff within the school itself, as well as its long-suffering neighbors. What’s happening at NYU is indicative of a nationwide trend that has turned institutions of higher learning into profit-driven corporations." -Mark Crispin Miller, NYU professor of media
Did you know...
-NYU “creates more student debt than any other nonprofit college or university in the country” (Village Voice)?
-NYU Law is the nation’s 2nd most expensive law school?
-Princeton Review has rated NYU's financial aid "the worst in the United States."
-NYU charges international students $9,392 more than American students, bringing in an extra $100,000?
-Your insurance costs anywhere from $2424 to $3236 with $5000 in-network deductibles and without dental or vision benefits?
-NYU bought two buildings in NoHo for $157 million in October 2014 (which had cost the owner $96.6 million one year earlier)?
-NYU provides Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates a luxury two bedroom at 120 West 15th Street though he has no affiliation at NYU and many students have no housing?
-President Sexton currently makes a base salary of $1,404,484 and will retire with a $2.6 million length of service bonus and $800,000 lifetime annuity? And a $1 million low cost loan for President Sexton’s beach house on Fire Island?
-Did you know that NYU’s Board does not have a single academic member—only Wall Street bankers, lawyers, and elite figures from Abu Dhabi and Shanghai?
-The top 21 administrators make a combined total of $23.5 million dollars (an average raise of 23.3% from 2011 to 2013, while faculty raises average 2.5%)?
-And that the increase alone would have covered tuition for 67 students and saved them between $4.3 and $8.9 million in interest over 15 years?
-That NYU admitted at least 1/3 of the workers (around 10,000 people) who built the Abu Dhabi campus were never paid for their work? And that over 200 workers were summarily imprisoned and then deported for daring to strike to recover their stolen wages?
Join students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members on September 1st to call on NYU to do the right thing, and be a good neighbor and anchor for the sustainable life of our community.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)