Garodnick addressed these issues, among several others, in a letter he wrote to CWCapital, the “special servicer” responsible for maintaining the property.

He explains the patience he once had “has now reached its end, as thousands of residents have been without basic services for almost three months—with no explanation from CWCapital about the timeframe for their restoration, or any commitment to give further abatements for a diminution of necessary services.” Such necessary services currently not working include intercoms, laundry machines and a complete elevator service.

“Residents living in buildings with diminished service should be entitled to pay less rent,” Garodnick said in the letter. No word on a response yet from CWCapital.

South Village Reacts to Hudson Square Rezoning
Last week, the City Planning Commission sent the application for the proposed Hudson Square rezoning to the City Council in hopes of getting a majority vote of approval for enactment. While some City Council members see the proposed rezoning as an opportunity to expand on residential development in Hudson Square, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation is hoping to use this opportunity to push for the historic designation of the South Village.

In a letter written to Speaker Christine Quinn, the GVSHP, along with various community groups, asked her to reject the proposed rezoning unless the adjacent proposed South Village Historic District is designated a landmark by the city.

“We hope that you will use your considerable leverage to get the City to act,” the letter reads. “But if the City refuses to landmark the South Village, we urge you not to approve the Hudson Square rezoning, given the profound impact it would have in accelerating the destruction of this fragile, historic area.”

This would not be the first time landmark designation concessions have been implemented. This was the case with both the West Chelsea Historic District with the West Chelsea rezoning and the Prospect Heights Historic District with the Atlantic Yards rezoning. Deemed landmark-eligible four years ago by New York state, the South Village has been waiting ever since for designation.

“The fate of the South Village is now in Speaker Quinn’s hands,” said executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation Andrew Berman. “She will determine if this beloved, endangered New York neighborhood receives the protections it needs, or if its ongoing destruction will be accelerated by an enormous rezoning on its doorstep.”

Bike Safety for All
The Department of Transportation, SaferHood and Delivery.com have teamed up for a joint safety initiative designed to increase bicycle safety in the city.

Most recently, DOT and Delivery.com joined forces to provide 1,500 commercial cyclists with free bike lights, bells, and retro-reflective vests. Delivery cyclists from all over the city can attend one of the multi-language commercial bicyclist forums to receive the safety equipment.

These forums, which have been held from Brooklyn to the Upper East Side, are designed to educate, equip and answer questions about bicycle safety laws. Other bicycle safety efforts include NYPD enforcement and inspector visits to businesses that use delivery cyclists. These inspectors serve to both inform and oversee the legal regulations such businesses are required to follow.

DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said of the new efforts, “Safety is everyone’s business, so it’s significant when the private sector steps up to the plate to make changes in the public interest.”
“In a city where food, groceries and wine can be at your doorstep in moments, we empower the neighborhood economy by equipping our merchant partners with the right tools for making safe and speedy deliveries,” said Jed Kleckner, CEO of Delivery.com.

These efforts have already seen some positive results, fostering high hopes for the revised administrative procedures regarding bicycle safety that will be enforced this coming April.

Compiled by Jessica Mastronardi

Photo Courtesy of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation

The City Planning Commission voted today to approve an amended proposition by Jamestown Properties to upzone Chelsea Market. This plan allows for new structures to be built atop the 9th and 10th Ave ends of the complex, a modification zoning regulations currently prohibit, according to a statement by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP).

The next step is for City Council to vote on the decision—the Council has 50 days to hold hearings. The Council’s approval would be the final step in ratifying the plan.

In 2007 the GVSHP got Chelsea Market listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places. GVSHP claims the renovations would ruin this important landmark—the former NABISCO headquarters where the Oreo cookie was founded. GVSHP Executive Director Andrew Berman said the expansion would introduce more traffic and congestion to an area already “bursting at the seams.”

GVSHP is urging City residents to contact Speaker Christine Quinn and express their disapproval for the plan, which will be voted on by the Council in coming months.

—Alissa Fleck

Photo Courtesy of Alissa Fleck

By Alissa Fleck

When the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) first discovered that developer Stephan Boivin intended to raze the 1824 federal style house formerly belonging to Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz, the group focused primarily on the house’s architectural merit. Boivin’s development group, Nordica, hoped to transform the house into apartments and retail space.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) responded to community advocates in favor of the building’s preservation by saying the house does not qualify as a landmark because it does not retain enough of its original material, though its general area in the neighborhood is still under consideration.

After this obstacle and further research, the GVSHP began to focus instead on the house’s rich history and ties to the LGBTQ community. As the group explained, the City has never before declared something a landmark based on the history of the gay and lesbian movement.

At a press conference outside the Spring Street house today, elected officials and community advocates came together to speak to this colorful history. Senator Tom Duane, the second openly gay member of the New York State legislature, appeared at the conference to make a statement, and Council Speaker Christine Quinn sent a letter in support.

Steve Ashkinazy, Stonewall Democratic Club executive committee member, said early leaders of the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) formerly resided in the South Village home. The GAA group was the blueprint for the LGBT movement, he explained.

“Now they want to turn it into a mall,” said Ashkinazy. “The City says it does not retain enough of its original character…it’s clearly older than its surroundings. It’s visually and architecturally a standout with a story to tell.”

“The world has changed here and New York needs this landmark,” he added.

GVSHP Executive Director Andrew Berman said, of former residents with ties to the gay rights movement: “People who lived here touched others’ lives.”

He added, as an openly gay man who has worked under Senator Duane and is well-versed in the region and the struggles of civil rights groups, even “for [him], this house was a lesson.”

Laurence Frommer, a licensed NYC tour guide, said he, and others, have been reaching out to queer historians, hoping to bring the matter to national attention. While the midday turnout was a relatively small spattering, Frommer said he had been hoping for “a cast of thousands.”

“As somebody interested in chronicling and presenting LGBT history, this is important,” said Frommer. “It should be landmarked. There should be a plaque.”

“There’s so much in the City we don’t know about,” said Frommer. “How did it get lost?”

As for the civil rights angle, Frommer said he believes the City is trying presently to make up for a lack of African American historical representation, but they should be focusing on LGBTQ history also, and every other group as well. He said the City usually preserves landmarks based on architectural merit and less so cultural matters or history, but culture should be “considered a lot more.”

Photo Courtesy of GVSHP

Full City Council voted today, 44-1, to approve NYU’s modified expansion plan, despite continued community resistance. Speaker Christine Quinn called the modified plan significantly smaller than the original proposal and was satisfied with the outcome, reported WNYC.

(by Alissa Fleck and Paul Bisceglio)

The decrease in size from approximately 2 million square feet down to 1.9 million, including reduction in density and increases in open space, did not mean much to the plan’s numerous staunch opponents, many of whom have opposed it in its entirety from the beginning. This included the 37 NYU departments which passed resolutions against the plan. Many of these groups have sought legal council, according to WNYC. Additionally, various writers have compiled a collection of protest pieces inspired by the expansion, titled While We Were Sleeping: NYU and the Destruction of New York. 

Councilman Charles Barron was again the only holdout, imploring other councilmembers to heed the voices of Greenwich Village residents over those who may avoid the plan’s direct impact by not living in the construction zone.

Enough Greenwich Village residents, NYU faculty and other community members attended the vote to fill the Council chambers to full capacity. Opponents chanted “Chin and Quinn did us in!” from the balcony just before the actual vote took place, the Village Voice reported, and persisted as Quinn repeatedly called for silence. The entire balcony was escorted out of City Hall prior to the vote.

“This is a sad day for democracy in New York City,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, in a statement. Berman has been a major face for the opposition since the plan’s inception. He added his group would seek every possible legal avenue in continuing to fight the plan.

“The NYU 2031 plan has little to do with education, and everything to do with real estate and expansion for expansion’s sake,” said Berman. His group and others have joined together in formation of a city-wide campaign in protest: StandUp4NYC.

Jim Walden, an attorney with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher representing GVSHP, said: “We look forward to our day in court.”

Many residents in Greenwich Village at the time of the vote also expressed dissatisfaction with the proposal, citing construction noise, congestion and loss of a sense of community as major concerns.

“We don’t want another Midtown,” said one community member.

Two others were more willing to embrace the incentives that NYU included in its modified plan. “We’re getting a rent reduction,” said a resident of the University’s Silver Towers, an iconic residential complex on Bleecker Street in the middle of the proposed construction area. “So while we aren’t thrilled about [the expansion plans], that’s why a lot of us [in the Towers] are keeping our mouths shut.” (New York Press has contacted NYU housing and is waiting to confirm the details of this reduction.)

Construction on the plan is set to begin in 2014.

Photo by James Kelleher.

NY Press recently reported Developer Stephan Boivin filed for demolition permits for the home at 186 Spring Street, which formerly belonged to Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) has been fighting to have the property preserved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC).

The LPC recently declared the site not an individual landmark, the Village Voice reports. The property does not retain enough of its original material to be considered. According to the LPC’s statement, the general area is still under review, but not an immediate priority.

GVSHP Executive Director Andrew Berman told the Press this is not a vote, so the decision could change “at any time.” Berman said his group has sent the LPC further important information, hoping to influence their decision about the property.

This information includes a letter in which Berman and various advocates cite the area’s “powerful and unique connection to the early gay rights movement and New York’s earliest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) communities and their struggle.”

Declaring the area in which the house stands a landmark zone would still preserve the property, even if it’s not independently a landmark.

—Alissa Fleck

Beastie Boys Courtesy of Wiki Commons

Fight for your right…to get historic sites landmarked? Developer Stephan Boivin has filed for demolition permits for an “1824 federal style house” recently purchased from Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz, according to a statement from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. The Beastie Boy’s former residence is at 186 Spring Street in the proposed South Village Historic District. GVSHP reports the developer previously made a public statement “promising to preserve the structure,” saying it would be kept for his personal use. The permit now requests full demolition.

According to GVSHP’s Executive Director Andrew Berman, his group has brought this to the attention of the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Berman says the LPC agreed to consider this part of the district years ago, and his group urges them to do so now to save the “historic site.” The LPC has thus far refused to consider the remainder of the district a landmark site.

The house GVSHP hopes to preserve is part of a group of surviving federal style houses all built in the same year. According to the organization’s research, “though altered, the house still has the Flemish-bond brick and  two or three stories plus dormer form characteristic of federal-style (1790-1835) houses.” Horovitz sold the house in April of this year.

Not only does Boivin want the property demolished, he aims to combine it with another development site at 182 Spring Street. The GVSHP provides the facts about the South Village. In March it was designated one of the seven most important and threatened historic sites in NY State. In 2006 the GVSHP submitted a proposal for historic district designation of the South Village. Four years later a third of the proposed district was landmarked, but since the LPC has taken no action on the issue.

Since then several sites in the district have been demolished. Berman released a statement on the prospective demolition of this site: “This can either be yet another case of the city sitting on its hands while the character of one of New York’s great historic neighborhoods is destroyed, or the Landmarks Preservation Commission can finally keep its promise and fulfill its duty by protecting the remainder of the proposed South Village Historic District.”

—Alissa Fleck

Jazz Hands Courtesy of Alissa Fleck

There’s no “behind the scenes” of a City Council hearing, particularly one as contentious and impassioned as the recent hearing on NYU’s proposed expansion. Indeed the spectacle unfolded without pretense.

(by Alissa Fleck)

Last week at 8 a.m. on the morning of the hearing, plan opponents clutching massive, colorful banners flooded the City Hall steps in protest. They were tree-huggers, “village crazies,” dejected faculty, curmudgeons and idealists alike.

They fluttered their signs in the air while speakers growled into the microphone in front of them. Unfortunately the marriage of wind and a lackluster microphone muted most of the speeches.

One speaker said: “NYU tells us they will create open space!”

“IT’S A LIE!” shouted someone behind me. “IT’S A LIE!” joined others in chorus.

At the rally’s conclusion, Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) Executive Director Andrew Berman, who, with his vehemence could have stepped straight out of a Kinks song, asked the press if they had any questions.

Not a moment after he’d asked, protesters behind him broke out into raucous chant, replete with fist pumps. After a few minutes, Berman turned to the mass behind him: “Everybody get your regulation-sized signs,” he said. He said something about how it would be a long day, I expected him to add few would make it out alive.

The subsequent rally in support of the proposal consisted of approximately three people. “I’m in favor!” said one man, urging press people to come forward and ask him questions. They appeared reluctant, as though they were waiting on someone more noteworthy.

As I tried to make my way into City Hall, a crazed bottleneck formed at the entrance. Security attempted to filter in an even number of supporters and opponents, but made exceptions for anyone who said they had to use the bathroom. As men in “BUILD IT!” shirts trickled in, protesters, well, protested.

“Why do they get to go in and not us?” they demanded.

So many protesters filled the balcony, a few lay down on the steps. A woman on the ground next to me, dressed for what could have been a day of gardening, appeared to slip in and out of consciousness.

In the crowd, another woman turned around and addressed the man behind her:

“You’re a union guy, aren’t you!” she said.

“Look I need a job, I got a kid,” he said. “I don’t even really know what’s going on.”

“That’s the problem!” She attempted to unload one of her extra signs on him. “Come on, why don’t you just take it?”

A security officer tried to bring order by organizing testifiers.

“Is there a Milton in the crowd?” he asked.

“I’m Milton,” said an older man in the balcony.

“Are you in favor or opposition?”

“What?”

(It took a few more tries, as Milton was evidently hard of hearing.)

“Are you in favor or opposition?”

“OPPOSED ALL THE WAY!” he shouted down from the balcony. The crowd exploded with applause.

“Another outbreak like that and you will be kicked out for the rest of the hearing,” said the security officer.

Council Member Mark Weprin insisted audience members use jazz hands only to express approval. The consistent reprimands and reminders to use jazz hands only did little to suppress the boos, hisses, laughter and chants which, when done in unison, could not be attributed to any single defiant individual.

I briefly wandered down from the balcony to see if I could get closer to the proceedings. I walked into the ground floor section, only to be interrogated by a security guard. I told him I would just stand in the back for a moment. “No, you won’t,” he said. I walked back out of the chambers and a woman outside snarled (in reference to NYU President John Sexton): “Is he still SPOUTING that BULLSH*T?” “The bullsh*t is unbelievable!” responded another.

Sexton’s speech went something like this:

“We need to be able to attract an outstanding genomicist.” Laughter.  (Maybe people think are envisioning someone studying adorable garden gnomes.)

“It would be obstructive to build anywhere else.” More laughter.

“Many of our students work three jobs and it’s because they want to be here.” Riptide of laughter.

“This is not a development project.” Laughter plus a few audience members get booted.

Often these proceedings boil down to sleights of rhetoric and shiftiness, as when extensive confusion ensued over the delineations between “green space,” “open space,” “open green space,” “public space” and “public green space.”

Then there was the discussion during which I decided, three hours in, it was time for my personal intermission. With more highfalutin jargon and sophistication than a high-schooler being disciplined, but no less evasion and otherwise not much difference, Councilman Robert Jackson drilled Sexton on whether or not he was being honest. Filtering out the excess, it went roughly something like this:

“But are you actually being as honest as possible?”

“Yes, I am being honest.”

“Okay, but, are you actually being honest?”

(by Alissa Fleck)

City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden described the grueling review process in a press statement:

“Throughout the public review process, including more than 10 hours of testimony at the Commission’s public hearing, we heard strong support for NYU’s need to grow and modernize its academic core in order to remain a globally competitive institution and economic anchor for New York City,” said Burden. “We also heard deep concerns from many stakeholders, including the community and local elected officials, regarding the scale of the proposal, and the project’s potential effects on residents’ quality of life.”

NYU described modifications made by the Commission to the original plan in an email to University students following its approval. These modifications, intended to reduce the project’s scope and size, included the elimination of a temporary gym, some dormitory space, below-grade (underground) academic space, a hotel and commercial overlay. The Commission also introduced reductions in the height and size of proposed Mercer St. buildings as well as construction phasing changes on the Washington Square Village superblock, preserving a key playground until at least 2027. These modifications are still subject to review by the City Council.

The NYU website details the project’s ultimate breakdown of uses: “approximately 65% for academic purposes, 10% for faculty housing, 17% for mechanical systems and replacement parking, 4% for the new public school and 3% for retail.”

Support for the plan is varied and far-reaching. In a letter initially advocating for the plan, Sexton wrote: “Space is required to create a vibrant intellectual community in all senses of the phrase, with teachers and learners in proximity to each other, ready and willing to engage with other thinkers and doers throughout the city.”

Outspoken public advocates include the deans of numerous of the University’s schools, faculty members, individual students, administrators, leaders of other institutions of higher learning, local businesses, various nonprofit organizations and individuals, such as trustees and alumni. While the NYU website lists many of these supporters, less than one third of faculty members have actually chosen to publicly speak out on the plan. Those who have aligned themselves in favor of the plan frequently represent departments in need of expanded space.

President of Columbia University Lee Bollinger, who testified at the April public hearing in support of the plan, explained at a certain point an academic institution begins to suffer without the necessary space, and when the institution suffers so does its value to the city and society.

One former Resident Life Leader, Emily DaSilva, spoke in the support of the plan, saying expanded resources are needed to promote student safety, as the departments in charge of this are currently stretched thin. Student supporters, a handful of Resident Assistants in particular, overwhelmingly agreed the plan would be good for community-building. NAACP President Hazel N. Dukes said the plan would provide a much-needed boost to the economy.

A section of NYU’s website devoted to the plan stands in support, urging students to “tell elected officials NYU’s expansion plan is good for New York,” while many faculty members still oppose it.

WNYC News reports a large number of faculty members are worried about environmental factors, while many of them live in the proposed construction zone. At least 34 NYU departments have voted for resolutions to oppose the plan, the article says.

The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) also remains staunchly opposed to the plan, despite the modifications. In a collaborative statement between GVSHP members and NYU faculty against the expansion, they stated the public simply did not have sufficient information to make a meaningful assessment of the plan. The environmental impact has not been properly addressed, they argued. Executive Director of the GVSHP Andrew Berman said his group would continue to fight the plan, including lobbying City Council.

“We have already hit the City Council with literally thousands of letters from New Yorkers, NYU faculty and civic leaders urging Councilmembers to reject the proposal,” said Berman. “The City Planning Commission hearing on the NYU proposal was the longest in its history; we expect the turnout for the Council’s hearings to be equally historic.”

Near the site of the proposed expansion plan and general Washington Square Park area, students seemed more or less oblivious or indifferent to the plan. Of six individual students surveyed across grade levels and programs, one had never heard of the plan, and five had no opinion. The fact that it’s summer and many programs are not in session may have played a role in student feedback.

UPDATE: The union representing NYU’s 1,400 clerical workers has come out against the NYU 2031 plan, and is urging the City Council to vote against it.

The City Council will hold its public hearing on the plan on Friday, June 29th. There will be a rally on the steps of City Hall at 8:30 am prior to the 9:30 am hearings.

Photo courtesy of Wiki Commons.

Preservationists, residents, politicians save 128 E. 13th St. following six-year push

It took six years to accomplish, but hard work and perseverance paid off for city preservationists as the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) voted unanimously last week to landmark 128 E. 13th St., a building once used to auction off horses.

The campaign to landmark the 1903 building, whose varied uses included the city’s last surviving horse auction mart, studio space for famed painter and sculptor Frank Stella and a World War II-era defense industry training center for women, was spearheaded by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) and had support from Council Member Rosie Mendez and the Historic Districts Council, among others.

“This designation was especially gratifying, in part because it was so long in the making and in part because we came so close to losing the building,” said Andrew Berman, GVSHP executive director.

In 2006, Berman’s group uncovered a plan by a new owner to tear the building down and replace it with a seven-story condo.

Berman said that shortly after that discovery, his organization alerted the LPC and requested an emergency hearing to save the building. The hearing was made possible because the new owner had not yet filed demolition permits, creating a small window of opportunity to try to save the building.

“128 East 13th Street’s progression from a place where horses, then manufactured goods and then great works of art were produced perfectly captures the arc of downtown’s development,” Berman said during his 2006 testimony before the LPC.

While the building’s use from 1978 to 2005 as the studio of renowned artist Stella was well known, research supplied to the landmark’s commission from the GVSHP revealed it was originally built as the Van Tassel and Kearney Horse Auction mart, a place where affluent city families, including the Vanderbilts, Delanos and Belmonts, went to inspect and select horses for purchase.

Distinguishing physical traits of the building include high central halls, where horses were paraded around on rings for potential buyers to review. The GVSHP’s research also showed that although horse auction marts were at one time very common buildings in New York City, this was the last remaining intact structure of its type.

Despite the fact that the LPC’s emergency hearing in 2006 prevented demolition of the building, the commission refrained from voting on designation for six years.

In 2007, the building was listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places and in 2008 the GVSHP sent a letter signed by Borough President Scott Stringer, State Sen. Tom Duane, Mendez and Assembly Member Deborah Glick in a renewed attempt to push for landmark designation.

“This is a good example of how a historic building can be adapted to new uses that benefit its community without sacrificing its historic character,” said Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council, referring to the building’s current tenant, the Peridance Capezio Dance Center.

“After six years of pushing for landmark status, the Village and the city can now be assured that this unique monument, which evolved from a place which produced horses to manufactured goods to great works of art, will be with us for generations to come,” Berman said in an emailed statement.

“And with it,” he continued, “a steel and masonry record of New York and the Village’s dramatic evolution over the 20th century will also be preserved.”

Borough President’s Compromise Not Enough to Sway Public Opinion

On Wed. afternoon (4/25), the City Planning Commission (CPC) held a public hearing at the Museum of the American Indian to hear both concerns and support over the NYU Sexton Plan – a project that would radically expand the NYU campus over a 20 year period.

CPC members heard the raised, and sometimes distressed voices of community members who were against the plan, as the standing room only “crowd” gave raucous applause to members speaking out against the expansion, and provided a chorus of hisses and even outraged shouts to those advocating it.

Members of NYU Faculty weighed in on both sides of the coin. Mary Schmidt Campbell, Dean of the Tisch School of the Arts, advocated on behalf of the plan, citing a lack of performance space and the need to remain competitive as universities around the country put additional pressure on the already taxed School of the Arts.

“We’ve achieved at the highest level and contributed to the creative economy of downtownNew Yorkin spite of the fact that Tisch’s Institute for Performing Arts has, for years, struggled with inadequate, obsolete, sometimes dangerous, and cramped facilities…Our existing facilities are at a crisis point. In order to continue to thrive, we’ve embarked on an ambitious plan to design the world’s finest performing arts training center as part of the 2031 plan.”

Other faculty members were not so supportive of the expansion, which makes The Tisch School seem more like an outlier when compared to many other departments and faculty at the university. However, less than one third of NYU faculty have chosen to publicly align themselves.

Despite concerns over anonymity, a senior faculty member, who was introduced improperly,  spoke out against the Sexton Plan,  urging the CPC to say “N-O” until they “K-N-O-W” more.

The CPC's Public Hearing on the NYU Expansion (Sexton Plan) drew the full attention of the maximum capacity auditorium at the Museum of the American Indian.

“The NYU leadership would have you believe that the university can’t fulfill its educational mission and be a global leader without anEmpire State Building’s worth of square footage squeezed into a few blocks. But the NYU team pushing this plan does not speak for its faculty; for we, too, are the university.”

“As of today, 20 academic departments and programs, including the Department of Economics (which might know something about something) have passed resolutions against this plan overwhelmingly.”

More than anything, however, the public hearing revealed a poor dissemination of information. Many attendees representing NYU and its expansion plan seemed unable to adequately describe different phases of the plan when pressed by the commission, and there was also an apparent disconnect between those who spoke on behalf of the  Sexton plan  sans “Stringer’s Compromise” and those who spoke exclusively of it – which NYU President Sexton agreed to on Apr. 11.

Speaking on behalf of the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation (GVSHP), lawyer Randy Mastro urged the CPC to consider the usage of space, and the impact it will have on Greenwich Village.

“This commission is being asked to approve over 2.2 million gross square feet of construction over the next nineteen years that will fundamentally change the character of one of our city’s most beloved neighborhoods – Greenwich Village…yet hundreds of thousands of square feet of this project are not for academic purposes,”

“As a result of this construction, this neighborhood will have to accommodate up to 2,000 new residents, and find itself flooded with more than 10,000 new people visiting the area every day. It will substantially reduce the amount of open space available for community use in an area already lacking such open space.”

Members of the Public Hearing show their opposition to the Sexton Plan

While nearly all of the community members present at the hearing were opposed to the Sexton plan, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s Director of Land Use, Brian Cook, spoke on behalf of Stringer, bringing to light many of the Borough President’s amendments – some of them for the first time to the CPC.

“The office [of the Borough President] has maintained a philosophy of seeking ways to strike a balance to ensure that development, when it is occurring, does not overrun or take away things and hurt the community in ways that we can prevent,”

And as he outlined the Borough President’s amendments, Cook commented on the President’s decision to dissuade NYU from building “below-grade” below street level) around parks was perhaps the most popular opposing point made at the hearing.

“The clear direction we heard from the community was taking the below-grade of those parks [Northern Mercer St. Park, Western Mercer St. Park] and tearing out the old trees and what existed, even if they were eventually replaced was an unacceptable line.”

However, when pressed by the City Planning Commission  and the community for information regarding the concessions NYU was unwilling to make at President Stringer’s urging, Mr. Cook declined to comment.

Members of the City Planning Commission, including Chairperson Amanda Burden

As it stands, the City Planning Commission has, at the present time, many more questions than it does answers. In light of the tremendous public opposition to the project, as well as the points raised by several community speakers, it does not appear likely that the CPC will approve the Sexton Plan without at least first requesting a full disclosure and review of Stringer’s Compromise.

“It’s  important that the commission to hear the modifications that the borough president recommended,” said City Planning Commission Chair Amanda M. Burden.