Wellness for Seniors

The elder support organization DOROT offers inexpensive wellness classes for seniors on the Upper West Side. This May and June, they will be holding regular sessions as well as one-time workshops to promote mental and physical health. On Tuesdays from 10–11 a.m., a licensed social worker facilitates a group chat to discuss memories and life experiences; from 12:15–2 p.m. on Tuesdays there is a “senior café” with coffee, tea and cookies on the 7th floor. On Tuesdays and Fridays from 11:30 a.m.–12:10 p.m., a martial arts instructor leads gentle exercise classes that focus on increasing immunity and spinal flexibility. There are also tai chi, stretching, Zumba chair and yoga classes available on a weekly basis. Other sessions and workshop topics include singing, meditation, movement, comedy, heart health, gardening and chats with doctors from Weill Cornell Medical Center. The wellness classes are $5 per class, with scholarships available. Participants should arrive 15 minutes before class starts and wear sneakers or flat rubber-soled shoes. All sessions take place at 171 W. 85th St., second floor. For more information and a complete schedule, call Katie Girardi at 917-441-3743. Homebound seniors can participate in many classes via phone.

West Side School Gets Grant for Arts

The Adolph Ochs School, P.S. 111M, was recently awarded a $50,000 grant to establish an educational theater and literacy program. The school, on West 53rd Street, is a federally designated Title I school, and 91 percent of the students’ families live below the poverty line. The grant from the Leonore Annenberg School Fund for Children will be used to implement a theater curriculum and drama studies in the early grades, in collaboration with the group Story Pirates, which uses kids’ ideas to create and perform skits and plays. The school is committed to using drama education to strengthen literacy and engagement in the classroom.

UWS Graduate on Olympic Team

Last month, the U.S. Olympic Fencing Team announced its new lineup, and a recent graduate of the Dwight School on the Upper West Side was among them. Race Imboden, who graduated in 2011 and took a year off to focus on fencing before attending Notre Dame, will be joining the team for the 2012 Summer Games in London. He qualified for the team after his fourth World Cup event in the Men’s Foil division. Imboden began fencing at age 9, after a stranger saw him playing with toy swords in the park and suggested the sport to his parents. He qualified for his first major international team by age 16 and earned a bronze medal in the 2012 Cadet World Championships. He’s won many competitions since, and earlier this year he was one of the youngest competitors to medal in the Senior World Cup competition. Imboden said that he’s thrilled to compete in England, his mother’s home country, and credits his parents’ support and sacrifice as well as The Dwight School’s flexibility for helping him achieve his Olympic dream.

Local School Fair

P.S. 9, at 100 W. 84th St. between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues, will be holding its annual Spring Fair on Saturday, May 19, from 11 a.m.–4 p.m. There will be rides and games for kids, crafts, science activities and a variety of food for sale. Proceeds from the fair support school programs.

Pesky Insects Topic of Town Hall

In some pockets of the Upper West Side, residents have been plagued by mosquito infestations in recent years, despite the city’s attempts to eradicate the populations by flushing the sewers and encouraging landlords to eliminate sources of standing water. Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal, who said that she hears about this issue continuously from her constituents, will be hosting a town hall meeting on Thursday, May 17, from 7–9 p.m. at the Goddard Riverside Community Center, at 593 Columbus Ave., to address this problem as mosquito breeding season approaches. Pest management specialists and representatives from city and state agencies will be available to answer questions and share what they are doing as well as how residents can combat the itch-inducing insects. For more information, call Rosenthal’s office 212-873-6368 or email rosenthall@assembly.state.ny.us.

Brewer Intros Safety and Transit Bills

Upper West Side City Council Member Gale Brewer introduced three new bills to the council last week, all focused on public safety and transportation. Addressing the recently renewed concern for the safety of hotel staff members, one bill would require hotel owners and proprietors to equip their staff with silent alarms. The two other bills are aimed at accommodating electric vehicles: One would make the installation of electric charging stands eligible for revocable consent from the city, intended to streamline the process and encourage investment in these structures; and the other would establish a pilot program to install 10 vehicle charging stations throughout the city. This would be followed by an analysis of their use to determine whether more charging stations would be utilized.

The recent order allows tenants to remain in the Single-Room Occupancy (SRO) building, but it clears out tourists who booked rooms in the hotel.

The second through seventh floors, a total of 120 rooms, were evacuated.

The Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement, which deals with illegal hotels, busted the hotel and hostel for being

The Broadway Hotel, at 230 W. 101st St., is allowed to house roughly 140 people, but the city said it was equipped for 600 people. Photo by Andrew Schwartz

overloaded, with rooms containing up to eight beds, according to Buildings Department records. The building’s occupancy is roughly 140, but was equipped for 600 people. The hotel’s website boasts more than 400 beds for tourists.

The order notes that the overcrowding and inadequate exits pose “imminent danger” to the inhabitants’ safety.

“The hotel exceeded its occupancy and was dangerously overcrowded,” said Jason Post, a spokesperson in the mayor’s office.

At the Broadway Hotel, bunk beds were being crammed into rooms intended for two people, according to Eric Abrams, a tenant and activist who has tussled with owner and hotelier Hank Freid in the past.

“That building can’t be evacuated properly with a capacity of three or four times [more than] it was intended for,” Abrams said.

Freid, who owns two other hotels on the Upper West Side, has long been targeted by tenants’ rights advocates. He rents out units at the Broadway Hotel to tourists as well as tenants. Pro-tenant groups argue that these rooms are intended as affordable housing for low-income New Yorkers.

“It’s clearly illegal,” said Yarrow Willman-Cole of Goddard Riverside SRO Law Project. “They’re using a residential building in a residential neighborhood for commercial, transient use.”

Willman-Cole said that the partial vacate order shows that building owners should “do your business the right way and you won’t have to deal with this stuff.”

The hotel is not taking reservations, said an employee of the hotel who would not give his name.

“We’re doing what we can to assist the situation and rectify the situation,” he said. He abruptly hung up without giving specific details.

The Broadway Hotel’s spokesperson, Gary Lewi, said that the management is “engaged in candid and productive discussions” with the city.

“We believe that level of open dialogue will allow us to address their concerns,” Lewi said, “while at the same time ensure that they appreciate our position that we are a responsible landlord abiding by the regulations that govern our property.”