By Helaina Hovitz

As suspected and outlined in last week’s article, March 20’s City Council “food market” victory announcement turned out to be a lot of smoke and mirrors.

In approving a Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP) application with the Howard Hughes Corporation, the city has given the corporation the rights to redevelop  Pier 17. But Hughes also has options to redevelop areas surrounding the South Street Seaport, with the possibility of constructing hotels, condos and upscale retail stores, potentially turning the entire area in one big generic mall complex.

Initially, members of Community Board 1 received a Letter of Intent with a blacked-out “Mixed Use Project” section detailing the plans for the Fish Market area, in response to a Freedom of Information Law request filed with the city’s Economic Development Corporation. Nine days after the Land Use application was approved by city council vote, board members found an unredacted version, revealing the corporation’s true intentions. It turned out that the City Council did have that unredacted L.O.I. (Letter of Intent) in their possession, according to a firsthand account from East Village resident Robert LaValva, president of the New Amsterdam Market. LaValva saw the L.O.I. himself back in August of last year, but was told he couldn’t have or keep a copy. (A spokesperson for City Council Member Margaret Chin said that the letter was never hidden from the public, and that LaValva was shown the letter in an overture of transparency.)

LaValva tried to warn everyone about the developer’s plans at March 14’s City Council Hearing.

“By voting to approve this ULURP, you will be approving a rezoning not only of the Pier 17 mall, but of the entire waterfront. What is troubling about this is that E.D.C. and Howard Hughes have a Letter of Intent to redevelop the Fulton Fish Market site as a luxury residential high rise, hotel and retail complex,” he said.

The latest news to unfold is that the South Street Seaport Museum, also under Howard Hughes Corporation control, is facing an 18-month deadline to get back on solid financial footing, a deadline that’s up on April 5th. Rescued from going under by the Museum of the City of New York back in 2011, the Seaport museum estimates it would cost $22 million in repairs and renovations to upgrade after Hurricane Sandy (a figure that includes the cost of recovery as well as the costs to move the building’s electrical systems to a higher floor to prevent damage from future flooding).

In a newsletter that Margaret Chin’s office handed out at the monthly Community Board 1 meeting on March 26, Hughes offered to provide the Seaport Museum with $250,000 over the next three months, followed by $100,000 a month for five months. Hughes has made no commitment to give up lease options to former Museum properties now under first option as per the 12.12.11 Letter of Intent depriving the Museum of a steady source of lease revenues.

If the museum goes under, the Howard Hughes Corporation will gain all of its property. Additionally, the letter reveals that they are not providing any new docking berths for the Seaport’s historic vessels, and are allowing the AMBROSE to stay where it is until they decide otherwise.

The Howard Hughes Corporation has repeatedly declined to comment, just as they have refused to put forth a “Master Plan,” prior to the mandatory deadline of August 30 of this year. They technically don’t have to. But what’s happening before everyone’s eyes is the master plan, and it’s unfolding with the help of the city, the Economic Development Corporation, and others.

By Caroline Lewis

Council Member Diana Reyna listens to a South Street Seaport small business owner talk about rebuilding her business after Hurricane Sandy. Photo by Aaron Adler

Made Fresh Daily, an all-natural café in the once-bustling South Street Seaport neighborhood, enjoyed a buzzing lunch hour on a recent Monday afternoon, seven weeks after Hurricane Sandy left a high-water mark halfway up the large window that looks out on historic Front Street. 
The triumphant café is the first to be profiled for the “Support NYC Small Businesses” campaign, centered around an interactive map of shops that are “Back in Business,” created in partnership with Yelp. But the view from owner Jacqueline Goewey’s café window is still bleak. Fourteen of her Front Street neighbors are shuttered.

“Our furniture was completely tossed around like rag dolls. There was nothing to repair,” said Fernando Dallorso, the owner of Stella Restaurant on Front Street.

The old landmark buildings in the Seaport District housed more than 100 small businesses before the storm: coffee shops, pet grooming, restaurants, retail stores. Many of their fates remain uncertain. Before he can think about reopening, Dallorso needs to appeal denied insurance claims and to figure out when—if—he will be able to return to his old building. He is banding together with other small business owners in the neighborhood, not just to seek legal and financial support, but also to bring back the concentration of diverse shops that make the Seaport an attraction.

“This has set the neighborhood 10 years back into history,” Dallorso said. “I don’t want to be the one guy, if I’m lucky and get power, to be standing in 10 blocks that are decimated.”

Last year, Lower Manhattan was one of New York’s fastest-growing communities, according to a report by New York City Small Business Services, but many residents and corporate employees have moved their homes and offices following the storm. Robert LaValva hosts a seasonal open-air market in the Seaport with 150 small entrepreneurs.

“It’s the small, independent local businesses that make [this neighborhood] an interesting place to come to and spend time in, so we very much see the whole neighborhood as interconnected,” he said.

“We’re really hoping that whatever solutions are worked out by various levels of government are very small-business focused,” LaValva said.

Mayor Bloomberg announced multiple initiatives to speed along the recovery process for small businesses this month, including individualized help for those in Business Recovery Zones like the Seaport District.

“Let’s get to the bottom of why we’ve been closed so long, why we’re going to continue to be closed,” said Amanda Byron, owner of a dog spa called the Salty Paw. “I can’t afford to take out any more loans. I’ve been in this neighborhood 17 years. I went through 9/11. Lots of us are paying back those loans from 9/11. We need grants.”

Low-interest loans are available from both city and federal agencies for small businesses impacted by the storm. So far, SBS has issued $4.2 million in loans to small businesses and has hundreds of applications pending. The loans must be paid back within two years, but the mayor also created a fund to offer matching grants of up to $10,000.

Grants with no strings attached are harder to come by. The Downtown Alliance closed the application window for its Back to Business Grant after being flooded with applications. The organization awarded the first grants to Lower Manhattan businesses this week and set aside $120,000 in deferred grants to be held for six applicants in South Street Seaport until they reopen.
Byron submitted her application, but said that even if she gets a grant from the Downtown Alliance, she may not be able to reopen by their April 30, 2013, deadline.

“We need grants that can help us rebuild,” Byron said.

Matthew Young, who helps to administer federal loans, now shares an office with SBS in order to streamline the loan application process.

“Some people are waiting on their insurance, they’re waiting on their grant money. We don’t need all that other information to get the process started,” Young said. “Get that application in so we can see if we can approve that loan.”

Dallorso is skeptical.

“None of us who already lost an average of three, four, five hundred thousand dollars, wants to get any further in debt by borrowing any money,” Dallorso said. “And the application, no matter what they say, is not that easy. It’s not that simple and it’s depending on your own capability to repay. I just lost my shop, I just lost my income,” Dallorso said. “What is my capability to repay? I have no idea.”

His uncertainty has a lot to do with the state of the building to which he is trying to return.

“Besides destroying all the retail spaces, [Hurricane Sandy] also destroyed all the building’s mechanical systems, meaning the heating, the cooling, the electrical systems, the light safety, all the pumps,” explained Jordan Barowitz, a representative of the Durst Fetner development company, which owns the property where Stella Restaurant and a dozen or so other businesses were located.

“They’re old buildings. It’s a landmark project, they’re 200 years old.”

In addition to replacing floors and walls, Barowitz said the company plans to install a modern mechanical system that would be more resilient in the case of future disasters; one that would not be located in the basement. He could not yet give a timeline for completing all the work that has to be done.

“There’s also tremendous stress on the contractor and mechanical supply community and that’s making it even more difficult,” said Barowitz.

Mayor Bloomberg and Community Board 1 are pushing the approval of a new development for the undamaged Pier 17, featuring a multi-use glass structure, according to schedule.

“We just want to make sure that it’s done as quickly as possible with as much consideration for the individual businesses as possible,” said Michael Levine, director of planning and land use on Community Board 1.

For small-business owners, time is money.

“It’s great that we can open Wednesday,” said Sara Williams, co-owner of Fresh Salt on Beekman Street. Two days before re-opening, Williams stood amid frantic construction on the still-unfinished bar. Her building owner was able to agree to a rush re-construction job and had some friends who were contractors.

“But we’re going to be in trouble if we can’t get them back with us,” Williams said, looking toward empty storefronts across the street. “They have a whole other host of issues that I feel very lucky that we don’t, but at the same time, we are all together in this area and that’s how people’s perception of us is. We do need them open.”

Parts of Lower Manhattan may spend the holidays and beyond hooked up to noisy, noxious generators if building management companies don’t soon finish necessary repairs.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, many downtown Manhattan buildings relied on emergency generators for power in an effort to return to normalcy. As of last week, Council Member Margaret Chin’s office reported 105 emergency generators were still operating downtown, providing electricity to these buildings.

While these generators may be necessary in an emergency, community members and elected officials are concerned over why they still have such a prominent presence downtown. The generators emit potent, potentially hazardous fumes and often deafening noises. They also appear to be running largely unregulated by city agencies, which have not demonstrated much oversight in the situation, according to downtown’s elected officials.

“Many of the streets in Lower Manhattan, particularly in the Financial District, are literally lined with [these] generators,” said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. “We all know that after 9/11, thousands of Lower Manhattan residents were exposed to air that caused serious health problems, and we cannot allow that to happen again.”

A Con Edison spokesperson explained that the buildings’ management companies are responsible for the generators still in place.

“They’re the ones who bore the brunt,” he said.

Chin’s office agreed that Con Edison is not to blame for the delay. The buildings’ management companies reportedly continue to push back the dates when they’ll be ready to reconnect to power, now giving time frames as late as April in some cases.

“Con Edison is willing and ready to hook these buildings back up,” said Kelly Magee, a spokesperson for the council member. “The buildings are not ready to receive power. The buildings have some kind of issue, whether it’s damage to the transformer or a part that needs a replacement—they’re unable to hook back up to the grid.”

Magee said these buildings’ management companies would not return their phone calls and there was no explanation as to why the dates kept getting pushed back. She speculated building management companies are taking advantage of this opportunity to make other repairs to their buildings. Without incentive for the management companies and enforcement by the city, she said there’s not enough pressure for the companies to act in a timely fashion.

Once a building is ready to be hooked back up to the Con Edison grid, only a quick inspection is necessary before this can take place.

Council Member Chin, whose Lower Manhattan district has many such generators, is disappointed in the city’s response thus far. She said her office has received many residential complaints over the last month and that she’s repeatedly reached out to the city and tried to work through official channels.

One woman called the council member’s office to complain she had fainted while exiting a downtown subway because of the overwhelming fumes released by the generators.

“The residents are contacting our office and saying they need help—these fumes are going right into their apartments,” explained Chin. “People have been very patient and they understand it’s an emergency, but week after week … it’s taking too long.”

“The Department of Health needs to provide solutions,” said Chin. “Now they’re saying seal off your windows with plastic—that’s not an appropriate way to live.”

“The phone calls are seriously disturbing,” added Magee.

Magee said the council member’s office has been working to get the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Mental Health and Hygiene to come out and regularly conduct inspections of the generators.

“What it seems like to us is in the beginning there was an emergency situation; a lot was done without much oversight, and it wasn’t until we asked for enforcement that the DEP started doing anything,” Magee said.

“We go and look around ourselves, and we can see the smoke spewing out,” she added. “The DEP needs to be down there every single day, and they need to get the dirty ones out.”

The council member said it seemed not much thought had been given to the generators’ physical placement either.

“To be listening to one 24 hours a day is a lot to ask of residents,” said Chin, who explained they were loud enough to drown out any conversation in the street.

Ryan Carlino works on Water Street, right by the river. He said he was not allowed to return to his office building until Dec. 4.

“We literally have to walk through a tunnel of generators to get to the entrance of our building,” he said. “There’s smoke everywhere. It constantly smells like diesel fumes.”

“I’m sure they’re safe, I guess,” he added. “They were OK’d by the EPA. But they look like they could blow up or electrocute someone at any point.”

The generators are also loud, according to Carlino. “The noise isn’t a huge inconvenience since you can’t hear them inside,” he said. “It’s just really weird and post-apocalyptic walking through them to get to work.”

When asked how he knew the generator had been approved by the EPA, Carlino said his company’s operations coordinators told workers the EPA had checked them out.

A Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson confirmed that DEP inspectors are going block by block in Lower Manhattan to ensure that all generators are properly certified and are meeting emissions standards, and the DEP has also teamed up with the city’s Health Department and the state Department of Environmental Conservation to monitor air quality. The agencies have installed three additional air testing sites since Hurricane Sandy and have not detected patterns of higher concentrations of particulate matter.

While they may technically be safe, the generators are still a huge nuisance. In many cases, residents cannot understand why the generators powering some commercial buildings must remain running all night.

“Imagine that happening continuously all day long and at night when people are supposed to be sleeping,” said Chin. “We have families and lots of young kids down here.”

Chin said the city has already established a rapid repair program with residential buildings, one which might soon have to extend to commercial buildings as well.

“It’s unacceptable that they will be there all winter,” she said. “If there are missing parts, get them.”
While the noise and pollutants affect residents and workers in the area, Chin is particularly concerned about generators operating directly outside of a downtown school complex.

“We need all the help we can get,” said Chin. “We want this done by Christmas. This is our Christmas present.”

Carlino is at least glad to be back in his own office building despite the generators. “We were up in Times Square,” he said. “It was awful.”

Council Member Margaret Chin fights to keep Lower Manhattan a vibrant and thriving community

While Hurricane Sandy hit Council Member Margaret Chin’s district hard, a blow from which Lower Manhattan is still scrambling to recover, the council member says a lot of major strides have been made this year in her district. Many would argue, with no small thanks to the council member herself.

During the year’s budget negotiations, 70 percent of daycare programs and an even larger percentage of after-school programs in District 1, Chin’s district, were threatened. Chin saw these budget cuts as unacceptable.

“We had to do a lot of organizing and fighting back to restore all these programs,” said Chin. “When we first saw the budget, I thought, ‘That can’t happen.’

“Ultimately we were successful,” she added.

In addition to restoring all daycare and after-school programs in her district, Chin devoted significant time to both stop-and-frisk and living-wage legislative campaigns and oversaw the establishment of 500 permanently affordable housing units at the SPURA site, after 40 years of deadlock over development in the area.

She also assisted in the passing of state legislation to permit intercity buses, brought increased attention to military hazing issues in the wake of the Private Danny Chen case and helped get cancer coverage for first responders by way of the James Zadroga Bill.

Catherine Hughes, chairperson of Community Board 1, said, “She joined the bus departing at 5 a.m. packed with residents and first responders to go to D.C. to lobby for the passage of the James Zadroga bill—she was the only [city] elected official to do this.”

Hughes had a few more accomplishments to add to Chin’s already impressive list.

“She has held hearings on Lower Manhattan’s unique issues, like the effect of increased tourism, parkland development and small business development,” Hughes said.

“This fall she led a march in Tribeca with Speaker Quinn to make our parks safe by stopping budget cuts to NYPD, mental health and homeless services,” she added.

Hughes said the council member has also been enormously helpful in mitigating the impacts of construction in Lower Manhattan, which is crucial in such a physically small area.

“Without fanfare, she quietly pulls people together to get work done and does a lot of good for our community,” said Hughes.

Chin is always eager to talk about the perks of her role as a council member and the important perspective it provides within the community. Chin’s favorite part of her job as a council member is all the people she gets to meet on a regular basis, whether it’s seniors, students or local business owners. She regularly attends performances and celebrations in her district and is consistently in awe of the diversity it confers.

“It’s wonderful to be able to represent a district I grew up in and to be able to find all the different treasures,” she said. “It’s got diversity of interest … it’s a great place.”

The council member added that she loves going shoe shopping among the area’s small businesses.

While Chin has many goals for her district’s future, she knows first and foremost it’s important to be realistic about storm recovery.

“The amount of devastation … it was really unprecedented,” she said, pointing out she’s spent almost 50 years in Lower Manhattan.

“We still have a lot of dark buildings,” she said. “Lower Manhattan is always so lit up.”

Chin also hopes District 1 will continue to be a place where “people love to live and work and visit.”

“We will continue to work on improving the quality of life, whether from complaints about traffic and noise or making sure we continue to build these neighborhoods as neighborhoods people love,” she said.

The council member has a vision for the future that includes more neighborhood interconnectedness. She said neighborhoods are accessible by walking and transportation, but New Yorkers are sometimes wary of taking advantage of this connectedness.

“It’s so easy to travel from one neighborhood to another,” she said. “Hopefully we can do more to let people know all neighborhoods are connected and easy to visit.”

According to Hughes, Chin “spends her days, evenings and weekends making Lower Manhattan even better and addressing the diverse and complex needs of residents and businesses.” Despite all her hard work, however, Chin still manages to have free time.

“I get enough sleep,” she said, laughing. She also practices tai chi, and said she’s always improving her skills.

“I love to go see movies,” she said, “But I prefer movies that are inspirational—movies with happy endings.”

Public Hearing on Proposed Soho BID
According to a release from the SoHo Alliance, councilmember Margaret Chin has called a public hearing on Wednesday, Oct. 31, at 10 a.m. at City Hall on the proposed Soho Business Improvement District (BID). The hearing will be conducted by the City Council’s Finance Committee Chair Dominic Recchia, and both proponents and opponents of the BID are expected to present their positions, a process expected to last for several hours.

DA Announces Sentencing for 1998 Crimes on LES
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., recently announced the sentencing of Lerio Guerrero, 33, to 15 years in state prison for a rape and burglary on the Lower East Side in 1998, according to a release from the DA’s office.

“Without the state’s DNA data bank, this defendant might never have been apprehended,” Vance said. “But because New Yorkers live in a state that recognizes the power of DNA to convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent, this crime victim is able to finally see justice be served nearly 14 years later. The fact that we were able to file an indictment in this case before the statute of limitations expired serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of the recently passed All Crimes DNA law and the continued expansion of the DNA data bank.”

According to the defendant’s guilty plea and documents filed in court, on Nov. 8, 1998, Guerrero followed the victim to her apartment building on the Lower East Side. She was 28 years old at the time. He pushed open the building door behind her, and threatened her with a piece of broken glass. While holding the glass to the victim’s throat, the defendant cut his own hand, bleeding on the victim’s coat. Guerrero then forced her to the rear of her apartment building, where he sexually assaulted her and stole her wallet. The defendant then forced his victim to follow him to an ATM to withdraw cash. When Guerrero tried to make the victim go to an ATM at a different location to withdraw more cash, she broke away and ran into a deli.

FiDi’s Transformation and Impact on Foreign Buyers
Real estate brokers and community leaders recently filled the rooftop of 75 Wall Street, a new luxury condominium atop the Andaz Wall Street hotel, for “Becoming FiDi,” a discussion of the Financial District’s residential transformation. The event brought together industry experts for a panel on foreign capital, which has been especially impactful in the Financial District.

“There is definitely an appetite for prime Manhattan real estate, particularly in Asia, and the Financial District has become one of the most sought-after areas in the entire city,” said panel participant Alistair Auty of JMA Property Services, a U.S.-based real estate corporation that works closely with foreign brokers and investors, in a release.
Hosted by The Hakimian Organization, developer of the 75 Wall Street Residences, the event began with a tour of the neighborhood led by historian Joyce Gold and continued in the building’s stunning rooftop lounge with a panel discussion moderated by Matthew Fenton, editor of The Broadsheet and seasoned FiDi reporter. The panel included Auty, Elizabeth Berger, president of the Downtown Alliance, and Amina O’Kane, director of Upper School admissions for Léman Manhattan Preparatory School.

City Council Members Will Recruit Volunteers to Escort Women to Abortion Clinics
Last Friday, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and other council members, along with representatives from Planned Parenthood, the New York Civil Liberties Union and other pro-choice organizations, gathered at City Hall to announce their upcoming “Clinic Protection Project.”

Under this program, council members will recruit and coordinate volunteers to accompany women to abortion clinics. Planned Parenthood and other reproductive health clinics already have volunteer escorts for their patients, but they say they need more. Thus Speaker Quinn and others are stepping in.

“Protesters have a right to speak their minds, but the exercise of the First Amendment should never intimidate anyone from accessing medical care,” Speaker Quinn said.
The need for a supplementary service has increased in the last few years, according to pro-choice officials, because there are more protesters outside clinics, many of whom reportedly harass women attempting to use the facilities.
“In the last three years … we’ve gone from two or three protesters on a given Saturday morning, to 50 or 60,” said Joan Malin, CEO and president of Planned Parenthood New York.
The President and CEO of Choices, Merle Hoffman, said in a phone interview that protesters outside her clinic wear vests printed with the words “Unborn Baby Protector” and also videotape the patients who enter, shaming them. Hoffman said one woman who came for an abortion arrived in a panic, because the picketers outside had said that the anesthesia would kill her.

Hoffman attributes the increase in protesters to the “rise of the radical right,” while Assemblywoman Deborah Glick said that having a pro-choice president in office has ignited the pro-life movement.

Although the details of the program are still being mapped out, Speaker Quinn said that her team will work on the recruitment and management side, and Planned Parenthood will actually train the escorts.

‘Robokid’ Takes On East Village
East Village resident Jakob Kraus, 7, who has earned the moniker “Robokid,” is a self-taught hip-hop dancer who practices the style known as “animation,” according to his father. Now his videos, which can be viewed online, are on the brink of going viral.

Jakob’s father said his son was inspired by an Atlanta-based dance crew, Dragon House, according to the Daily News. He also avidly watches So You Think You Can Dance. Jakob has never taken professional dance classes and learns his moves from YouTube, reports the News.

Margaret Chin and Elected Officials Condemn Romney/Ryan on Women’s Rights
New York City Councilmember Margaret Chin joined several New York elected officials in urging support for Barack Obama and decrying Romney and Ryan’s policies on women. Chin called the GOP’s policies on women’s reproductive rights “antiquated” and “dangerous.”

Chin said Ryan’s stances on women’s rights “show a complete disregard for women and the fact that we, too, are full, independent human beings.” Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney compiled a report on the “Top Ten Ways Romney and Ryan are Bad for American Women,” for which Chin and other officials expressed their support.

Public Theater at Astor Place to Celebrate Revitalization

The Public Theater at Astor Place will unveil and celebrate a $40 million revitalization this fall, and welcomes the public’s enjoyment of the renovations. The celebration will include eight weeks of events, some of which will be free of charge. The revitalization aims to open the building up to the community, including welcoming artists and students more readily into its midst.

The company hopes the rededication will spark renewed dialogue on the “important issues of the day.” The official opening ceremony will be on Oct. 4 at 10 a.m.

ACLU and NYCLU  Support Twitter’s Appeal to Protect User Privacy
The ACLU and NYCLU have filed a brief in support of an appeal by Twitter following a court order that it turn over an OWS demonstrator’s Twitter account information to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

Malcolm Harris, the demonstrator targeted by the district attorney’s office subpoena, and Twitter filed motions in court to avoid turning over several months of user information. Both motions were rejected, and both parties respectively appealed the decision. The NYCLU and ACLU argue Harris’ First Amendment rights to free speech are being threatened by the case.

Squadron Urges Politicians to Reveal if Bills Are Drafted by ALEC
State Sen. Daniel Squadron is calling on politicians to disclose whether the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) helps draft the bills they introduce into legislation. ALEC is not currently registered as a lobby in New York, though it receives funding from corporate members. ALEC is instead currently registered as a charitable organization.
According to a statement from Squadron’s office: “[ALEC] hosts legislators at fully paid-for ‘retreats’ and issues ‘legislative resolutions’ to be submitted by legislator-members in statehouses around the country.” Squadron insists it’s only fair to disclose ALEC’s role in drafting bills.

Danny Chen

The third military member to go on trial in connection with the Danny Chen suicide case was sentenced to three months in prison and a demotion to private. The punishment again drew the ire of the Chinatown community.

Spc. Thomas Porter Curtis pled guilty to hazing, two counts of maltreatment, and two counts of assault. Unlike the previous soldier who was tried, Spc. Ryan Offutt, Curtis was not dishonorably discharged from the military.

Curtis is the third of eight military members connected to Chen’s suicide on October 3. Prior to his suicide, Chen consistently expressed his frustration with the unprovoked hazing, and at one point indicated to a fellow soldier that it was driving him toward suicide.

After the sentencing, Council Member Margaret Chin, who has been a loud voice in the fight for Chen’s justice, again voiced her displeasure about the military’s seemingly-light punitive action.

“Spc. Curtis admitted that he targeted Danny because of his race, he admitted that he knew what he did was wrong, and he admitted that he did it anyway,” Chin said. “This is not a person who is fit to serve in the United States Military… the behavior of the soldiers tried in connection with Danny’s death paints a sordid picture of the state of our Army”

“This is a insipid threat that turns our servicemen and women against one another. Not dishonorably discharging individuals who are found guilty of hazing is to weaken the United States military.”

The case has ignited vociferous discussion about the treatment of Asian-Americans in the military and the maltreatment of lower-level recruits by their superiors.

There was an outrage after the first tried soldier, Sgt. Adam Holcomb, was sentenced to a mere 30 days in military prison, but then it seemed things were going in Chin’s direction. After Spc. Ryan Offutt was sentenced to dishonorable discharge, rank demotion, and six months in prison, Chin expressed a more satisfied attitude and indicated a step toward rightful justice. Curtis’s punishment, though, can only portend further dissatisfaction from those seeking ‘justice’ for Chen’s suicide.

The remaining five members await court marshall in Fort Bragg, N.C.

-Nick Gallinelli

The next military member to be on trial in the Danny Chen suicide case pleaded guilty on Monday, leading to a smoother resolution than Sgt. Adam Holcomb’s trial last month. Spc. Ryan Offutt reportedly pleaded guilty to charges of maltreatment and hazing.
Offutt was sentenced to six months in prison, rank demotion and discharge.

“This sentence is a victory for the Chen family and for all Americans,” Council Member Margaret Chin said in a statement regarding the decision. “The removal of Spc. Offutt from the Army is necessary to make clear that the United States military will not tolerate racism, bigotry and abuse at the hands of superior officers.”

The military court’s decision comes a couple of weeks after the controversial Adam Holcomb trial. Holcomb’s acquittal on negligent homicide charges and subsequent punishment spurred reprimand from the Chinatown community and Asian-American politicians. Holcomb was sentenced to 30 days in military prison, a fine slightly more than $1,000 and a rank demotion.

Pvt. Chen shot himself on Oct. 3 while on duty in Afghanistan. Six more soldiers await court martial in North Carolina. Chen was a Chinatown resident.

Private Danny Chen, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Sgt. Adam Holcomb was tried this week in connection with the death of Pvt. Danny Chen last October. He faces up to two years in prison. Council Member Margaret Chin and Speaker Christine Quinn, however, think he deserves more.

Chin and Quinn sent a letter yesterday to Lt. General Daniel B. Allyn, the convening authority who will decide the case’s final verdict, that asked him to impose an “appropriately serious punishment” on the Sergeant for condoning and participating in the physical and verbal abuse of the 19-year-old Manhattan native while on deployment in Afghanistan. Chen endured six weeks of the intense racially-charged hazing, then shot himself while alone in a guard tower.

Holcomb is the first of eight soldiers on trial for the abuse.  The military jury convicted him on two counts of maltreatment and one count of assault consummated by battery, though they acquitted him on charges of negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, communicating a threat and hazing.

Chin and Quinn called the punishment “too lenient,” and argued that it “would send the wrong message to the nation’s armed forces and to our country as a whole: that the United States Military tolerates this condemnable conduct.”

Holcomb’s dishonorable discharge, they said, is the only appropriate response:

“We are asking you to impose a more meaningful punishment that makes clear that the Military will not tolerate racism, bigotry, or bias. . . . The removal of Sgt. Holcomb from the Army is necessary to honor the service of Private Chen, to appropriately condemn the treatment of Private Chen, and to ensure those who serve in the Military that they should expect to treat and be treated with respect and dignity.”

Residents, politicians, activists envision impact of NYU’s long-term expansion plan

New York University scored a key victory last week as the City Council approved a slightly scaled back version of the school’s controversial 2031 expansion plan. While the project was pared down, it will still add close to 6 million square feet of academic space throughout the city. Nearly half of the expansion, equal to about the size of the Empire State Building, would be concentrated on two Washington Square-area superblocks located near the school’s main campus in Greenwich Village.

The NYU plan calls for four new buildings on the two large blocks bordered by LaGuardia Place and Mercer, West Houston and West 3rd streets. The buildings will be used for both academic and residential purposes.
The plan has generated an enormous amount of discussion and controversy both for and against since it was unveiled by NYU officials in 2010. Moreover, the Council’s approval comes at a time when residents uptown are waging a battle of their own against Columbia University’s mammoth, long-range plan in West Harlem that includes a 17-acre, $6.3 billion campus expansion.

Opponents of the NYU plan, including village residents, activists, NYU faculty members and others, have already vowed to continue the fight, including an expected legal challenge, to get the plan sent back to the drawing board and significantly revised. The plan has the support of the mayor and is unlikely to be vetoed.
But what if the current incarnation of the plan is upheld and remains largely unchanged? What will Greenwich Village look like in 2031? Will it be congested, overcrowded and largely unlivable, as many naysayers suggest, or will the plan usher in a new chapter of peaceful coexistence between NYU and its Village neighbors?

“When I ask myself what the Village will look like in 20 years, the first thing I see is large, concrete, functional-looking buildings casting long shadows over the neighborhood; absorbing all the light. The only outdoor space for people to congregate will be Washington Square Park, and you know how crowded that gets now!” said Janet Hayes, who lives in a high-rise co-op at 505 LaGuardia Place near Houston.

A longtime resident of the Village and a local Republican leader, Hayes predicted that NYU’s plan, if allowed to come to fruition, would greatly affect life in the Village and not in a good way.

“Take grocery shopping, using the dry cleaner or going out to dinner, for example—full-service restaurants will be replaced with beer halls, pizza places and other fast-food sources,” Hayes predicted.

She added that more stores would cater to NYU and transit would be a “nightmare”; subways and buses would be overcrowded all day long, and “forget catching a cab.”

In support of NYU’s plan, Borough President Scott Stringer, who most recently helped to broker concessions from the school, cited substantial economic benefits for New York City, which include the creation of 9,500 permanent jobs and as many as 18,200 construction jobs over the next 20 years.

Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, has been one of the plan’s most outspoken critics and has worked to help mobilize village residents, activists and like-minded politicians in opposition to a project he has called a “grandiose scheme of a private university’s super-rich board and its president.”

Immediately following last week’s Council vote, Berman said in a press release, “The NYU expansion plan will turn a residential neighborhood into a company town and subject it to 20 straight years of construction.”
Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit planning organization that serves the tri-state area, however, said NYU’s expansion is important to the city for many reasons.

“NYU’s continued success is vital to the economy of New York. The university is among the city’s largest private employers,” Yaro noted. “NYU can continue to attract top students and scholars only if it is able to modernize and expand…By emphasizing density, the NYU plan will avoid harming any of the Village’s historic fabric.”

Asked about possible loss of open space and congestion resulting from NYU’s plan, Council Member Margaret Chin seemed confident the issue has been addressed. “Under this plan, the open space on the superblocks will be improved and it will be fully accessible by the public for the first time,” Chin said in an emailed statement.
“The padlocks and fences around the Sasaki Garden will finally come down, and this park—which few New Yorkers know about—will finally be open to the public. We will also gain a pedestrian walkway, or ‘greenstreet,’ behind the new Zipper Building, which will connect the Village with Soho,” she said.

The Council member added that the walkway would be lined with cafés and restaurants and would have an indoor atrium open to the public year-round.

A spokesperson for Chin also noted that the university would be “bound” by a 500-page restrictive declaration document that specifies what the school can and can’t do with regard to construction, building and other logistics related to the plan.

For example, the school has committed to limit construction to the hours between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. and to limit weekend construction. In addition, the school has promised to assist with construction mitigation issues related to air quality and noise by equipping affected apartments with soundproofing materials.

“This plan is a way to start over. It is a pathway forward,” Chin said. “This plan integrates the Greenwich Village community and NYU in ways that have never been done before.”

Terri Cude, co-chair of Community Action Alliance against NYU 2031 and a member of Community Board 2 (CB2), isn’t so sure of the plan’s integration into the neighborhood.

“If NYU builds everything that is in the current plan, we will have a very dark neighborhood,” Cude said.
Asked about the various committees that were formed by NYU to address community concerns and incorporate residents’ needs into the plan, Cude said, “They attended all the meetings and listened to everything we had to say. The only thing they didn’t do is modify the plan at all based on the input.”

But the concessions brokered by Stringer in early April did in fact include a significant overall density reduction, preservation of public space as parkland, elimination of a temporary gymnasium on the site of two community playgrounds, elimination of proposed dormitories on the Bleecker Building and an affirmation of NYU’s commitment to provide space for a K-8 school.

Brad Hoylman, former chair of CB2 and candidate for state Senate in District 27, testified before the City Planning Commission back in the spring that the NYU plan would “forever alter the character of the neighborhood, bring in thousands of new people into the area [estimates suggest up to 12,000 people daily] and cause decades of construction disruption for local residents.”

Village residents and community garden members Marcia Lawther and Bob Hirschfeld moved to the neighborhood in the mid-1970s. “It’s invasive. It’s crowded enough as it is,” said Lawther when asked about the expansion.

“In the ’70s, things were much quieter, there was not much going on,” recalled Hirschfeld. “NYU was a separate world. It wasn’t elbowing its way into the community.”

However, signs of hope for the future of the project were evident on Tuesday as legislators lauded a new agreement between NYU and the residents of 505 LaGuardia Place in an effort to maintain long-term affordability at the Mitchell-Lama development.

“I am pleased a deal has been reached and much-needed affordable housing has been preserved in Greenwich Village,” said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in a prepared statement.

“This agreement guarantees that 505 LaGuardia can maintain affordability and that the working-class families that currently reside there will be able to continue to live in a neighborhood they have long called home.”