The New York Times does a few person-on-the-street interviews along Grand Street about Sheldon Silver’s arrest and discovers — surprise! — mixed opinions from his neighbors.
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“Baloney you”
Ah, the joys of apartment living:
Fine Fare is ready for Valentine’s Day
New designs revealed for Essex Crossing phase one
The Lo-Down has renderings and info about the first buildings that will go up as part of the massive Essex Crossing development. Old buildings should start coming down this spring, and shovels may hit dirt this summer, but don’t expect this all to be over for another ten years.
Meanwhile, Curbed reveals that plans for underground parking have been scrapped by the DOT, citing concerns that adding a significant number of cars to the neighborhood would exacerbate a traffic problem already caused by the Delancey Street/Williamsburg Bridge thoroughfare.
Here are the first four building designs:
Site 2 is the big one, on the southeast corner of Essex & Delancey. This is where the 14-screen movie theater will go, as well as the updated Essex Market. The tower will be 24 stories with close to 200 apartments.
Site 1 will take up the parking lot between Essex and Ludlow on Broome Street. An annex of Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum will face Essex Street, with other commercial spaces facing Ludlow and Broome. The 14-story tower will have 55 condos.
Site 5 is the one part of the project that touches Grand Street on the block between Clinton and Suffolk. A large supermarket is planned for the Grand Street commercial space (this is right across the street from Seward’s Fine Fare), a public park sits along Broome Street, and the 15-story tower will contain 211 apartments.
Site 6 sits east of Clinton Street between Broome and Delancey. The 14-story tower contains 100 apartments for low-income seniors. Grand Street Settlement is expected to run programs for seniors, and a health care clinic may take up residence on the first and second floors.
NYC Parks accepting comments on Jackson Playground through Wednesday
Last week’s community meeting on the Jackson Playground redesign was just the first step in the process to renovate that park with funds from the Community Parks Initiative.
If you were not able to make the meeting but would still like to offer your comments, you may do so online through Wednesday, January 14.
Next steps: NYC Parks will develop a plan and schematic that will be shared at a CB3 meeting this spring; later in the spring will be another meeting about how community members might collaborate to program events and activities at the park.
Thanks to Michael Marino of Friends of Corlears Hook Park for keeping us abreast of these developments.
Bad timing, quick fix: early morning boiler room shutdown
At 5:45 this morning, management sent out the following email:
Please be advised that the Boiler Room is having and electrical problem with the boilers. The crews are in and working on this problem.
We apologize for this inconvenience.
Less than an hour later, this update:
We have repaired the electrical problem in the Boiler Room and the steam and hot water is starting to flow everybody should have heat and hot water by 8:30.
Again we apologize for this inconvenience.
And then another update at 8:15:
As said in my prior email everything has been completed and we are pushing the steam slowly so we do not overload the system. We will then be pushing out the hot water. By 11:00 we will be in full operation with the steam and hot water.
Again we apologize for this inconvenience.
Have a Good Day
(Are you on the coop email list? If not, you can sign up here.)
Afternoon update: here’s the full narrative of heroics from Gary Altman:
Community input sought for Jackson Playground redesign, January 7 at 6:00 p.m.
The Henry M. Jackson Playground sits just barely outside our coop’s boundary, across Jackson Street from Fine Fare and behind the old public school-turned-upscale condos (someday) on Madison Street.
There’s a wide-open space for basketball, a great urban mural, handball, and other playground equipment — all of which, apparently, due for an upgrade as part of the Community Parks initiative recently announced by the de Blasio administration.
The NYC Parks Department is looking for community input to help redesign and renovate the playground and facilities; an open meeting will be held on Wednesday, January 7 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the Manny Cantor Center, 197 East Broadway, 6th floor.
Treecycle your xmas tree at Corlears Hook through January 11
Bring your xmas tree to the comfort station inside Corlears Hook Park and the NYC Parks Department will take care of carting it away and mulching it for wood chips to be used in parks and gardens around the city.
Big U public hearing on January 15
Our relationship to the East River was changed forever when Sandy hit in 2012. In response, an ambitious project called the Big U has been proposed to protect lower Manhattan from another storm surge.
The first phase of the storm barrier, from 23rd Street to Montgomery along the east side, was promised $335 million in federal funds this summer.
A public hearing on this plan is taking place on January 15 at 7:00 p.m. at the Manny Cantor Center, 197 East Broadway, 6th floor.
This project is likely to completely reshape the land between the FDR Drive and the River and directly affect East River cooperators.
NY Times: Silver under investigation for ties to East River tax cert lawyers
The New York Times is reporting that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is under federal investigation for “substantial” unreported income from the tax certiorari firm that has represented East River Housing Corp for many years.
According to the article, Silver has received money from the firm Goldberg & Iryami for over a decade without disclosing that information on financial disclosure forms as required by law. It is not known what work Silver was being compensated for.
Goldberg has represented East River and Hillman, as well as many other properties on the lower east side, for the purpose of lowering property tax bills. Firms such as these typically receive from their clients a percentage of the reduction they win from the city.
The Times cites unnamed sources “with knowledge of the matter.” They printed no comment from the FBI, the US Attorney, or Speaker Silver.