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Welcome
to Preserve West Park North
Because this
website is being reconstructed, some of the links may not work just
yet. The site should be back to normal by June 13, 2006.
Join our coalition to
preserve our homes and vital
neighborhood.
We call upon Mayor
Michael Bloomberg, the City
Council, the City
Planning Commission, Borough President Scott
Stringer,
and our elected
representatives to keep the commitments that permitted the development
of the West Park North area, as we now know it:
- Affordable housing
- Open spaces, light and air
- Merchants who serve our needs.
Today, owners Lawrence Gluck and
Joseph Chetrit seek to
build several luxury highrise apartments and luxury stores between 97th
and 100th
Streets -- construction that would drastically affect our quality of
life.
As stakeholders in this
neighborhood, we demand a voice in the decision-making
process.
BACKGROUND
The government planned for a
dynamic, economically and ethnically
integrated, community when it used eminent domain to condemn the homes
of many
thousands of people who previously lived
on these more than 20 square blocks of land. The original developers of
the many Mitchell-Lamas, Park
West Village, and the Frederick Douglass Houses took the land on that
premise. Any future development must honor the spirit of that intention.
Many of us have lived here long before it was
fashionable. We raised families, watched
generations come and prosper and intend to be here for the long run. We
are the
neighbors who, as urban homesteaders, built this neighborhood. We've
seen its character change from funky to
fabulous and its success is our legacy.
TODAY
Any future development on land
in our area must provide for housing
and services that meet the needs of the people now living here. The
government
must keep its commitments to this ethnically and economically diverse
community.
Join us! Click here for more information, and
check out the Frequently Asked Questions.
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JOIN US!: How can you
help?
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Posted by sue on Sunday, June 11, 2006
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We need to work together to save our
community. So please:
22
Reade Street
New York, NY 10007-1216
- Telephone Deputy Mayor
Daniel Doctoroff (212- 788-3000) and
tell him we need affordable housing, affordable shopping, and an
intact, integrated neighborhood -- with light and air.
- Volunteer. We need people to
- distribute flyers
- participate in direct action
- make photocopies
- organize their neighbors with flyers,
letter-writing, telephone and other campaigns
- notify neighbors through telephone trees
- and more!
- If you have organizational experience and
would like to be part of our planning committee, please contact us!
Please send an e-mail to PreserveWPN@yahoo.com to
volunteer.
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Media: AM New York Article on June 1  Town Meeting
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| Posted by sue on Friday, June 02 @ 14:26:47 CDT
(2 reads) |
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 AM New York
UWS
luxury tower plans stir ire
By James Fanelli
amNewYork Staff Writer
June 2, 2006
Tenants of a leafy, rent-stabilized Upper West Side community built in
the 1950s are fuming about their landlord's plans to turn part of the
property into upscale retail stores and high-rise luxury apartments.
Residents of Park West Village, a seven-building community set back on
Columbus and Amsterdam avenues between 97th and 100th streets, say the
construction of a mixed-use development on open space would block
sunlight and cut them off from their neighbors.
advertisement
PWV Acquisition LLC intends to develop a strip of high-end retail
stores on Columbus Avenue, in front of the three Park West Village
buildings it owns. It also plans to build a 29-story tower with
market-rate rentals at the same spot. The high rise would occupy space
now set aside for trees, benches and parking.
"The people who moved to Park West Village came because it was an oasis
of trees and open spaces," said Lois Hoffmann, president of the Park
West Village Tenants Association, who was one of the organizers of a
town hall meeting last night to discuss the development. She added that
tenants have been left in the dark about the development plans.
In a statement, PWV Acquisition LLC said it is meeting with elected
officials, tenants and the community about the development.
"We look forward to a continuing dialogue about this new, mixed-use
development," the statement said. "We expect to bring much needed new
retail to serve this community."
Kathleen Cudahy, a spokeswoman for the property owners, said the high
rise would be centered in the middle of the block, to maximize the
amount of sunlight the three buildings would receive. She also said the
luxury tower and the nearest building would be 200 feet apart, allowing
for open space.
Tenants said the future development has already wreaked havoc on the
community. The site of the planned commercial space was formerly
occupied by local merchants who were given notice to vacate last fall.
In early May, tenants protested the loss of neighborhood stores when
the last of the shopowners, a C-Town grocery mart, shut down.
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Media:
New York Times, City Section
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Ready or Not, a Neighborhood
Gets a Makeover
Costas Kondylis
& Partners
An artist's rendering of the new high-rise and stores coming to Park
West Village.
By ALEX MINDLIN
Published:
June 11, 2006
Last Monday, a half-dozen
neighbors met in a sunny
apartment at Park West Village, a U-shaped complex of seven buildings
in the upper West 90's. They were indulging in a neighborhood pastime:
remembrance of stores past.
At the C-Town
supermarket, "their meats were always fresh," said Lois Hoffmann, 72,
who has close-cropped white hair and was wearing bright red lipstick.
Neighbors
often met at the Central Park Cafe, formerly at 97th Street and
Columbus Avenue. "My 96-year-old neighbor could walk to that corner,
and that's as far as she could walk," said Paul Bunten, a thin,
fast-talking decorator with swept-back gray hair. "That was her senior
nutrition program."
Someone else mentioned the cafe's
floor-to-ceiling windows. "To heck with that!" said Dean Heitner, a
wiry man with a thick mustache. "I miss the Hungarian waitresses."
They
won't be back; nor will two dozen other stores that ringed the complex.
PWV Acquisitions, the company that owns Park West Village's rental
apartments, began emptying the retail spaces last fall. This summer,
two years of new construction and remodeling is scheduled to begin; PWV
plans to add about 90,000 square feet of underground retail space and
replace the old neighborhood stores with new chain stores.
What
worries residents most is not the changing commercial landscape but a
development known locally as the Spike. PWV plans a 29-story wafer of
glass and steel at 808 Columbus Avenue, in the middle of Park West
Village. The building, to be completed in 2008, will be 13 stories
taller than its immediate neighbors and will cut off the bottom of Park
West Village's "U," filling some open space and funneling residents
bound for Columbus Avenue through two covered walkways.
"It's like the Berlin Wall," Mr.
Bunten said.
But
the hundreds of people who attended a rally June 1 opposing the tower
seemed to be protesting a certain kind of gentrification as much as the
loss of shortcuts or cherished sight lines.
"The sort of
tenants attracted to luxury rental buildings are a transient population
who have a fortress mentality," Mr. Bunten said. "They tend to consume
the resources of the neighborhood, but they don't give back to the
community. They come here for a couple of years out of college, and
they get a high-paying job on Wall Street. Then they leave."
Martin
McLaughlin, a spokesman for PWV, said the company would add green space
to the complex by moving the current parking lots underground and
putting grass on the reclaimed space. The new building will not block
many views, he added, and he said the new stores would be better and
more numerous than the old ones.
"Change is change," he said.
Referring to the tenants of the complex, he added: "Obviously they
don't think it's for the better. I think the retail is much better, and
they may appreciate it at some point." ALEX MINDLIN
___________________________________________________________________
Respond with your own letter to
the editor of the Times: letters@nytimes.com.
Make sure to mention what we want::
- Affordable housing
- Affordable shopping
- An integrated, intact community
- Light and air
and whatever else you think is important.
Please send a copy to us at PreserveWPN@yahoo.com.
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| Posted by sue on Thursday, June 01 @ 15:51:07
CDT (3 reads) |
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News
from
PRESERVE WEST PARK NORTH
788 Columbus Ave., 8-O, New York, NY
www.preservewpn.org
For Release Thursday, June 1,2006
Press
Contact: Joan Paylo, 917-941-4546
jpaylo@aol.com
Speak Out Against ‘The
Spike’;
Battle Forms Around
Over-Development
of Park West Village and West Park
North Community
NEW YORK,
June 1, 2006 – As
many as 500 residents will jam
an impassioned Town Hall Speak Out to save the heart of Park West
Village from being pierced by a glass
tower. It is set for 7 p.m. Thursday, June 1, at P.S. 163 on West 97th
Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues, Manhattan.
The people
will express what they would like to see built in
the area, if anything, to preserve the amazing diversity and character
of the
neighborhood. Manhattan Borough
President Scott Stringer, Assemblymember Daniel O’Donnell and City
Councilmember Melissa Mark Viverito, who have been working with the
community,
also will speak.
Preserve
West Park North, a new coalition of
neighborhood activists, organized the Speak Out after they spotted an
ad in a
real estate magazine two weeks ago. It
was an artist’s rendering that showed part of their community, the
stretch of Columbus Avenue between 97th to 100th Streets,
barely recognizable, looking like a glitzy midtown street. In the
drawing, three uninterrupted blocks with
235,000 square feet of upscale glass shops supported a centerpiece – a
29-story
luxury residential tower jutting up from what is now an airy esplanade
of 45-year-old
shade trees.
Finally,
the residents had a picture of what their landlord
intended to do to their unique community of almost 5,000 people, whose
original
planners had carefully balanced the size and shape of buildings with
open space
and sky around them. These proposed
glass buildings would stick out like a sore thumb amidst the subdued
red brick
16-story architecturally uniform apartment houses that now sit placidly
on
landscaped lawns.
Residents
dubbed the alien-looking tower “The Spike,” “El
Pincho” in Spanish.
This
mammoth structure being marketed by their landlord
would cut off the three Park West Village rental buildings on Columbus
Avenue from the four mixed condo and rent
stabilized buildings on Central Park West, creating a barrier that
would slice
their original planned community in half. If the plan is realized, the
superblock holding 784, 788 and 792
Columbus Avenue will be without direct access to Columbus Avenue and
will no longer
be physically unified with their sister buildings 372, 382, 392 and 400
Central
Park West. Landscaped green spaces that
were part of the village’s original late 1950s plan would be built on
or paved
over. Resident parking lots would
disappear.
Already
four blocks of local shops that served the community
– including the diner, discount store, hardware store, bakery,
restaurant, deli
and supermarket – are boarded up, perhaps for years. And residents
believe “The Spike” is only the
beginning.
“There is
more land here to be dug up. We just don’t know his strategy.” said
Lois
Hoffmann, president of the Park West Village Tenants Association. She
added that the city may be formulating
plans to build on open spaces in the Frederick Douglass complex, too.
For months
landlord Laurence
Gluck and his partner Joseph
Chetrit had kept their plans under wraps. The first indication that
development was afoot came last September,
when 11 local shops and eateries that lined the village along Columbus
and Amsterdam received notices to vacate. Community pressure
managed to keep them open for a few extra months. The C-Town
supermarket – geared to serve a
range of familes from condo owners to working and poor families – was
the last
to close on May 5. The community held a
rally with 300 people pushing empty shopping carts to show their
distress. But despite pleas from residents and elected
officials, the landlord withheld his grand scheme from the people who
would be
most affected…until that illustration surfaced in the trade magazine.
“Fifty
years ago, Robert Moses encouraged the city to
acquire this land by eminent domain. It
was sold to developers at bargain prices in order to create attractive,
affordable housing for working and middle class families,” said Vivian
Dee,
president of Preserve West Park North. “The people built a unified
neighborhood that has endured for
years. Is it justified that someone should
buy this property and make an enormous profit by dismantling what was
created
as a special planned community?”
“The
original plans for Park West Village created the Central Park West and
Columbus Avenue superblocks and developers were
allowed to build seven large buildings of 300 and 400 apartments each
in
exchange for open spaces,” Hoffmann added. “At least 5,000 people call
these 2,500 apartments home. If someone is going to affect our
community
by increasing the acceptable density of housing and by disregarding the
needs
of our longstanding community, we have to have a voice.”
The
closing of the shopping strips was the catalyst for
forming Preserve West Park North, a coalition of resident, community
and
religious groups between Central Park West and Amsterdam Avenue, from
86th to
106th Streets. It is a formalization of
the close-knit relationship among activists who live in Park West
Village;
current and former Mitchell-Lamas such as Tower West, Central Park
Gardens,
Town House West and Westgate; and NYCHA-owned Frederick Douglass
Houses. Their motto: “Nothing About Us Without Us.”
Residents
have so far gathered almost 2,000 petition
signatures to present to Mayor Bloomberg, Planning Commissioner Amanda
Burden
and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. The petition asks them
to save and preserve Park West Village and Frederick Douglass Houses
and
to assure that any future development meets the needs of the
surrounding
community. They have hired a lawyer.
At the
Speak-Out, the group will survey the attendees to
find out what they would like to see in the community, explained Sue
Susman,
president of Central Park Gardens and founder of the citywide
Mitchell-Lama web site
www.save-ml.org.
“We want a
voice in what happens in our neighborhood, to
protect our homes particularly in the longstanding community between
97th and
100th Streets between Central Park West and Amsterdam Avenue,” Susman
said. “Among other things, we want to stay healthy
with light and air and open space. We
want affordable shopping and affordable housing. We want our community
to stay intact.”
Hoffmann
summed it up: “We had restaurants where neighbors would gather and
places to shop and
now you have to walk blocks and blocks just to get a newspaper or a cup
of
coffee. They’re chipping away our hometown feeling.”
# # #
6/1/06
(For more
background on Preserve West Park North, you may refer to the web site
www.preservewpn.org,
where you will find the news release and clips from the May 6 Shopping
Cart Rally.)
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| Town Hall Meeting - June 1st |
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| Posted by sue on Sunday, May 28 @ 11:36:49 CDT
(6 reads) |
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SPEAK OUT AGAINST "THE SPIKE" !
Join your neighbors in the Preserve West Park
North Coalition on
- THURSDAY,
JUNE 1, AT 7 P.M., AT PS 163 (West
97th Street between Columbus and
Amsterdam).
DEMAND that the people who live here
have a say in
what is built here. “The Spike” is only the beginning. More
buildings are being planned, filling every open space with luxury
housing.
If you want affordable housing, affordable local stores, trees and a
chance to see the sky once in a while, come to voice your needs and
concerns.
_________________________________
Click here
to
see an artist's rendering from a real estate magazine where the
landlord is already advertising three contiguous blocks of retail space
(“over
235,000 Square Feet”) on Columbus from 97th to 100th
Street, available for high-end commercial space. Note that only half of
the height of the 29-story-plus residential luxury tower (“The Spike”)
is shown and more are planned. This huge structure would cut off access
to Columbus Avenue for 784, 788 and 792, and add a road somewhere, thus
splitting the original village in two and dismantling the superblocks
and our sense of community.
Click here
for a copy of the flyer announcing the meeting -- in English and
Spanish. You need Acrobat Reader to download this file. You can get Acrobat
Reader for free. |
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| Media: Crain's New York, May 17, 2006
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| Curbed Publication on ''The Spike'' |
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| Posted by sue on Friday, May 26 @ 13:02:56 CDT
(5 reads) |
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 This
story is from a publication that obviously wants to "celebrate" these
luxury invasions that will permanently change the middle- and
working-class neighborhood that we built. Click on the underlined name
of the article to see it on the actual website.
More UWS Upzoning:
808 Columbus Eyes 29 Stories
Thursday,
May 18, 2006, by Lockhart
With the upper Upper West
Side already awaiting the completion of Extell's twin Ariel
West and Ariel East
developments on Broadway and 99th, folks over on Columbus Avenue have
their own megaproject to celebrate. A Curbed correspondent reports:
Community Board 7
is up in arms over a proposal to develop a 29-story
residential tower with commercial space fronting Columbus Ave.
The site in question sits on the super-block between 97th and 100th St
that used to be occupied by several commercial vendors, including a
recently closed C-Town on the corner of 100th and Columbus. The site is
being developed by the beloved Extell, and is being
fought by all the usual suspects, including residents of Park West
Village.
Last night Community Board
7's 97th-110th St Task Force approved a
draft resolution that would rezone Extell's proposed with a
height-ceiling to prevent proliferation of 808 Columbus Aves - but
since that site is being developed as is, there's nothing the Community
Board of the City Planning Commission can do to stop 808.
No word yet on the Stop Extell blog, nor
renderings of 808 Columbus, though Crain's has a few details about the
commercial space. Anyone know more?
· Columbus
Avenue retail project moves forward [Crain's]
· Where
Supermarkets Fell, Ariel East and West Rise [Curbed]
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| Media: West Side Spirit, May 25, 2006
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| Media: CBS Eyewitness News Report
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| Posted by sue on Tuesday, May 16 @ 15:31:14 CDT
(6 reads) |
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May 6, 2006
Click here for a video clip of the CBS (Channel 2)
news report on Preserve West Park North.
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| Media: West Side Spirit, May 11, 2006
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| Posted by sue on Tuesday, May 16 @ 15:25:34 CDT
(5 reads) |
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From the West Side Express page, May 11, 2006
SHOPPING CART
PROTEST -- Shopping carts
in hand, West
Side residents and elected officials convened May 6 for a rally to
protest the closing of local neighborhood stores and to express their
displeasure at being left out of the planning process for a yet-to-be
unveiled development.
The stores, which
populated a superblock hemmed by 97th Street,
Columbus Avenue, 100th Street an Amsterdam Avenue, were all emptied by
the landlord over the course of the last few months to make way for a
commercial and residential development. The property's owners, Stellar
Management and the Chetrit Group, have not yet made plans public.
"The places that
made a community cohesive are gone," said Vivian Dee,
president of the newly formed Preserve Park WEst North Coalition, which
organized the rally. Dee added that close to 300 signatures were
gathered at the event on a petition demanding that the community be
involved in the site's plans.
Kathleen Cudady, a spokeswoman for the owners, said
demolition should start "within the next few weeks."
"We are sharing the
plans right now with elected officials," she said.
"As soon as that's done, we want to have some sort of community forum."
Manhattan Borough
President Scott Stringer, who spoke at the rally, said, "We want
the community to have a seat at the table in planning its own future."
Assembly Member Daniel O'Donnell and Council Member Melissa Mark Viverito, among others, also spoke at the event.
Click
here to see the accompanying
photo.
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