Eleven-story building planned at former site of Beth Israel Karpas Center

Sept20 Karpas demolished

CIM group is the owner of the First Avenue property, which previously housed four small buildings. (Photo by Sabina Mollot)

By Sabina Mollot

Los Angeles-based real estate investment firm CIM Group appears to be moving along with its plans for the property that used to be the Beth Israel Karpas Health Information Center.

The four small adjoining buildings on First Avenue and 18th Street across from Stuyvesant Town have finally been demolished after undergoing a lengthy asbestos abatement treatment.

Additionally, CIM Group has filed an application with the Department of Buildings to be an eleven-story residential building with some retail space. According to the filing, it will have 48,374 square feet of residential use and 6,966 of commercial (with a total 55,340). Continue reading →

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L train neighbors worried about noise, dust and diesel

The possibility of 24/7 construction on East 14th Street as the Avenue A subway entrance is being built was raised at a town hall meeting on Monday night. (Photo by Sabina Mollot)

By Maria Rocha-Buschel

East Village residents and local politicians demanded detailed mitigation plans from transit officials about noise and air quality relating to the upcoming L train shutdown at a recent town hall.

Speakers at the meeting, held on Monday night, brought up the construction that has already taken over East 14th Street and Avenue A as part of the work for the new subway entrance for the L train, with multiple others commenting on the increase in diesel buses in neighborhoods throughout Lower Manhattan.

“I think many of my neighbors were still surprised to realize that this will be a 24/7 construction zone moving forward in the months and years ahead,” Council Member Keith Powers said at the meeting, noting that he has already been hearing from constituents living near the construction zone at Avenue A who are dealing with noise, dust and vibrations in their apartments.

“That is in addition to everything else that we’ve talked about, which is making sure that people will be able to get to work every single day and get around the city,” Powers said. “I would ask again that we have a real plan to address long-term construction area around 14th Street, that we have a dust mitigation and noise plan. We can still do better in addressing these issues.”

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Former opponent of Maloney loses lawsuit against Board of Elections

Sander Hicks

By Sabina Mollot

Sander Hicks, a Brooklyn Democrat who’d been knocked off the ballot — twice — in an attempt to dethrone Congress Member Carolyn Maloney this election season, has now lost a lawsuit he’d filed against the Board of Elections.

Last month, Hicks filed a suit against the BOE after he was removed from the ballot over issues with his petitions. Hicks said he got well over the necessary number of signatures at around 5,500, with 3,500 being required for candidacy, but his petition was rejected because he’d included two addresses on the cover, one his residence and the other his work. The board then sent him a letter informing him he’d have to correct it, although, according to Hicks, he had to guess the problem because he was never told what it was.

A spokesperson for the Board of Elections did not respond to requests for comment.

The letter, Hicks said, was dated August 3, but he only received it a week later, and when he resubmitted the petitions on August 13, he was told he was too late. In response, he filed his lawsuit in the New York City Supreme Court and attended a hearing on August 30.

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Letters to the editor, Sept. 20

Sept20 Toon Cuomo deluge

Cartoon by Jim Meadows

More bikes than ever so why none left?

Re: “Two Citi Bike valet stations arrive in ST,” T&V, Aug. 30

You recently published an article about the Citi Bike racks at 20th and the FDR and First Avenue and 16th Street being made valet racks. This was great news except the rack at 20th and the FDR has been empty four of the last eight mornings I’ve gone out for a bike.

I joined Citi Bike when it first came into Manhattan. Over the last five plus years I’ve not had a bike about 95 percent of the time I’ve wanted one on weekday mornings. I’ve never understood why an area as big as PCV/ST is so underserved by Citi Bike. There are four racks now in the entire complex since the removal of the rack at 14th and B. Other areas in the city have racks every other street. Go across 13th Street and there are racks at almost every avenue.

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Police Watch: Arrests made for Kips Bay robbery, office burglaries

TEEN CHARGED WITH ROBBERIES IN KIPS BAY
Police arrested 18-year-old Amias Bettis and another teenager for an alleged robbery in front of 344 East 28th Street on Tuesday, September 11 at 1:49 a.m. A taxi driver told police that he saw Bettis and the other teen pulling on car door handles and when they got to his cab, he confronted him about it. In response, Bettis allegedly raised his hand in a fist, thrusting it at the driver. The name of the other teen is being withheld because of his young age.

Bettis was later charged at the precinct for additional robberies earlier this month.

Police said that Bettis and 30-year-old Kimberly McNulty stole a credit card while they were inside the apartment of a relative of McNulty in Stuyvesant Town at 271 Avenue C on Monday, September 10 at 1:30 a.m. McNulty was arrested inside the precinct on Thursday, September 13 at 10 a.m. and charged with robbery and possession of stolen property.

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Citi Bike seeking larger storage space

City Council Member Keith Powers, pictured with representatives from Citi Bike, helped facilitate the arrival of two valet stations in Stuyvesant Town. (Photo courtesy of Council Member Keith Powers)

By Sabina Mollot

As Town & Village reported last month, two new Citi Bike valet stations have arrived at Stuyvesant Town. Together, the two docks, one on First Avenue and 16th Street and the other on East 20th Street, increased the number of bikes available to residents by 160.

The new bikes came at the request of Council Member Keith Powers, who’d been hearing from residents that there were never any bikes at the docks in the morning.

As it turns out, this may be due in part to the fact that a space in Stuyvesant Town that was leased to Citi Bike for the storage of about 500 bikes, was reutilized to become a new gym. Since then, Citi Bike has leased a smaller space on the property, but according to Rick Hayduk, general manager of Stuyvesant Town, management is trying to find a larger space onsite for the bikes’ storage, possibly on Avenue C.

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Man found dead on train at Union Square

Union Square (Photo by Sabina Mollot)

By Sabina Mollot

A man was found dead on a train at the Union Square subway station after walking between train cars on Sunday night, police said.

The 33-year-old man, whose name has not been released, had gotten between the cars as the southbound 4 train left the 42nd Street station, but fell as the train approached 14th Street.

When police arrived at Union Square at around 10:30 p.m., the man was found inside the train, unconscious with trauma to his head. Emergency service workers took him to Mount Sinai Beth Israel, but doctors were unable to save him.

The Medical Examiner will determine the manner and cause of death and police said no criminality is suspected at this time.

 

 

 

 

Taste of Gramercy Neighborhood returns on September 29

Taste of Gramercy Neighborhood, pictured in 2016 (Photo by Maya Rader)

By Sabina Mollot

Back for its sixth year, Taste of Gramercy Neighborhood, hosted by Gramercy Neighborhood Associates, Inc., will return to Irving Place on Saturday, September 29. This year, the food festival and fundraiser will offer tastings from 25 eateries.

Each year the event has grown in popularity, with the restaurant owners often the ones to reach out to the event’s organizer to participate, the GNA’s president, Alan Krevis, said.

“We’re happy to have the restaurants back with us and we appreciate all the people who’ve been supporting us for the past six years,” he said.

Over the years, the event, which takes place under an open sky, rain or shine, has been frequented by tourists but mostly attended by local foodies.

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Local primary voters say they wanted change

Voting signs at 360 First Avenue (Photo by Maria Rocha-Buschel)

By Maria Rocha-Buschel

Governor Andrew Cuomo defeated activist and challenger Cynthia Nixon by a significant margin in the Democratic primary election on Thursday evening, with the election called for the current governor less than an hour after the polls closed at 9 p.m., although the victory was much narrower among Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village residents than it was for all five boroughs.

Citywide, Cuomo received 66.45 percent of the vote and Nixon got 33.24 percent, but of the almost 4,000 Democratic voters in Stuy Town and Peter Cooper, the governor only received 51.1 percent to Nixon’s 48.9 percent.

Incumbent Assemblymember Harvey Epstein also won his race by a large margin in the 74th District, getting 62.4 percent of the vote over newcomer Akshay Vaishampayan, who received 19.2 percent and multiple-time candidate Juan Pagan, who got 17.9 percent.

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Public can weigh in on how district dollars get spent this year

Council Member Keith Powers

By Maria Rocha-Buschel

Residents of City Council District 2 and 4 will be getting a say on how to spend $1 million that’s being allotted to each district, starting this summer.

The opportunity to weigh in on which projects are most important for the community, through a program called participatory budgeting, started citywide in 2011. This year’s cycle is currently underway and the City Council is soliciting suggestions from New Yorkers for “capital” projects, which means proposals that make improvements to physical infrastructure in spaces like city parks, public schools or any other city-owned property. “Expense” projects, which includes ideas like expanded bus service and afterschool programs, are not eligible for participatory budgeting.

City Councilmember Keith Powers is launching participatory budgeting in District 4 (covering Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, Waterside, Midtown East, Central Park South, and the Upper East Side), for the first time, as is Councilmember Carlina Rivera for District 2 (Gramercy, the East Village, Alphabet City and Kips Bay). Neither of their predecessors, Councilmember Dan Garodnick and Councilmember Rosie Mendez, participated in the program previously.

“The process for the last cycle started the year before (I was elected) and if the district didn’t start then, we needed to wait, so this is the first year we could implement it,” Powers said. “There was big growth for it in the last City Council and additional growth in it this year, in districts like this one. All the new members that didn’t have it in their district, Carlina Rivera, other new members in districts where it wasn’t previously offered, are able to take part now.”

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New sculpture at Union Square Park built around Washington monument

“Washington 20/20/20” by artist Kenseth Armstead was installed around the monument’s pedestal. (Photo by Maria Rocha-Buschel)

By Maria Rocha-Buschel

A new sculpture designed as a companion piece to the George Washington monument at Union Square Park was unveiled last Thursday.

The abstract, steel structure, titled “Washington 20/20/20” and created by artist Kenseth Armstead, references the 20 percent of the colonial population that were enslaved Africans, the 20,000 slaves in New York State in 1776 when Washington retreated from New York City and the 20 percent of Washington’s army that was African at Yorktown, Virginia, when he ultimately defeated the British in 1781. The piece was installed around the pedestal of the Washington monument at the park’s south end.

“This piece will spark fascinating discussions about representation, as well as racial and social justice in our country,” Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver said at the sculpture’s debut. “We are proud to count it among the thousands of public artworks exhibited in the 50-year history of Park’s public art program Art in the Parks.”

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Letters to the editor, Sept. 13

Sept13 Toon Streetcar

Cartoon by Jim Meadows

Stranded by disabled MTA

To the Editor: An open letter to the MTA and our local politicians.

On Thursday, Sept 6 at 2:45, on the corner of 14th Street and Avenue C, I was waiting for the westbound Ave D cross town buss. For 45 minutes I watched as eleven D buses go eastbound. Three buses going west stopped but they did not allow me to board, the driver said their buses were full.

A fourth bus stopped and the driver also did not want to assist me to board, I am handicapped and use a walker, however, a kind gentleman waiting with me picked up my walker and placed into the bus. No one got up and offered me a seat; I had to sit on my walker.

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ST/PCV apartment lottery reopening

ST buildings

By Sabina Mollot

The last time the Stuyvesant Town apartment lottery opened was in January, with slots only being made available for applicants in the upper tier of income levels, meaning those who earn a maximum of 165 percent of the area median income. As part of owner Blackstone’s deal with the city in 2015, as apartments have become available in the complex, half become market rate while the other half become available to lottery tenants. Of the lottery apartments, 90 percent of them go to tenants earning up to 165 percent of the AMI, the other 10 percent going to those earning a maximum of 80 percent of the AMI.

However, the lottery is once again reopening, and this time, applicants in both income tiers are eligible to apply for apartments, which are available in a variety of sizes in Stuy Town as well as Peter Cooper Village. The deadline to apply is October 11 and applications can be done online at stuytownlottery.com. To request an application by mail, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village Wait List, Peter Stuyvesant Station, P.O. Box 1287, New York, NY, 10009.

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Homeless man beaten to death in Kips Bay

Sept13 murder seating area

Seating area on East 27th Street seen from Mount Carmel Place (Photo via Google Maps)

By Maria Rocha-Buschel

Police arrested two homeless men for allegedly beating a third homeless man to death in Kips Bay at the end of August. Police arrested 42-year-old Joshua Sutherland and 58-year-old Ernesto Aparicio, who are now facing a murder charge in connection with the incident.

According to the district attorney’s office, a witness told police that Sutherland and Aparicio repeatedly kicked and punched the third man, who appeared to be lying unconscious on a park bench at the northwest corner of East 27th Street and First Avenue on Thursday, August 30 around 8 p.m.

A second witness told police that a short time later, he saw the victim on the ground a short distance from the bench and that Sutherland and Aparicio were still standing nearby.

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Police Watch: Naked man arrested for trespassing, Man busted for sex abuse at spa

NAKED MAN ARRESTED FOR TRESPASSING
Police arrested 35-year-old Kevin King for alleged criminal trespass inside 156 West 15th Street on Monday, September 3 at 11:57 a.m. A woman told police that she saw a naked man on the fire escape of the building entering through a broken window. Police said that King, a Queens resident, was found inside the building without permission to be there and he was allegedly inside one of the apartments with the door locked.

MAN BUSTED FOR SEX ABUSE AT SPA
Police arrested 47-year-old Pei Tian for the alleged sexual abuse of a male customer inside Living Fresh Men’s Spa at 44 East 22nd Street on Saturday, September 8 at 2:44 p.m. Police said that Tian removed the towel from the victim during a massage and used his hands to intentionally touch the victim’s buttocks and genitals without permission. The victim said that he felt uncomfortable and left the room after the incident.

SUSPECT ARRESTED FOR ASSAULT IN UNION SQUARE
Police arrested 29-year-old Gerald Mosley for alleged assault in front of 4 Union Square East on Monday, September 3 around 2:46 p.m. Police said that Mosley approached a man who was walking down the street and punched him in his arm, causing pain. He also allegedly knocked the victim’s phone out of his hand, knocking it to the ground and causing the screen to the crack. A woman also told police that Mosley allegedly punched her in the ribs, causing pain. Mosley was also charged with criminal mischief.

Continue reading →