Daily Archives: July 21, 2016

Beth Israel will no longer offer some complex procedures

Mount Sinai Beth Israel (Photo by Maria Rocha-Buschel)

Mount Sinai Beth Israel (Photo by Maria Rocha-Buschel)

By Sabina Mollot

Mount Sinai Beth Israel, which, in a few years, will be downsized to a much smaller space on East 14th Street, won’t be offering pre-planned, very complex procedures, with patients instead being sent to other Mount Sinai medical centers. However, the hospital emergency room will still be able to treat people who are in unstable conditions so that they regain stability before getting transferred elsewhere.

This seemed to be the main takeaway from a presentation at Beth Israel last Wednesday that was specifically geared towards the community of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.

The organizer of that event was the Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association, whose president, Susan Steinberg, later told Town & Village that the community’s primary concern was treatment at the emergency department.

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CB3 denies request to build higher at old Post Office site

The former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office (Photo by Sabina Mollot)

The former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office (Photo by Sabina Mollot)

By Maria Rocha-Buschel

A Community Board 3 committee recently shot down a developer’s request to build higher than zoning allows at the site of the former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office on East 14th Street. The board’s Land Use, Zoning, Public & Private Housing Committee last Wednesday unanimously voted against the zoning variance for a 12-story building. City zoning laws allow the developer to build up to eight stories at the site.

Representatives for Benenson Capital Partners, which is working on the development at the site, 432-438 East 14th Street, previously asked the committee for the variance in June. The company argued that construction costs related to the groundwater conditions made complying with affordable housing unfeasible unless the development could be built larger, the blog EVGrieve reported at the time. With the proposed change in height, the building would have 31 units of affordable housing and a total of 155 units. CB3 had asked the reps to return after the June meeting after looking into alternatives to increasing the building height.

A number of community groups spoke against the plan last week to make the development between First Avenue and Avenue A higher, including the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP), the North Avenue A Neighborhood Association, the 12th Street Block Association and the 13th Street Block Association, as well as residents of East 13th Street.
Harry Bubbins, who works with GVSHP as the East Village and special projects director, gave testimony against granting the variance because he felt it was “out of context” with the other buildings in the area.

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Letters to the Editor, July 21

Cartoon by Jim Meadows

Cartoon by Jim Meadows

Bushy tailed beasts have taken over

Re: “Are Stuy Town squirrels getting more aggressive?”, T&V, July 14

When walking through the beautiful grounds of Stuyvesant Town, it is a melancholy sight to behold  furry tailed rodents on their hind legs begging, especially female squirrels who clearly have been nursing yet another generation of newborns destined to develop into increasingly aggressive beasts.

The reports of squirrels sinking their sharp teeth into babies is just the latest phase of the invasion of the aggressive squirrel. (We know it’s true; after all we “heard” about it on the internet!) One  squirrel bite today means there will be another one tomorrow, but even more aggressive, and another deeper one the day after, and so on, until what had started as simple begging inevitably develops into ripping the flesh off of us all.

Not too long ago, I myself witnessed a woman issue a blood-curdling scream of  terror as an infant squirrel followed her, hoping that the plastic bag she carried might have a nut for him. A pox on those who say it is only a few bad apples, a few squirrelly individuals, because we know it’s not one or two or three, but many — no, not many — all of them. They are out to get us.

Clearly we residents of Stuyvesant Town are under assault. There’s no other way to look at it. We are being attacked by vicious long-toothed terrorizing monsters who will stop at nothing. It’s time to stand up to this enemy. With that in mind I have a modest proposal for a solution to the squirrel problem.

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