The most egregious example of why neighborhood rezoning is important for the Lower East Side literally just happened on my doorstep on Clinton St.: I was walking into my building, and a guy in a blue t-shirt ran up to me. "Excuse me," he said. "What's this street like at night?"

I shrugged. "Are you thinking of moving here?" Maybe he was unaware that the LES became 'safe' for us white folks years ago.

"Well, I'm thinking of opening a bar around the corner on Rivington."

I proceeded to tell him that the neighborhood was pretty well saturated with bars already, and a lot of us community folks had problems with new bars not only opening, but then completely disrespecting the neighborhood. Some weren't like that -- I pointed to Barramundi, for example, who recently relocated across the street from me after being kicked off of Ludlow St. "They live upstairs, and have a kid and all. They keep folks who are smoking quiet and down to a minimum."

"Well, if people are smoking outside, there's nothing I can do about that," he said.

I looked at him, dumbfounded. "Of course there is," I said. "You can have your bouncer/door guy making sure people aren't raising hell so that families around here can sleep at night. They've lived here for 50 years, and you can't tell them they now can't sleep at night. I can go live somewhere else if I want to. They can't."  read more »

The Villager
http://www.thevillager.com/villager_111/organizationalmeetingon.html
Volume 75, Number 4 | June 15- 21, 2005

Organizational meeting on downzoning and landmarking on the Lower East Side
By David Katz

People, politicians and community organizations who have been active in zoning and landmarking issues on the Lower East Side have been invited to an educational forum at the Clayton Gallery, 161 Essex St., on Mon., June 20 at 6 p.m.

"This will not be a rally," emphasized organizer and gallery owner Clayton Patterson. "It is strictly an informational meeting in which groups involved in the struggle to preserve our communities will speak, and in which the politicians who have shown up at their rallies will also be invited to comment, and state what they think can be done about the situation."

Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, which is spearheading the movement for downzoning the Far West Village to prevent out-of-scale construction from destroying the character of the neighborhood, will speak about the lessons learned there, and how they can be applied to the East Village. Richard Kusack, of The Committee for Zoning Inaction, will address "Trojan horse zoning," the bait-and-switch process by which developers misuse or misrepresent their projects as community facilities and dormitories in order to erect hotels and luxury housing; also invited are representatives from L.O.C.O; the Ludlow-Orchard Community Organization, who have been involved in the fight against the construction of a 24-story luxury hotel directly opposite a proposed 15-story luxury condominium on Orchard St. between Houston and Stanton Sts.; the East Village Community Coalition, involved in the fight to preserve St. Brigid¹s church and annex on Avenue B and the old P.S. 64 on E. Ninth St.; and representatives from 4 E. Third St., 47 East Third St. and 81 E. Third St., sites of recent protests over such issues as overdevelopment and construction not conforming with Buildings Department guidelines.  read more »

Karen Finley explains over at the Huff Post what really happened to the West Side stadium:

Let me tell you the real reason the Olympic stadium didn’t go through. It’s pay back time. New York City is sick and tired of having the party in their house, providing the booze, food, the space and then everyone putting their cigarettes out on our rug. After last summer’s hosting of the Republican Convention, (even though 75 percent of Manhattan voted for Kerry) New Yorkers have had enough.

Who loves Karen? I do, I do!

On a side note, I got to see her give a lecture and have dinner with her this spring as part of the Study Abroad on the Bowery program I was helping to produce. If you've got some spare time this summer, I highly recommend it... you'll never take part in anything like it.