Volume 17 • Issue 24 | Nov. 5 – Nov. 12, 2004
Downtown local
I-Nadler-man
Don Imus opened his radio and MSNBC show at 6 a.m. Election Day voting in his Upper West Side polling place. Imus said he was voting for U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, whose district includes most of Downtown Manhattan. Nadler, a Democrat, would have won without the I-Man’s vote as he won with 80 percent of the vote against Peter Hort, his Republican challenger. Imus, who often supports Republicans but voted for John Kerry, apparently was in a Democratic state of mind.
Aging parents conference
The New York County Lawyers’ Association is holding a free public forum on the legal issues confronting adult children when caring for aging parents.
The one and a half-hour forum, held on Wednesday, November 10th at 6 p.m. at the assoicationn’s headquarters on 14 Vesey St., will cover topics such as powers of attorney, living wills, health care proxies, guardianships, and Medicaid planning.
The guest speaker of the evening will be Clifford A. Meirowitz, Chairperson of NYCLA’s Elder Law Committee.
To ensure a place at the forum, e-mail infor@nycla.org or fax 212 406 9252. If you require wheelchair access, call 212-267-6646 to make arrangement, giving at least one days notice.
Reviving old Vinyl
The home of now defunct club Vinyl at 157 Hudson St. might get bigger if the building’s owner gets approval from the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission for a three-story addition.
Developer Peter Moore Associates recently filed an application with the commission to alter the ground floor and construct a three-story rooftop addition with mechanical equipment. It has also requested the commission to support its bid to convert the Renaissance Revival building from manufacturing use to mixed residential and commercial use. Moore is also developing two eight-story condos, one on Spring and Renwick Sts. and the other on Washington and Canal Sts.
Once the home of the club Vinyl, which in the late 1990s came under heavy fire for am on-premises shooting and illegal drug use, the late 19th century building is now virtually derelict, according to a resolution passed at Community Board 1’s Oct. 19 full board meeting.
Despite the landmark’s committee approval for the restoration and the residential conversion, it was split on its support for a three-story height addition and ultimately declined to comment on the addition in the resolution. “Some people thought it shouldn’t have gone taller,” said landmark’s committee chairperson Bruce Ehrmann. “It remained an even split.”
The Landmarks Commission is reviewing the application.
C.B. 1 meetings
The upcoming week’s schedule of Community Board 1 committee meetings is below. Unless otherwise noted, all committee meetings are held at the board office located at 49 Chambers St., Room 709.
On Mon., Nov. 8 the WTC Redevelopment Committee will meet at 6 p.m. in Assemblymember Sheldon Silver’s Office, 250 Broadway, Assembly Hearing Room, 19th Floor for a report by the Urban Land Institute about a WTC and Lower Manhattan Retail study.
On Tues., Nov. 9 the Seaport/Civic Center Committee will meet at 5:30 p.m. for an update on the NYU Downtown Hospital site development; and to discuss the following proposed subway booth closures: Chambers St. on the J line and Brooklyn Bridge on the 4 line.
Stuy designers
A team of Stuyvesant High School students is designing ads calling attention to the issue of adult literacy in a competition sponsored jointly by the Association of Graphic Communications and Literacy Partners, a non-profit organization that teaches adult and family literacy.
The Stuyvesant group is one of 27 teams of graphic arts students representing 12 schools in the competition working to develop advertising to educate the public about adult literacy issues.
The winning team is to be announced soon.
Counting cars
Ian Dutton, a public member of Community Board 2’s traffic and transportation committee, said he recently noticed workers for the Department of Transportation doing traffic counts on Houston St. D.O.T.’s plan to reconstruct Houston St. from Bowery to West St. — including installing left-turn bays for cars at W. Broadway and Mercer Sts. and narrowing traffic islands in these crosswalks — has generated strong community opposition. Adding to this sentiment, D.O.T. did not disclose Houston St. traffic counts before. The traffic count “is at least a small victory — they have finally responded to the community,” said Shirley Secunda, the committee’s vice chairperson. Although residents are happy D.O.T. has agreed to retain and even add median tips at all intersections, they still have demands to improve the plan, Secunda said.
WWW Downtown Express
