Mayor Bloomberg, Part II - The Blanding of New York City

Mayor Bloomberg at a "Dead End"

Chinatown and Lower Manhattan residents protested on Tuesday in front of the Municipal Building bearing 10,000 signatures signaling their opposition to the City Planning Commission’s new rezoning proposal which omits their neighborhood. This omission signals open season for developers, endless construction and the displacement of long-time residents and businesses leading to the further homogenization of another of the city’s unique neighborhoods.

The International Herald Tribune reported in June that Mayor Bloomberg “has rezoned vast swaths of the city to accommodate bigger, more densely populated buildings, encouraging the construction of millions of square feet of office space, hotel rooms and housing. Over all, the number of construction permits for new buildings or major renovations issued by the Department of Buildings has soared 23.3 percent over the past five years.”

The result of all this is a construction boom, signaled by large signs on virtually every block blaring the same two words: “luxury housing.” Existing tenants in smaller, quaint buildings get displaced, the buildings are torn down, diversity and any resemblance to the ‘past’ is bulldozed over, and neighborhood after neighborhood starts to look the same.

As these changes go on around them, long-time landlords with long-time small business tenants start to raise rents, doubling, tripling the figures and those tenants are soon gone and replaced. As if they’re expendable. As if they never existed. The fabric of one too many neighborhoods is frayed, coming apart at the seams.

Yet, this is the climate Mayor Bloomberg’s New York promotes and encourages.

Juan Gonzalez writes about the “Lower East Side rezone plan another Mike Bloomberg boondoggle” in today’s New York Daily News:

“Theirs [Chinatown/Lower East Side residents] is a story that has become all-too familiar during the Bloomberg era: another stable neighborhood turned upside down by a massive rezoning. The sheer number of these rezonings - from Columbia University to Hudson Yards to Greenpoint-Williamsburg (Brooklyn) to Willets Point - boggles the mind.”

Gonzalez continues, “City officials routinely claim it’s for the good of the neighborhoods, but in the end a handful of well-connected developers and Big Box stores end up the big winners. Small businesses and low-income New Yorkers keep getting pushed out.”

It’s no coincidence that our city is vanishing at such a quick pace. It’s the blanding of our city, put into place in neighborhood after neighborhood, public space after public space, to create the City that Mayor Bloomberg, a billionaire, envisions. It’s a less interesting one but the billionaires and their friends are happy. That’s what matters, right?

What’s the answer?

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Photo: RS Eanes

New York Press: The father-son dynamics of (GreenMarket founder) Barry and (Parks Commissioner) Adrian Benepe face off over Union Square

Union Square GreenMarket

New York Press’ cover story this week provides a revealing look into what’s going on behind-the-scenes at Union Square with an article by Kimberly Thorpe entitled, “Does Father Know Best? New York City’s parks commissioner squares off against his father over the future of Union Square.” It’s a very much revealing piece about Parks Commissioner Benepe and his father Barry, a well known figure in the city who is an “80-year-old urban planner and founder of the Union Square Greenmarket.”

The plans at Union Square, among other controversial items (i.e., installation of a restaurant in public space and destruction of 14 mature trees), call for a lined row of trees in front of the Pavilion on the northern end of the Park. The senior Benepe is quite concerned about this ruining the potential for this area as a public gathering space. He writes in an email (one of several printed in the article) to his son: “Why did you not put the trees on the outer perimeter of the square? You would have gotten far more trees and left the square itself unencumbered for public gatherings as all great squares in the world are. You would have tree shaded sidewalks for cafes where they should be, surrounding the park, not in the park.”

Some background from the article:

The task of executing the Bloomberg initiative by improving the multitude of parks and public spaces has fallen to Adrian Benepe, who had been appointed commissioner by the mayor in January 2002—and who has since been criticized by park activists for his willingness to let private enterprise dictate the direction of his plans. Most recently, under fire from neighborhood leaders who took him to court and lost, Benepe pushed through a $16 million renovation of Washington Square Park. In that somewhat dubious project, the main goal was to move the historic fountain there over by roughly 20 feet, just so the famous landmark would better align with the Washington Square arch.

Still, Adrian Benepe has moved forward in the face of criticism and even lawsuits, often belittling those who stand in the city’s path.

“People have the luxury to care about, worry about and get vociferous about parks these days,” he told Governing 21 magazine in March. “There’s time to worry about small things, so it can be a matter of great debate whether you plant petunias or tulips.”

Adrian Benepe refused requests to be interviewed for the NY Press article. But, talk about being snarky and dismissive while ignoring the very heart of what the issues are. “Parks activists” would wish that the arguments were about planting petunias vs. tulips. The issues are - across the city, including Union Square Park and Washington Square Park - of privatization, reduction in public space, abuse of history, mass destruction of mature trees, abuse of public trust, lies from public officials, etc.

Then there is also the issue of that pesky restaurant that the Union Square Partnership (the local BID, business improvement district, led by restauranteur Danny Meyer) wishes to place in the historic Pavilion. Senior Benepe believes that — despite the court ruling to stop work on any restaurant (which after talking it up all over town, Parks Commissioner Benepe told the court that the restaurant was never a done deal) — work on the restaurant has been continuing. Barry Benepe states, “Everything is really restaurant driven, even though they want to pretend it’s not.”

Barry Benepe’s belief is that “the success of the park depended less on his son’s vision (WSPB note: vision?) and more on making each part of it work together—and restoring it to its once-regular role as a central meeting place for rallies, as it had been in the 19th century.” He states that “the current design for the plaza is arbitrary and comical.”

The article goes into the Benepe family history - Adrian Benepe was one of five children from two wives and his father was not very involved in his life in his childhood years - and Adrian Benepe’s rise to Parks Commissioner under Mayor Bloomberg.

Barry Benepe’s wish is to influence his son’s view on Union Square Park and its potential to be one of the great public spaces. He writes in an email dated June 17th: “Generally, the entire square must be conceived as a room into which pedestrians and cyclists enter with joy and anticipation and through which vehicles pass slowly and carefully, a handsome and beautiful room open to the sky inspiring delight and wonder. …It is important that the park be the major landscape statement in the heart of this public place and that its design not be muddied by attempting to extend the park into the square.”

It does not surprise me, that, despite a solid back-and-forth up to this point, it was at this juncture that his son, Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, stopped responding.

NY Daily News: “Kiss my grass, Mayor Bloomberg” by Michael O’Keefe

There has been much to report on Parks in the news lately … I’m still catching up! Michael O’Keefe, the New York Daily News Sports writer, wrote this past Sunday about the upcoming Jon Bon Jovi concert on Central Park’s Great Lawn:

Fans of Sayreville’s own Bon Jovi have apparently learned how to defy the laws of gravity! Either that, or Mayor Bloomberg and his administration are once again rolling over for sports teams and leagues.

Back in August 2004, as it was becoming crystal clear that the Bush administration had cynically exploited the Sept. 11 attack to drag America into a pointless war in Iraq, thousands of people from around the world came to New York to voice their outrage during the Republican National Convention.

Anti-war groups hoped to channel that anger with a massive demonstration in Central Park, but the city refused to issue the necessary protest permits. Peace, love and understanding, the city argued in federal court, is not healthy for Great Lawn grass and other living things.

But when Major League Baseball and its corporate sponsors decided to host a Bon Jovi concert this coming Saturday, in conjunction with the July 15 All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium, nobody in the Bloomberg administration apparently raised a Sambora about the grass. Is Bloomberg livin’ on a prayer, hoping Bon Jovi fans will hover over the Great Lawn?

The Bloomberg administration will argue that this is all about numbers - the 60,000 rock fans expected for the Bon Jovi concert won’t have the same impact on the grass as the 250,000 protesters United for Peace and Justice hoped to rally in Central Park in 2004.

But given how Bloomberg has consistently put the greed of the sports teams - especially the Yankees, Mets and Nets - over the needs of ordinary citizens, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

As Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez pointed out last week, City Hall is backing a Yankee request for $366 million in additional tax-exempt financing to complete the new Yankee Stadium - a very expensive handout for a private business that employs a tiny number of New York residents.

Lawyers for Willets Point businesses, meanwhile, say the city has refused to provide even basic services to the neighborhood for years. So is it coincidence or conspiracy that the city has decided to use eminent domain to throw out the junkyards and body shops just as the Mets are putting the finishing touches on their nearby new stadium?

Bloomberg, meanwhile, has been a shameless cheerleader for Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project, which has become an international synonym for a shameless corporate land grab.

A free Bon Jovi concert might be a nice midsummer gift. But stop rolling over every time a sports official asks for a favor, Mr. Mayor. Some New Yorkers would rather protest a bloody and immoral war than chill out with bland suburban rock.

I’m impressed by sports writers. They inject passion and reflect on history in a way that, for the most part, political writers and media covering City Hall don’t. If politics was covered the way sports is, perhaps more people would know what was going on and the world … our City … would be a different place.

Village Voice Blog Coverage of Union Sq Park “Push Back Picnic”

Check out the Village Voice “Runnin’ Scared” Blog for additional coverage of Wednesday’s (7/2) Union Square Park Push Back Picnic. There are some great photos!

NY Daily News: “Fort Yankee Stadium” Or … Mayor Bloomberg further shows his true colors

From yesterday’s New York Daily News:

Fort Yankee Stadium

Mayor Bloomberg apparently has adopted a bunker mentality on the new Yankee Stadium project, as serious questions arise over “equal” replacement of parkland, huge cost overruns, questionable financing and other issues.

Parks Commish Adrian Benepe is now under orders to pass any media inquiries about the project directly to Mayuh Mike’s press office.

Maybe City Hall needs to build a bunker under the new stadium.

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Want to know more? Click here.

AMNY: Ugly buildings NYC would be better without - NYU has at least two

What buildings in New York City would you like to see go? It seems like we are forever witnessing developers (and our government) tear down our architectural and historic gems only to erect big box glass buildings (and worse)! amNY asked some architects and critics what buildings they’d like to see taken out of our collective space and replaced.

Not surprisingly, NYU had two of them! (I’m certain there are more that could be listed.)  And, unfortunately, they both are on the south border of Washington Square Park.

*NYU Kimmel Student Center asserts Andrew Berman, Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation: “The NYU Kimmel Student Center on Washington Square South. UUUUGLY. And it now blocks the view through Washington Square Arch down Fifth Avenue; you used to be able to see the downtown skyline (including the World Trade Center pre-9/11) framed through the arch; now the arch is more or less engulfed by the Kimmel Center.”

*NYU Bobst Library is designated “most reviled” by Rick Bell, executive director of American Institute of Architects, NY, who said: “It is one of the most reviled buildings in New York City, eliciting negative comments from people who are usually fastidiously polite. Tearing down Bobst, the library, a funereal hulk inappropriate to the scale and extroverted character of Greenwich Village, should be part of the re-envisioning of the need for NYU to have a more community-friendly character.”

You can read the full article here.

Mayor Bloomberg This Week in the News

*Bloomberg L.P. has taken over half of Randall’s Island not under construction (for those ballfields for private school kids) for their annual private party which includes “several weeks” of preparation. Parks for Sale? The event will take place next weekend, and “in years past has included an indoor ice -skating rink, exotic animals, belly dancers, amusement park rides, a casino and a temporary beach made from trucked-in sand.” Metro NY’s Patrick Arden has the story.

*New York Times reports 33 trees in Central Park didn’t survive last week’s storm. David W. Dunlap writes: “It would be a sad census in any case, but the tally of trees lost in Central Park to high winds during the storm on June 10 comes with particular ill grace in the middle of the Million Trees NYC campaign.” Amazing how pervasive the Million Trees NYC hype is despite the true facts surrounding Mayor Bloomberg and his Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe’s tree destruction in our city’s parks.

*”Money for Needy goes to Wealthy Schools, Report Says,” an article in today’s New York Times which notably leaves out any mention of Mayor Bloomberg. (And they wonder - see below - why people don’t like the direction the city is going in yet don’t link him to it?)

*The New York Times also conducted a poll about the city and Mayor Bloomberg. Although many read it as validation of Bloomberg’s “popularity,” it was a bit more complex. While “approval” of his job as Mayor is at 67%, according to this poll, 56% of the people polled feel that “things in New York City have gotten seriously off track” vs. going in the “right direction.” (7% didn’t respond or weren’t sure.) Basically, a group of people believes Bloomberg is doing a good job but they don’t link him with what’s wrong. Yet, they are “hard pressed to point to any particular accomplishments of his administration.” Could his high rating be because of stories like the one above in which is name is omitted thereby erasing any links? Yes, people should put these pieces together for themselves but the media is very powerful in shaping impressions.

Last Call, Bohemia. Or, As Jane Jacobs wrote, the benefits of the “strange”

Will New York City recognize the importance of “Bohemia” in all societies, including its own?

In “Last Call, Bohemia” in this month’s (July) Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens observes how London, Paris and San Francisco - also renowned for neighborhoods which foster climates of creativity and culture, havens for “the artists, exiles and misfits” - have “learned” and adopted a hands off policy towards building un-affordable, big box monstrosities in these areas. What will it take for real-estate-obsessed New York City to do the same?

Hitchens’ focuses on these havens as places for people who “regenerate the culture.” Within the article, he targets the St. Vincents/Rudin Management “plan” to remake a large swath of the West Village for “luxury housing” and a new medical building as exactly the type development that should be stopped. He explores what it means not just the Village, but for the City at large.

Hitchens writes:

It isn’t possible to quantify the extent to which society and culture are indebted to Bohemia. In every age in every successful country, it has been important that at least a small part of the cityscape is not dominated by bankers, developers, chain stores, generic restaurants, and railway terminals. This little quarter should instead be the preserve of—in no special order—insomniacs and restaurants and bars that never close; bibliophiles and the little stores and stalls that cater to them; alcoholics and addicts and deviants and the proprietors who understand them; aspirant painters and musicians and the modest studios that can accommodate them; ladies of easy virtue and the men who require them; misfits and poets from foreign shores and exiles from remote and cruel dictatorships. Though it should be no disadvantage to be young in such a quartier, the atmosphere should not by any means discourage the veteran.

Jane Jacobs in 1961 argued for this same importance: the importance of retaining some of “the old,” buildings which allowed for greater diversity of uses (and lower costs), amidst the “new,” construction which would need high end and less unique businesses to support it.

When your whole city begins to look overrun with the “new,” then what do you do?

In The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jacobs wrote, “To be sure, city areas with flourishing diversity sprout strange and unpredictable uses and scenes. But this is not a drawback of diversity. This is the point, or part of it. That this should happen is in keeping with one of the missions of cities.”

Yet how do you regulate that? And should you have to?

Certainly, under Mayor Bloomberg, there is the homogenization factor.

The City’s redesign plans for Washington Square Park illustrate no understanding or acknowledgment (and, perhaps, purposefully) of the “strange,” the unique, bohemia or diversity.

Shouldn’t we live in a society that values places like Washington Square Park as is? Instead of protecting Wall Street and tourism, wouldn’t we like to live in a place where the quaint and historical buildings around Washington Square and throughout the West and East Village that NYU has subsumed wouldn’t be touched?

Hitchens continues, “Those who don’t live in such threatened districts nonetheless have a stake in this quarrel and some skin in this game, because on the day when everywhere looks like everywhere else we shall all be very much impoverished, and not only that but-more impoverishingly still-we will be unable to express or even understand or depict what we have lost.”

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Photo: Ed Yourdon

In the News: “Green Thievery in the South Bronx”

It continues to astound me that New York City and the Yankees Corporation got away with destroying TWO parks in the South Bronx to construct a new Yankee stadium.

Imagine Yankees management years ago looking across the way from the current stadium at those pesky parks, Macombs Dam and John Mullaly. These two parks comprised 20 acres, including 377 trees, grass, tracks, a pool and fields - all in the way of a new stadium.

Envision that call being placed to someone in the Giuliani administration(when the idea was first floated). Yankees official states: “Hey the Yankees corporation needs a new stadium and we’ve found a perfect location which will enable us to play in the old stadium and then move into the new one seamlessly.” The city official asks where? Yankee management says, “Those two parks across the street.”

It’s hard to imagine someone not just laughing at this notion. Alas, they did not and this proposal was pushed through under the tenuous idea that the Bronx would get more parkland. And then there was the destruction of the trees. We know how important trees are in a city, particularly mature trees. They help clean the air. Trees provide homes for wildlife and are an important part of the ecosystem.

Isn’t our Parks Department supposed to be stewards for the existing trees and parkland?

Do Parks Commissioners take any kind of oath or is Commissioner Benepe really just a privatizing businessman under Mayor Bloomberg?

The New York Times reported on the status of that parkland in a weekend Editorial, “Green Thievery in the South Bronx:”

“Many promises were made two years ago when the New York Yankees grabbed prime parkland in the South Bronx to build a new stadium. …

The Yankees took more than 20 acres of contiguous parkland - from Macombs Dam and John Mullaly Parks - to build a stadium adjacent to the original one. Hundreds of mature trees were felled, and even though thousands of new ones have been planted, the area feels like the construction zone it is. … the city, which is paying for the new green spaces, is moving too slowly.”

That the Yankees “took” the Parks isn’t quite accurate. They were given this space. The city is paying for the replacement parkland, NOT the team. They are also getting “hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies” and are asking for more.

The article relays that while the Yankees are ready to open their new stadium on schedule next year; the parks are delayed and will open two years later than promised. The New York Times, always ready to laud Mayor Bloomberg, leaves his name out of this critical piece, as well as any mention of Parks Commissioner Benepe, referring to those responsible for the delay under the vague title “the city.”

As the editorial continues, “The Yankees are the richest team in baseball. Their neighbors are among the poorest in the nation. The city should move faster to provide substitutes for the healthy green spaces that have been taken away.”

You think? They should have never have “been taken away” to begin with.

Previous entries on this here.

Please say it isn’t so — Mayor Bloomberg seeking third term?

Apparently, our CEO Mayor Michael Bloomberg feels he has not done enough damage during his two terms and is “exploring” ways to further his “agenda” which he considers “unfinished.”

The New York Times reports today that “Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his senior advisers have been exploring strategies that would allow him to remain in political life, including undertaking a campaign to overturn the city’s term limits law or making a bid for governor, according to two people who have been briefed on the deliberations.”

The story continues, “Either move by the mayor would dramatically shake up the political world in New York and beyond, given his national profile and previous pledge to try to shape the presidential campaign this fall, perhaps by establishing an independent political organization.”

What could Mayor Bloomberg’s “unfinished agenda” be?

Let’s see… thus far he is responsible for expanding privatization of our public spaces, cutting down large swaths of trees in our city parks, endless “development” of luxury housing, making NYC un-affordable to many, extending a climate where corporations and Wall Street rule, endless “testing” of children in schools, etc. etc.

The Times states that “Mr. Bloomberg, 66, has a record of overcoming long political odds with his single-minded focus and willingness to spend tens of millions of dollars on campaigns…”

He has had some assistance in “overcoming long political odds” over the years by publications like The New York Times which so rarely holds him to true task on anything.

Mayor Bloomberg’s fingerprints extend to the dramatic changes at - and bulldozing of - Washington Square Park, the desire to privatize and reduce public space at Union Square Park, Yankee Stadium’s destruction of two Bronx parks, Randalls Island’s privatization leading to destruction of wildlife and natural habitat. There’s more. But the pattern is overall privatization and pacification of New York City’s public spaces.

It is stated that Mr. Bloomberg has “clearly been bitten by the political bug and is not eager to give up the power that comes with elected office.”

I’m sure.

The mayor’s current term is set to expire on Dec. 31, 2009.

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*note: A photo of Mayor Bloomberg tossing a tree into a chipper would not load, for some unknown reason, but hopefully later a photo will appear with this post.