)
“Peck Moss Group.” “Brack Capital.” “For Sale.”
These are some of the signs — and new neighbors — that have been popping up along the Bowery, dismaying local residents, as a new boutique hotel district is burgeoning in a neighborhood rich with history.
While college students and tourists flock to the Bowery’s new nightlife attractions, including recently opened bars, such changes are loathed by longtime residents.
)
If you can’t join ’em, beat ’em.
That’s the mantra of some Manhattan Beach residents after a long-standing community group slammed the door on renters.
)
A small group of union-backed protesters railed against labor and living conditions at one of the nation’s largest senior care providers’ facilities Feb. 27 on the Upper West Side.
The company, in turn, accused protest organizers of waging a publicity stunt to collect more union dues.
Standing outside Atria Senior Living on West 86th Street, between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive, eight protestors wore SEIU stickers and called for unionizing service workers at all 23 New York Atria homes.
Union Effort Stymied
Rabbi Michael Feinberg, a community activist, held up an anti-union flier Atria purportedly distributed to its workers.
“This filer says nothing about the fact that it’s their democratic right to improve their workplace situation, to improve care for residents,” Feinberg said.
Protest organizer Daniel May charged that in recent years Atria has increased rent, made medication mistakes, locked-in patients and otherwise neglected its senior population. Atria should “begin to sit down with workers and talk about how they can address providing adequate staffing, adequate training to make sure the residents get what they need,” he said.
‘Half Truths’
An Atria spokeswoman countered that the company, which provides residential services to more than 13,000 senior in 27 states, is the victim of an ongoing smear campaign by the powerful Service Employees International Union.
“The SEIU’s press release and protest are part of an ongoing corporate attack campaign to tarnish Atria’s reputation and get more members and dues money,” said Amy Risley, the spokeswoman. “The SEIU continues to lose credibility by attacking our company with distorted claims and half-truths.”
While the SEIU forces picketted, Susan MacArevey spoke about her mother’s death at an Atria care facility in Albany.
Her mother hit her head after suffering a heat attack and stumbled around, said MacArevey, who traveled from Wisconsin to attend the protest. A family member discovered the body the next day, MacArevey added.
One Woman’s Story
No one had checked on her mother that night, she said. Only one worker had been assigned to look after approximately 134 residents all night, she said.
Atria confirmed that MacArevey’s mother was a long-time resident at Atria Shaker in Albany but refused comment on her case.
Since May 2007, SEIU has continuously campaigned against Atria care facilities nationwide, including a Jan. 28 protest at one Davis, CA center over rising rent costs.
On March 4, SEIU plans a protest outside of Rockefeller Center against Lazard, Ltd., the investment firm that is affiliated with Atria’s private owners.
Linnea Covington and Daniel Macht contributed reporting
)
At first it sounds like a typical tale of gentrification: Spanish Harlem residents battle to save a community garden from being bulldozed to make way for apartments.
But the gardeners are fighting neighbors they’ve known for decades, not outside developers. The 116th Street Block Association, a nonprofit founded by locals in 1976, plans to build 55 apartments on the garden site for families making $40,000 or less.
)
The Reverend Jesse Jackson led a march to a Laurelton house surrounded by weeds after calling for a new civil rights movement to fight rising foreclosures and high-cost lending that have plagued minorities disproportionately - and southeast Queens, in particular.
“This is the economic crisis of our time,” Jackson said at St. Luke’s Cathedral on 232nd Street.
)
The battle to redevelop Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal has been going on since the 1960’s. By then, the canal, once one of the state’s busiest waterways, had fallen largely into disuse. Many of the warehouses, factories and other industrial sites that lined the canal’s shores were abandoned.
Now, with residential real estate booming and the city’s population expanding, the area is on the verge of a new era of residential development. But as development plans go forward, every step requires a delicate balance of the city’s enormous need for housing, the environmental cleanup required on a century-old industrial waterway, and the ongoing needs of the businesses that remain in the area.
Click here for Matthew Sollars’ multi-media report.
)
Daniel Wright got so tired of Riverdale’s lack of a Starbucks that he recruited one.
As a Riverdale real estate broker, Wright rarely went a workday without a potential client asking the same deflating question: “Where’s the nearest Starbucks?”
He e-mailed. He called. He pleaded.
Wright’s efforts paid off last month when the Bronx’s third Starbucks opened on Johnson Ave. and 235th St.
Vincent Abate may have a Brooklyn playground named after him – but even as he approaches 90, he’s not ready rest on his laurels. The longtime chairman of Williamsburg/Greenpoint Community Board 1, who has seen great change in his lifetime, plans to keep fighting to preserve affordable housing in the ever-transforming neighborhoods.
Marlene Peralta reports.
)
Several South Bronx tenants say already-poor housing conditions have worsened since a group of private investors assumed control of their buildings nine months ago, even though the new buildings’ manager says a multi-million-dollar rehabilitation of the properties is underway.
)
According to a new study by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Washington, DC-based Urban Land Institute, New York City ranks as the top domestic market to watch in 2008 because of its strength. Although the city continues to have one of the tightest real estate markets in the country, some neighborhoods, such as Jamaica, Queens are being hit hard with foreclosures. More »
