BY ALBERT AMATEAU
Manhattan Borough President ScottStringer last week gave conditionalapproval to Rudin Management’s planfor the residential redevelopment of the former St. Vincent’s Hospital cam-pus in Greenwich Village.Stringer announced his opinion onFri., Nov. 25, at the midpoint in thesix-month uniform land-use reviewprocedure (ULURP) for the proposalto create 450 new condominium apart-ments on the east side of Seventh Ave.and a triangle park on the west side of the avenue.The entire project also includesthe conversion of the St. Vincent’sO’Toole Building on the west side of the avenue into a comprehensive-carecommunity health center with a free-standing emergency department run byNorth Shore-Long Island Jewish HealthSystem. But the O’Toole conversion isas of right and not part of the ULURPapplication.The City Planning Commission,which must approve the project, heldits last public forum on the plan on Wednesday.Under the city’s land-use procedure,the commission now has 60 days toapprove, disapprove or modify theplan before it goes to the City Council,which in turn has 50 days to approveor reject the plan. The City Council’sapproval is the last step in the reviewprocess.If the Council calls for changes,City Planning must decide whetherthe modifications are within the scopeof the project’s environmental impactstatement (E.I.S.).Stringer noted that Rudin has madea commitment to address some of the concerns of Community Board 2,which voted in October to disapprovethe redevelopment plan.But the borough president did notcondition his approval on the inclu-sion of affordable housing, which C.B.2 wanted. Moreover, Stringer did notrepeat C.B. 2’s urging Rudin “to makea substantial capital contribution to theestablishment of a new public school inthe C.B. 2 area, such as 75 Morton St.”Although the review for the St.Vincent’s redevelopment does not involvea replacement for the hospital that closedits doors in April 2010, advocates fora St. Vincent’s replacement packedthe Nov. 30 City Planning hearing anddemanded rejection of the Rudin projectunless and until a full-service, acute-carehospital with a Level 1 trauma center-equipped emergency room replaces theold hospital.Members of the Coalition for a NewVillage Hospital said the proposedNorth Shore-L.I.J center in the O’TooleBuilding, with only two inpatient beds,was inadequate.But Board 2 and Stringer have
B.P. Stringer approves Rudin’scondo plan as clock ticks down
Continued on page 5
515 CANAL STREET • NYC 10013 • COPYRIGHT © 2011 COMMUNITY MEDIA, LLC
BY WINNIE MCCROY
Architects Youngwoo& Associates will soonsubmit certification paper-work for a proposed rede-velopment of Pier 57 inHudson River Park. Theoverhual of the hulkingstructure — located justsouth of the Chelsea Piers— would create more than114,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space,a marina and public park-land. Construction is set tocommence in mid-2013.“We are drafting theenvironmental impactstatement [E.I.S.] now,and then we will have thatcertified to enter into theULURP [uniform land-usereview procedure] pro-cess, which will probablyhappen this month,” saidGreg Carney, a partner atYoungwoo & Associates.The certification shouldbe completed by aboutMarch or April, after which
Open-air market,roof park in works for Chelsea pier
BY LESLEY SUSSMAN
In a razor-thin vote,the developer of a partial-ly completed, seven-storybuilding on Ludlow St. lastweek got Community Board3’s reluctant approval fora Board of Standards andAppeals variance to allowhim to finish work on thelong-stalled residential/commercial project.The full board’s 17-to-16vote in favor of developerMichael Goldberg’s B.S.A.application for 179 LudlowSt. came amid a contentiousdebate by board membersat their Tuesday evening,Nov. 22, meeting at P.S. 24,at 40 Division St. Boardmembers argued back andforth whether the developerdeserved any communitysupport after financing astructure that, for the pastfive years, has been a neigh-borhood eyesore and is oftenreferred to locally as “TheRat Castle.”
‘Rat Castle’ gets Board 3’s O.K.to finally finish
Continued on page 4Continued on page 11
THE ARTOF PING-PONG
PAGE 17
EDITORIAL,LETTERS
PAGE 18
Volume 81, Number 26
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West and East Village, Chelsea, Soho, Noho, Hudson Square, Little Italy, Chinatown and Lower East Side,
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December 1 - 7, 2011
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Occupy Santa
Sunday evening down at Zuccotti Park, a somewhat spelling-challengedSanta was making a list of who’s been naughty and nice to him, mainlynaughty.Your$20 L.E.S.Holiday Guide,p. 22
2
December 1 - 7, 2011
Photos by Tequila Minsky
Thanksgiving and the ‘Gingrinch’ at Zuccotti Park
Their tents may be gone, but Occupy Wall Streeters still enjoyed a Thanksgiving meal down at Zuccotti Park last Thursday. With the holiday season kicking off, NewtGingrich was cast as the Grinch in one sign after the G.O.P. presidential hopeful recently chastised the protesters, “Go get a job right after you take a bath.” Police continueto maintain a presence on the Financial District park’s perimeter.
December 1 - 7, 2011
3
D.G. WORD TO O.W.S.
Local elected officials, to vary-ing degrees, tried to defend Occupy Wall Street’s encamp-ment in Zuccotti Park from eviction by Mayor
Bloomberg
,but failed. Desperately scrambling to find a new home,O.W.S. is now focusing on the Trinity Real Estate-ownedopen lot at Canal St. and Sixth Ave. So, are any local politi-cians endorsing the idea of a new occupation at that spot?Defending is one thing, but offering an invitation — “Yo, Igot your occupy right here!” — is perhaps another. We askedAssemblymember
Deborah Glick
for her thoughts sinceTrinity’s Duarte Square space is, in fact, in her district. Sheprefaced her comments by saying, “I support the notion thatthere has to be a resolution to the growing income equality— which is what I’ve been speaking about for years. AndI think they’ve done an incredible job speaking about it. Ithink they, in a very short amount of time, got a nationaland international discourse going,” she said of O.W.S. TheZuccotti Park encampment was located in the district of thepowerful Assembly speaker,
Sheldon Silver
. Glick was noton the front lines calling for O.W.S.’s tent city to be allowedto stay there. “It was not my district. I was agnostic as tohow it should proceed,” she said. Asked whether she wouldwelcome an O.W.S.-palooza-style encampment at DuarteSquare, she said, “I’m not sure that you utilize the sametactics going forward. But it’s not up to me to tell a leader-less group what to do.” But then she reiterated, “They maywant to think about different tactics.” ... F.Y.I., police arenow posting a police car or van outside the “LentSpace”fenced-in lot at Duarte Square that O.W.S. covets. On Sun.,Nov. 20, 200 members of the group marched from JudsonChurch down to the Canal St. lot and held a candlelight vigil,begging Trinity to let them use it.
SINGER MAKES AN OFFER:
Gregg Singer
does stillexist — “unfortunately,” many readers will no doubt think. We hadn’t heard from him in a while, despite our efforts toreach him, so we were seriously wondering. Following therecent strategizing meeting about trying to get a communitycenter restored in the old P.S. 64 building on E. Ninth St.near Avenue B, one of the meeting’s participants,
SteveSinclair
, resolved to personally reach out to the embattleddeveloper and see if he was willing to negotiate. As Sinclairtells it, the two met at the decommissioned school buildingon Wednesday afternoon and had a sit-down in a pseudo-swanky meeting space Singer has constructed with sheetrockwalls and hardwood floors in the building’s front. Singer wassporting a “funky” jacket, sort of a safari jacket, accordingto Sinclair. Basically, Sinclair said, Singer told him he’s beentrying to rent out the building for use as university dormitoryspace, but that Councilmember
Rosie Mendez
and the com-munity have been frustrating all his efforts, scaring everyoneoff. The landmarked building has a total of 152,000 squarefeet, 111,000 of which is usable space. At the brainstorm-ing meeting two weeks ago, former squatter
Eric Rassi
pitched a “rudimentary proposal” under which they wouldask Singer to cede the building’s two lower floors for useas a community center on the ground floor, plus a hub forup to 25 nonprofit tenants on the second floor. Two floorswould equal about 40,000 square feet, according to Sinclair.Instead, Sinclair said, the idea that Singer likes would be togive from 6,000 to 12,000 square feet — something like 5percent to 10 percent of the total space — for use as a com-munity center, while giving a 99-year lease to Baruch Collegeto redevelop the rest of the building as a student dorm. “Theaverage Soho loft is 2,000 square feet,” Sinclair noted. “Sixthousand square feet would be enough for meeting rooms,rehearsal space, daycare.” More than that isn’t needed, hesaid. “I don’t think Eric understands how big this place is,”Sinclair said. “If he got one floor, that’s 20,000 square feet.That’s like a Walmart. You don’t need that amount of spacefor a community center. It seems to me, 7,000 or 10,000square feet — something in that range. Twenty thousandsquare feet is good for indoor soccer.” Sinclair said Singerdefinitely wants a dorm because that’s the “highest use” forthe building, as in highest amount of moolah. It would takeabout $37.5 million to build out the dorm space with upto 500 beds, Sinclair said the developer explained to him.The community center would be built out as a plain whitespace to be further developed as the community wished.Continuing on his D.I.Y. mission, Sinclair’s plan was nextto call
Matthew Goldstein
, CUNY’s president, on Thursdayand propose the idea. Asked how Singer feels about havinghad all his schemes for the building repeatedly stymied bythe community for more than 12 years, Sinclair said, “He’svery bitter about it. He has a somewhat Marie Antoinetteattitude about it — “Let them eat cake” — because he is theowner and owners in this country have some rights.” So,who is Sinclair? you ask. He moved onto 10th St. acrossfrom the old P.S. 64 three months ago. He’s currently afinancial adviser for Wells Fargo and previously had a recordlabel, Mechanic Records, specializing in hardcore and heavymetal bands. He signed the likes of Megadeath, AgnosticFront, Voivod, Dream Theater, Ludachrist and Scalp theLandmarked Building. (Just kidding, but that’s what Singerdid to the old P.S. 64 when he brutally lopped off its beauti-ful ornamentation.) He’s also the president of the ProgressRepublican Club, which he noted is the nation’s oldestRepublican club. “I’d be really happy to break this impasse,”Sinclair told us. “That building is an eyesore every time Iwalk past it.” We told Mendez about Sinclair’s meeting withSinger and this purportedly new plan, but she said, “Thisis the same plan Gregg Singer pitched to me in 2006. Hewanted to do luxury housing. He wanted to lift the deedrestrictions [for community-use facility] and/or do a dorm.The community doesn’t want a dorm,” Mendez stressed, say-ing he should change his tack. “Singer can move forward oncertain things. I know people have offered him a significantamount of money to buy the building, but he’s not beingrealistic about that. When you’re asking for $70 million, alot of people are going to walk away.”
CORRECTION:
In last week’s issue, the article “SohoJournal publisher guilty in S&M mortgage scam” stated that
Donald MacPherson
would be spending his four-to-12-yearprison term at Downstate Correctional Facility in Fishkill,N.Y. However, according to
Robert Clifford
, a spokesper-son for the Suffolk County district attorney, the formerCommunity Board 2 member could go to Downstate andstay there, or possibly be transferred to another prison. “Hegoes to Downstate, then it’s up to the State Department of Corrections as to where to place him,” Clifford said. “He’lllikely be transferred to another facility, but there’s no way of telling at this point.” We’re assuming, though, that whereverit is, it will be behind steel bars.
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