Someone spruced up one of the new phone booths at 90th street and West End Avenue with a potted plant. Photo by Elizabeth Isakson.
February 29, 2016 Weather: Mostly cloudy, with a high of 57 degrees.
Notices:
Check out free music and readings and dozens of other local events on our calendar.
Among the calendar items: important meetings about public school admissions/rezoning and a full community board meeting, both on Tuesday night.
Lincoln Center is looking for talented girls, ages 12-18, to create a 60’s inspired singing group! A chance to learn 3-part harmony and vocal tricks, create friendships and perform at Lincoln Center. Register for this FREE program, Thursday, March 3rd, 5:30 – 7 pm at Goddard Riverside Beacon Program, 154 West 93rd Street. Please RSVP by Tuesday March 1st to Julianne Alberty. Phone: 212-875-5556 or jalberty@lincolncenter.org
On March 10, New Yorkers interested in joining an existing local park group, or starting a new one of their own, can attend a free Partnerships Academy workshop to learn the first steps and best resources in starting a new group.
News:
Another day, another bedbug complaint on the UWS: “”I have bedbug bites all over my skin and management is doing nothing,” Cherise Robinson told PIX11. Hairdresser Robinson, and her mechanic husband, have been living at the Manhattan Hotel at 308 West 94th Street, courtesy of the Department of Housing, ever since they lost their East Flatbush apartment in a fire in November of 2014. The city has paid $1,700 a month for one room with bath for the couple for the past 15 months.”
The new school building at 21 West End Avenue at 61st street is behind schedule and probably won’t be able to open in 2017, as most recently anticipated (it was initially set to open in 2015).
UWS gynecologist Dr. Robert Hadden admitted to sexually abusing two female patients, but dodged jail time. “He copped to criminal sex act in the third degree and forcible touching — the first a low-level felony, the second a misdemeanor— in a deal that will resolve his career-ending criminal case. It was not immediately clear why prosecutors offered him a jail-free deal that does not even require him to do community service or comply with probation.” He will lose his license and have to register as a sex offender.
A long story about the lack of affordable housing for seniors in New York. “A recent study by the non-profit advocacy group LiveOn NY found 101,936 people age 62 and older are waiting an average of seven years for slots in 119 buildings that provide rent-regulated apartments across the city.”
The city is planning to publish data about film permits on a new open data portal. WNYC has published a map of past permits showing where they are most densely concentrated (we know one UWS building that has been a popular shooting spot).
An actor went apartment-hunting on the Upper West Side and ended up dealing with the familiar disappointments: “Mr. Ricamora and Mr. Chadwick moved on. For $3,200 a month, an apartment in the West 70s was listed as a one-bedroom duplex, but was more like a basement studio.”
If the new school won’t open until 2018 what is cec3 going to do about rezoning? It’s time to combine PS 199 and 191 in some way.
The article about the senior housing crisis is the most depressing thing I’ve read here in a long time.
“A recent study by the non-profit advocacy group LiveOn NY found 101,936 people age 62 and older are waiting an average of seven years for slots in 119 buildings that provide rent-regulated apartments across the city.
The researchers for the study, titled “Through the Roof—Waiting Lists for Senior Housing,” only received responses from 43 percent of the 276 buildings in the federally-subsidized housing program it surveyed, leaving the organization to project that wait lists for low-income senior apartments likely exceed 200,000 people in the city.”
“The city has paid $1,700 a month for one room with bath for the couple for the past 15 months.”
One has to wonder why they have been unable to find a new apartment in 15 months and why the taxpayers are being forced to fund this.
I have friends who also lost their everything they owned in an apt fire and they (young working couple-low paying jobs) were able to find a studio in Queens for under $1700 in less than two months. I also don’t understand why the couple being put up at the hotel have been there for 15 months.
I’m not sure if anyone is clicking on the link to the senior housing story, but what the Mancuso brothers had to go through to get assistance is a nightmare, and it’s horrifying that seniors who are incapacitated are being forced to live under such horrible circumstances while the House Dept. is putting up able bodied people in hotels for over a year.
Sorry, I was cutting/pasting. I meant to say:
“I have friends who also lost everything they owned in an apt fire.” I should add that I realize it’s not easy getting back on your feet, but it irks me when I know there are cheaper apts available and the city is paying so much to house them.
As far as the couple living at the Manhattan Hotel at the Dept. of Housing expense might just be compensation for an illegally subdivided building and where one person died, 15 injured and 6 critically injured. Fire could have started at the fault of Housing Dept. People lost everything! I think it’s the least the Dept. can do! I have a friend who had something like that happen to her in a building in Hell’s Kitchen a few years ago. She was devastated. She lost everything but the cloths on her back. It was the fault of the building and all tenants were relocated until they were placed. I don’t care if it takes 2 years, If it’s the fault of the city or state. They need protection!
In re to the plant in the phone booth: I hope the person who put the plant there plans to water it because the plant obviously will dry out. Also,house plants do not do well in extreme weather. I think it should be removed and perhaps transplanted in a safer and more friendly place. Plants are not objects and should be treated properly.