The mayor will be on the Upper West Side Wednesday night to talk about senior housing at the Lincoln Square Neighborhood Center. Read more about it below, and be sure to RSVP ASAP.
Please Join Councilmember Helen Rosenthal and
Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer for a
Town Hall on Senior Housing with
Mayor Bill de Blasio.
When: Wednesday, January 27th at 5pm (doors open at 4pm)
Where: Lincoln Square Neighborhood Center
at 250 W 65th St, New York, NY 10023
(Between Amsterdam and West End Avenue)
Take #1 train to W 66th St or A,D,B or C train to Columbus Ave.
Co-sponsors
Goddard Riverside Community Center
JASA
Lincoln Square Neighborhood Center
Project Find.
And in coordination with AARP.
RSVP is required for this event. Please RSVPs to (212) 676-3976
RSVP@cityhall.nyc.gov by Monday, January 25th at noon.
A representative of the governor’s office is also coming to the neighborhood on Thursday to talk about the governor’s state of the state address. More below:
I hope WSR covers the event….
Mayor will be at least an hour late guaranteed, never fails
His approval ratings are up these days, these days those jokes are starting to become irrelevant.
Seniors don’t have any problems with housing as most of them are living in rent controlled/stabilized apartments and paying a pittance in rent.
It is young families who are paying artificially bloated rents subsidizing these seniors who face housing problems.
Still, DeBlasio, Brewer and Rosenthal are groveling to these old people because they know they are single issue voters, ie they will vote for any politician who promises to keep their rent cheap.
This is NYC liberalism at its worst. Truly pathetic.
Try taking a survey Shamir?
I don’t know who these people are who are paying a pittance, but I’m a senior and 2/3 of my income goes to my rent and I can’t afford to live in assisted living. Once the Con Ed bill is paid there’s barely enough for anything else. I don’t have a TV but luckily I still have the internet and food. You’re not going to be young forever so it would be in your best interest to help seniors out and pave the way for yourself and everyone else.
I hate to state the glaringly obvious but if the UWS is too expensive for you perhaps you should check out Queens or The Bronx.
Friends of mine recently left the UWS for Riverdale because it is much cheaper there.
Why should you be any different just because you’re a senior?
Lynn is once again correct. Rents in Queens and Brooklyn have gone sky high, too. It’s not affordable in many areas around the boroughs anymore. One question Shamir: Just as you feel the rest of us think we have “some divine right” to remain in NYC (and we do, dear, because we were born and raised in NY and we love it here)-who gave you “the divine right” to decide who gets to live in New York City and who should “get out”? I am very sad for you. Good luck getting anywhere in life with that attitude.
And Lynn – thank you for your good wishes. My heart goes out to you and I wish only the best for you, too!
I finally found your replies to Lynn and Shamir! Kudos to you, Lynn, and of course you, too, Ellen, for your excellent replies. Shamir, you are a disgrace to humanity, and all I can say is in agreement with Ellen and Lynn…you, too, will be old and infirm some day (hopefully sooner rather than later!), and so will your family, and I hope you eat your words in a very short time. I love Karma, she is a bitch, and she will find you, Shamir.
good lord, Shamir is an ignorant and apparently self-centered person.
and someone with no shame.
First of all, THANK YOU to Lynn, the senior who left that perfect reply to Shamir, and second of all, Shamir… you should be ashamed of yourself! You must be an extremely young person who is not yet mature enough to understand that becoming a senior has some serious complications. Are your parents old yet? If not, they will be some day, and you will see that is a time in their lives where they need help and understanding, and most of all, RESPECT. Many of them have worked very hard in their lives, paid their taxes, served in wars to keep YOUR family and country safe, and paved the way for young people like you to have some of the great and important things that we have today. As they continue to age, many of them can barely walk, some can’t see, some can’t hear, some are dealing with the losses of all of their friends and family around them and suffer from depression and dementia. I will soon have the difficult task of trying to find an appropriate living situation for my Mom, because she is one of the people who is about to be displaced from the Williams Residence (run by the Salvation Army) as stated in the article in the West Side Rag. It is so difficult for these people to move ANYWHERE, let alone another borough! My Mom has all of her doctors on the upper west side, she has an affordable rent – which is well deserved – and lives on a fixed income with very little social security – she will run out of money in about 2 to 3 years if she has to pay a rent at market value. She is now legally blind, but since she has lived at the Williams Residence for 11 years, she knows her neighborhood so well, she is still able to get around, simply because she knows her surroundings backward and forward. Moving for her will mean that she may not even be able to adapt well to a new environment without her vision. She has arthritis in her knees, feet and hands, and other painful physical conditions… telling a 90-year-old who is blind and can barely walk to move to Queens or Brooklyn is incredibly arrogant.
I do not underrate what you say about young families and other people who do indeed have similar housing issues. My building was just sold, too – I’m 55 years old with 2 teenagers, one in a CUNY college and another about to go to another CUNY college (because we can’t afford private colleges) and our building may end up going condo or turn into a luxury rental. We will definitely NOT be able to afford more than what we already pay in rent, either! The housing issues absolutely need to be addressed, whether one is young, middle aged, or old – but please do not put down the elderly. You may be in the same condition as my Mom some day, and as my Mom says “Getting old isn’t for the weak-hearted”.
Ellen, thank you so much for the thoughtful reply. I greatly appreciate that you were able to articulate everything I wanted to say. I’m not subsidized and I live in a walk-up with no amenities, and the rentals in Queens and other boroughs are not cheaper. The fact that I spend 2/3 of my money on rent does not mean I’m living in luxury and moving away is not the answer.
I don’t understand Shamir’s hostility, and wonder if his parting words to his friends who moved to Riverdale were, ‘If you can’t afford your rent then get out!’ Very odd that his reply to you does not have a ‘reply’ option.
I feel for you and your mother, especially with her health issues. I hope that everything works out for you and your family!
If you can’t afford your rent then get out!
It is subsidized tenants like you who push up everyone else’s rent.
Stop whining about how tough life is.
You apparently believe that you have some divine right to live in a neighborhood you can’t afford. You will not get my sympathy.
Quick question – any thoughts as to why you decided to open NYC schools today when the school buses so many students rely on were stuck in the bus depot due to the snow? Just asking, because, you know, that we are all set on the Central Park carriage world-ending problem, perhaps, just maybe, you could actually start doing something worthwhile with your time.
Because 70% of NYC public school students rely on school for breakfast, lunch and in many cases a sandwich sent home for dinner. Because working class parents had to go to work and if there was no school their children might be unsupervised all day. Certainly all 70% of these kids didn’t make it to school today but at least it was an option for some of them.
So to your point – which was not my point – then why were school buses NOT available? Not only were they not available or very late, they could barely leave the bus parking lot. Come folks, lets get it together.
More than 50% of the k-6th kids is far less than 50% of the k-12 kids. There is no reason 74% of kids who attended school should have stayed home. Most kids were able to get to school and did.
Scary how some people can not grasp simply concepts. Maybe you just refuse to do so. Most the buses were not available! Not only were they not available, they could not even drive out of the parking lot! So if you have a school day you have to make sure that at the very least the buses can leave the parking lot! That would be one of the most basic concepts a mayor or school chancellor should know. A great % of the school staffs did not make it to the schools because they had to commute from outside Manhattan since most of them can’t afford to live here. So what happened was that many schools were severely under-staffed and that caused significant safety issues! On top of that, most of the school facilities were still not safe for the kids, including the outdoor space and other areas around the building. I mean come on, it’s not that hard of a concept to grasp. Stop spinning the issue and arguing about the %. You sound like a politician!
You asked why they opened schools. I answered. Most NYC kids do not take school buses. The decision to open schools shouldn’t be made based on the availability of school busses. When the school busses were on strike schools were still open.
More than 50% of children between Kindergarten and sixth grade take the bus to school. There were few if any school buses yesterday. End of story. Next time either have no school or have buses. Seems like a pretty simple concept to understand. No need to keep spinning it.
74% attendance today. Lower than the usual 90% but not so low that I’d say it should have been a snow day.https://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/schools/data/Attendance.htm
I’m not wrong about the numbers, you twisted them to suit your point. Busses are only offered through 6th grade (plus some SN kids) so the numbers are well below 1/2.
And no, I don’t agree that today should have been a snow day. If your kids couldn’t get to school you could keep them out. My some said almost everyone in his class made it in although some were late. Why should they have missed a day or school, and their parents a day of work, when they had no trouble getting in?
But you should have school buses running, would you not agree? At a minimum, the city should have enough resources and foresight to allow the buses to even leave the bus depot, agree? A strike is a very different situation. And opening schools today was a mistake – reason why there are “snow days” allocated to schools. None of the playgrounds were open, many of the staff could not make it to school, some schools had safety issues…And you are wrong about school buses, more than 50% of the children in NYC take the school bus in elementary/middle school.
Senior housing is a worth issue. DeBlasio is not a worthy standard bearer.
He is a disaster for the city. He has never truly understood what a mayor’s role and authority level is (or worse, maybe he didn’t care), and from day one he has been more focused on his own image and trying to mold himself into a national standard bearer for his political agenda and up himself into a more national stage than managing NYC. He is grossly incompetent to run this city much less anything else. He was fine as a grenade thrower in the advocate role, but as an executive? Please.
Virtually every component of the city has deteriorated since he took office, including basic services. He promises the world and then doesn’t deliver – ask those folks in Queens and Brooklyn that had yet to see a plow as of this morning. And this during flush economic times.
And – though I KNOW this will draw howls – had Bloomberg not set the stage for a solid base and growth while the economy improved the budget and economics would be in trouble as well.
He wants to talk about senior housing? Great – it is a worthy issue. But it doesn’t change the fact that he is a disaster for our city, and people need to remember that. Heaven help us if people have the attention span of hamsters don’t look beyond their noses and forget by the next election. The US economy is starting to slide, and as it does so will Wall Street and other business based in NYC and with that, so will the precious tax revenues he needs to pay for and implement things the city needs. And when that goes, and tough choices are needed, and we have to rely on him to make them, heaven help us. Easy to look good in flush times (and he still hasn’t), but everything shows at low tide, so to speak.
Hey Bill: Stop preening for a national spotlight, try to do your job and focus on our city (the one that elected you for this job), and try not to mess it up too much.
I’m not a BDB fan either but the reign of Bloomberg was not without its problems when it came to delivering services. The residents of Queens were pretty unhappy this time too-https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/nyregion/30snow.html?_r=0
Yeah, I didn’t vote for Bill and think he’s largely a buffoon, but after every snowstorm in pretty much the history of snowstorms, the residents of Queens and Brooklyn have complained about being ignored by snow plows. You can’t really blame EVERYTHING on De Blasio.
Everyone should be aware that by the time the notices went out substantially all of the seats were filled. This will be another public hearing packed a mayor friendly audience. This Administrstion is appalling. Public hearings and occasions like this have no meaning except as phot ops as the public’s views are irrelevant. Like the horses and others issues the public doesn’t matter!
Dear Lynn and Ellen,
Thank you very much for your heartfelt and intelligent statements. What few people realize is that what makes the cost of living go up in this city, is NOT subsidies for rent stabilized tenants-it is taxes from the overdevelopment of luxury housing which escalates the property tax rate as all neighboring buildings are reassessed against their highly escalated per share foot values. Period. End of story. The subsidies do not erase the tax burden of the property owner who gets to pass some of that on via tax increases. So we can all thank an overdevelopment of luxury condos on steroids that is making New York unaffordable for the working class, the middle class, the upper middle class and the elderly.
As for Shamir, if you’re plotting journeys for other people out of here, I suggest you consider one for yourself. This city never admired or fashioned itself on the kind of selfish, callous attitudes you espouse on this blog. I suggest to you that its you who are the fish out of water, and should consider that when you speak with such bigotry and blindness about the elderly and sick. Perhaps you might find another blog on which to spew and leave this one to the Upper West Siders who made these neighborhoods the wonderful places which you seem to think you own.
The only ones who are “selfish and callous” are the folks who have been living for decades with artificially low rents and could care less about the people who have been subsidizing their lifestyle with artificially high rents.
It is people like me who pay the price for shnorrers like them.
Don’t lecture me about being “selfish and callous”.
Yes, I can see clearly, it won’t work. Go ahead and use your anger to fuel that holier than thou pedestal you’ve placed yourself on. The problems in your life have nothing to do with government subsidies for the poor, or elderly.
I have no problems in my life.
I’m in a happy marriage. I have a great kid. I like my job.
My life, however, isn’t as easy as yours as I have been unable to sponge off the system for decades like you have.
While I appreciate all of the supportive replies, I’m beginning to think this poster is trolling. A happy person doesn’t repeatedly come to message board to attack an entire demographic with no facts to back up his/her argument. Sponging off the system for ‘decades?’ Very sad indeed.
Troll is a perfect term. FYI-I am a co-op owner. I consider myself very lucky, and like the fact that New York City, at least in the past has been a rich tapestry of all kinds of people, economically and culturally. I don’t resent my rent stabilized neighbors, nor do I believe I pay more in taxes or maintenance because of them. If anything, I pay more taxes because rich developers have gentrified these neighborhoods with $10 million dollar plus apartments that have raised the taxes on everyone, and pushed out our neighbors and essential services. Diverse neighborhoods have been the reason NY has been the beacon it has been. Narrow minds have never been the hallmark of this great city. And never will be.