Photo by Carol Forman.
January 30, 2017 Weather: Mostly cloudy, with a high of 39 degrees.
Notices:
A free art and activism event with singer-songwriter Morley and many more local events are on our calendar.
The JCC is holding a book drive in its lobby at 334 Amsterdam Avenue for underserved public school libraries.
The United War Veterans Council (UWVC) is calling on New Yorkers to help deliver some Valentine’s Day love to our military veterans and their families by donating gifts and cards, which volunteers will distribute to veteran hospitals in each borough, including Manhattan’s VA Hospital at 423 E. 23rd Street. To participate please send or bring gifts and/or cards to United War Veterans Council, 245 West Houston Street, Room 208, New York, NY 10014. Cards can be addressed to veterans, military service members or their families.
Columbia University teaching and research assistants, students, faculty and other New Yorkers will be protesting the Trump immigration order at 5 p.m. Monday on the steps of Low Library. Also at 5, the CEC3 school board says there will be a protest over Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos outside Tweed Courthouse at 52 Chambers Street.
News:
Actress Patti Karr was hit in the head and knocked unconscious by a windblown Christmas tree that had been left out for pickup at 76th Street and West End Avenue. “Karr said she thought the trees should have been cleaned up long before Monday’s storm. ‘This year they really screwed up,’ she said about the city, which extended its deadline for residents to leave their trees on the sidewalk for recycling pickup through this week.”
Souleymane Diaby, 18, was arrested for punching and robbing a 72-year-old woman last Thursday, according to NYPD.
The Upper West Side’s Rutgers Church was featured on a New Jersey news program about groups helping refugees.
Gov. Cuomo’s new 421-a affordable housing program may not actually promote affordability, and could actually result in some rents getting hikes, ProPublica found. “Cuomo’s initiative, included in his budget proposal for the state’s upcoming fiscal year, would water down the rent regulations associated with a $1.4 billion tax break for real-estate developers.”
West Harlem schools are in the same district as Upper West Side schools, but tend to get less attention, and have less success. CEC3 is working on that. “In District 3’s Harlem schools, there are no gifted and talented programs. Of the six elementary schools there where students take the state tests, only one comes close to the citywide passing rates of 38 percent in reading and 36 percent in math. At one school, only 6 percent of third- through eighth-grade students passed the most recent math tests.”
421-a tax breaks for “affordable housing” is a scam that provides hundreds of millions of dollars annually to billionaire real estate developers.
421-a is a leftover from the early 1970s. Ironically, it was enacted to encourage development when NYC was in lousy shape and nobody wanted to build anything here.
It’s unfortunate that 421-a has mutated into a handout to wealthy developers. It’s even more unfortunate that Cuimo and DeBlasio are still using this quirk in the law for cheap political gains.
Monitarily, we’d be better off with getting the tax receipts and dedicated them to affordable housing programs.
However, there is social value to the 80-20 program. At the least, the kids in the affordable units get to grow up in nicer neighborhoods with better schools. And I’m still waiting to hear my first story about a lottery winner lousing up an 80-20 rental building.
Have never understood why NYC just doesn’t contract out the picking up and recycling of Christmas trees off streets. Oh then again wait, that would eat into DSNY workers overtime and other pay so guess there is my answer.
beautifully ugly photo