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Monday Bulletin: Opera Dispute Settled, Tenant Anxiety, Missing an Empty City

July 5, 2021 | 11:17 AM
in NEWS
17

July 5, 2021 Weather: Partly cloudy, with a high of 81 degrees.

Notices:
Our calendar has local and virtual events.

News:
The Metropolitan Opera and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) have settled a months-long dispute, reaching an agreement that will allow workers to return in time for the 2021-22 season. “Per information supplied to OperaWire, the agreement was struck early on Saturday morning and includes a three percent wage cut and a 4 1/2 percent annuity cut for three years. There will also be a lump sum payment equal to eight weeks of bridge pay as well as several other concessions on both sides, per the source. The union itself later confirmed that the deal had been made….The Met Opera season is set to open in late September with a production of ‘Fire Shut Up in My Bones.’”

“Tenants in market-rate apartments are not entitled to lease renewals” is the key phrase in The Real Deal story about the new owner of 215 West 84th Street — the Naftali Group — who bought the building last week for $71 million, and reportedly wants market-rate tenants out when their leases expire. “The firm warned residents they would face eviction if they don’t vacate once their leases are up, one tenant told the Commercial Observer. ‘I’m worried they’re going to lock my apartment and throw all my stuff on the street,’ said (the tenant), who has lived in the building for more than a decade. ‘I’m afraid to leave the building until our lease is up. That’s how scared I am.’”. The Observer reported that “A representative from the Naftali Group said it was too early to discuss plans for the property, although a spokeswoman with the union 32BJ SEIU said the owners were retaining the building’s workforce.”

The move back to congregate shelters for 68 homeless men who spent the pandemic in The Lucerne hotel on West 79th Street and Amsterdam Avenue went as the city ordered last Monday. But events at The Lucerne over the past year have spawned a “homeless rights movement” that may have led to trouble at a midtown hotel: “25 residents locked themselves in their rooms and refused to leave,” wrote Curbed. “They said that between the highly contagious Delta variant and the fact that just 14 percent of homeless New Yorkers are vaccinated, it wasn’t safe to go back to congregate shelters.” CBS2 reported that “eventually, the last holdouts did leave the hotel.”

“In the decades before the Stonewall uprising in 1969, an L.G.B.T.Q. community took shape among New Yorkers on a remote Fire Island hamlet known as Cherry Grove,” The New York Times recounted. “‘…following the civil rights movement, Cherry Grove became more welcoming to Blacks and Latinas from the L.G.B.T.Q. community. That acceptance — and the joy characteristic of the place — foretold the flourishing of gay and lesbian life in New York City and beyond,'” said the curator of a new outdoor exhibition of photographs and other ephemera at The New-York Historical Society. “The seeds were planted in Cherry Grove.”

A New Yorker who stayed in the city through the entire pandemic recalls the pleasures of a tourist-free New York, in an opinion piece in The New York Times. “Since the natural history museum reopened, we’ve been back at least four times, this iconic destination (‘The Squid and the Whale’! ‘Night at the Museum’!) becoming a dependable last-second rainy-day option available without arduous planning. The ability to roam the city and impulsively enjoy its uncrowded wonders used to feel like the provenance of children’s storybooks or rom-com fantasies. So it’s a remarkable feeling to live in a version of New York where you can ask your kid, ‘What do you want to do today?’ and, when she says, ‘Go to the natural history museum,’ you … actually can.”

On a sad note, Jeffrey Williamson died last week after being hit by the driver of a U.S. postal truck, while commuting home from work in the Central Park West protected bike lane. The truck was turning right, onto the 86th Street transverse. An advertising writer and avid sportsman,Williamson, 71, was planning to retire this month, according to the Daily News. He lived on Riverside Drive with his wife, Chris Brimer, since 1980. “‘Last night at dinner we toasted our good fortune including having a great apartment and health and happiness in New York for the past 40 years,” she recalled. “He would never have left this city.’ The 62-year-old postal truck driver remained on the scene, at one point breaking down in tears as police investigated,” wrote the News. He has not been charged or summonsed.”

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nyc musician
nyc musician
3 years ago

The Met Opera/IATSE news item is deceiving– Local 802, representing the Met Opera Orchestra, is still in negotiations with the Opera. The season will open in Sept if an agreement is reached.

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Frank Grimes
Frank Grimes
3 years ago

For anyone, politician or otherwise who has fought on behalf of the homeless safety and well being (virtue signaling or not) ,if you honestly care about them, please use your resources to encourage vaccination. Most have underlying conditions, a 14% vaccination rate is not acceptable, especially if their goal is to be placed in jobs, or long term accommodations.

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Tag Gross
Tag Gross
3 years ago

It’s a shame what has been done to the NYC skyline.

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B.B.
B.B.
3 years ago
Reply to  Tag Gross

Picture above is nothing.

You should see what skyline looks like from New Jersey, especially from 57th street south to BPC.

Heading east on NJT to Lincoln Tunnel it once was easy to make out Empire State building in distance across North River. Nowadays not so much as there’s plenty of other tall buildings.

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Photographer
Photographer
3 years ago
Reply to  Tag Gross

There’s nothing wrong with the skyline. It’s a terribly low-quality photo in which nothing would look pleasant.

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Reply
Phoebe
Phoebe
3 years ago
Reply to  Tag Gross

Looks like three smokestacks-

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good humor
good humor
3 years ago

Can someone explain how someone can kill another person without a summons? No law was broken? How is that possible?

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Reply
B.B.
B.B.
3 years ago
Reply to  good humor

Very generally there’s murder, manslaughter and death caused by accident.

Things vary by state, but in New York unless someone is driving recklessly (and can be proven), unlawfully, under the influence (drugs or alcohol), and or otherwise not breaking any known laws and has an “accident” which causes death of another it is generally just that.

Long as driver remains at the scene, cooperates with LE, and isn’t drunk, etc… then (sadly as it may seem to some), it is just an accidental death.

This only applies to criminality.Victim (if survives), his/her family (in case of death), estate or whoever can bring civil legal proceedings seeking damages and compensation. But that’s another matter.

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good humor
good humor
3 years ago
Reply to  B.B.

i sincerely thank you. another item on my list to change if i’m elected World Leader.

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Reply
B.B.
B.B.
3 years ago
Reply to  good humor

Why would you?

As those who study law learn (or should), it is there to dispense justice, not mete out punishment.

Accidents can and do happen, which is why word exists, as does concept in law nearly world over. Not everything is someone’s direct fault as in done with malice or other intent to harm.

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B.B.
B.B.
3 years ago

Edgar Allen Poe lived at Brennan Farmhouse which once stood at 215 West 84th Street.

Poe moved out in 1845 and the house was soon condemned by city to make way for extension of Broadway.

Mantle piece that once encased a fireplace where (allegedly) Edgar Allen Poe wrote one of his most famous poems, “The Raven” was removed and found its way to Columbia University where it remains today.

https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/10/mystery-of-a-poe-relic-the-raven-mantels-curious-journey/

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B.B.
B.B.
3 years ago

Another history tidbit for this property.

Borden Milk Company once had a dairy at 215 West 84th Street. When they vacated the property they left behind a stone relief eagle which was above main entrance.

Building became the Majestic Garage until 1984 when Rockrose Development Corporation purchased the property. Besides the former Borden property Rockrose also purchased building at corner of Broadway, and three smaller properties including a former Con Ed substation.

Conversion to apartments (named Eagle Court) followed which is the residential building that now has been sold.

The eagle that once was above Borden company’s entrance at 215 East 84th still remains. Having survived building’s conversion to a garage then an apartment building.

One hopes Naftali Group will find some use for the thing, and it doesn’t end up like remnants of old Penn Station head house, the Singer Building and others – in some New Jersey landfill.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/30/business/about-real-estate-new-west-84th-st-rental-apartments.html

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Lucy
Lucy
3 years ago

Worries about a 14% vaccination rate are not really an argument to stay in the hotel.
If you get vaccinated yourself, your chances of contracting Covid19 plunge.

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lynn
lynn
3 years ago
Reply to  Lucy

I know that someone asked about this before but I don’t recall seeing a reply. Were the men at the Lucerne and the other hotels and shelters actually vaccinated?

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Reply
B.B.
B.B.
3 years ago
Reply to  lynn

“The homeless services agency does not track the vaccination rate among its shelter population. But data suggests it’s likely that homeless New Yorkers have been vaccinated at a much lower rate than the general public.

As of June 21, the latest data available, about 6,500 shelter residents had been vaccinated through DHS services.

That’s up from 5,000 in early May, the New York Post reported, but represents a sliver of the total population of the shelter system, which was 47,114 as of Monday, DHS records show.

How many people within that total have been vaccinated outside of the DHS’s efforts is unknown.”

https://www.thecity.nyc/housing/2021/6/28/22555011/city-starts-kicking-thousands-of-homeless-people-from-hotels-back-to-shelters

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lynn
lynn
3 years ago
Reply to  B.B.

Thank you so much for the info/link!

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Reply
Robin Brinn
Robin Brinn
3 years ago

Regarding the opera, please be aware that although the dispute with the stage hands has been settled, there is still no resolution of the dispute with the orchestra.

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Reply

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