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Monday Bulletin: ‘Don’t Be a Maskhole’ (Don’t Judge); Gale’s Heli Ride; Not So Fast, Teddy Roosevelt

March 7, 2022 | 5:12 AM - Updated on June 5, 2022 | 11:38 PM
in COLUMNS, NEWS, POLITICS
35
Scaffolding as far as the eye can see. Photograph by Maddie Lane.

By Carol Tannenhauser

March 7, 2022 Weather: Cloudy early with afternoon showers, high of 71 degrees!

Notices
Our
 calendar has lots of local events!

News
A new term has entered the lexicon. “Maskhole” turned up in a New York Post story about the potential for teasing now that masks have become optional in schools, including private schools such as Collegiate for boys on the UWS. “’The School will not tolerate any comments regarding someone’s personal decision either to wear or not wear a mask,’ said David Lourie, the head of [Collegiate] in a note to parents. ‘Please speak to your son in advance about respecting the choices of others, as no one knows another’s personal circumstances.’”

As the discussion about shelters and supportive housing heats up in the neighborhood with the revelation of a new facility coming to W. 97th Street, Patch describes the positive results such facilities can bring. The West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing (WSFSSH) opened a combined transitional shelter/permanent affordable residence for low-income seniors on W. 108th (Columbus and Amsterdam) in November, after years of controversy. “Diane Holt’s life went from disaster to dream in just a moment when she found [her] new home, Holt, 63, told Patch. ‘It’s a new beginning on life…The place is beautiful, it is like a dream for me.'”

The other extreme is the highest man-made point on the Upper West Side: the duplex penthouse atop 200 Amsterdam, the building that never stops making “news.” This time it’s the offering of the building’s Penthouse Collection, described and displayed in YIMBY, including the premier model with its 116-foot-long, 20-foot-wide, floor-to-ceiling windows through which to view the views. According to the broker, “no luxury or expense was spared.” Click the link for details and photographs.

The UWS registered one-third of all helicopter-noise complaints last year, the Daily News reported. In the service of her district — Council Member Gale Brewer took a tour on one of the flights that have “angered her constituents for years. It hovered over, among other NYC attractions, Central Park. “I yelled out to the people with me, ‘Is anyone here from New York?’ Nobody. Just two tourists from Washington state who said they didn’t like the city’s COVID regulations….If you want to see the Statue of Liberty, just go out and take the boat,” Brewer added.

Citywide there were 25,821 helicopter noise complaints submitted to 311. 21,620 of those came from Manhattan, and 8,463 from the Upper West Side.

These complaints doubled citywide from 2020 to 2021, and went up 8 times in the Upper West Side. https://t.co/64hegXOflo

— Gale A. Brewer (@galeabrewer) March 6, 2022

Finally, the saga of the Teddy Roosevelt statue is not over. Plans to relocate it to North Dakota have hit a snag. According to Hyperallergic, the statue’s not wanted by Indigenous leaders there, either….[and] a group of more than 140 artists, scholars, and art critics have signed a petition calling on New York City to reverse its decision….[It] urges the city to consider melting down, recycling, or disposing of the monument, whose composition implies racial hierarchies, calling its planned transfer to North Dakota a ‘mistake’ that ‘only compounds the harms stemming from the statue’s racist message.’”

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35 Comments
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MARCI
MARCI
10 months ago

I think there should be a museum for all statues that have been removed and then they will all be in one place for ARTS sake

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chuck d
chuck d
10 months ago
Reply to  MARCI

Great idea! You should seriously pursue this.

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Reply
Bob
Bob
10 months ago
Reply to  MARCI

Yes, A Museum of Currently Offensive Art is a splendid idea. Major cities could each have one as a refuge against the artistic assaults of whatever Presentism movement comes along.

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nemo paradise
nemo paradise
10 months ago
Reply to  Bob

Outstanding idea.

If you add a wing dedicated to “art that may offend someone in the future” I think you’ve got it covered.

Maybe we could have an online museum of art that has been previously condemned but is now worshipped as divine light, like almost everything.

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Steve
Steve
10 months ago
Reply to  MARCI

Especially since when fashion changes again they will want some of them back…

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Paul
Paul
10 months ago
Reply to  Steve

Right. When they uncover proof that TR actually went around, on a horse, with a 3/4 naked African on one side and an Indian in full headdress on the other, this statue will be revered, once again.
Along with those of the traitors to the US, circa 1860 – 1865.

It’s one thing to go nuts and complain about Jefferson, Washington, etc.
It’s at least as nuts to complain about the removal of gratuitous insults.

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cchay
cchay
10 months ago

Fo pity’s sake, ban ALL the tourist helicopters over NYC. First of all, we residents are being harassed by the constant drone of the copters. But this also – seriously – a security threat. There should be no non-essential air traffic over the city.

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Otis
Otis
10 months ago

According to the Patch article linked about the supportive housing for seniors over 60,000 people applied for 70 affordable units in this building – and these “affordable” units are heavily subsidized by the city.

These ridiculous schemes are not going to solve the city’s housing affordability crisis.

Yet Gale Brewer calls this facility the “project of the decade”.

Pathetic.

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GFS
GFS
10 months ago
Reply to  Otis

So what’s to be done, Otis? Build supertowers for seniors?

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David S
David S
10 months ago

According to the broker, “no luxury or expense was spared.”

Indeed. Even the bounds of good taste were exceeded in this effort.

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Reply
ben
ben
10 months ago

Re: helicopter noise, just this morning, 7am-ish, a chopper buzzed across CP over 97th street. Truly the bane of my sleep.

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Reply
Roseann
Roseann
10 months ago
Reply to  ben

That helicopter was one of the 1 percenters flying back from the Hamptons.

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Reply
Dina
Dina
10 months ago

’The School will not tolerate any comments regarding someone’s personal decision either to wear or not wear a mask,’

Quite a change from the last 2 years, when people who didn’t want to wear masks forever were called science-denying fascists who were trying to kill people!

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Mark Moore
Mark Moore
10 months ago
Reply to  Dina

That’s pretty much what they were, especially before the vaccines arrived.

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Reply
Helen
Helen
10 months ago
Reply to  Mark Moore

Get your shirt yet, mark? 🙂

https://babylonbee.com/news/in-lieu-of-masks-progressives-to-just-wear-shirts-saying-i-am-a-good-person

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Sarah
Sarah
10 months ago
Reply to  Dina

That was your conscience trying to be heard.

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Reply
Leon
Leon
10 months ago
Reply to  Dina

I do not know anyone who wanted to wanted to wear masks forever. Everyone has a different perspective on when we will be out of the woods (some thought we were never in the woods – these people had little sense of reality), but no one wanted that. This immediate movement to the extreme is what has made political discourse in this country impossible.

Please turn off the Fox News and relax.

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Gertie
Gertie
10 months ago
Reply to  Leon

Disagree. For 2 years someone not wearing a mask outside could be verbally berated and smeared. Now the tide has turned. But if one were to question why someone is wearing a mask outside, alone, in Central Park – well that’s now forbidden hate speech! It’s still all political.

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Peter
Peter
10 months ago
Reply to  Dina

Indeed, quite a change. You just need to point us to the original, official school guidelines that labeled anyone who refused to wear a mask “forever” (did they define that?) as “science-denying fascists”?

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LL
LL
10 months ago

I am so confused. Wasn’t the statue going to be moved nearby originally?
And seriously. I remember feeling very uncomfortable seeing the statue a few years ago, but suggesting that a statue be melted down..no.

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Anne
Anne
10 months ago

I think it’s a beautiful statue. We don’t elevate white men now. But that’s progress. And that’s why it is a wonderful teaching/discussion tool. You can’t “cancel” history, but you can learn and grow from knowing it.
Bring the statue back to its home.

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LEE APT
LEE APT
10 months ago
Reply to  Anne

YAY ANNE! WE CANNOT CANCEL HISTORY! BUT WE CAN CHANGE. FROM CHANGING PLAYS TO REFLECT “THE NOW” TO CHOPPING UP ARTIFACTS, THESE ART PIECES WERE A PRODUCT OF THEIR TIMES – WE SHOULD NOT DESTOY THEM, AND YES WE SHOULD LEARN FROM THEM.

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Don
Don
10 months ago

Bronze statures cost time money and a dedicated artist to even get to the instillation. I doubt that the artist made the decision to demean and shame native Americans but to include them in the story of Teddys life. Can’t we look at a stature that has endured from another era and make the connection with the past? Whose stature is next? By the standard for Teddys stature I would guess some group will go after Washington or other founding members of the nation. Few Politicians are flawless and for that matter that goes foremost of humanity

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Betsy
Betsy
10 months ago

On the Roosevelt statue – why not take it into the museum and have it be the center of a permanent exhibition explaining the evolution of racism, from having it commissioned, to having it removed. It’s a missed opportunity to teach! Don’t pretend it never existed!
”Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Santayana

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chrigid
chrigid
10 months ago

put the statue inside the museum with an interpretation

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Reply
UWSD
UWSD
10 months ago

Why not auction the statue off to a private collector and using the money for something good? I’m sure we could all come up with a long list of good causes that could use that money.

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Reply
Peter
Peter
10 months ago
Reply to  UWSD

How many private collectors do you know who would want to sit at Christie’s and think “Let me bid on that giant statue that everyone labeled as racist? It’s a no brainer – easy to put on my estate, the neighbors won’t mind, all my society friends would love it, it elevates my standing in the public eye – and it helps do some good.”

Or “I could just donate to charity and get the tax benefit.”

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Kathleen
Kathleen
10 months ago

Teddy Roosevelt was crazy about children and learning. How about commissioning a living, breathing sculptor to give the nation a new statue of Teddy….which would of course have to include a teddy bear.

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m.pipik
m.pipik
10 months ago

How many of the apartments at 200 Amsterdam did the sponsors expect to be bought by Russians?

I guess we will be seeing price drops at all the pencil tall and supertalls.

Still junk and blights at any price.

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Reply
Jan
Jan
10 months ago

Removing Teddy Roosevelt statue is positively
unAmerican!
Didn’t he build this museum?
Just a few radical people didn’t like it
but what about the rest of us?
Put it back and ignore the naysayers

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Reply
T.
T.
10 months ago

West Siders desperately want the noxious helicopter flights for tourists and the junior masters of the universe traveling to and from the Hamptons to be cancelled permanently. The Congressional delegation NYS, Long Island, and the rest of NYS yaks endlessly about ending them but cannot, despite Sen. Schumer being the Majority Leader of the US Senate, and City Members of the House in leadership positions. Our junior Senator is invisible on this issue. All the yakity-yak means nothing in terms of results for the afflicted residents.

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Reply
sg
sg
10 months ago

So it was okay to ridicule, mock and censure individuals for not wanting to wear a mask once it was shown that they don’t prevent the spread, but not to even comment on those who want to perpetuate the sham? Unfortunately, I’m not suprised…

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Reply
Josh
Josh
10 months ago
Reply to  sg

I must have missed the part where masks didnt present spread. Maybe you are referring just to Omicron where the simpler masks didnt prevent the spread? But Delta, which was still prevalent during Omicron, was still affected by all mask wearing. But hey, since Fox News hosts speak in rhetoric as if their viewers were idiots, and since their fans then recite what the hosts say verbatim…

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Peter
Peter
10 months ago
Reply to  sg

Right. They prevent nothing. That’s why doctors wear them, for hours and hours on end. Just to look cool.

You want to comment on someone’s personal choice re: what they wear? Go ahead, let’s see who you decide to pick on, you brave soul.

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Reply
Quan
Quan
10 months ago

Teddy Roosevelt should never have been removed. Total mis-reading of what it stands for.
Ridiculous.

0
Reply

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