BY PAMELA WOLFF | The needlessly destructive class warfare plan to hand over Midtown’s Penn Station area to a lone, monied real estate interest—cooked up by disgraced former New York State Governor Mario Cuomo and inherited with blind gusto by his successor—must not be permitted to move forward. To do so would forever alter thousands […]
May 20 2o22: An Open Letter to NYC Councilmember Erik Bottcher, NYS Assemblymember Deborah J. Glick, NYS Senator Brad Hoylman, and Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine from Historic Districts Council, Save Chelsea, and Village Preservation Dear Elected Officials: We write to share disturbing information that has come to light about the recent demolition of nine rowhouse façades […]
BY LYNN ELLSWORTH AND SAMUEL A. TURVEY, CO-COORDINATORS, EMPIRE STATION COALITION | What does it take to kill off bad ideas? Terrible idea number one: Amtrak, the MTA, and New Jersey Transit want to demolish a big chunk of the historic part of the Penn Station neighborhood via eminent domain, especially targeting the block south of the current station. […]
BY LAYLA LAW-GISIKO (candidate, NYS Assembly, District 75) | On Tuesday, May 3, more than a thousand of us rallied at Foley Square to protest the egregious draft Supreme Court decision penned by Justice Alito that would gut the country’s landmark 1973 decision protecting abortion rights. It was inspiring to join so many in the […]
BY SAMUEL A. TURVEY (Chairperson, ReThinkNYC) | New York State Governor Kathy Hochul wants to finance the renovation of Penn Station by demolishing the neighborhood around it and erecting a forest of tax-generating supertalls (corporate towers whose height exceeds that in the current and proposed surrounding area). Now we learn that the Federal share of funding for […]
BY LAYLA LAW-GISIKO (Candidate, AD75 and Chair, Commuity Board 5 Land Use, Housing & Zoning Committee | Penn Station is dark, for more than one reason. This week (March 13-19, 2022) is Sunshine Week—the week where we celebrate transparency and accountability in government. Open government is good government. Let’s bring sunshine into Penn Station! Over […]
BY LOWELL KERN, CANDIDATE FOR THE 75th ASSEMBLY DISTRICT | New York deserves a world-class transit hub that works for the city and our surrounding community. The current version of the Penn Station area redevelopment plan fails at achieving this mission—but the solution is not to scrap the entire plan. Instead, we must recognize the […]
TEXT AND PHOTOS BY JOEY DAYTONA | After returning from my two-week sojourn to Bluefield, West Virginia and elsewhere, I settled back into my work-from-home routine by only ever going out to get more supplies to go—a splendid isolation out of an episode of The Twilight Zone. New York City surely has its charms and […]
EDITOR’S NOTE: Chelsea Community News welcomes back “Don’t Call it Parody ” columnist, dyspeptic pundit, and pants fancier Max Burbank, whose My CoviDiary column (published with startling regularity in 2020 and the early months of last year) looked at the pandemic in all of its forms and functions and, as time went on, as a blunt […]
BY JOHN MUDD, PRESIDENT, MIDTOWN SOUTH COMMUNITY COUNCIL | We’re a traumatized nation being held hostage by an economic system that fails to deliver basic human principles. Healthcare, economic opportunities, education, equitable justice, housing, and basic dignity are continually undermined, threatening public welfare. Close to home (and cutting to the bone) here in NYC, this […]