What's Behind East Side Officials Asking for Green Manhattan Tram Station Roof?

In a joint letter signed by virtually every East Side elected official the request was made to the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation to incorporate into the design of the new Manhattan Tram station a green roof.

Why is this request coming now? Yes, RIOC is still in the design phase but it is interesting that the chorus has just started when the process discussing the new Tram and its stations has been going on for well over a year to two. If the overhaul had kept to its original schedule this question would be way late and impossible to even consider. My fellow blogger the Roosevelt Islander infers that it is because East Siders perhaps don't like the current design in some form.

For me I am all for "greening" our neighborhoods and construction practices but I say to these elected officials if you are going to push this at this time RIOC has a right to ask for the additional cash to make it happen. Let's see who is first to float a bill to increase the funding for the Tram overhaul for a green roof over another project they are currently backing.

I am in a cranky mood today so I apologize to each of the elected officials as the goal is admirable but I question why this project and why now and not earlier.

Oct 21st Stringer Sponsored Community Forum re Transportation Issues

This coming Tuesday, October 21st, Roosevelt Island residents will have another opportunity to discuss transportation issues affecting the island this time not just with RIOC regarding the Tram but with our elected officials and each of the government agencies that run and maintain our bridges, subways, and buses.

The Community Forum is being lead by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and as this post appears to also include Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, State Senator Jose Serrano, Assembly Member Micah Kellner and City Councilmember Jessica Lappin.

According to a representative from Borough President Stringer’s office the agenda is not yet final but one of their goals is to make the forum as interactive as possible including discussions of issues as well as possible solutions.

As opposed to Community Board 8’s Roosevelt Island transportation forum which took place in Manhattan at the Blood Center this forum is scheduled to take place here on the Island and as such can expect a much better turnout than the less than a dozen who attended the CB8 meeting.

All residents are encouraged to attend as this is a great opportunity to ask questions and hear from all parties plans for next year when the Tram is offline for several months. The timing of this meeting is appropriate as at least one of the referendum proposed by RIRA for the November elections includes the Tram.

Lappin Begins 2009 Campaign Locally with a Picnic

With no discernable Democratic or Republican challengers making themselves known on Roosevelt Island, City Council Member Jessica Lappin is hosting a BBQ picnic this coming Thursday, August 14th at Lighthouse Park from 6:00 to 7:30 pm.

The suggested donation to the event and to Ms. Lappin’s campaign is $15 and checks should be made payable to “Lappin for Council”.

Ms, Lappin represents District 5 on the City Council which includes Roosevelt Island.

Elected Officials "Urge" Gov. Spitzer to Nominate RIOC Elected Candidates

As stated in a joint letter to Governor Spitzer, four elected Federal, State and City representatives urge the Governor to nominate the elected candidates to the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation Board of Directors as only he can. The letter refers to the historic nature of the vote, the diversity of those "elected", and the large turnout of residents that voted in the election.

Double click the above image to read the full text of the letter in its original format.

Will Southtown Include Affordable Housing?

The question regarding whether Southtown will include affordable housing is one that the NYS Division of Housing and Community Renewal and the Spitzer Administration has to face head on. To date the marketing of the existing four buildings has certainly been upscale and the prices to back that up. The issue of affordability has again been highlighted by the very public sale of 58 units to NYU on top of past building sales to Memorial Sloan Kettering and Weill Cornell Medical College. Nothing has been issued to indicate the next five would marketed any differently.

The General Development Plan requires 40% of the planned units offered to be affordable and occupied by low- and middle-income residents.

The question has now been raised in a direct letter, dated January 29, 2008, to DHC Commission Deborah Van Amerongen how the GDP requirement will be met and what the DHCR is doing to ensure it is. The letter is jointly signed by US. Representative Carolyn Maloney, State Senator Jose M. Serrano, Asseembly Member Micah Kellner, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and City Council Member Jessica Lappin.

The question how will Hudson / Related the developers ensure that they meet the 40% requirement can have long lasting effects. When Northtown Phase 2 was constructed builders set aside, to my knowledge, all of 2 and 4 River Road to meet the affordability percentage requirements they were required to meet. Because these units were separated from the rest of Manhattan Park reports have been that the management and upkeep of these buildings have suffered. Will Hudson / Related do the same? Will the same result occur again.

It will be interesting to see how this develops, pardon the pun, and how the developers respond to the letter from our elected officials. On one hand the State had no trouble taking money for the Southtown development rights but will they now uphold the GDP as law as they are trying to do by keeping the remaining three WIRE buildings, in Mitchell-Lama, as affordable housing.

VOTE NOW or Forever Hold Your Peace

We Need As Many Voters To Vote As Possible....

This coming Tuesday Roosevelt island residents effectively have to vote in large numbers for the RIOC Board nominees or it is likely Governor Spitzer will not nominate any of the candidates to the Board of Directors. As noted in today’s NY Sun this process is an experiment and if the Governor feels that the elected nominees are not sufficiently representative of the Island he may feel he is not bound to his promise to allow us this self representation.

So effectively it is, pardon my bluntness, time to put up or shut up, or as it is put more eloquently above, VOTE NOW or forever hold your peace as this opportunity may never be granted us again.

Steve Shane, President of RIOC, the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, stated in the NY Sun article that advocates of the election had overstated their significance. "The reality of their representation is very different than their public posturing," Mr. Shane said yesterday. "They have a state senator, an assemblyman, a City Council member, and no one else has any more than that."

I am not wholly sure I agree with Mr. Shane’s analysis. Yes, we vote for a City Council Member but her authority over matters affecting Roosevelt Island’s operations are limited, I believe, to that of a visiting dignitary. While yes she is an advocate on our behalf and can work to secure funds through the City for various programs on the Island she again can not change policy set at the State level or decided within the walls of the RIOC offices. As such I believe we have less than the rest of the NYC population and until the Island reverts back to NYC or this election is successful this will not change.

I have great concerns regarding the success of this election as I am unsure if the general population of the Island fully understands the position in history we now stand in. If great numbers of Island residents don’t vote this opportunity, As Matt Katz, RIRA President, states in the NY Sun article it may never come again. So please let your neighbors know this election is of great significance and they should make the effort to vote on February 5th if only for this election if not for the primaries themselves.

Elected Officials Call for Extension of Q Line to Supplement F Line to Roosevelt Island

In a joint letter dated January 20th, 2008, to MTA NYCT President Howard H. Roberts, Jr., it has been requested that the MTA re-evaluate the transit needs of Roosevelt Island and requests that a short term solution be instituted that would include extending the Q Line through 21st Queensbridge until the Second Avenue Subway is operational.

The full text of the letter can be linked to HERE.

The letter is signed by United States Representative Carolyn Maloney, NYS Senator Jose M. Serrano, NYS Assembly Member Micah Kellner, and NYC Council Member Jessica Lappin. The letter is a follow-up to Council Member Lappin's July 2006 letter to the MTA.

The letter opens with the following paragraph:

"As elected officials representing the thousands of New Yorkers who live and work on Roosevelt Island, we urge you to address the developing crisis in the island’s mass transit link to Manhattan and the rest of New York City. Already, Roosevelt Islanders are faced with overcrowding on the island’s sole subway connection, the F line. With thousands more residents projected to join the island’s population in the near future, as well as a prolonged period of downtime planned for the Roosevelt Island tram, immediate action is required to prevent a transportation overload of critical proportions."

The letter closes with the following two paragraphs:

"In your response to Councilmember Lappin you stated that “our recent data continues to show that, on average, the F line operates within passenger loading guidelines.” While this may be true – though it conflicts with the daily experience of Roosevelt Island residents who ride the F line – it strikes us as a somewhat shortsighted view of the problem, in light of the island’s rapid population growth and the impending overhaul of the tram.

Given these realities, it is imperative that NYC Transit seriously consider ways to augment subway service to Roosevelt Island as soon as possible. We urge you to consider extending service on the Q line to 21st St./Queensbridge. If you believe this would not be practicable, we ask that you investigate alternate possibilities for increasing service to the rapidly growing population of Roosevelt Island."

State Senator Serrano - Roosevelt Island Office Hours - Jan. 8th

Will Roosevelt Island’s Elevators and Escalators Be Part of the Planned MTA Automated Monitoring System?

The New York Times is reporting today, December 17, 2007, of an MTA project to “hook up more than 300 elevators and escalators in the subways to a computerized monitoring system that would allow it to respond more quickly to breakdowns.” The plan still needs the approval of the full Authority but the prospect is encouraging. Reading through the articles it appears the plan is focusing on elevators first.

According to the article “[t]here are 158 passenger elevators in the subway system, including 138 in 61 stations that are fully accessible to disabled people, according to the transit agency. There are 169 escalators. The subway system has 468 stations.”

Using simple division that means the two elevators on Roosevelt Island account for just over 1% of the total elevator population no matter which figure is the denominator. Not much percentage wise but at least we are on the board. Since we have a higher percentage of wheelchair residents than most neighboprhoods anytime these elevators go out of service we should be yelling louder.

Our 10 escalators account for just under 6% of the total escalator population. At 6% that is nothing to sneeze at. What bugs me and most residents is why are the new escalators already are out of service as often as they are. If they are being “rested” during off hours can that be posted at the track level or at the lower mezzanine before individuals start heading up to find that the escalators from Upper Mezzanine to the street are out of service? Can we automate those fancy LED lights at the bottom to inform us of these outages?

Based on these percentages and our resident population I would hope that our elected representatives work to ensure our elevators and escalators are included in the final MTA automated response plan once it is approved earlier than later.

Roosevelt Island Residents: Spitzer Administration Screws Mitchell Lama Residents

Updated to remove photograph.

Printed in time for the Rivercross Tenants Association 30th Anniversary Party the Main Street WIRE published a one page special previewing this coming week’s issue (Saturday November 17, 2007) regarding the issuance of full value real estate tax equivalency bills to three of the four original Roosevelt Island Mitchell-Lama buildings. The poster was not an official editorial as the situation is fluid and the WIRE's official editorial will not be set until it is is formally published. See my previous two posts for more background.

The below image is of the poster taken late Sunday night as it dominates the internal Rivercross message board.



Most residents expect the politicians to work this out as the issuance of these bills does seem to run counter to the stated goals of ensuring affordable housing but it certainly does seem that the Spitzer administration does not have control of the state agencies charged with ensuring this goal is kept by sending out FMV tax bills. Not exactly a friendly way to gather support for buildings to stay in the Mitchell-Lama program. Expect this issue to dominate island news for a few weeks at a minimum.

NYT Editorial : A Roosevelt for Roosevelt Island

Today's New York Times includes an editorial supporting the construction of the Louis Kahn FDR Memorial:

"The eminent architect Louis Kahn was commissioned to design the memorial, and his concept was simple and elegant. Drawing inspiration from Roosevelt’s defense of the Four Freedoms — of speech and religion, and from want and fear — he designed an open “room and a garden” at the bottom of the island. Trees on either side form a “V” defining a green space, and leading to a two-walled stone room at the water’s edge that frames the United Nations and the rest of the skyline."

"There’s a magic to the project. That the task is daunting makes it worthy of the man it honors, who guided the nation through the Depression, the New Deal and a world war. As for Mr. Kahn, he died in 1974, as he passed alone through New York’s Penn Station. In his briefcase were renderings of the memorial, his last completed plan."

No mention is made in the editorial about the concerns of the residents of Roosevelt Island just praise for the design, FDR himself, and for Kahn.

NY Sun Profiles City Council Member Jessica Lappin

There is very nice profile of Roosevelt Island's City Council Member Jessica Lappin in today's New York Sun. There is also a candid shot of Ms. Lappin with her son. The article stresses Lappin's desire to separate her work life from her personal one. I can appreciate that as I try to keep photos of my own kids out of this blog as well as direct facial shots of children living on the island.

Back on topic, the article is worth checking out as portrays Lappin as a legislator looking to make a difference and not one looking for the quick sound byte / media shot to impress their constituency. She indicates in the article that being a new mother impacts how she looks at the City and I expect how she acts as a Council Member in this City.

Assemblymember Kellner Announces Roosevelt Island Offices Hours

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

At RIOC’s last movie night, Saturday 8/25th, both I and the Roosevelt Islander were greeted by New York State Assemblymember Micah Z. Kellner (D) who stopped by to announce to his Roosevelt Island constituents that starting Thursday September 13th he will begin offering weekly office hours here on Roosevelt Island. The hours will run between 3pm and 7pm weekly at RIOC’s offices at 591 Main Street. In addition to discussing his new hours we took the opportunity to also discuss the possibility of Roosevelt Island qualifying for one of the twenty DOT stand alone public restrooms that are planned to be built across New York City.

The above video was shot off the cuff and I offer my apologies to the Assemblyman for the lousy lighting and sound not to mention his last words being slightly clipped in the editing of this video.