Providing air conditioning units to low-income families and seniors is one of the strategies the City is enacting to help New Yorkers cope with summer heat during the COVID-19 pandemic. Image Credit: CityLand

As temperatures begin to rise and as Summer in NYC officially begins on Saturday, the City is eyeing sports and other large venues to use as cooling centers and is set to spend $55 million on air conditioners for elderly and low-income residents. On June 12, 2020, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced an update to the City’s plan to protect vulnerable New Yorkers from excessive indoor heat exposure. Now called the Get Cool NYC program, the update follows an announcement of the Covid-19 Heat Wave Plan on May 15, 2020, to outline how the City will keep New Yorkers cool during the coming summer months in the wake of Covid-19 shelter-in-place and social distancing requirements.  (more…)

Western Beef Supermarket Rendering Image Credit: City Planning

Council Member Richards makes sure developers keep promises. On October 3, 2019, City Council’s Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises held a public hearing on Rockaway Limited Partnership’s application to redevelop the former Peninsula Hospital site into “Edgemere Commons.” The proposed development is located in Far Rockaway Queens, north of Rockaway Beach Boulevard, south of Beach Channel Drive east of Beach 53rd Street and west of Beach 50th Street.

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New York City Council Member Inez Barron. Image credit: NYCC/William Alatriste

If enacted, the bills would mandate the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to provide legal assistance information to susceptible tenants. On May 4, 2016, the City Council Subcommittee on Housing and Buildings held a public hearing on two bills introduced to ensure seniors and disabled persons facing eviction have access to information about the legal services available to help them. The bills would mandate the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to provide such tenants with referrals to legal services organizations upon being notified of the initiation of eviction proceedings.

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David J. Burney

David J. Burney, Commissioner of the Department of Design and Construction, manages more than $6 billion of the City’s public works program. DDC maintains a relatively low profile, but its work on infrastructure and municipal facilities for the City’s frontline agencies currently includes roughly 170 design projects and 235 construction projects. DDC projects throughout the City range from the installation of sidewalk pedestrian ramps to the construction of new firehouses and libraries. Notable projects include the expansion of the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, the reconstruction of Columbus Circle, and the FDNY Training Facility on Randall’s Island. From his office in Long Island City, Burney spoke with CityLand about the agency and its role.

The first architect to lead DDC, Burney studied at the University of London’s Bartlett School of Architecture. He moved to New York City in 1982 and worked at a private architecture firm, Davis Brody and Associates (now Aedas), on projects such as the Rose Building at Lincoln Center and Zeckendorf Towers on Union Square. Burney entered the public sector in 1990 as Director of Design and Capital Improvement for the New York City Housing Authority, where he was responsible for setting design standards for its capital program. Burney remained at NYCHA until 2004, when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg appointed him to head DDC as Commissioner.  (more…)

Owner’s opposition and valid permit to strip exterior fails to stop designation. On June 20, 2006, Landmarks voted unanimously to designate former Public School 64 at 605 East 9th Street in the Lower East Side, despite the fact that its current owner, Gregg Singer, remained opposed to the designation and holds a valid Buildings permit to remove exterior details. 2 CityLand 152 (Nov. 15, 2005); 3 CityLand 80 (June 15, 2006).

Reading a lengthy, emotionally- charged statement urging designation, Commissioner Roberta Brandes Gratz claimed the vote “will be the most significant decision of the Landmarks Preservation Commission in recent years.” Gratz traced the school’s history, explaining first that Elizabeth Irwin, founder of the Little Red Schoolhouse, taught at P.S. 64 before it closed in the late 1960s, but she focused her testimony on the period within the late 1960s and 1970s when many building owners and the City “turned their backs” on the Lower East Side and abandoned buildings. During that time the Adopt-a-Building program, which helped local residents take over deteriorating buildings, squatted in P.S. 64, making it “a symbol for the grass roots self-help movement” that spread through the Lower East Side, Gratz said. She added that “no amount of stripping away of detailing . . . can ever diminish its importance.” (more…)