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New Millennial-Friendly Hotel Threatens Historic East Village Tenements

Protestors organized against the new Moxy Hotel and demolition of historic buildings (Photo: Nicole Disser)

Protestors organized against the new Moxy Hotel and demolition of historic buildings (Photo: Nicole Disser)

Yesterday afternoon a group of vocal protesters gathered along East 11th Street, facing a row of historic brick buildings they’re intent on saving from demolition at the hands of one of the city’s most prolific developers. The structures in question are a streak of five residential buildings, all of them five-story, Old Law tenements that, according to the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, have changed little since they were built between 1887 and 1892.

GVSHP and the other preservation groups that organized yesterday’s protest– including the Historic Districts Council, the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative and the East Village Community Coalition– are appealing to the city’s Landmarks and Preservation Commission to come through with an eleventh-hour historic district designation that would thwart plans for a 300-room hotel.

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MTA Continues ‘Dialogue’ About Slowdown vs. Shutdown of L Train

(Photo: Nicole Disser)

(Photo: Nicole Disser)

The MTA held its second public meeting to discuss the impending L train closure, and last night’s hearing at the 14th Street Salvation Army Theater couldn’t have been more different from the one hosted in Brooklyn last week. For one, the attendance was dominated by the same crowd you’d see at a City Council Committee meetings– aging hippies, your Dave Stuben types, the occasional transport dork, press, press, and more press; and the few regular people left in the immediate area around Union Square and Chelsea who also happen to have extra time on their hands.

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Williamsburg Basement Collapses, Injuring Three Construction Workers

146 Wilson (Photo by Kavitha Surana)

146 Wilson (Photo by Kavitha Surana)

When Joshua Alvarado drops his son off at Public School 16 in the mornings, he often notices busy construction activity at the brick row houses on Wilson Street, across from the school. But he’s never expecting what happened this morning. At 9:15 a.m. firefighters rushed to the scene of a construction disaster at 146 Wilson Street on Williamsburg’s south side. After an illegal excavation project went wrong, the basement-level collapsed, injuring three construction workers.

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East Village Tenants Say ‘Enough Is Enough’ to Alleged Predatory Landlord

Karen Platt's East Village building, 522 East 5th Street (Photo: Nicole Disser)

Karen Platt’s East Village building, 522 East 5th Street (Photo: Nicole Disser)

Karen Platt has been channeling her frustrations through the satisfying scrape of chalk across concrete. After years of living with dust, noise, and health hazards caused by construction, repeated and seemingly relentless service cut-offs, and what she says are intentional moves by her landlord to clear her (and other rent-regulated tenants like her) out of her longtime home at 522 East 5th Street in the East Village, Platt’s sidewalk messages reveal she has reached a breaking point: “Lack of services is harassment” and “Enough is Enough.”

As Platt explained to B+B, since Icon Realty Management bought her building, things took a turn for the miserable. “I’ve lived in New York my whole life and I’ve never, ever been treated like this,” she said.

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Condo-mania: Three New Buildings Coming to East 13th

Looking West on East 13th Street between Avenue A and 1st Avenue.

Looking West on East 13th Street between Avenue A and 1st Avenue. (Photo: Jaime Cone)

A trio of residential buildings is set to change the look of East 13th Street, between Avenue A and First Avenue.

The facelift will be courtesy of two developers, one planning to transform two stubby garages into slender twin condos and another looking to tear down the former post office across the street to make way for an eight-story rental building. Construction-permit applications were filed for all three buildings in recent weeks.
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