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Carlina Rivera Is a ‘Shero,’ and Now She Wants to Be East Village and LES Council Rep

August 17, 2017 By Shannon Barbour

(Photo: Carlina Rivera on Instagram)

Lifelong Lower East Side resident Carlina Rivera is a frontrunner to be a City Council member representing District 2, where her current boss Rosie Mendez is on the way out. She’s racked up at least $176,000 in fundraising and she received praise and promises of votes when she attended an anti-Starbucks rally in the East Village last month. If Rivera wins the primary election on September 12, she’ll continue her campaign to represent the East Village, Gramercy Park, Kips Bay, Lower East Side, Murray Hill and Rose Hill. We met with her at Alphabet City’s Ninth Street Espresso to talk about her campaign, local issues, and her sheroes.

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Tags: affordable housing, cabaret laws, carlina rivera, council member, distritct 2, general election, Lower East Side, manhattan, new york city council, primary electiong, retail diversity, rosie mendez, Trump

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Ralliers Try to Seduce Mayor Into Blocking East Village Dorm

February 15, 2017 By Anaka Kaundinya

Residents, activists, community groups and their elected representatives gathered at the steps of City Hall yesterday afternoon with a Valentine’s Day message for Mayor de Blasio. Their request – to convert the long vacant P.S. 64 building in the East Village into a community center and disallow owner Gregg Singer from developing it into a college dorm.

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Tags: charas, City Hall, community center, East Village, Gale Brewer, LES, mayor de blasio, P.S. 64, rosie mendez, Valentine's Day

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Budding Olympians Will Soon Be Able to Play Volleyball at Two Revamped LES Parks

August 22, 2016 By Luisa Rollenhagen

(Photo: Luisa Rollenhagen)

If the Olympics put you in the mood for serving and spiking, here’s some good news: The Henry M. Jackson Playground is getting a volleyball area. It’s just one of many perks coming to two Lower East Side playgrounds as part of a city initiative to modernize ailing parks.

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Tags: Alice Cancel, community board 3, daniel squadron, Henry M. Jackson Playground, Lower East Side, margaret chin, Matthew Washington, mayor bill de blasio, Mitchell J. Silver, NYC parks department, parks, rosie mendez, Sol Lain Playground, trever holland, William T. Castro

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Why EV, LES Council Members Ended Up Backing Mayor’s Affordable Housing Plan

April 14, 2016 By Kavitha Surana

(Photo by Kavitha Surana)

Last night council members Margaret Chin and Rosie Mendez visited Community Board 3 to face the music and explain their votes on the mayor’s affordable housing and rezoning plan, which was approved by the City Council in March. The plan will allow developers to build higher in rezoned neighborhoods, but require them to include at least 25 percent affordable housing in all new buildings.

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Tags: cb3, community board 3, de blasio, margaret chin, mih, rosie mendez, ZQA

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Alice Cancel Picks Up Endorsements for Sheldon Silver’s Assembly Seat

April 8, 2016 By Kavitha Surana

Alice Cancel with supporters (Photo by Kavitha Surana

Democratic District Leader Alice Cancel picked up two more endorsements today in the run up to a special election on April 19 to replace Sheldon Silver’s seat in the New York State Assembly. Both Margaret Chin and Rosie Mendez, downtown councilmembers, said Cancel was the right choice for the job.

“Alice knows the community, she knows our schools, she knows our small businesses, she knows about public housing and she’s worked with the tenants,” said Chin in her endorsement. “She’s a district leader that works with the elected officials. When there’s a problem in the community, she calls them.”

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Tags: aixa torres, Alice Cancel, Assemblyman, Crime + Community, Lower East Side, margaret chin, public housinga, rosie mendez, sheldon silver, Yuh-line Niou

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My Quick and Painless(???) Visit to the New ID NYC Pop-Up in the East Village

January 6, 2016 By Daniel Maurer

(Photo: Daniel Maurer)

That is not a Mucinex hallucination: I just used the words “quick and painless” about government bureaucracy. Thanks, Obama! Or: thanks, Rosie Mendez. The council member is part of a group of local officials that helped install a temporary ID NYC enrollment center in the East Village.

After finding out about the pop-up at 25 Avenue D and going online earlier this afternoon to discover there was an appointment available in just 10 minutes, I booked it and headed over there. I was in and out in about 15 minutes — no line, no wait, no nothing. All I had to do was fill out a one-page form, present the pertinent documents (in my case, a passport and a utility bill), and pose for a photo. Despite horror stories in the wake of the program’s launch about a year ago, it took me less time than it does to score a pint of Haagen Dazs at my corner bodega when there’s a drunk girl in front of me scouring her Marc Jacobs bag for nickels.

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Tags: Crime + Community, East Village, id nyc, municipal id cards, new york city id card, rosie mendez

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

November 25, 2015 By 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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Tags: Anti-Construction Harassment Coalition, city council, CM Rosie Mendez, construction, construction harassment, department of buildings, development, DOB, East Village, Icon, Icon Realty, icon realty management, Lower East Side, predatory equity, Real Estate, rent control, rent controlled apartments, rent regulated apartments, rent regulation, rosie mendez, stabilizing nyc, tenant harassment, tenants, the Cooper Square Committee

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East Village and LES Brace For NYCHA’s Affordable Housing Plan

September 4, 2015 By Jaime Cone

Brian Honan, director of governmental relations for NCYCA, address CB 3’s Public Housing Committee (Photo: Jaime Cone)

Mayor de Blasio still hasn’t identified the public housing projects that will be targeted for private development under a controversial new plan, but after a meeting last night, it’s clear that the Lower East Side is a strong candidate for the mix of affordable and market-rate housing.

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Tags: Brian Honan, cb3 public housing committee, community board 3, Enrique Cruz, Lisa Burriss, mayor bill de blasio, nycha, public housing, rosie mendez

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Pols Toured the East Village Explosion Area and Sought Wisdom From Zoltar

June 1, 2015 By amiltonnymag

(Photo: Jaime Cone)

A little over two months after the Second Avenue gas explosion, local politicians and a small group of community members toured the still-smarting small businesses around the blast site.
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Tags: b&h dairy, Bar Virage, Burp Castle, Deborah J. Glick, East Village, East Village explosion, gem spa, jimmy's no. 43, Melissa Mark-Viverito, Moshe's bake shop, rosie mendez, Small Business Job Survival Act, small businesses, Stage Restaurant

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Via Della Pace Owners Worry That Without Help, Blast Site Will Be a ‘Ghost Corner’

April 14, 2015 By Lindsey Smith

Marco Ventura and Giovanni Bartocci. (Photo: Lindsay Smith)

“It’s been a long two and a half weeks,” City Council Member Rosie Mendez said today at a meeting with owners of East Village businesses affected by the gas explosion of March 26. Among those who’ve survived the aftermath of the tragedy are the owners of Italian restaurant Via Della Pace on East 7th Street, just across from the blast site.

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Tags: Crime + Community, Department of Small Business Services, East Village, fires, gas explosion, jimmy's no. 43, rosie mendez, via della pace