two bridges

Arts & Culture, news No Comments

Art This Week: Food-Covered Faces, Chinatown Locals, and Witches

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(image courtesy of Contra Gallery)

Fake Smears and Facial Food Fiascos
Opening Thursday, January 31 at Contra Gallery, 6 pm to 9 pm. On view through February 15.

While playing with your food has long been understood as a childish act one grows out of, not everyone stops meddling in their munchies. Sometimes this is actually for the best; in the case of artist David Henry Nobody Jr., it’s resulted in some compelling (and sometimes stomach-turning) sculptural works featuring the artist’s head and corn, cabbage, tomatoes, lunch meat, and even a bag of corn flakes stuck around his head that then gets steadily filled with milk. That’s just a smattering of what Nobody Jr. has to offer in his new show Fake Smears and Facial Food Fiascos (say that fives times fast). Opening at Chelsea’s Contra Gallery on Thursday, it explores the absurdity of both humanity and the waste we leave behind. More →

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City Hall, news, Social Justice No Comments

LES Residents Call For City to Intervene On ‘Nightmarish’ Mega Towers

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(Two Bridges resident Trever Holland speaking at the rally in front of the Department of City Planning)

In another installment of “the rent is too damn high,” Two Bridges residents are demanding that the city increase its oversight of the mega-towers coming to the Lower East Side waterfront, which are set to add thousands of luxury units to the lower-income and working-class community.

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City Hall, news No Comments

New Supertall Joining Extell on the Waterfront Draws Resident Ire

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Courtesy JDS/SHoP

Courtesy JDS/SHoP

The area known as Two Bridges, below the Lower East Side, melting into Chinatown and hemmed in by the waterfront, has long been defined by its mix of mid-rise low-income public housing and affordable housing buildings. Now, within a matter of years it will suddenly have at least two towering skyscrapers in its midst.

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City Hall, news No Comments

De Blasio Makes It Rain, Pours More Money Into East River Flood Protection

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We all remember when superstorm Sandy plunged the East Village into darkness after a 14-foot storm surge caused an explosion at the ConEd station (in fact, there’s a movie out Friday set during that very historical moment in 2011). Luckily, we haven’t seen any storms of that scale since, but Mayor Bill de Blasio isn’t taking any chances. Today he announced more funding for the city’s climate resiliency plan as part of the 2017 city budget. The waterfront plans aren’t just going to protect Manhattan from more flooding– they’ll also double as a huge new public space. 
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Business, City Hall, news No Comments

As Luxury Tower Rises, Cracks in Adjacent Building Strengthen Gentrification Fears

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(Photo by Kavitha Surana)

Protestors organized by Coalition to Protect Chinatown on Wednesday (Photo by Kavitha Surana)

A simple red brick building established by a non-profit affordable housing developer two decades ago, 82 Rutgers Slip houses low and moderate-income residents, some who were previously homeless. Just down the street, a glossy 80-story tower from Extell–dubbed One Manhattan Square–is rising where a Pathmark Supermarket once stood. When it’s finished, it’ll boast a fire pit, doggy spa and tree houses, priced to entice the moderate-high-end buyers of Asia (starting at $1 million).
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news No Comments

City Extends Deadline for ‘Expressions of Interest’ on Trolley Site Under Delancey

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A picture of the proposed site of the LowLine -- the abandoned trolley station adjacent to the Delancey/Essex Street subway stop. Picture: Anneke Rautenbach

A picture of the proposed site of the LowLine — the abandoned trolley station adjacent to the Delancey/Essex Street subway stop.

We heard quite a few gripes over the city’s steps to “activate” the abandoned trolley terminal under Delancey Street at Wednesday’s Community Board 3 meeting, and it seems the city heard them loud and clear…ish.

Board members worried that the subterranean site was on its way to being given to the Lowline project with a Christmas bow on it, and asked that a new Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI) for the space be put on hold and restarted with community board input on guidelines and criteria.

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