Long before television, much less Comedy Central, Karl Marx opined that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, the second time as farce.
That about sums up Representative Yvette D. Clarke’s appearance on “The Colbert Report” on Tuesday night.
An embarrassment (or a particular inept comedienne, if her handlers are to be believed).
In case you hadn’t noticed the little advertisement off to the top right of the page, this weekend is the annual Taste Williamsburg Greenpoint fundraiser for the Northside Town Hall Community and Cultural Center.
The Town Hall is a joint venture between two Northside civic groups (NAG and PFI) to acquire and redevelop the former Engine 212 firehouse into a community center and headquarters for the groups. Engine 212 (also called the “people’s firehouse”) has been a focal point of community activism going back to the 1970s, and thanks to this initiative, it will be a particularly fitting center of our active community for years to come.
The Taste event is this Sunday, September 9th from 1pm to 5pm, on the Williamsburg waterfront at North 11th Street (the Citi-Storage site, enter off of Kent). It brings together dozens of local restaurants, bars, brewers, distillers and vintners and promises a lot of good food, good drink and good music.
So buy tickets (or pledge to the Town Hall Kickstarter campaign and you will get tickets).
Let me get this straight – Silver first heard of allegations of impropriety on Vito Lopez’s part in January, signed off on a confidential settlement with two accusers in June, received a report from the Assembly ethics committee corroborating more accusations of impropriety from two new accusers in August, stripped Lopez of his leadership positions in the Assembly on August 24th – and it only occurred to him to suggest that Lopez resign last Friday?
Profiles in courage, Shelly Silver-style.
The L Magazine on The Domino Effect (which yes, screened earlier tonight – but will be screening at a number of festivals in the coming month).
The terms of the agreement, however, suggest that the Assembly could have proceeded with an ethics committee investigation, though it is clear nobody wanted that to happen. “The parties desire to resolve this matter without resort to litigation or any administrative proceeding of any sort,” the agreement says.
The Vito Lopez saga gets more sordid with every new revelation, proving that sometimes, it is the crime and the cover up.
If Lopez harassed women as he is accused of doing, he should resign his seat in the Assembly. But by all rights, Sheldon Silver should lose his leadership position over his cover-up of Lopez’s actions. Of course the odds of that happening aren’t looking that good:
The [State Joint Commission on Public Ethics] has begun a preliminary review of the matter, according to a person who was told of the review, but a vote of the panel’s 14 commissioners will be required before a full investigation can proceed and before subpoenas can be issued. The support of at least one of the three commissioners appointed by Mr. Silver will be needed to proceed with the investigation.
According to REBNY, the decade is starting out slow in terms of new housing construction.
Williamsburg seems to be holding its own, however. Walking through the Southside today, it seemed as though every soft site between Broadway and Metropolitan was under active development.
The Daily News is a bit confused about the air-rights sale at 65 Commercial Street.
The sale of the air rights themselves is not a “new plan” – it was one of the points of agreement between the Bloomberg administration and the City Council back in 2005. What is new is that those same points of agreement earmarked the funds from the sale of the air rights was supposed to go towards a $2 million tenant legal fund and a $10 “waterfront affordable housing and infrastructure fund”. As I understand it, the tenant legal fund was funded by the City a few years back, when it became clear that the air rights transfer was not imminent. But I don’t believe the infrastructure fund was ever funded.
The headline of the News, and some of the quotes from “a developer who asked to remain anonymous” in the article also imply that this is a wide open RFP. It is actually quite a narrow one – there are only two developers who can reasonably use the air rights from 65 Commercial, and they are the owners of the adjacent properties to either side: 77 Commercial Street to the east and the massive Park Tower site to the west. A small market, indeed.
One of my favorite Greenpoint buildings.
Mr. Restler’s opponent, longtime Greenpoint resident Christopher Olechowski, the Community Board chairman, didn’t respond to repeated phone calls.
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