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We’ve been following the fight by the people who live along a stretch of Pike Street to get those ubiquitous Chinatown buses away from their from doorsteps. Last night they took the battle to the transportation Committee of Community Board 3. While the committee was sympathetic to their ordeal – Committee Chairman David Crane made it clear the problem is much bigger than a single bus stop on one street.
The residents said the buses make their lives miserable from 6 in the morning until 11:30 at night… idling… drawing huge crowds of waiting passengers, loitering on the corners. They even said passengers were camping out in the lobbies of their buildings, waiting for buses to depart. Lots of charter buses, offering discount fares to major destinations along the east coast, simply stop to load and unload passengers wherever they can find a spot.
But, in this case the city’s Department of Transportation actually issued the bus company a permit for Pike Street, right in front of two apartment buildings. A DOT representative at the meeting said, however, the permit only allows the company to pick up and drop off passengers- not to stand on the corner and sell tickets to passers by. One of the residents said a representative showed up at a NYPD community meeting and, when confronted about the problem, simply shrugged his shoulders and was “really callous about the complaints.” The CB3 committee passed a resolution asking the DOT to revoke the permit. They asked the city to send investigators to Pike Street to investigate.
Crane explained that the interstate bus business had become so large and popular that banning them from the city was unrealistic. He said the City Planning Department is conducting a study to find out what’s going on throughout Manhattan. Crane said he suspects they’ll come up with a master plan in about six months. The difficulty he said, is drafting guidelines that will withstand legal challenges.
In the meantime, Crane suggested the group also address the full community board meeting later this month. And the DOT has promised not to approve any more permits without going through the community boards.
A few blocks away last night at the 7th Precinct community meeting, police officials acknowledged the buses are a big problem. They write a large number of citations every week. The officials said it’s illegal for the private buses to pull up to MTA bus stops. However, this was contradicted by the DOT spokesperson at the community board meeting, who said the charter buses are allowed to use the public bus stops in the city.
See our previous coverage here.
 
John Rhea, a former investment banker, is Mayor Bloomberg's choice to lead the financially troubled New York City Housing Authority. The selection is being praised in some quarters. But five City Council members are unhappy with the choice, saying they wanted a NYCHA head with experience in affordable housing. And they were disappointed that council
members were not consulted about the decision.
A big increase in the number of hispanic New Yorkers helped push the city's population to 8.4 million. New Census figures show, however, that there were steady increases in Manhattan's white population. There's a higher percentage of whites in New York than in 1980. One reason why: high home prices have pushed diverse populations to the outer boroughs.
Curbed has details from the latest Douglas Elliman housing report. Yes, home prices are sliding but properties are spending less time on the market than they were a few months ago.
Channel 13's Sunday Arts Program has an interesting profile of the Tenement Museum. You can see it here. And if you're a fan of the Babycakes Bakery on Broome Street, you might want to stop by the Babycakes book party at the Tenement Museum tonight at 630pm.
Grub Street reports that the penthouse suite in the Hotel on Rivington will be opening its doors to the public this summer and using its hot-tub rooftop as a bar:
 Matt Levine’s project in the Hotel on Rivington, called LEVANTeast (your guess is as good as ours). Here’s the interesting part: It’s in the penthouse suite, where the rooftop hot tub is located. Normally this has been used for private parties, but a hotel receptionist tells us that starting next month, it’ll be open as a bar during summer Sundays from 1 p.m. till 9 p.m.
Not a bad spot for a drink with a great view and maybe a dip?
Read more here.
 We'll be posting updates from the meeting…
Here are the weekly crime statistics as posted by the 7th Precinct.
9 crimes were reported Week of May 4, 2009: 2 robberies, 2 felony assaults, 5 grand larcenies.
You can also check out street condition reports from EveryBlock here.
The precinct community council meetings are
held on the second Wednesday of the month at the 7th precinct station house at
7:30 p.m., located at 19 1/2 Pitt Street, New York, NY, 10013.
Posted by Traven Rice
As early as 6 o'clock in the morning the long tour buses pull up to Albert Chan's apartment on Pike Street, idling, attracting swarming crowds and snarling traffic. There's so much congestion, MTA buses often can't stop at the curb. The booming Chinatown bus business has been a boon to consumers, who can travel to Washington, D.C., Boston and other cities for 20 bucks. But for Chan and his neighbors, the daily scene at their doorstep has become a nightmare.
Tonight, he'll go before a committee of Community Board 3, asking them to support his request to revoke the bus company's permit for 3 Pike Street, the residential building next door. For weeks, he's been going back and forth with the mayor's community liaison and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's office. Silver has written a letter to the NYC Dept. of Transportation in support of revoking (or at least re-evaluating) the permit.
 Here's the rub: it's hardly an isolated problem. Since 1998 when the city first started allowing the discount buses to wait at the curb, they have become a mini-phenomenon. No one knows for sure but it's apparent more private interstate buses roll through Chinatown every day than depart the Port Authority. With no central pick-up or drop off location, they fan out all over downtown, parking wherever they can.
City Councilman Alan Gerson is calling on the DOT to come up with a master plan for private buses in the city. When the agency tried to come up with a temporary solution in 2007, parking the buses on Pike Street near the FDR Drive, community groups rebelled. It's a classic case of NIMBY- not in my back yard. The representative from the mayor's office actually asked Chan is he had any ideas where the buses could be moved.
The situation grew even more vexing last month when the city was forced to scrub plans to move 18 buses to Tribeca. They're now joining a much larger cluster of buses along the East River, delaying construction of the new esplanade.
We'll see what CB3's transportation committee decides to do. The meeting takes place at 630pm, at 308 East 1st Avenue.
DBGB Kitchen & Bar, Daniel Boulud's bistro on the Bowery opens in preview mode this weekend. Grub Street has a few details here. They also have the scoop on the departure of Broadway East's chef, Gavin Mills. Managing partner Laurie Tomasino explained:
Gavin is a great chef, but he’s at a stage of his career where he
wants to make a mark — say, from a three-star review — but he didn’t
have the experience or business savvy to know there was a serious
disconnect between the food and the scene.” Tomasino says the
restaurant wanted Mills to change the menu more often — “We weren’t
asking him to dumb down the food but to broaden his horizons and bring
new, affordable ideas to the table in an effort to reach the
neighborhood.”
Financial blogger Felix Salmon takes note of a fascinating new chart (stay with me!) that tracks New York subway ridership through the years:
The Bowery J/M/Z stop has seen less ridership than any other subway
station in Manhattan for years, and there are always rumors floating
around that it might just be closed. Meanwhile, the Grand Street
station just a few blocks away has loads of traffic. Partly that’s a
function of the lines they’re on — the B/D lines are useful, while the
J/M/Z lines are notoriously unlikely to go anywhere you might ever want
to go. But it’s also a function of the fact that the Bowery stop is in
a weird not-quite-anything neighborhood, while the Grand Street stop is
increasingly finding itself in the heart of a very vibrant Chinatown. Meanwhile, the Essex and Delancey stop is only very slowly beginning
to pick up a little steam — it’s well behind the East Village on that
front.
See the full post here.
Residents of the Lower East side came out in force last night to oppose several restaurants seeking liquor licenses. It was a tense night full of face to face confrontations between those residents and restaurant owners. Community Board 3 members serving on the alcohol licensing committee struggled to find the right balance between the two groups.
The largest and most organized opposition came from the residents surrounding a new restaurant planned for the corner of Essex and Canal. As we reported Sunday, the East Canal Neighborhood Association is determined to prevent their block from becoming a “mini-Ludlow,” littered with bars, plagued with late night noise and bursting with drunken crowds. The restaurant’s backers own the building, and have leased space to a green grocer and a shoe store. They hope to open a “family friendly” restaurant patterned after the restaurant at the Inn at Irving Place, which they also own. In explaining their rationale for a full liquor license, they said they wanted to attract a “European clientele.”
The residents, many of whom live in the luxury building next door, 7 Essex, complained that the concept sounded too much like Les Enfants Terribles, the restaurant and popular late night hangout at the opposite end of the block. Committee member Meghan Joye said, as a bar owner and mother, she resented the fact that the group presented letters from school principals and mothers concerned about the restaurant’s impact on their kids. Joye added, “they’re not going to be selling coke on the street.”
Chair Alexandra Militano said the overwhelming opposition left the committee with little choice but to reject the liquor license application but she called the predicament “unfortunate.” She said it was extraordinary that the owners had found a grocer to move into the building – no landlord wants a grocery, “they don’t make money,” she said. The applicant said finding quality tenants had been difficult – only fast food operations like KFC and Dunkin’ Donuts had expressed interest.
Amy Carlson, representing the residents responded that they had no desire “to do a disservice to the community.” But she also said they did not want to negotiate a compromise. The committee scolded both sides for failing to work out their differences in advance.
Continue reading Acrimonious Evening at the CB3 Licensing Committee
It was a tough night for restaurants going before the liquor licensing committee of Community Board 3. Several businesses applying for liquor licenses faced forceful opposition from residents and, in some cases, from committee members.
- The committee rejected a full liquor license for a restaurant at the corner of Essex & Canal, after a community organization presented a large number of signatures opposing the application. But some board members made it clear they felt the community's objections were "unfortunate." The backers of the restaurant also own the building – and have leased space to a green grocer. They said it's tough to find quality tenants at the location.
- Also due to community opposition, Jesse Hartman, who wants to open a restaurant at 365 Grand, withdrew his request. He said he would work with residents to alleviate concerns about noise and about his proposed 4am closing time.
- The committee denied a liquor license to T Poutine on Ludlow Street.
- Spitzer's corner was denied its request to add sidewalk seating.
Throughout the evening there was quite a lot of tension among members of the committee, residents fed up with late night noise and partying and restaurant owners who say they can't survive without a robust bar business. Much more to come tomorrow…
What looks to be a bodega-ish store is preparing to open on the corner of Canal & Essex. Yes, this is the same building that new "Jewish fusion" restaurant we've been telling you about would occupy. Apparently, at least one of the partners behind the restaurant project has owned the building for many years. There appear to be three distinct retail spaces on the ground floor. At a community board meeting, the restaurant's owners referred to a "green grocer" that would be moving in next door.
 More than 20 restaurants seeking liquor licenses or trying to renew or modify their licenses will go before a committee of Community Board 3 tonight. We've already told you (ad nauseum) about two of them, Grand Park and a "Jewish fusion" restaurant at Essex and Canal. There's another restaurant that caught our eye: "T Poutine," at 168 Ludlow.
What is poutine, you ask? We headed to the restaurant's web site for some answers: "Poutine is a dish consisting of french fries topped with fresh cheese curds and gravy… it is quintessential Canadian comfort food, especially but not exclusively, among Quebecois." A New York Times article a couple of years ago noted that poutine "goes deep into the Quebequois psyche." Sure, some Canadians are a bit embarrassed about this caloric creation. But when the CBC conducted a poll on the greatest Canadian inventions of all time, poutine beat out the electron microscope, the BlackBerry, the paint roller and the
caulking gun, lacrosse, plexiglass, radio voice transmission and
basketball.
But in spite of its status as a beloved national treasure up north, "T Poutine" could very well run afoul of the community board. It just so happens that its location, on Ludlow between Stanton and Houston, is already home to at least seven bars or restaurants. "T Poutine" is not asking for a full liquor license – wine only. But these selling points on their web site are unlikely to sway many members of CB3: poutine "is becoming a sort of traditional ending to an evening out on the town or clubbing… we will maintain a trendy, hip environment that caters to the patrons who live and entertain in neighborhoods with bustling nightlife and destination spots."
One footnote: we couldn't help notice the "apartment for rent" sign above "T Poutine." On Misrahi Realty's web site, they're advertising one bedroom apartments at 168 Ludlow, priced between $2195-$2395. Ten out of 17 apartments have already been rented! Prospective tenants might want to check out the building's soundproofing.
The MTA Board meets today to vote on a "scaled back" package of fare increases.
Sheldon Silver "has it easy," Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith says. In a New York Times story on the difficulty the Democratic Majority is having in Albany, Smith spoke of Silver's lopsided advantage in the Assembly: “He can pontificate, he can change his mind, he can dance, he
can sit still…because at the end of the day, he has
60 or 70 members that don’t have to stand up and take a position on
anything."
"The Home Base Project," an exhibition built around a dozen artists' interpretation of "home," is staged in an abandoned medical clinic on East Broadway.
David & Jody Rodriguez are not your grandfather's idea of a Lower East Side hatmaker.
Tonight Community Board 3's liquor licensing committee holds its monthly meeting. As we reported yesterday, a new restaurant at the corner of Essex and Canal faces opposition from a neighborhood group. We'll have a full report after the meeting.
A neighborhood group on Canal Street is mobilizing to oppose a new restaurant’s quest for a liquor license, saying they don’t want to see their block become a “bar scene.” The owners of the restaurant at 1 Essex (Essex & Canal) and their detractors will go before the liquor licensing committee of Community Board 3 tomorrow night.
The committee, noting no opposition from the community, signaled its support last month for a license to sell wine only. The application for “1 Essex” was mistakenly removed from the published agenda and then added back on shortly before the meeting began. Amy Carlson, speaking for the neighborhood group, appealed to the full board of CB3, arguing that they would have showed up to voice their opposition if they’d known the application was being considered. CB3 District Manager Susan Stetzer says the restaurant withdrew its application and will re-apply for a full liquor license tomorrow night.
The backers of the restaurant own the Inn at Irving Place, which includes the cocktail lounge Cibar. They did not return our phone calls. But in their original application, they said the new venture will be a family friendly restaurant emphasizing organic food (“Jewish fusion,” they called it), not a nightlife destination catering to hipsters in search of the latest hot spot. See our previous coverage here and here.
Continue reading Residents Oppose New Restaurant on Canal Street
At a breakfast sponsored by the Alliance for Downtown New York this morning, State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said he's tired with the haggling about what to do at ground zero. The New York Times, saying Silver is "emerging as perhaps the most powerful politician in the state," reports he seems to be backing Larry Silverstein's vision of three huge towers at the site.  According to the Times, Silver said, "Seven years and eight months after the attacks, I am fed up with the
stalling and I am exasperated with the current state of the World Trade
Center project,” Calling for a summit meeting between Silverstein and the Port Authority, Silver said all parties have a responsibility to "rebuild this American community." Some realtors, concerned about the high office vacancy rates downtown, are skeptical about a grandiose plan at the WTC site.
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