Even as we speak, the U.S. Census has thousands of workers knocking on doors across New York City, in an unprecedented effort to make sure every individual is counted. It’s not an easy job. Case in point: Census officials told Community Board 3 last night they have not been able to gain access to numerous buildings on the Lower East Side — including State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s Grand Street cooperative.
It seems Census forms were sent to the Hillman Co-op, where Silver has lived for decades, but they were returned due to mailing errors. Census officials say workers attempting to pay personal visits to Hillman have been turned away. They came to CB3, looking for help (Silver aid Zach Bommer stepped in to see what could be done). In all fairness, we assume (but don’t know for sure) Silver mailed in his form long ago.
The mail-in response rate on the LES is up to 65%, far surpassing the numbers recorded ten years ago. But literally millions of dollars are still at stake — the higher the response rate the more federal money New York State and our neighborhood are likely to receive.
Below we’ve listed all of the buildings in which workers have been experiencing problems. Call the number listed by each building if you can help gain access.
100 Delancey – Desi Rodriguez 917-701-8727
174 Delancey, 268 East Broadway – Talia 917-981-1416
172 Attorney, 67 Pitt, 206 Rivington, 210 Stanton, 53 Pitt, 196 Stanton – Millicent Essandoh 212-4648368
90 Ludlow, 66 Orchard, 7 Essex, 35 Essex – Phillip Tiu – 917-968-0302
Read a followup (statement from Sheldon Silver) to this story here.
