Mainstream media came out in force for a midday news conference in Chinatown to celebrate the return of residents to 22 James Street, a tenement building that was the scene of a devastating fire last year. We’ll have more on that in a little while. But first, the subject that brought most of those reporters [...]

It’s not on the Lower East Side, but it is sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who represents the neighborhood in Washington:

Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney
Invites You to Join Her for a Town Hall Meeting
On Jobs and the Economy

Sunday, March 7
2pm – 4pm

Hunter College, West Building, Room 714
SW corner of E. [...]

Holding signs saying “no sharpshooters,” “don’t fence us in,” and “don’t make us live through it again,” residents of Chinatown came out in force at City Hall on Friday.  They were there to observe a hearing on the impact of holding the 9/11 terror trials in Lower Manhattan. The meeting was co-chaired by Peter Vallone, [...]

From the in-box, Senator Daniel Squadron’s statement on the signing into law of the “Bruno Gap Bill.”

In Albany, the struggle for reform is slow, and true steps forward are rare.  That’s why I am pleased that today Governor Paterson signed into law the bill I wrote with Speaker Sheldon Silver to close the “Bruno Gap” [...]

Community activists in Chinatown are, of course, pleased members of the City Council are pushing a resolution demanding the federal government move the upcoming terror trials out of New York City. But they plan to fight language in the resolution calling on the feds to pick up the tab for the trials, if they refuse [...]

Jan Lee is not one to hold back. As the driving force behind one of Lower Manhattan’s most active neighborhood groups, the Civic Center Residents Coalition (CCRC), he is brash and outspoken.  In the past, he’s taken on New York City’s Transportation Department, the NYPD and even the Mayor. But now, Lee has a new [...]