Last week, we filed a brief report after Community Board 3’s landmarks subcommittee voted in favor of protecting the Bialystoker Nursing Home building, at 228 East Broadway. Today — a more detailed account from the public hearing, which offered the most expansive explanation yet from nursing home board members about their decision to close the Lower East Side institution after 80 years and to sell the building as a development site.
Shortly after the home closed last year, preservationists filed an application with the city to designate the 1929 building an historic landmark. The nursing home board opposed this move, arguing that landmarking would scare off prospective buyers. The Landmarks Preservation Commission has not announced whether it intends to ‘calendar” the application and schedule a public hearing on the matter. Community activists hoped an endorsement from the CB3 would compel the commission to act.
Last Tuesday evening, the nursing home’s public relations firm (Geto & deMilly) handed out a statement from the board of trustees spelling out its position. The statement made the argument that landmarking would deprive the nursing home’s union and other creditors of millions of dollars they are owed:
As part of its state-approved closure plan, the Bialystoker Board is now attempting to raise the $13+ million in capital that will allow it to honor its obligations to the nursing home’s 115 loyal employees with respect to past due wages, benefits and pension funding. It is also the Board’s goal to reimburse our vendors, many of which are local businesses, as well as remit remaining taxes and funds owed to Medicaid. These obligations have real-life implications for the working families depending on this compensation, and for local businesses that cannot afford such a loss. However, the $13+ million needed to make good on these obligations can only come from the sale of the site… The Bialystoker Board is now in the process of entering into a contract of sale to the highest bidder. The sale has been approved by the Attorney General… If this building were to be designated a landmark, options for its adaptive reuse would be severely limited (due to its narrow configuration and advanced disrepair)… Thus it could only be sold at a significant discount, which would likely thrust Bialystoker into bankruptcy and ensure that our deserving employees will not receive the full amount of compensation owed to them.
Preservationists in attendance countered the nursing home’s arguments from a variety of perspectives. First off, they said it’s shortsighted to tear down a building that not only has architectural significance but is also symbolic of the Jewish experience on the Lower East Side. Elissa Sampson, a longtime LES resident, argued that the Bialystoker building is “representative of immigrant labor in every sense.” Immigrant workers (almost all of whom worked in the garment industry) paid $10 per brick to build the home.
Mitchell Grubler, a leader of Friends of the Bialystoker Home, detailed several government programs that could be used to help pay for the building’s renovation and made the case that preservation does not necessarily mean financial ruin. Eric Mandelbaum, the president of the neighboring Seward park Cooperative, also spoke in favor of saving the building (he was speaking only for himself, not the co-op board).
Leah Gonzalez, representing the union, 1199 SEIU Healthcare Workers East, acknowledged that the Bialystoker “is clearly a beloved building.” But she went on to urge community board members to “give serious consideration to the impact (on preservation) on our workers, all of whom are unemployed (several months after the nursing home’s closure).” Gonzalez said the union is owed about $4 million in back wages and benefits. In opposing preservation, she said, “we are not left with a lot of options.”
At least two Bialystoker board members were present at the meeting, including Gary Ambrose, who offered an account of the home’s financial woes. The closure, he said, “broke my heart.” Ten years ago, he indicated, the board was advised to close the home, but they were determined to keep it going. In the end, he told CB3 members, the Bialystoker was losing $1 million a month. The building had become dangerous to both residents and employees. Ambrose said an intensive search was begun for a “white knight,” but no one would touch it” if the building was landmarked. He estimated that the winning bid was around $17 million. Alys Kremer, another longtime board member, implored the community board not to “put buildings before people.” She added, “I urge you to be unsentimental about this.”
Preservationists have often pointed to the Bialystoker’s facade, which includes etchings depicting the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The Nursing home board has suggested these and other design elements could be removed and preserved before the building is demolished. But David Adams, a Community Board member and observant Jew, argued that people are making too much of the Bialystoker’s historic significance.
“It’s not that significant or unique,” he said. Adams elaborated, suggesting that it’s better to “live in the present day,” adding that “making monuments to the past is not what we’re about. We’re about the future.” Adams also suggested the nursing home board members, who he said “come from my community,” explored every possibility.
In the end, Adams was the only community board member to vote against the resolution, which called on the Landmarks Commission to “promptly calendar and landmark the Bialystoker Nursing Home building.” Next month, CB3’s Parks Committee will vote on the resolution before its forwarded to the full board at the end of April.
As we reported last week, the State Attorney General’s office would not confirm it has approved the sale of the Bialystoker. Nursing home representatives did not indicate whether the real estate contract gives the prospective buyer an “out” if the building is landmarked in the weeks or months ahead. Other parties – who are thinking in terms of renovating the Bialystoker rather than demolishing it – are waiting in the wings. They have, however, made it clear they could not pay “top dollar” for a building that has landmark status and would require millions to rehab. One non-profit organization, Two Bridges Neighborhood Council, tried to contact representatives of the Bialystoker about possibly creating affordable housing in the building. Their overtures were rebuffed.
City Council member Margaret Chin has been in contact with both preservationists and the Bialystoker board, in an effort to find a solution to the dilemma. State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has declined to weigh on on the issue, but has told community activists that he might take a position if the community board passes its resolution next month.
This “movement” to preserve this building is only supported by a very tiny, but otherwise vocal fraction of the people that live in the area. It’s importance–simply as a monument and not a nursing home–is of very dubious value to the Jewish community in the area. The design etchings, of which there are very few, can and should be easily removed and preserved. That said, the fact that many local people who worked hard to provide comfort to those who lived here and will be suffering if the sale does not go through as planned is the real tragedy. This building was built to eleviate suffering. How fitting to its legacy if it were now permitted to be sold to eliminate more suffering. Lets not create another monument to the Ego’s of a vocal few who do not represent the community.
The greedy unions can wait their turn. This building belongs to the community. The unions need to take it up with the equally corrupt board. But their financial issues should not rob a community of its cultural heritage.
One of the last remaining Judaica shops on Essex Street, Israel Wholesale, will be closing for good this Friday. Where is the outcry over this store–one of the last remaining such stores on Essex Street–that has been serving the community for over 60 years. I guess the vocal, but tiny minority who believe the Bialystocker nursing home building is worth preserving as a monument to the community’s cultural “heritage” (really?) is more important. Oh, and screw the hundreds of folks who worked there under the assumption that they might actually be paid. All this so one day in the near future a walking tour guide can point to this building (of really dubious architectural merit other than the design etchings which can be preserved) and say, see this condo here, it was originally built as a nursing home in the 1930’s.
You have no idea what your saying, plan and simple either your were asked to write your fake comment or you are affiliated with Meister and the Board.
I was approached the other day and was told “I hope this place does bot get landmark status” by a board member of the GRAND STREET CO-OP I replied “why not” he stated that the workers would lose the money the 1199 UNION was owed from the BIALYSTOKER and that the CO-OP gains to make $24 MILLION off the ( AIR RIGHTS ) sold to the new developer.
So what I mean is that Grand street CO-OP is also going to profit off the BIALYSTOKER sale as well….
Many political and Jewish community leaders
sent congratulatory telegrams to the Bialystoker Home, including Governor
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lieutenant Governor Herbert Lehman, New York Mayor James
Walker, Manhattan Borough President Samuel Levy, and B. Vladek, Manager of the
Jewish Daily Forward.
Mr. Sohn, in honor of the grand opening, wrote in the Stimme that the new
facility would care not only for the elderly population at the time of its
construction but would serve future generations of old and infirm people. His
words were prophetic. Toward the end of his life, he was admitted as a resident
of the Home, where he died on February 10, 1968. Many years ear-lier, he
exhorted his followers to support the Home, for no one could know when he or
she might need its services.
I have worked at the BIALYSTOKER NURSING HOME for over 16 years, you say screw us, well screw you and the horse who rode you here. I would rather lose the little money that they owe me then to see YOU and the rest of those GREEDY Realtors make a “PENNY” off of all the JEWISH people who gave all they had to make this building what it was.
So go back and tell IRA MEISTER who had his own father live at the home for over 2 years AT NO COST “FREE” to go screw himself and you while he has his small thing out.
Why can’t you be outraged over both things?
The Jewish Lower East Side is dying. It’s not possible to preserve Judaica stores, but it is possible to preserve a few cultural landmarks.
I don’t see why our history should be raped because of collusion between a corrupt board and a corrupt union. They can sue each other for the money.
I think Meister belongs in jail, so no dude. Most of the co-op board members belong in jail too.
There is NO reason to think that the Seward Park co-ops have a real financial interest in this sale. The $24 million figure does not reflect the actual legal and real estate reality; there is a small sliver of property and air rights, that the Co-Op has its say in that belongs to what is basically an alley-way.
There is reason to think given that the Bialystoker Board is not as broke as it claims to be. These are the firms hired by the Bialystoker Board to lobby Community Board 3, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, and the NYC Council, and to sell the building (see http://www.nyc.gov/lobbyistsearch). Grubb & Ellis is the real estate firm that listed the historic building as a tear-down “a highly desirable development site.” Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP is the lobbyist to LPC and Community Board 3. Their initial compensation is listed at $17,008.43. Geto & de Milly Inc. (Michele De Milly) is the lobbyist to Council Members. Their initial compensation is listed at $20,000.
Their Realtor, Grub & Ellis’, website states”Our clients are typically individuals and partnerships who have their own capital at risk for the purpose of building personal wealth. As a consequence, we recognize that every dollar counts and that confidence and trust in their advisor [sic] is paramount.” – http://www.grubb-ellis.com/PracticeGroups/Profile.aspx?id=21
Does this sound like the realtor for a not-for-profit immigrant mutual aid society looking to give something back to the community, which was the goal of its original immigrant founders and builders?
I just saw your post in response to my own and I am dumbfounded at how stupid you are because you totally misinterpreted my comment.