June 23, 2006
East Village Developer Using Homeless as a Weapon!
Apparently bad behavior by real estate developers isn't limited to Brooklyn. On Tuesday, the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission awarded protected status to the old PS64 building on Ninth Street. The building had been occupied for 20 years by CHARAS/El Bohio, a community organization, until it was bought by Gregg Singer. He announced plans to strip the building of its architectural details and turn it into a 19-story university dorm, outraging just about everyone in the neighborhood. Outraged by the Landmarks decision, Singer has announced his revenge on the neighborhood activists: stripping the building of its architectural details and turning the building into a homeless shelter! The Villager has a long report:
Gregg Singer, who purchased the building from the city in 1998 and is bent on developing a towering dormitory on the site, announced his plan for the building, for at least the next several years, to be home to the Christotora Treatment Center, a facility providing temporary housing for the homeless and ex-convicts fresh out of jail, supportive housing for people with H.I.V./AIDS and services for the mentally ill, substance abusers and “troubled youth.”The photo on the center’s Web page shows a woman with scabs and bruises on her face. Singer said this is the type of person who will use the center.
“She’s got a lesion, a scab and a bruise from being battered,” he explained. “Oh yeah — she’s a bum.” Singer denied the image had been Photoshopped and said this woman lives on the Lower East Side, though he declined to provide her name.
In the New York Sun article, Singer gives an even more direct quote: "They are going to get a stripped-down building with a homeless shelter. If that is what they want, then fine." There's just one problem with Singer's plan: the East Village loves homeless people! This quote from David McWater, chairperson of Community Board 3, pretty much says it all:
“He’s doing that to scare people,” McWater said. “It’s despicable he would do that. But people in this neighborhood aren’t scared by that. This neighborhood has always cared about poor people and the underclass, people with AIDS. We’ll embrace them and they’ll become part of our community. I’m embarrassed for him.”
Ouch!
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I live in the east village and I don't agree with putting a drug treatment center there. I'd rather have nyu-ers.
I love how battered women are bums to this guy. I'm sure her wounds are real and I'm sure she's just overjoyed that those wounds are being used to drive up fear in the neighborhood.
Developers are scumbags. Sorry for the generalization. But developers are scumbags.
I'm glad he's stripping out the architectural details either way. Fuck things that look interesting.
What a douchebag that guy is.
"I don't agree with putting a drug treatment center there."
- You do realize there are already numerous existing inpatient and outpatient rehab programs throughout the East Village, right?
seriously, bring 'em on. the neighborhood has a long history of sheltering and caring for the sick and homeless. another one isn't going to hurt anybody.
if anything, it'll provide a little reality to all those nyu trust-fund rugrats who think they own the place.
You holier than thou east village douchebags - since when is it wrong to participate in a free market, buy depressed property, and have the gall to choose how you develop it? In less than 10 years each and every one of you will be crying that the value of the condo you bought isn't appreciating fast enough for you to afford the private school you want to send your spawn to for fear of the public school your zoned for.
if you're so fed up I'm sure Hugo Chavez will welcome you!
Is that Natasha Lyonne?!
Hey, is that you, Gregg Singer(you_wannabe-socialist-assholes)? Shut up and try to comprehend what you're reading for once.
Hey Um, er...yeah I know. But do we want/need another one?
The anti-development nimbys in the neighborhood make me sick.
There was a drug rehabilitation center/homeless shelter in the middle of St. Marks and 2nd/3rd Aves for a long time, and it was heartbreaking to see it turn into a big ugly condo complex. It seems fair that on the other side of the park, the reverse is going to happen. It's like a miracle. And in my opinion, the people buying shoddily made, overly expensive apts. deserve to be in the middle of a nasty old dive block like St. Marks off 2nd Ave., instead of on the sweet residential side, where this new center will be. Hip hip hooray.
Doesn't the landmark status protect the architectural details? If not, what good is it?
At any rate, guys like this should be stripped of their right to develop in this city.
And can't we find a better word than "development"? Nobody's against development. We're against the destruction and aesthetic trivialization of a great city.
That building was cool. It's really sad it's being ruined.
Huh. Well said, Andrew.
I wouldn't really call Singer's building a "development," considering that most of the universities in the area (his supposed tenents) are on record saying they won't touch the project if it ever gets off the ground. Singer's just in it for spite now - I hope it costs him a fortune.
This is such a fucking ruse. Who the hell would house parolees with domestic violence victims? The whole website is creepy with its faux sincerity.
If he is doing this all for spite, this man Singer has some serious rage issues.
I just read the Villager piece and they guys seems, well, kinda nuts.
Is this guy related to the nutjob and his lost sidekick. both are vile, vengeful miscreants.
Andrew - The landmark status/stripping issue was addressed in a Times article recently (I think); it has something to do with the fact that Singer bought the building under Giuliani, and there were some grandfathered rights he inherited in terms of what he could do... I could be wrong though.
I really like the points you made though; just what I was thinking but worded perfectly.
im outraged by the anti-Semitic tone of these comments, it has to stop now!
You know what amazes me? The city can steal people's homes for building basketball stadiums, but why can't they reclaim this building using "imminent domain"? Just claim they need it as a school and pay Singer 3.1 mil plus interest. Kick him out, lock him out, and tell him to go fuck himself.
McWaters is right. That is not really going to scare anyone. What a ridiculous notion. I would much rather have a shelter than more NYU-ers.
Andrew, very well said.
I remember when Trump tried something like this back in the '80s. He had a bunch of recalcitrant rent-protected tenants in one of his luxury buildings, so he promised to turn it into a halfway house for homeless people, with promises of defecation in the hallway and Night Train bottles in the stairwells. I believe the courts forced him to keeep diry homeless people on the streets where they (apparently) belong. No one got out of that fracas clean. It was a disgusting mess of greed and inhumanity.
I think the Douchebag/Scumbag/'s plan was to get your attention. Plan executed and then some!!!!!