Volume One, Issue 32, April 27 - May 3, 2007
The Buzz
Taxing tom:
Trying to right a wrong, State Senator Tom Duane and Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal have introduced legislation in Albany to restore the New York City commuter tax. It was Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, of course, who seven years ago spearheaded the tax’s repeal, thinking it might protect the Democrats from losing a couple of suburban seats. “The reason it went out was because of a stupid, ill-conceived political ploy that no one was asking for and has cost New York City to the tune of billions of dollars since 2000,” Duane said. “We had it for 30 years. They use our infrastructure and public safety services,” he said of suburbanites. Asked if the legislation seriously has any chance of passing the Republican-led State Senate, Duane said, “Absolutely.” Silver did not return calls for comment.
CHELSEA DOG OWNERS GROWL:
The Chelsea Waterside Park dog run, at 22nd Street and Eleventh Avenue (next to the West Side Highway), has been coming under four-legged attack lately from area dog owners who use it frequently, judging from the plethora of calls we’ve been getting. “The dog run is not safe for so many reasons,” barked Dvorah Stoll, a 30-year resident of Chelsea and dog owner. “We go to the dog park every day,” growled Lowell Boyers, a dog owner who has been living in Chelsea for 20 years. “But we have found that the congestion of the park and design no longer, if it ever truly did, suits the needs of the dog community.” Stoll, Boyers and others had a chance to sink their teeth into the issue some more at the Chelsea Waterside Park Association’s annual meeting on Thursday night, held at the Lutheran Church on West 22nd Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. Chelsea Now was there and will report on the meeting next week.
NO PENNY PRESS AT $1,200/TICKET CONFERENCE:
Chelsea Now was pretty jazzed when the New Yorker magazine put us on the press list for their May 6–7 conference at Frank Gehry’s IAC/Interactive building. It sounded so perfect: Gehry, Chelsea and a weekend of luminaries including Malcolm Gladwell, David Byrne, Jeffrey Toobin, and Susan Morrison, promising no less than “a day and two nights of new ideas, forward thinking and eye-opening innovation.” But when we called again last week for details, New Yorker PR Director Sonya McNair said she’d have to call us back, then did so to say, “The event is so small…we just can’t.” We know you gotta be careful given a ticket price of $1,200, but given that it’s in the neighborhood and all, you’d think the New Yorker could afford to let us sniff around our own beat, if we promised not to steal anything.
THAT DIGGING SOUND YOU HEAR IS A VERY LOUD BORE:
A briefing at C.B. 4’s Transportation Committee meeting last Wednesday started with Adrian Taub of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, with Powerpoint slides about the MTA’s newest baby, the No. 7 extension. Committee members were startled to learn that the project, which will have stations built at 34th and 41st Streets, actually begins on 25th Street and Eleventh Avenue, “where the TBM’s [tunnel boring machines] will be constructed, prior to their descent underground.” Sorting among the eleven construction sites and multiple funding streams that threatened to glaze the committee’s eyes, committee co-chair Jay Marcus asked if this time, given the increased cost of oil and other materials, the MTA had confidence it could pay for the plan. Taub said, “We don’t have bids back in yet, but we’re pretty confident we can,” to much eye-rolling from skeptical committee members.
