The Buzz

YES WE CAN—CLOSE THE DOOR: Last week’s pre-Super Tuesday story, on Chelsea’s phone bank volunteers for Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, was written only with deep affection and respect for the hard work of both the UFT effort, spearheaded by Community Board 4 member Millie Glaberman, and the smaller group working for Obama out of the 25th Street office of Furnace Media. But it seems that some took offense, especially Furnace owner Ethan Vogt. First, Vogt objected to Chelsea Now’s characterization of the volunteers as “young” and our use of the posting we found on the social-networking site Facebook advertising the phone bank. “[That Facebook listing] had nothing to do with us,” he said. Then, after saying we were welcome to watch election results with the team, Vogt welshed on the invite at the last minute, after learning it would only be included in an overall Super Tuesday—and thus, “Hillary wins”—story. “I’m just not comfortable with that kind of coverage,” said Vogt, who emphasized that his volunteers “come from all walks of life.” We’d thought that the answer might be more coverage, not cutting us off, but Vogt didn’t seem to agree. Now we wish we’d tried harder to follow the UFT retirees, all of whom remember the street-fighting instincts—and gluttony for press coverage—of their union’s founder, Albert Shanker.

VIRAL ST. VINCENT’S: Survey, that is. Chelsea Now readers might remember that the landmark hospital is taking on the role of developer, in an effort to turn Village real estate values into a guarantee of perpetual financial health—including a startling five applications with the Landmarks Preservation Commission to get the project going. Now, members of the community that couldn’t make it to Community Board 2’s January meeting on the project can add their two cents via an “unscientific” Web survey offered by CB 2, Congressman Jerrold Nadler, and our state senator, Thomas Duane, by going to www.tomduane.com under “Latest Updates” or www.cb2manhattan.org under “CB2 Alerts.” (Those who have questions or don’t have Internet access may call the CB 2 office at 212-979-2272 or Sen. Duane’s office at 212-633-8052). According to Duane aide Colin Casey, their office has already received 800 responses, thanks in part to a Monday listing on the real estate site Curbed.com. However, Casey, whose job it is to make sure that Duane constituents from Hudson Yards to Stuyvesant Town see their calls answered and followed up, did not agree with Curbed’s characterization of the survey as “a weirdly refreshing example of a politician caring about his constituents’ opinions (at least on the surface).” Curbed must not spend much time on Manhattan’s West Side, said Casey: “In my experience, politicians on the West Side are VERY responsive to constituents’ concerns.” We don’t know how Casey got that idea, because when he went to the Caribbean for a holiday vacation, no one stopped him from bringing along his BlackBerry—just in case a call came in from the tenants at One Bank Street, Anna Hayes Levin of the Hudson Yards Community Advisory Committee, or John Raskin of the West Side Neighborhood Association, that only he could answer.

SHADES OF NON-GREEN: On Tuesday, Community Board 4’s offices hosted the inaugural meeting of the board’s temporarily titled Environmental Task Force, an unofficial committee formed to look more closely at the environmental aspects of projects considered by CB 4. “It will not be named ‘green’ anything,” said former CB 4 chair Lee Compton, when Chelsea Now called him for info before the meeting. Compton continued to decry “the commodification of the color green” at Tuesday’s meeting. Robert Trentlyon, who said Wednesday that “I’ve been talking about [a committee like] this for a couple of years,” offered the word “holistic planning” as an idea. Board staffer Renee Schoonbeek suggested “Healthy New York,” a phrase already taken by numerous other programs. Finally, Parks Committee chair John Doswell, who co-chairs the task force along with Compton, said, “That’s enough. Environmental Task Force is a fine name, for now.” Anyone with a suggestion for a more cogent name might want to contact CB 4’s office, though Chelsea Now’s personal preference is for something involving that poetic architect’s phrase “the built environment”—used by Alice Hartley of the renowned architectural firm Cook+Fox, when asked about the new committee. “Community boards have a significant impact on the built environment,” said Hartley, “which is the source of 80 percent of the pollution in cities—worse than automobiles.” More in next week’s issue, which features both a full piece about the task force and a Q&A with Hartley, who explains what the heck an LEED rating really means.