“It boggles the mind,” said Lois Hoffman, president of the Park West Village Tenants Association. “Park West Village has seven buildings, 2,500 apartments and 5,000 residents in two superblocks that stretch from Central Park West to Amsterdam, 97th to 100th Streets. It has been an important and influential planned community for decades. How can the owner get away with keeping large-scale changes a secret from us?”
The closing of the businesses, and the fear that green and open spaces, playgrounds and parking lots will be eliminated, led the surrounding community to band together this spring to form “Preserve West Park North” (PWPN). Still growing, the PWPN coalition includes people from Park West Village rental and condo units, the Westgate and Central Park Gardens Mitchell-Lama complexes bordering Park West Village on the south, several other Mitchell-Lamas in the West Side Urban Renewal District along Columbus and Amsterdam, Frederick Douglass Houses (a NYCHA complex bordering Park West Village on the north), the Ryan Health Center, leaders in several churches and other groups.
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Assembly Member Daniel O’Donnell and City Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito, who have been working with their constituents on this issue, also will speak at the rally.
“In the 1950s, Robert Moses took this land by eminent domain,” said Jean Dorsey, president of the Westgate apartments which are home to more than 400 families on West 96th and 97th Streets. “Moses dislocated an existing community, bulldozed its brownstones and, in order to achieve this, he persuaded the city and state to make a covenant that Park West Village would be built as a planned, affordable community. Working and middle-class families were attracted back to this area by airy apartments, landscaped outdoor spaces, a school, library, health center and more. Public money went to buy this
land, but now it seems that private money can take over without notice. We built this community from funky to fabulous and we are stakeholders in its future.”
Stores Deserted
The local lumber, discount and hardware stores are gone. The bustling Greek diner that served as a neighborhood hub is closed. Streets are dark and frightening at night for many seniors who have raised their families in the complex almost since its inception. Across West 100th Street, tenants in NYCHA’s sprawling Frederick Douglass Houses fear that their green, open spaces will be the next to be viewed as buildable sites and already feel the loss of C-Town’s reasonable prices.
On April 29, the C-Town supermarket was the last of the businesses to close. Others included Amster Furniture, Barcelona Bakery, West Side Tae Kwan Do, My Home, Broadway Carpet and AJO Lumber & Hardware, located on Amsterdam between 98th and 100th Streets; and Express Corner Deli, Covenant Discount (a traditional five-and-dime store), Tandoori restaurant, and Central Park Cafe located on Columbus between 97th and 100th Streets.
“It had taken quite awhile to get to the point where people actually came north of 96th Street to do their shopping, but these merchants finally succeeded in helping make our streets busy and welcoming,” president Dee said. “Now, what – if anything – affordable and useful will replace these businesses?”
The Coalition says that the original height and size of the seven Park West Village buildings were allowed to exceed standards of the day, because the original developer agreed to keep the two shopping strips to one story and to maintain open, landscaped areas. The group believes that such planned communities in the city should be preserved, either through landmarking or zoning. They want to play a decisive role in the developer’s plan before ground is broken for any new project. A partnership of Joseph Chetrit and Larry Gluck owns the land and has formulated the unknown proposed project.
Historic Church Threatened
The Rev. Heidi Neumark, pastor of Trinity Lutheran church on 100th Street near Amsterdam, has been told that demolition will begin next to her historic 1907 Gothic-style church. “They say that the vintage painted glass windows, known as a poor man’s stained glass and made by designer Henry Birkenstock of Mount Vernon, will have to be taken out and the lead soldering removed,” she said. “For an unknown period, we will have to worship in the dark and restoration costs will be prohibitive.”
Neumark, who said she was attracted to the church because of the diverse surrounding community, has seen a growing congregation, most recently Columbia students and Mexican immigrants and their children who are moving into the Manhattan Valley community north of 100th Street. The church, whose physical foundation is believed to be solid despite the ancient streams that run beneath it, offers worship and outreach programs in English and Spanish.
“Preserve West Park North came together to give voice to an affordable, livable community that is being threatened,” said Sue Susman, president of Central Park Gardens Tenants Association and founder of www.save-ml.org. “We insist that there be affordable housing in any new project in our community. Any construction or change to the grounds must be contextual and on a human scale. Those of us who made this community on the Upper West Side of Central Park have a right to be part of the decision-making process, as do other tenants throughout the city whose protections are eroding. Let our coalition serve as a role model. “
Susman summed it up: “Our slogan is ‘Nothing about us without us.’ Preserve our superblocks.”
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