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In the News: How People Around Here Voted
••• An interactive map of the city shows how many people voted for each presidential candidate, and yes, there are people around here who voted for Trump. Can we also assume they don’t believe in climate change, protecting the environment, or reproductive rights for women? Do they believe in mocking the disabled, and building a wall on the Mexican border? Because that’s what they voted for, and as the country prepares to lurch backward, we must not let them try to shift blame elsewhere. P.S. I borrowed the photo from R.’s Instagram; she wasn’t coveting the merch—she posted that she’d rather just walk in the rain. —DNAinfo
••• There are now 12 condo boards opposed to the Battery Park City Authority doing anything to Sound End Avenue without specifying “what problems it aims to solve with the project, how it intends pay for any new construction, and how long and disruptive such construction might be.” The BPCA said it has abandoned the plan to fill in the pedestrian arcades, but it hasn’t ruled out other changes. —Broadsheet
••• “The federal government has finally agreed to take another pass at the revised flood-risk maps it drew up after Hurricane Sandy which would have slammed thousands of homes and properties with sky-high rate hikes for flood insurance.” —Downtown Express
••• Local politicians are protesting outside the Department of Buildings offices today about the new Nike store at Broadway and Spring. The DOB regularly lets developers claim they’re not doing full demolition—it also happened at 12 Warren—but I guess they’re more upset about this because they’re afraid Soho will turn into a shopping mall…. From a release sent out by one of the pols:
The Niketown store, located at 529 Broadway at the corner of Spring Street, is scheduled to open this week inside a new six-story retail complex at the site of a completely demolished building. Despite leaving only a portion of a party wall adjoining a historic property on Spring Street, DOB treated the Niketown site as an “alteration” of an existing property rather than a new building—a decision that allowed a big-box store to open along a shopping corridor already oversaturated with retail space.
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DOB TPPN 1/2002: “Application Type Required for Work Involving Alterations and Demolition in a Building,” which was in force at the time this application was filed, noted the following:
“The Borough Commissioner, upon review, may grant exceptions to the requirements for a ‘New Building’ application set forth above when a building is subject to specific zoning provisions for existing buildings by virtue of its being located in a special use district or otherwise subject to special permit provisions from the Landmarks Preservation Commissioner, Board of Standards and Appeals or City Planning Commission, and classification as a “new building” would adversely affect its status under such “existing buildings” provisions.”
It’s shocking to see how many of our neighbors voted for the soon to be PGIC (Pussy Grabber In Chief).
Some people would happily sign up to vote for Idi Amin if he said he’d lower their taxes. Shame on anyone who voted for that imbecile.
Great. Now TC has become FB with politically biased and outrageously slanderous comments. You were better than that.
Build a bridge and get over it.
Where’s the “like” button?
I think you mean libel (“the act of publishing a false statement that causes people to have a bad opinion of someone,” per Merriam-Webster), not slander (“to make a false spoken statement that causes people to have a bad opinion of someone”). Nothing I wrote, however, was directed at anyone specific, and none of it was false. If anything, by accusing me of slander, with no merit, you have now potentially committed libel. Proving intent to harm is always difficult, but that may change, since Trump has promised to “loosen” libel laws.
Your point, of course, is that you disagree with my opinions. I’m not entirely prepared to stifle them simply because some readers disagree, but I do get that this site might be a useful break—for everyone—from the turmoil around us. I’ll endeavor to keep political commentary to a minimum, unless of course it directly relates to this area.
Erik,
If there was a “like” button here, I would have deployed it for your response above. You should NOT be cowed by the vocal minority bashing you for raising the question of how members of our community could have voted for Trump and for everything that he represents. In my opinion, it is shameful. But that’s my opinion. The important thing is that I (and I know many others) do not come to your site to avoid politics, because politics is embedded in absolutely everything that you report on here, in one way or another, no matter how directly or indirectly. So we should be informed about not only who our neighbors actually are, and what values they stand for, but what this means for us as a supposed community. Gentrification, real estate development, demolition of historic human-scaled building stock, commercial and economic shifts, schools, affluence and displacement, being residents just blocks from the 9/11 site and the centers of municipal and federal power in the city, the police and courts – ALL of this is political. Every baby boutique that opens, every nail salon or soul cycle, every hardware store or bodega that closes, is political. At such an unprecedented, historical turning point for this country, it is important NOT to avoid understanding the correlation between the macro and the micro in our little downtown bubble. And we should be looking at ourselves and our neighbors as who we really are.
Nicely said.
I think its fine to share your opinions of what has been a historical election. The problem with our country and even our community sometimes is that people talk at each other not to each other. I voted for Trump along with 60 million other people. I also listen and understand the concerns of the 60 million + people that voted for HRC. I just hope Erik that you dont shut those of us in our community who disagree with, and are willing to have an open dialogue and discussion to move forward, not assume “Because that’s what they voted for, and as the country prepares to lurch backward”
Bob, thanks for the thoughtful comment. Alas, nothing I’m seeing so far is persuading me that we’re not lurching backward. Trump’s second hire, Stephen Bannon, is an unapologetic racist. And now Trump is talking about making Rudy Giuliani Secretary of State. Like Trump, Giuliani has no foreign-policy experience and no sense of diplomacy. What next, Sarah Palin for the Department of the Interior? Chris Christie for Transportation? I would love to be wrong about all this, but I don’t see how this country can go any direction but downhill. It breaks my heart, and it makes it very hard for me to keep caring about potholes and nail salons.
“they’re afraid Soho will turn into a shopping mall”
Isn’t it a bit late for that concern?