July 25 - 31, 2013
Cheers in Chinatown on Grand St. By Clarissa-Jan Lim Elected officials and several tenants of 289 Grand St. last Thursday celebrated the tenants’ return to the building after it was ravaged by a fire in 2010. Joining the tenants were Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Councilmember Margaret Chin and state Senator Daniel Squadron, as well as Mathew Wambua, commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, representatives of Asian Americans for Equality and other local elected officials, plus members of the local Chinatown community. In a hard-fought legal battle lasting nearly two years, the 289 Grand St. Tenants Association, with the help of AAFE, the H.P.D. legal team and the support of the area’s local politicians, won their case in early 2012 against the building’s landlord, Wong’s Grand Realty Corp. The court ordered the property owner to fully restore all apartments to the tenants by March 1, 2013. It is also significant win for the community in terms of protecting affordable housing. Elected officials at the press conference stressed their dedication to protecting affordable housing. “This victory belongs to the tenants of 289 Grand St.,” Chin said. “Since the devastating fire in 2010, we have fought for their right to return home and rebuild
their lives. Protecting tenants’ rights and affordable housing is of the utmost priority in Chinatown and Lower Manhattan, and I will continue to make sure these voices are heard.” Silver expressed gratitude to AAFE, H.P.D. and other officials “for their hard work and advocacy in protecting the rights” of the 289 Grand St. tenants. He pledged he will continue in his effort to “preserve and protect affordable housing in Chinatown and throughout Lower Manhattan.” The 2010 fire torched three residential buildings, of which 289 Grand St., despite heavy fire and water damage, emerged in the best shape. The other two buildings, 283 and 285 Grand Sts., sustained such severe damage they were deemed unsalvagable and required demolition. Two hundred people were displaced, 33 injured and an 87-year-old man died in what was deemed one of Chinatown’s worst fires. Property owners declared the repairs needed for 289 Grand St. “economically infeasible” and pushed for razing the residential building. However, H.P.D. and the Department of Buildings inspected and concluded that, despite the damage, the building could be repaired and restored to habitability. H.P.D. lifted the vacate order in April of this year, and all residents of 289 Grand St. returned to their newly renovated, still rentregulated homes.
Funds will start a new chapter for storm-‘slammed’ Nuyorican By Heather Dubin At Tuesday night’s Community Board 3 meeting, City Councilmember Rosie Mendez announced $5.3 million in funding had been secured with Speaker Christine Quinn and the Manhattan Council delegation to assist the Nuyorican Poets Cafe with major renovations and repairs. “The Nuyorican Poets Cafe was hard hit during Sandy,” Mendez said. Mendez said this capital grant will allow the East Village poetry mecca to become compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act, as well as fix its upper, unused floors above the performance space and the basement. “We were very fortunate, and quite gratified by the result,” said Daniel Gallant, executive director of the Nuyorican. “We are very grateful to all members of the City Council who put in a good word for us.” Plans have been underway for the past decade to redo the place’s floors, said Gallant, who began his tenure in 2008. “We’d accrued $1 million over three years,” the director said in a phone interview. “It was a good start, but we still needed much more funding to more realistically approach these floors.”
Nuyorican sustained damage from both Hurricane Irene and Hurricane Sandy. Its basement has flooded two years in a row now, and required a gut renovation, as did part of the performance space. “Sandy knocked out our heating and air conditioning,” Gallant said. “We had to go the entire winter without heat.” He was appreciative of the venue’s supportive fan base, which came to performances despite the cold, until enough money was raised to replace the heating. “The biggest structural issues involve drainage, a new roof and brickwork on the upper floors that’s starting to crumble,” he said. The building is more than 100 years old, and was previously a residential tenement. Renovation of the upper floors is necessary to ensure safety below them. “Every time we have a major storm, there are still some leaks that opened up since Irene and Sandy,” Gallant said. “During both hurricanes we called it the ‘indoor waterfall effect,’ ” joked Gallant. “It’s pretty to look at it, but not a lot of fun when the piano is under it.” Construction is anticipated to begin in the next two to three years.
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