Savoring dance by Camille, p. 23
Volume 81, Number 34 $1.00
West and East Village, Chelsea, Soho, Noho, Hudson Square, Little Italy, Chinatown and Lower East Side, Since 1933
January 26 - February 1, 2012
City Planning O.K.’s Rudin condo project for St. Vincent’s site BY ALBERT AMATEAU The City Planning Commission on Monday unanimously approved Rudin Management’s plan for the residential redevelopment of the former St. Vincent’s Hospital campus. The Jan. 23 vote, with Amanda Burden, commission chairperson, and 11 other commissioners attending, took less than 10 minutes. It was the next-to-last step in the city’s uniform land use review procedure,
or ULURP, for a project that would create 450 new condominium apartments on the east side of Seventh Ave. and a 17,000-squarefoot park in the triangle on the west side of the avenue. The City Council has the final word and must now vote within 60 days whether to approve the $800 million project. The redevelopment plan includes converting four former hospital buildings to
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Wanna buy Trump Soho hotel? Well, then, you’re hired! Photo by Tequila Minsky
Construction workers wearing orange shirts held up signs backing the N.Y.U. 2031 project at Thursday’s full Board 2 meeting.
N.Y.U. calls out the troops in support of its mega-plan BY LINCOLN ANDERSON In what opponents blasted as an “orchestrated” show of support for N.Y.U.’s 2031 large-scale development plan, union construction workers — along with university deans and even the women’s basketball team coach — testified on behalf of the ambitious development scheme at Community Board 2’s packed full board meeting last Thursday night. And, in a first, a lone local resident spoke in favor of the plan. But the crowd mockingly accused him of being paid off. Meanwhile, local residents among
the 300-person audience at P.S. 41 repeatedly told N.Y.U. and the construction workers to “Build it Downtown!” — meaning the university should develop its new space nearby in the Financial District where Community Board 1 has an open invitation for N.Y.U. to come grow. Several N.Y.U. faculty members also spoke against the plan, saying it would disrupt both their classrooms and their families’ lives. Brad Hoylman, C.B. 2 chairperson, said 1,000 people had turned out at the board’s previous five hearings on the N.Y.U. “Core Proposal” this month.
He noted the board had “avoided a melee” after the first of these hearings, when the auditorium at the A.I.A. Center proved to be too small for the overcapacity crowd, and the meeting had to be quickly moved to Our Lady of Pompei Church’s basement. Hoylman said, at this point, the board will send a formal letter to N.Y.U. regarding the plan, asking the university to respond to it in writing. Following that, there will be a second round of meetings on the 2031 plan by the C.B. 2 committees during February.
BY ALBERT AMATEAU A partner in the 46-story Trump Soho, the condo hotel that opened in April 2010 in the Hudson Square district over the objections of neighborhood preservation advocates, last week put the building on the auction block. Alex Sapir, the partner of the Bayrock Group in building the hotel managed by Donald Trump’s family, said last week that the unsold condo units and the public
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areas of the hotel would be auctioned in March or April. Sapir told the business press on Jan. 18 that the developers had received unsolicited offers from unnamed buyers. “They were numbers that we would be very happy selling at,” Sapir told Bloomberg News and Crain’s New York Business. Sapir said the auction of
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LETTUCE ENTER THE DRAGON PAGE 13
EDITORIAL, LETTERS PAGE 16