News
Mom-and-pop health food store reportedly saved from wrecking ball - August 20, 2010 - 
A beloved neighborhood store whose impending demolition spurred Upper West Siders to rally in its defense has reportedly been saved from destruction. Read
more 
Columbus Ave. renovation reportedly nixed - August 19, 2010 - 
An expansion of property on Columbus Avenue and West 95th Street that would have dramatically changed the block's landscape has been dropped. The Witkoff Group pulled its application to renovate a 248-apartment building on 95 W. 95th St. called Columbus House.
The plan called for building a two-story structure that would have wrapped around the base of the 33-story residential tower. That addition would have created 4,950 square feet of retail space along Columbus Avenue between West 95th and 96th streets. But it also would have closed pathways between buildings and have been built to the property line, eliminating a wide patch of sidewalk on Columbus Avenue. Read
more
Jewish Home Lifecare replies to our open letter - July 1, 2010 -
On June 2, Westsiders for Public Participation published an open letter to Jewish Home Lifecare, in which we requested complete information about its proposed relocation to West 100th Street.
On July 25, we received a reply from Jewish Home Lifecare. Today we respond to that reply for the purpose of correcting the public record.
Audrey Weiner
President and CEO
Jewish Home Lifecare
120 West 106th Street
New York, New York 10025
Dear President Weiner:
I have received your reply to my Open Letter to Jewish Home Lifecare (JHL) dated June 2, 2010.
The Board of Directors of Westsiders for Public Participation finds that your six-page reply provides no meaningful answers to any of the questions posed in the Open Letter, and sheds no further light on the activities of JHL that have been shielded from both public view and public participation.
Your letter states that JHL has held a series of meetings with Park West Village neighborhood stakeholders, but demonstrates the opposite.
Read the entire letter / Discuss
UWS neighbors fight to save mom and pop health food store - June 24, 2010 - - From the outside, Columbus Natural Food market at W. 95th and Columbus Avenue is a well-kept storefront with a cheery red awning. Inside, neighbors say, beats the heart of a neighborhood, one they worry is about to be ripped out. The store's landlord, The Witkoff Group, wants to tear down the store, a neighboring Chinese restaurant and Subway sandwich shop to make way for a larger retail development. Read
more
New questions raised about Jewish Home Lifecare - June 17, 2010 - A recent letter from the New York State Department of Health to Jewish Home Lifecare (JHL) obtained under the Freedom of Information Law has left us uncertain of the status of JHL's real estate development intentions for West 100th Street. The letter concerns a "modification" to JHL's application to construct a new residential health care facility on West 106th Street. In order to acquire complete information for the use of citizens and to preserve their right to public participation, we have written a letter to the Department of Health. Read the letter / Discuss
June 28: Learn about NYC's new voting machines - June 10, 2010 - There is no more fundamental act of public participation than voting. New York City will be using the DS200 Ballot Scanner to count votes beginning with the September 14 primary election. Join Common Cause/New York and Westsiders for Public Participation at a community forum for a demonstration by the NYC Board of Elections of how these new machines will work. You may download and print an event flyer here.
NYC Planning Commission to review 95 West 95th Street expansion plan *again* - June 10, 2010 - On Tuesday evening, June 1, Community Board 7 passed a conditional disapproval of a revised proposal to enlarge the first and second stories of the existing building at 95 West 95th Street. After our announcement of Tuesday's CB7 meeting in the Weekly Participant, 33 neighborhood residents appeared before the community board to give public testimony. Read more
Fear (and shopping) when big stores move in - June 4, 2010 - 
- Mel Wymore, the chairman of Community Board 7, noted that there was more lamentation about the big stores than there were actual battle plans. "Everyone complains about the mallification of the neighborhood, but there's not really a concrete approach to mitigate the problem," Mr. Wymore said. "They grumble - but use them. There's lots of mall-creep, but not a sense of outrage around it." Read
more
An open letter to Jewish Home Lifecare - June 2, 2010 -
Audrey Weiner
President and CEO
Jewish Home Lifecare
120 West 106th Street
New York, New York 10025
Dear President Weiner:
It is my understanding that Jewish Home Lifecare (JHL) has plans to build a new facility on West 100th Street - plans that would potentially bring a new building of at least 22 stories to the increasingly overburdened Park West Village neighborhood. Despite the extraordinary impact this new high-rise building would impose upon an historic and vulnerable area already under siege from unprecedented real estate development, JHL has not held open discussions with the residents of the surrounding neighborhood, has not released any significant information about its actual plans, and has not answered many legitimate questions about its intentions and the funding sources it will rely upon to realize them. It is therefore critical that JHL respond to the many questions of neighborhood residents openly and promptly.
Westsiders for Public Participation believes that those who are affected by a decision have a right to be directly involved in the decision-making process, and that complete transparency is in the best interest of all stakeholders - particularly where real estate development projects involve public funds and are meant to serve the public good. Yet JHL has not disclosed the smallest meaningful detail of its real estate development intentions for West 100th Street, after summarily abandoning its long agreed plan to redevelop its West 106th Street campus late last summer. Read more / Discuss
Westsiders for Public Participation meets with NYC Department of Buildings - May 19, 2010 - Westsiders for Public Participation President Paul Bunten and a representative of the office of Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito met with staff from the New York City Department of Buildings on Wednesday, May 19, to discuss ways of reforming public review of as-of-right real estate development. We will keep you completely informed of the progress of these discussions.
CB7 Land Use Committee to consider new proposal for 95 West 95th Street - May 13, 2010 - At its biweekly Review Session held on Monday, May 10, the New York City Planning Commission deferred action on a proposal to redevelop "Columbus House" located at 95 West 95th Street, based upon objections from Community Board 7 and the developer's request for more time to meet those objections. Read more
Year in review: Construction transforms Upper West Side streets - May 9, 2010 - 
The pocket of the Upper West Side bordered by 96th and 100th streets has undergone a major transformation since last spring, and some residents say the feel of the neighborhood has fundamentally changed. Read more 
/ Discuss
NYC Planning Commission to review 95 West 95th Street expansion plan - May 6, 2010 - On Tuesday evening, May 4, Community Board 7 passed a unanimous resolution to disapprove a proposal to enlarge the first and second stories of the existing building at 95 West 95th Street. After our announcement of Tuesday's CB7 meeting in the Weekly Participant, 42 neighborhood residents appeared before the community board to give public testimony. Read more
Columbus Avenue retail proposal raises hackles - May 5, 2010 - 
Anne Cottavoz has been encouraging the organic lifestyle for 17 years at Columbus Natural Food, her store on Columbus Avenue and West 95th Street. But now she is organizing loyal customers against her landlord's plan for expansion that will change a swath of the avenue's landscape. Read more / Discuss
Mom & Pop stores could be displaced by redevelopment - May 5, 2010 - 
The owners of 95 West 95th Street want to redevelop the bottom two floors of the apartment building with new commercial and community space, but neighbors are upset that they could lose the small stores that are there now. Community Board 7 weighed in last night, voting against the owners? application and crying foul that the changes were thrust on them at the last minute. Read more
Westsiders for Public Participation meets with Public Advocate's staff - April 8, 2010 - Westsiders for Public Participation President Paul Bunten met with land use staff from the Office of the Public Advocate on Thursday, April 8, for a thorough walking tour of the Park West Village neighborhood, Columbus Village, and the Jewish Home Lifecare campus.
Letter to the Editor: Not a solution for P.S. 163 - April 7, 2010 - "Nursing Home Help For Crowded School" (April 1) raises disturbing questions about a misguided approach to solving overcrowding at P.S. 163, on West 97th Street. The article states that P.S. 163 and Jewish Home Lifecare are discussing the construction of a sheltered walkway between P.S. 163 and a new Bloomingdale Library branch, to be located inside a Jewish Home Lifecare building proposed for West 100th Street. Money for the project might come from Borough President Scott Stringer and Assembly Member Daniel O'Donnell. Read more / Discuss
Nursing home help for crowded school - April 1, 2010 - P.S. 163 officials and parents are planning for an influx of new students, and help may come from Jewish Home Lifecare. The nursing home is in discussions with the public school to provide space in its new development on West 100th Street. Read more / Discuss
Ominous news for the Park West Village neighborhood - March 19, 2010 -
Once again it appears that the residents of the Park West Village neighborhood are the victims of secretive negotiations and questionable practices. P.S. 163 has reportedly been in discussions with Jewish Home Lifecare to add classrooms to their proposed nursing home building on West 100th Street. Read more / Discuss
Nursing home may give P.S. 163 room to expand - March 4, 2010 - P.S. 163, an elementary school on 97th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues, may get a chance to expand with the potential construction of a new facility for Jewish Home Lifecare. The school is in discussions with JHL to secure space in the nursing home's new building on 100th Street when it is constructed, and possibly to build a bridge between the two buildings. Read more / Discuss
Westsiders for Public Participation elects new directors - March 4, 2010 - The Board of Directors of Westsiders for Participation (WPP) held its stated annual meeting on Thursday, March 4, 2010. Lois Hoffmann and Hillel Hoffman were each elected as directors for a term of two years. Paul Bunten was re-elected for a term of two years. Linda LeShanna and Barbara Aubrey will continue to serve out their two-year terms until March 2011. Read biographies of all of WPP's directors here.
Westsiders for Public Participation meets with Public Advocate's Office - March 1, 2010 -
Westsiders for Public Participation President Paul Bunten met with members of Public Advocate Bill de Blasio's staff on Monday, March 1, to discuss the Public Advocate's new community organizing initiative. Paul agreed to cooperate closely with the Office of the Public Advocate on matters such as the upcoming revision of the New York City Charter, which is the City's fundamental governing document. Read more about the Public Advocate for the City of New York here .
City unveils sidewalk shed redesign - February 19, 2010 - On Jan. 21, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, with the New York City Department of Buildings and the American Institute of Architects, announced "Urban Umbrella," a new design for the city?s sidewalk sheds - the enclosures that cover sidewalks while construction is being done on a building. Sheds protect pedestrians from construction activity on scaffolding above them. Read more
Opinion: Stop the Chetrit land swap! - December 21, 2009 - Once again, there is a real estate scheme afoot that should set off community alarm. The players are Jewish Home Lifecare, a non-profit nursing home, and the Chetrit Group, one of the developers responsible for Columbus Village - five residential towers and a big-box commercial mega-development, spanning three uninterrupted blocks on Columbus Avenue between 97th and 100th Streets. Read more / Discuss
Construction safety scrutinized - December 3, 2009 - Nearly two months after a construction crane crashed into a shed in their development, fifty Park West Village residents questioned the New York City Department of Buildings. Sponsored by Westsiders for Public Participation, the meeting arose from residents calls for more information about the accident in which part of a crane fell and hit a pedestrian sidewalk shed, causing it to collapse. Read more
New site takes aim at Columbus Village development - November 16, 2009 - 
Westsiders for Public Participation has launched a new Web site to allow residents to voice concerns over the Columbus Village development on the Upper West Side. Read more
Construction feared unsafe - November 11, 2009 - For some Park West Village residents, walking home can be a frightening experience. A month after city officials cleaned up a collapsed shed at the construction site on 97th Street, a group of locals say they still don't feel safe. Read more
JHL land swap swindle - November 10, 2009 - Jewish Home Lifecare (JHL), a non-profit eldercare facility, wants to swap its current campus on West 106th Street with a private real estate developer in exchange for a windfall payment and another parcel of land owned by the Chetrit Group, a co-developer of Columbus Village. The deal would represent a monumental double-cross to Upper Westsiders. Read more
Still no action on crane accident - November 2, 2009 - As most who read this are already aware, a crane accident that occurred on October 8 at a Columbus Village construction site collapsed part of a sidewalk shed covering a pedestrian walkway at Columbus Avenue and 97th Street. Fortunately, no one was walking under the shed at the time of the accident, and no one was hurt. Read more
No report on crane accident - October 20, 2009 - A crane accident at a Columbus Village construction site partially collapsed a sidewalk shed at 2:15 pm on Thursday, October 8, crushing scaffolding that covers a pedestrian walkway at the northeast corner of Columbus Avenue and 97th Street. Read more
We receive a WESTY - October 13, 2009 - Westsiders for Participation President Paul Bunten recently received a prestigious WESTY award, an honor bestowed upon West Side activists that celebrates their special contributions to New York communities. Read more
