New Yorkers join virtual AIDS Walk from Central Park
BY MATT TRACY
The coronavirus pandemic forced
the AIDS Walk to go virtual for a
second consecutive year, but some
New Yorkers gathered on May 16 for a
small watch party at Central Park’s Tavern
on the Green.
The “AIDS Walk: Live at Home” event,
led by GMHC of New York and AIDS
Walk San Francisco Foundation, featured
a virtual broadcast with a half-dozen cities
beyond New York, including San Francisco,
New Orleans, Austin, Seattle, Los Angeles,
and Milwaukee. The fundraising event set
out to raise money for GMHC and other
organizations serving people living with
HIV/AIDS.
With mask mandates dissipating across
the nation, a couple dozen individuals
mingled at tables under a tent at Tavern on
the Green while they watched the festivities
and enjoyed some live entertainment.
The event’s on-site performers included
Attendees enjoy breakfast and the live-streamed AIDS Walk show.
Broadway stars Adam Pascal and Sherie
Rene Scott as well as the Oneonta State
PHOTO BY DONNA ACETO
Choir and the Big Apple Corp.
“This year marks the fourth decade of
the epidemic, and GMHC has been on the
front lines since the beginning,” GMHC
CEO Kelsey Louie said during the broadcast.
“Today we serve more than 10,000
people living with and affected by HIV
and AIDS. Over the last year we have
been maintaining our services remotely,
including meals and nutrition, supportive
housing, legal and workforce development
services, and mental health and substance
use counseling. This past year, despite the
COVID pandemic, we have provided our
clients with more than 100,000 meals. I’m
proud of the fact that we continue to fi ght
the HIV and AIDS epidemic, and at the
same time, confront the two public health
crises of COVID and race based violence.
This past year has taught us once again that
silence equals death.”
Elton John and his husband, David Furnish,
received the Lifetime Achievement
Award and several other celebrities showed
up on screen, as well, including Billy Porter
of “Pose.”
Hotel Penn could meet wrecking ball under same
excuse for old Penn Station, advocates say
BY MARK HALLUM
Historic preservationists, architects
and civic leaders hope to stop the
irony of destroying landmarks, offi
cially designated or not, from destruction
in the effort to beatify and expand transit
options at Penn Station.
Vornado, the realty trust that owns the
Pennsylvania Hotel, however, was not responsive
in regard to calls to maintain the
102 year old structure which could be up
for redevelopment under Governor Andrew
Cuomo’s revitalization effort.
Richard Cameron, an architect who
spoke in front of the Hotel Pennsylvania
on May 12, contested the grounds on which
developers are seeking to demolish what
was once one of the larges hotels in the
world in that the logic was similar to that
used to destroy the old Penn Station.
“We used to have the greatest train station
in the world right across the street,
literally right across the street, and sadly
for me I was too young – when I got to New
York it was already gone,” Cameron said.
“The language that was used to destroy that
station is the exact same language Steve
Roth is using today to argue to destroy this;
it’s tired, it’s old, it’s dirty, can’t be reused.
We need something new. Everybody admits
that what happened across the street
was one of the worst crimes in terms of
A rally in front of the Hotel Pennsylvania in Midtown on May 12 called for
preservation of the building once associated with old Penn Station.
architectural legacy that ever happened in
this country. We’re about to commit the
exact same crime right here with the Hotel
Pennsylvania.”
Vornado is planning a 61-story offi ce
tower in place of the 1919 design by Mc-
Kim, Mead and White as part of the Pennsylvania
Railroad Midtown Manhattan
transportation complex, leading the group
PHOTO BY MARK HALLUM
falling under the Empire Station Coalition
to call on not only elected offi cials to step
in, but also for the Landmark Preservation
Commission to designate the site.
“We should only support development
that enhances livability for New Yorkers
including housing, green space and transit
accessibility,” Lindsey Boylan, candidate
for Manhattan Borough President, said.
“Instead the Governor seems to view this
as a giveaway to allies and donors and Vornado
rather than thinking about the future
of the City, and I refuse to support a plan
that is not led by residents of the City for
residents of the City.”
The LPC seems to lack interest in
preserving what was once part of the old
Penn Station as the agency owes its creation
to the preservation movement that grew
from the rubble of the idilic transportation
hub that enrage Americans when it was
destroyed and rebuilt in 1963.
“LPC has reviewed Hotel Pennsylvania
numerous times over the last 20 years and
each time has determined that the property
does not rise to the level of architectural
signifi cance necessary for consideration as
a potential landmark,” an LPC spokesperson
said.
The larger scope of the Empire Station
Complex, a pet project of Governor Andrew
Cuomo’s since his 2020 State of the
State address, is an expansion a block to the
south of Penn Station that puts other sites
locals argue are historic such as St. John the
Baptist Roman Catholic Church.
“Let’s not repeat the egregious error of
Penn Station by allowing the destruction
of Hotel Pennsylvania simply because it
hasn’t been maintained by its owner in
recent years,” Brad Vogel, of the City Club
of New York said.
Schneps Media May 20, 2021 3