Questions on artists lofts swirl at latest SoHo-NoHo rezone meet
BY CARSEN HOLADAY
SoHo and NoHo residents are
making moves to modernize
the area’s zoning with
a plan that sparked contention at
an update meeting on Tuesday,
March 30.
The Department of City Planning,
in partnership with Manhattan
Borough President Gale
Brewer and Council Member
Margaret Chin, hosted a remote
public information meeting on
Tuesday to discuss the SoHo/
NoHo Neighborhood Plan. It
was the third and fi nal update
in a series of update meetings,
wherein each session focused
on different, specifi c aspects of
the Plan. The fi rst two public
information sessions reviewed
the Plan’s approach to housing
and quality of life, respectively. .
“The history of this neighborhood,
SoHo/NoHo, is rooted in
arts and culture,” Brewer said in
her introductory remarks.
The event included a presentation
by the DCP and the
Broadway and Howard Street in Soho.
Department of Cultural Affairs
(DCLA) team, followed
by a live Q&A. The presented
thematic information covered
SoHo/NoHo’s arts and culture
landscape, Live-Work and Joint
Live-Work Quarters for Artists
and the City’s intended support
for arts and culture.
DCP Project Lead Sylvia Li
presented a timeline of the SoHo/
NoHo Neighborhood Plan and
PHOTO VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
introduced the project’s strategies
regarding arts and culture. The
strategies aim to retain existing
artists, accommodate cultural and
creative uses by artists, artisans
and makers, and to provide an
option to transition existing
JLWQAs to residential, paired
with provisions to support arts
and culture. Li went on to discuss
existing zoning and the historic
context of the area.
Li explained that these developments
are happening now because
of many factors, some brought to
light by the COVID-19 pandemic,
and others guided by a report
made after the six-month community
planning process in 2019
called Envision SoHo/NoHo. The
report provides zoning, land use
and other recommendations and
priorities.
Next, Li turned it over to
DCLA Special Projects Manager
Derek Weng. Weng went into details
about the agency’s mission,
including expense and capital
funding for the project, and the
issue of individual artist grants.
He presented a graph comparing
past and present artist certifi cations,
designated by the DCLA.
Weng discussed the idea of redistributing
a portion of the sales of
the JLWQA in order to provide
operational and program funding
for local, cultural nonprofi ts.
“We plan to continue to provide
funding for a diverse array
of individual artists and cultural
nonprofi ts that are crucial to
a healthy cultural ecosystem,”
Weng said.
Session participants expressed
their frustration at the lack of
public knowledge about the So-
Ho/NoHo Neighborhood Plan’s
development. Many artists joined
the meeting to express their fear
at the possible effects of the future
rezoning.
“The fl ip side of removing barriers
is displacement of existing,”
said community member David
Lawrence. “ I see a lot of displacement
occurring. I don’t hear very
much from the city about joint
living work quarters expanding
at all, what I hear is letting them
atrophy. The idea that people
living in place can stay but we’re
moving on with other things that
don’t include artists. That’s the
message i’m getting.”
“Ms. Brewer and Ms. Chin: Do
you hear the extent to which residents
feel absolutely rooked by the
envision process they were forced
to endure?” said Jane Fisher, community
member. “This is a bait
and switch, plain and simple.”
Voices of grief over COVID-19 dead ring out at Foley Sq.
BY DEAN MOSES
Voices for Seniors hosted a candlelight
vigil in Foley Square on
March 25, allowing family members
of deceased nursing home residents
to express their grief on what marked the
one-year anniversary of Governor Andrew
Cuomo’s nursing home directive.
A parent is a symbol of love, protection,
and a reminder of childhood. However,
that fuzzy, warm feeling has been tarnished
for the families of 15,000+ New Yorkers
who lost their mothers and fathers to the
COVID-19 pandemic. For many of the individuals
fi ling into Foley Square on March
25th, the word parent evokes vastly different
emotions. For them, when they think
of their parents they hear the dry, rasping
of lungs struggling for air and see the rapid
movement of an exhausted chest inhaling
its last breaths. But above all, they recall
what it was like to say goodbye to a loved
one through a computer screen. This horrifi
c memory has bypassed happier times,
leaving only sorrow.
Still mourning, these sons, daughters,
and grandchildren are clinging onto their
sorrow and weaponizing their grief. Gripping
signs with the faces of their lost family,
they are telling their stories to the world in
Some clutched their heart, feeling it shatter inside their chest.
hopes of bringing the one they feel responsible
to justice.
Theresa Sari lost her mother, Maria Sachs,
on April 13, 2020, in an Island Park nursing
home. Her mother’s last moments are forever
embedded in her mind. The shrill beeping
noises from machines, labored breathing,
and the feeling of helplessness constantly
invades Sari’s dreams at night.
“This was the last time I saw my mother,”
Sari said, holding up a picture on her
PHOTO BY DEAN MOSES
phone, “This is what negligence and this
guy signed a book deal for. This is me saying
goodbye with her grandchildren. The
woman could hardly breathe. We didn’t get
to hug her or kiss her. Yet we watched her
suffer!”
Like many others in attendance, Sari
wondered why Cuomo’s family was given
priority in being tested for COVID, and
their families weren’t.
“Why was his mother a priority and not
my mother? Why was his brother tested
on March 31st and not my mother? She
should have gotten priority testing along
with the thousands of others who were
showing COVID symptoms at the same
time,” Sari said.
Feeling that the Governor’s executive
order granting nursing homes immunity
sent their loved ones to an early—and
sometimes a mass—grave, those at the
rally say the time for an apology and mere
accountability has passed, now they are
seeking punishment.
Joann Rodriguez’s father, Anthony Rodriguez,
passed away in a nursing home in
Westchester County. She says that last year,
around the time of Cuomo’s directive, she
had called the nursing home her father was
residing in to see how he was doing. For
two weeks no one at the facility answered
her call. She feared the worse, and then
she fi nally got a call back that her father
had a high fever.
“In the beginning of all of this, I was
just looking for an apology. But now, a year
later, I still haven’t at least got that. So at
this point, it’s beyond an apology. I want
justice and I want to see Governor Cuomo
step down. I want to see him put away and
held accountable for what he did,” Rodriguez
told amNewYork Metro.
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