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VOLUME 4, NUMBER 34
THE WEST SIDE’S COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
DECEMBER 14 - 27, 2011
Living wage tops CB4 topics BY WINNIE McCROY Members of Manhattan Community Board 4 (CB4) gathered on December 7 at Roosevelt Hospital for a full board meeting, and public hearings on issues including the NYC Living Wage Campaign and a parking garage project. Deputy Inspector Elisa Cokkinos, of the NYPD’s Chelsea-based 10th Precinct (at 230 West 20th Street, between Seventh and Eight Avenues), opened the meeting with an update on crime in the area. “We’ve gotten burglaries and robberies
Image courtesy of Jamestown Properties and Studios Architecture
Things to come? Jamestown Properties has unveiled a new vision of the Chelsea Market expansion (seen here from 9th Avenue, north).
Jamestown reveals new Chelsea Market renderings BY SCOTT STIFFLER By unveiling significantly altered renderings for their proposed Chelsea Market expansion, Jamestown Properties has set the stage for a new phase of public debate over the project’s size, shape and viability. The series of new images, released to Chelsea Now earlier this week, address a number of aesthetic and spatial concerns expressed by the community after Jamestown Properties and Studios Architecture presented their initial vision for the project in March of this year. “I like the new design,” said Jamestown Properties managing director Michael Phillips. “It’s a shorter
building, a lower profile building. It’s much cleaner and more organized than the previous design, in terms of the massing.” The height, which was 250 feet, has been reduced to 226 — and the number of office floors reduced to nine (from 10). The overall additional area is now split. A portion is on 10th Avenue (the commercial office space; 240,000 square feet) and the remainder, on the 9th Avenue side (the 150room hotel; 90,000 square feet). The FAR (floor area ratio) has gone from 5.0 to 7.5. David Burns of Studios Architecture told Chelsea Now that changes reflected in the new design,
“have to do with redistribution of the bulk; taking a building that was much taller and creating a setback, so there’s more light and air. The overall building height, and perceived building height, has been brought down.” The three levels are now at 184, 197 and 226 feet — with the least tall (or, “perceived”) height on the 10 Avenue side. To see the taller setbacks from that angle, Burns notes, “You have to be further and further away from the building.” Unlike the initial design (which Burns characterizes as being, “more about a statement on top of an older
under control. There was a seven percent decrease in crime last year,” with a slightly lower decrease this year,” she reported. As reflected in Chelsea Now’s “Police Blotter” page, many of these crimes are due to people failing to secure their residence before leaving, noted Cokkinos. She invited all to attend 10th Precinct Community Council meetings (held at the precinct, 7pm, on last Wednesday of the month; the next meet-
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Protesters are sour on Trader Joe’s tomatoes BY BONNIE ROSENSTOCK About a dozen protesters dressed like giant tomatoes danced and rapped to the beat of Technotronic’s “Pump Up The Jam” in front of the East 14th Street Trader Joe’s on Saturday, December 3. The big reds are part of an ongoing campaign against the supermarket chain’s refusal to collaborate with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers
(CIW) and sign their Fair Food agreement — which includes paying tomato pickers one cent more per pound and protecting them against labor rights violations. Said tomato Lupe Rodriguez of her new pumped-up lyrics for the occasion, “It’s really important for people to be able to connect and participate with the Trader Joe’s campaign,
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EDITORIAL, LETTERS PAGE 8
LET THERE BE LETTUCE PAGE 27
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