NoHo-News_Jan

PARKS, RECREATION & OPEN SPACE Tobi Bergman, Chair. Wed., 1/7 @ 6:30 PM-NYU Silver Building, 32 Waverly Pl. Room 520 (I.D. Required) - Washington Sq Park Playground Design and Presentation by DPR regarding design of an addition to the Petrosino Park project currently under construction.
STREET ACTIVITY & FILM PERMITS Evan Lederman. Thurs., 1/8 @ 6:30 PM-SEIU 32BJ,  101 Avenue of the Americas  (bet. Grand & Watts Streets), Pre-conf. Rm. 22^nd Fl. Mulberry Street Festivals and Mall permits from May 1 thru end of September.
SLA LICENSING Raymond Lee, Chair. Tues., 1/13 @ 6:30 PM-NYU Silver Building, 32 Waverly Pl. Room 520 (I.D. Required). 312 Bowery and 49 Bond St are on the agenda.
ZONING CLASS David Reck, Chair. Thurs., 1/15 @ 6:30 PM-NYU Silver Building, 32 Waverly Pl. Room 805 (I.D. Required). Understanding Zoning for the Community Board: Zoning Basics: Bulk Rules, Floor Area Ratio, Air Rights, Use Groups, Zoning Districts, & Zoning applications that typically come before the Board. Good for anyone interested in zoning topics.
9^th PRECINCT COMMUNITY COUNCIL. Wed., 1/21 @ 7:00 PM-9^th Pct. Station House, 321 East 5^th St. 2^nd Floor. Regular monthly meeting.

6. FULL BOARD Brad Hoylman, Chair. Thurs., 1/22 @ 6:00 PM- St. Vincent’s Hospital, 170 W. 12^th St. Cronin Auditorium, 10^th Floor. THE PUBLIC SESSION BEGINS AT 6:00 PM.

For the full calendar go to www.cb2manhattan.org

PLEASE circulate and sign the attached liquor license petition -- even if you signed one before.
Call 212-260-0878 for collection. We are hoping to make this one good for 12 months but still need more signatures. More background: Bowery and Lafayette Corridor Liquor License Locations. Download Full Map; 200 and 500 ft Rule - New SLA Definitions

For those who are NOT in the NoHo NY BID area....

As members of a NoHo/Bowery Partnership*, residents, property and business owners support a nonprofit job-readiness and counseling program and, in turn, have clean streets as part of a vocational training curriculum. This is social entrepreneurism at its best!

The NoHo/Bowery Partnership* will be the third entity under the A.C.E for the Homeless (Association of Community Employment Programs) umbrella, joining SoHo and TriBeCa in this nonprofit, community-serving endeavor. Its proposed area will cover east of Lafayette St. to the Bowery from Houston to East 4^th St.

The NoHo/Bowery Partnership FREE trial period began December 11, 2008, and serves the following areas, Monday thru Sunday, 8am-4pm:

·         Bowery, West side from Houston to Great Jones

·         Bleecker from - #1 to #17

·         Bond from #43 to #57

Say hello to our street stewards. Check out the sidewalks, gutters and tree pits. Note the absence of broken trash bags, overflowing trashcans, weekend tourist refuse and the mess carters leave!

And then see what your investment in human capital can accomplish ! Visit the A.C.E. website to know more about what their successes inspire.

Your inquiries are welcome. You can download the pledge form here.

Become a Community Board Member - It is serious work but very rewarding if you really care about your community. See the attached flyer.

Continuing Issue

Public Theater's Plaza Proposal

Clockwise: #1 Public Theater with scaffolding. Virtually all scaffolded area will be taken up by the Stoop and ramps and signs. The pedestrian walkway around it will be the 11' of Lafayette St roadbed that now has the loading and unloading zone, leaving two lanes for traffic, the bike path buffer Zone, the bike path and parking on the west side.

#2 Current sidewalk and scaffolding. This is the area to be entirely covered by the Stoop and billboards. Pedestrians will have to walk around it on a path to the left that extends into the Lafayette roadbed.

#3 The Public Theater's rendering of the stoop and minimized billboards (in the far distance). This rendering doesn't even come close to the actual relationship of stoop to sidewalk or elevations.

To see more renderings go to Curbed.com, but we have to warn you that none of these renderings are accurate depictions.

Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director and Andrew D. Hamingson, Executive Director at The Public Theater and James Polshek and Polshek Partners presented a Landmarks application to alter the entrance and signage at the Public Theater. Seemingly simple, the new management team, and lauded institutional architect firm (see NY Times article on preservation), evidently made their rounds of pre-hearing presentations to electeds in early October. The first we learned of the application was around Nov. 1st with the CB#2 hearing scheduled three days hence. In a nutshell this proposal is designed to give maximum attention to The Public Theater in the landscape of Astor Place: a 30' plaza extending into the Lafayette St roadbed, an 18' by 75' stoop with stairs on three sides and six billboards permanently set into the sidewalk of 10' height and 4' width. Additional to these features are inset sidewalk lighting along the curb, building lighting to enhance the architecture of the three buildings that make up The Public and more prominent banners.

UPDATE: The CB#2 Full Board approved an amended Landmarks Committee resolution advising that the stoop be reduced to 10' depth, the bumpout sidewalk be eliminated and that signage plan should be revisited. Friends of NoHo advocated for the amended resolution. Read amended resolution here.

The Public Hearing at the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) on Nov. 13th: While NoHo had tremendous support from the Historic Districts Council, GVSHP, The Borough President’s office, The Society for the Architecture of the City asking for community input and downscale modification, Council Member Rosie Mendez supported the proposal stating that The Public's outreach to the community was commendable !

The LPC largely approved of this mammoth plaza plan though thankfully several LPC Commissioners suggested reducing the size of the stoop; more Commissioners recommended reduction in the lighting plan, especially the inset lights at the curb, all recommended reductions in the billboards. Unfortunately none of them recognized the opportunity to place Theater Bills in the very large well-lit windows on the first floor for the entire length of the building – windows that are now blocked from the inside anyway. What a missed opportunity.

This item will appear again before CB#2's Sidewalk Committee in the near future. The next step is the public approval process for the consent to have a stoop and signs on public property. One hopes that The Department of Transportation or the New York City Corp Counsel will not find a way to usurp that process, too, so that sounder minds might prevail and The Public can go about its business of creating great theater.
Amended CB#2 Landmarks Committee Resolution
Friends of NoHo Letter
NoHoManhattan.org Letter
Letter from Andrew Fisher, DaVinne Press Building

New Blogs in Town: Or maybe not new, but we just found them anyway....Bowery Boogie and Colonnade Row. A tad ecclectic, which for NoHo, makes them just right. Oh, and one more, Greenwich Village Daily Photo.

More Property UPDATES...click here
regularly updated details on Properties in Development in NoHo

If you have additional suggestions, are an artist living in NoHo, have any professional photography of our neighborhood, or slides of your artwork, please forward them to zella at nohomanhattan.org. Forgive the spell-out here but spamming robots have been stealing the actually linked address.

Don't forget to use the Activist Links page

You can also visit NoHo at i-neighborhoods.org - look for NoHo Manhattan. I-neighbors is run by a team of faculty and students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). I-neighbors was designed to encourage neighborhood participation and to help people form local social ties.

Managing Editor
Zella Jones
Citizen