VOLUME 6, NUMBER 8 JANUARY 15, 2014
THE WEST SIDE’S COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER SERVING CHELSEA, HUDSON YARDS & HELL'S KITCHEN
Johnson Taps Ex-Gottfried Aide as his Chief of Staff BY LINCOLN ANDERSON In a surprising turn of events, two days after taking office as the new city councilman for the Third District, Corey Johnson named Jeffrey LeFrancois as his chief of staff. It had been widely thought that R.J. Jordan, his campaign manager, already had the job nailed down. LeFrancois was Assemblymember Dick Gottfried’s deputy chief of staff for five years, also serving as his community liaison and LGBT liaison. Political observers got
news of the appointment when, slightly after noon on January 3, Gottfried, who was among the elected officials whose endorsements Johnson touted in his primary contest with Yetta Kurland, tweeted out: “Congrats to @jlef423 Jeffrey LeFrancois, my former Deputy COS — Councilmember @CoreyinNYC’s new COS. Great news for all of us!” After his election in November as one of three
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CB4 Gets Grand View of Affordable Housing Project BY EILEEN STUKANE Innovation was on the table, at 2014’s first full board meeting of Community Board 4 (CB4). Each seated board member was clearly identified by a paper name plate (with chairs of committees noted), allowing everyone to know who was speaking. In this small way, the January 6 meeting (held at the Hotel Trades Council headquarters, on West 44th Street) already bore the mark of new chair Christine Berthet — whose aim is to make CB4 more
approachable to residents of the community. She would later name three new CB4 Task Forces, designated as Outreach, Openness and Best Practices For Chairs. The big news, however, was the presentation of a proposed new development project offering 210 affordable housing units — a highly unusual 39 percent of the project on West 52nd and 53rd Streets between 10th and 11th Avenues in Hell’s Kitchen.
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Image courtesy of Hudson Yards Development Corporation
A 2011 rendering depicts the 34th St. No. 7 subway canopy.
Hudson Yards BID Hopes to be Fully Operational by Mid-2014 BY SAM SPOKONY In one of his final acts as the city’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg on December 30 signed the Hudson Yards Business Improvement District (BID) into law. Now, those who have spent over a year planning and pushing for the BID — which covers more than 450 businesses between West 30th Street and West 42nd Street, and from Ninth Avenue to the east side of 11th Avenue — hope to have it fully operational in around six months. “Mid-2014 is certainly an aggressive timeline, but I’m confident in our group,” said Joshua Bernstein, a co-chair of the Hudson Yards BID Steering
Committee, and a West 37th Street resident. “People involved in this really want to make it work, and they want to see that our new park is properly cared for.” Bernstein was referring to the new Hudson Park & Boulevard — a four-acre, tree-lined swath of open space that will run from West 33rd Street to West 39th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues, and which is currently under construction by the Hudson Yards Development Corporation. Phase One of the park’s construction — between 33rd and 37th Streets — is expected to be completed by the end of 2014, and will include two entrances to the new No. 7 subway extension.
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In addition to providing typical advocacy and sanitation services to local businesses, one of the BID’s primary missions will be to maintain that park, which many believe will bring new, green life to an area that has played host to major development — including Hudson Yards itself — in recent years. The BID, which itself will be operated by a newly formed nonprofit organization called the Hudson Yards/Hell’s Kitchen Alliance, has a budget of $1.2 million for its first year of operation. Nearly $450,000 of that will be devoted to Hudson Park main-
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