VOLUME 5, NUMBER 28
THE WEST SIDE’S COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER SERVING CHELSEA, HUDSON YARDS & HELL'S KITCHEN
SEPTEMBER 25 - OCTOBER 8, 2013
New CB4 Leadership to Follow Johnson’s Exit
Photo by Eileen Stukane
Hell’s Kitchen Farm Project coordinator Lauren Baccus, on the roof of Metro Baptist Church.
Rooftop Farm Feeds Those Struggling to Stay in Hell’s Kitchen BY EILEEN STUKANE A man was knocking at the front door of Metro Baptist Church on West 40th Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, when Chelsea Now arrived to cover the rooftop Hell’s Kitchen Farm Project (HKFP), which has grown enough fresh organic produce to provide Metro’s Food Pantry with 175 pounds of food so far this year. The man was requesting a toiletry kit, which the church provides as part of its social services for the needy.
Around the corner on Ninth Avenue, a small cup of organic coffee cost three dollars. The extremes that exist in a changing Hell’s Kitchen have prompted Chelsea Now to take a closer look at this Community Board 4 neighborhood as it continues its stunning transformation from a gritty working class district of low-rise buildings and tenements, to an area of upscale, skyscraping, commercial and residential towers with amenities for the wealthy. The sparkling
towers belie what’s happening on the ground, as many long-time residents struggle to survive in a community of higher costs, and that’s where the HKFP comes in. The food grown on Metro’s roof offers a lifeline. Now in its third growing season, the HKFP planted its fi rst seeds in 2011, thanks to the efforts of four community groups: Metro Baptist Church, Rauschenbusch
BY SAM SPOKONY In the end, it was probably the respect he’d earned from local tenant leaders and neighborhood organizations — relationships grown strong through his time on Community Board 4 (CB4) — that propelled Corey Johnson to a huge win over Yetta Kurland in the September 10 Democratic primary election for the City Council’s District 3 seat. Johnson, who has chaired CB4 for the past two-and-a-half years, and been a member since 2005, is now preparing to make his exit from the board, as he will run uncontested in the general election in November and officially take office in the Council on January 1. But while he’s ready to take on this new and bigger role — his first as a legislator — Johnson is quick to remind constituents that, even once he becomes a City Councilmember, he won’t be too hard to find around town. “I learned a lot from the community board, but I don’t feel sentimental about ending my time there, because the truth is that I'm not going any-
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where,” said Johnson, in a September 18 interview with Chelsea Now. “I’m just going to be working with all of these folks in a different capacity, and I’m going to continue to be at community board meetings, tenant association meetings, block association meetings and PTA meetings. And I think this next chapter is really going to be an extension of the work I did with my colleagues in CB4.” Johnson’s formative training and expertise on the local level will, as he states it, continue to benefit his Council district (which includes Hell’s Kitchen, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, the South Village and West SoHo) by keeping him zeroed in on the neighborhood issues that played a such a huge part in his campaign — namely, the oft-repeated, top three priorities of bringing in new affordable housing, improving public schools and restoring a full service hospital to the area. “I think affordable housing is the number one issue that faces all of these neighborhoods on the
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