The Paper of Record for Greenwich Village, East Village, Lower East Side, Soho, Union Square, Chinatown and Noho, Since 1933
December 26, 2013 • $1.00 Volume 83 • Number 30
‘Kill infill, Bill,’ many are urging de Blasio on NYCHA scheme BY SAM SPOKONY
PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY
All is calm, all is BRIGHT! The Village certainly has some impressive holiday light displays. But for pure over-the-top excess, Brooklyn’s Dyker Heights — where this home is — takes the cake.
Meatpacking BID is cooking BY LINCOLN ANDERSON
A
n effort to form a business improvement district in the Meatpacking District failed to gather sufficient support from local property owners a few years ago. It was said, at that time, that it was too early for a BID for the burgeoning new entertainment zone, but that another try would be made later. That time has come, as a new push is on to form a BID including the Meatpacking District, plus a few
blocks of southern Chelsea. In recent years, the Meatpacking District Improvement Association has done a few of the things a BID would do, but it isn’t funded by a special tax assessment on property owners like a city-approved BID. According to a statement on M.P.I.A.’s Web site, “various stakeholders” in the proposed district are behind the initiative. The proposed boundaries are Horatio St., Eighth Ave., 17th St. and the West Side Highway / 11th Ave.
Notable presences in the district include Google, Chelsea Market, the High Line and, slated to open in 2015, the Whitney Museum. “Already a high-profile commercial, entertainment and retail corridor, the Meatpacking District is a world-class destination,” says the statement on M.P.I.A.’s site. “In coming years, the addition of a number of new commercial developments will result in increased levels of visiBID, continued on p. 10
T
he New York City Housing Authority said on Dec. 20 that site designations for its land-lease plan — which would place luxury housing within its public developments — will not go forward before the end of this year, leaving the door
wide open for new Mayor Bill de Blasio to quash the plan, or at least change it, once he takes office in January. While NYCHA’s statement was widely reported in the sense that the landlease — or “infill” — proposal was finally in real danger of being killed, it NYCHA, continued on p. 23
Magical mystery buy: New owner purchases former garden plot BY SARAH FERGUSON
O
n Saturday, a crowd of supporters gathered at the Children’s Magical Garden at the corner of Stanton and Norfolk Sts. to celebrate the winter solstice. They sang a traditional wassail to the garden’s
33-year-old apple tree, thanking it for its juicy and bountiful harvest. And gardeners invited people to throw “dream seeds” (actually rye seeds) into the soil of the nowfenced-off lot in the center of the garden, so that their dreams may “take root” in the new year. GARDEN, continued on p. 2
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