YOUR WEEKLY COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER SERVING CHELSEA, HUDSON YARDS & HELL’S KITCHEN
GVCCC Honors NYPD’s Finest BY LINCOLN ANDERSON Police Commissioner Bill Bratton was the keynote speaker at the 12th annual Greenwich Village – Chelsea Chamber of Commerce (GVCCC) Safe Streets Safe Cities awards on Dec. 17, honoring several NYPD officers for their heroism during the past year. Bratton, in fact, had been scheduled to speak at last year’s event, but Black Lives Matter activists got wind he would be there, and announced they would be protesting. The activists showed up in numbers, and staged Continued on page 5
Pier55 One Step Closer to Rising BY ALBERT AMATEAU The high hopes for an innovative Pier55 cleared a crucial hurdle this month, when the state Department of Environmental Conservation posted notice that the project would not have a significant effect on the environment. The Dec. 7 legal notice carried in the New York Post also said the new $130 million pier proposed for the Hudson River Park — with most of its funding coming as a gift from Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg — complies with the State Continued on page 4
CLOWN CAR ROUNDUP Satirist Max Burbank begins the long process of covering Election 2016, starting on page 7.
Photo by Yannic Rack
A sign over the front door and a cage erected over the basketball courts on the roof are the only visible external clues to the building’s recent history, as the Bayview Correctional Facility.
An Inside Look at Bayview, Soon to be Transformed BY YANNIC RACK Over the next few years, an imposing nine-story brick building at the corner of 11th Ave. and W. 20th St. will be transformed into the state’s first Women’s Building — a center for social activism housing a wide array of nonprofit women’s organizations. With such a noble purpose in its future, the structure’s recent past stands out even more: until three years ago, 550 W. 20th St. was the site of the Bayview Correctional Facility, a medium-security women’s prison.
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The building held 153 inmates when it was shuttered shortly before Superstorm Sandy made landfall in October 2012. The women were evacuated and sent to other facilities upstate, but the 100,000-square-foot space, directly across from the Chelsea Piers sports complex, remained closed to save money. Once the transformation is complete — around 2020 — the Women’s Building will include a restaurant, an art gallery
Continued on page 12
VOLUME 07, ISSUE 44 | DECEMBER 31, 2015 - JANUARY 06, 2016