The Paper of Record for Greenwich Village, East Village, Lower East Side, Soho, Union Square, Chinatown and Noho, Since 1933
June 2, 2016 • $1.00 Volume 86 • Number 22
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Activists call on C.B. 3 to take a stand against wave of luxury high-rises BY LESLEY SUSSMAN
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ommunity Board 3 got an earful last Tuesday night from a coalition of Lower East Side activists who complained that the board was dragging its legs in the battle to stop the proliferation of luxury high-rises, hotels and other upscale developments that are displacing poor people who live in the neighborhood.
Members of the Chinatown Working Group — a coalition of grassroots organizations whose goal is to draft a master plan that would preserve housing affordability in a wide swath of Lower Manhattan — spoke out angrily at the full board meeting at P.S. 20 on May 24. They repeatedly demanded that C.B. 3 at C.B. 3 continued on p. 16
BBQ basher found guilty of attempted assault In Chelsea chair attack BY DUNCAN OSBORNE
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fter deliberating for roughly two days, a Manhattan jury last week convicted BaynaLekheim El-Amin on four of five felony charges resulting from a 2015 fight he had with two gay men in a Chelsea restaurant. “There was no justification for this brutal attack,” Cy
Vance, the Manhattan district attorney, said in a May 25 statement. “Bayna-Lekheim El-Amin struck both victims in a public restaurant with a heavy wooden chair, knocking one of them unconscious. I commend the victims for their courage and my office’s prosecutors for ensuring this defendant is held accountable BBQ BASH continued on p. 12
Fukushima 5 years later....p. 14
An N.Y.U. graduate proudly accepted a diploma on behalf of his individual school last Wednesday. Because of N.Y.U.’s size, one person accepts a degree for each school, such as Tisch School of the Ar ts or Stern School of Business. See Page 6.
Cries to close nuke plant and go green gain energy PAUL DeRIENZO
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t’s been a busy season for environmental activists in New York City. Last week, an “emergency petition” and legal action was filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by environmental watchdog group Friends of the Earth to prohibit the restart of Indian Point Unit 2. That reactor was shut down after a control-rod failure last December. F.O.E. is also demanding an immediate shutdown and inspection of the plant’s Unit 3. The two reactors, located in Buchanan, N.Y., less than an
hour’s drive from New York City, are more than 40 years old and operating under temporary licenses. The reactors have experienced numerous mishaps over the past year and Governor Andrew Cuomo has called for their shutdown. The fate of Indian Point figures into a plan announced by the governor late last year, directing the state’s Department of Public Service to implement a Clean Energy Standard, “mandating that 50 percent of all electricity consumed in New York by 2030 result from clean and renewable energy sources.” The goal is to reduce green-
house gas emissions in the state by 40 percent while increasing reliance on solar energy and continuing the state’s reliance on nuclear power. Nuclear power produces dangerous waste products that require many years of storage. Public opposition has stymied plans for a nuclear waste dump in Nevada, and so reactor waste is being stored at nuclear plants in underwater pools. The F.O.E. suits claimed that the recent discovery at Indian Point 2 that a quarter of the nearly 1,000 Unit 2 ENERGY continued on p. 8
Fake Uber robs L.E.S. hail, threatens rape.......p. 10 Readers sound off on Beth Israel plan..............p. 24 www.TheVillager.com