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Chelsea VOLUME 10, ISSUE 50
YO U R W E E K LY C O M M U N I T Y N E W S PA P E R S E R V I N G C H E L S E A , H U D S O N YA R D S & H E L L’S K I T C H E N
DECEMBER 13 - 19, 2018
Trying to stop hate before it happens BY SYDNEY PEREIR A
I
n the wake of rising hate crimes, City Council members are ramping up hate crime prevention efforts in two recent bills. Councilmember Mark Levine is spearheading legislation to create an Office to Prevent Hate Crimes, which would coordinate myriad government agencies to improve the city’s response
to hate crimes and inrease outreach before they happen. “The hatred that we’re here to denounce is a poison from which none of us are immune,” Levine, who represents parts of the Upper West Side and northern Manhattan, said at a press conference Dec. 4. Under Levine’s bill, the Office of Hate Crime Prevention HATE continued on p. 8
Chelsea’s all wet... based on puddle study statistics BY SYDNEY PEREIR A
N
ew Yorkers are familiar with flooding subway stations, leaping over puddles on street corners, and biking through flooded bike lanes during heavy rainfall. But to see where 311 complaints about street flooding
are worst, Localize, a neighborhood-insights platform, compiled more than 3,000 complaints in 12 months. Localize found that Manhattan’s Marble Hill, Midtown South, Chelsea and the Upper West Side made the city’s top PUDDLES continued on p. 7
From left, Alex Mustonen, Daniel Arsham and Ben Por to, all par tners in Snarkitecture, have created a new exhibit space in Hudson Yards. See Page 10.
Google it? Tech giant eyes D’town BY LINCOLN ANDERSON Amazon’s megadeal to create a headquarters in Long Island City — and the fact that it was greased with more than $1.5 billion in incentives from New York State — has dominated headlines over the past month. Under the plan,
Cabaret lives at Pyramid....... p. 19
the Internet commerce giant would employ up to 25,000 people at the L.I.C. location. However, another deal also involving an enormous Internet-based corporation — though notably without benefiting from any financial incentives — hasn’t generated nearly as much buzz.
In short, the “Googling” of Manhattan’s Lower West Side looks like it will continue, with the tech colossus seemingly set to add yet another massive former industrial property — part of the St. John’s Building, in Hudson GOOGLE continued on p. 3
90th b’day bash for Village activist Diether ..... p. 13