The local paper for the Upper East Side
OCTOBER 5-11,2017
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WEEK OF OCTOBER MORE THAN MERELY SURREAL <P.12
5-11 2017
Since 2014, the city has financed over 77,000 units of affordable housing through the mayor’s Housing New York initiative. Photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photo Office
AFFORDABLE HOUSING PLAN’S IMPACT ON UES COMMUNITY Mapping the mayoral initiative BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
Housing New York, an ambitious ten-year plan to build or preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing across the city, has been a centerpiece of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s policy agenda during his first term. Since de Blasio took office in January 2014, the city has financed over 77,000 units under the plan, which will cost a projected $41.4 billion. Nearly 24,000 of those units are in Manhattan, 4,935 of which are new construction and 18,927 are preserved units. According to the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, housing is considered affordable when a household spends no more than 30 percent of its income on rent.
Housing New York aims to preserve or create affordable housing for households falling into various qualifying income categories. The income categories, which range from “extremely low income” to “middle income,” are based on household income as a percentage of the region’s Area Median Income (AMI), as defined annually U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Households classified as “low income” (those earning 50 to 80 percent of AMI; or between $47,701 and $76,320 for a four-person family in 2017) are the most heavily targeted of the income bands, accounting for a planned 58 percent of all units. Under the plan’s targets, 40 percent of the 200,000 affordable units will be new construction. The remaining 60 percent will be affordable
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A 1970 press photo for the syndicated TV show “Playboy After Dark.” Hugh Hefner (in tuxedo) is at far right, actor-comedian Don Adams, who played Maxwell Smart, also known as “Agent 86,” in the comedy “Get Smart,” is at center, and Playboy cover girl and longtime Hefner girlfriend Barbi Benton is seated between them. Photo: Playboy Enterprises, via Wikimedia Commons
HUGH HEFNER’S NEW YORK MEDIA Or how the sexual celebrant, master marketer and destroyer of mores lured swingers, sophisticates — and yes, sleazoids — into the Playboy Club, turning it into the busiest nightspot in the city BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
One of the most telling time capsules in the city can be found under “Help Wanted — Female” in the classified section of The New York Times. Take March 1965, and scan the ads: They seek “Kelly Girls” and “Gals Friday,” “Dictaphone Secretaries” and “World’s Fair Hostesses.”
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A marketing firm wants a “Girl Trainee,” and adds, “Housewife OK.” Pan American World Airways “needs girls to fly all six continents” — but they must be single, and please, no contact lenses. And then, wedged in between the listings for bookkeepers and “comptometer operators” at Bloomingdale’s, there comes this gentle throwback: “BUNNY.” A companion ad on a facing page from the same employer gets straight to the point. “GIRLS — LOVELY,” it says. “Apply for glamour, excitement and top earnings as a Playboy Bunny.” The venue, of course, is the Playboy Club, at 5 East 59th Street, “three doors east of Fifth Avenue, three doors west of Madison Avenue,” and the number to call is PL 2-3100.
How hopelessly dated, even quaint, it all seems now. But in that era of rotary phones and lettered prefixes, the Plaza 2- exchange, taking its name from the high-end district around the Plaza Hotel, was as iconic as Butterfield 8-, the Upper East Side exchange that gave its name to a 1960 Elizabeth Taylor film and the 1933 John O’Hara novel on which it was based.
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Jewish women and girls light up the world by lighting the Shabbat and holiday candles Friday Oct. 6, 6:11 pm from a pre existing flame Shemini Ateret eve. Wednesday Oct. 11, 6:03 pm Simchat Torah eve. Thursday Oct. 12, after 7:01 pm from a pre existing flame For more information visit: www.chabaduppereastside.com
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