Join Scarlett Johansson and NYC Comptroller Scott M. Stringer in Brooklyn!

[brooklynite]

Friend --

Want to meet Scarlett Johansson and NYC Comptroller Scott M. Stringer for a happy hour in Brooklyn, while also doing your part to support Hillary? We're getting together the evening of September 30th at FREEHOLD, and you could be there.

Click here to RSVP.

If you're interested in being a host or co-host, which includes a reception and photo with our two special guests, please let me know.

Hope to see you there!

//sam

Sam Kaspick
Hillary for America
for45 Finance Director

(FYI - tickets for this start at $45)

[Me.]

1. Scott Stringer

One of the people standing behind the museum of natural history and a millionaire named Richard Gilder who are planning a massive glass cube vanity building in sweet little Teddy Roosevelt Park. Massive trees will be ripped out of the ground and toxins released into the air all in aid of this land grab of a city park. Scott Stringer is also handing over taxpayer money to aid this heist all the while the residents of the area who want their park left alone are being told the fix is in. The entire situation is disgusting and so far there isn't a city leader who will stand with the citizens on this. More than a hundred million dollars of taxpayer money is being handed over to the museum, which is a private entity, not to mention that not a penny of the fat admission fee the museum charges goes into city coffers or spent on the upkeep and maintenance of the park. And just to say his office doesn't even have the courtesy to respond to the pleas, letters and phone calls of the citizens who are stuck paying his salary.

https://saveteddyrooseveltpark.org/

[msanthrope]

2. You are losing a quarter acre of a park. What's really pissing the neighborhood off,

though, is projected traffic and noise of the building of the expansion. The concerned citizens are all 1 percenters not simply content with being able to afford living there......the argument is now over 9 trees.

The expansion will happen. And the Upper West residents will have to deal.

[bettyellen]

4. And it's two whole blocks from Central Park-this is about property values for a few wealthy

Interesting someone would google to look for bad things to say about a Dem booster though, huh?

[msanthrope]

5. I love the misinformation about "fat admission fees." The museum is "pay what you will."

Yes....the special exhibits are expensive. So is the neighborhood starbucks. The fact is that the NIMBY neighborhood just doesn't like it.

[bettyellen]

6. The post above reminds me of a BOB friend I have who immediately googles anyone who supports HRC

And posts the first negative thing they could find on them. I have to wonder if she thinks she is fooling anyone that what she is passing along are her own informed opinions. I'm sort of embarrassed for her. She thinks Obama hasn't nominated a Supreme Court justice yet. Ugh.

[Me.]

8. I Didn’t Have To Google Anything

I have attended the meetings, donated money for a lawyer and written letters to everyone I can think of to bring attention to this matter. The Teddy Roosevelt Park is much loved and well used park and if you have a problem with people wanting to keep a park safe that’s on you. And how dare you cast false aspersions on someone because they have a problem with a supporter of Secretary Clinton.

[bettyellen]

9. It's a NIMBY issue, aimed at slamming eh driving force behind the Highline...So it's not about

Trees as much as it is about your trees. Which is what it is. I love parks but also museums, and this seems to be about property values more than park access.

[Me.]

10. I'd Say This Is Just Guessing On Your Part

As a renter, I don't have an issue with property values. And I have to wonder why trees and their benefit to the environment doesn't seem to count with you. As for museums, there are plenty and even without a massive glass cube, the Natural History Museum will still exist. There was a similar problem with the Metropolitan Museum a while back and the solution was to move some offices and storage to a different location. And what this has to do with the Highline? First, it was supposedly about HRC and now it's about the Highline. Why can’t this issue be what it is, keeping a neighborhood park where people walk their dogs, wheel their strollers, sit on the benches and shop the open market on Sundays, just as it is?

[bettyellen]

11. The Highline was a huge achievement spurred by the guy you were trashing - but I guess

Your little corner of NYC is more important, given that you highlight that as grounds to judge the man with.
I thought the article in the OP was fairly slanted, so much so it's leaves you less sympathetic to the park people.

[Me.]

12. So The Guy Did The Highline…

That entitles him to go to a different part of the city and build a vanity building in a city park that is not his with over a hundred million dollars of taxpayer money? And did he do the highline just out of the goodness of his heart? Talk about a 1%er. And yes where I live is important to me and many, many others. Isn’t where you live important to you? And if you think my post, not the OP, makes me less sympathetic to park people then you don’t know park people. Parks are an important part of keeping cities like NYC human, livable and breathable.

[bettyellen]

13. When you call a science center for one of the best institutions in NY a "vanity project"

Well... It's not going to win over people who are interested in the pros and cons. I get its personal to you.
It's just not a great way of judging a politician as you have here.

[Me.]

14. JUdging Politicians

Reports are, so far, as I understand them, that the environmental studies are saying this is not such a good idea. And the museum was asked, at least in the beginning, not to stop the project but to lessen the impact, instead, they have enlarged the footprint. It is felt that such a monumental structure will overwhelm the nature of the park.

As far as judging politicians, you betcha. They are supposed to be advocates for the citizenry yet the rep for the upper west side has stated unequivocally, to the crowd gathered at the Universalist Church, that she is for the museum. Further… nothing will change that. Parks Commissioner Silver had to be forced by the deputy mayor to meet with advocates for the park and told them he had no intention of reading reports and analysis. Scott Stringer didn’t have the courtesy to offer any type of reply, perhaps as he’s too busy trying to connect Mayor De Blasio to corruption so he can be the next mayor. At least the Mayor’s office gives fairly decent responses. And, btw, don’t we here on DU, judge politicians for good or otherwise?

This is a teeny, tiny matter in terms of what’s going on in the world but every bit matters and people standing up and saying so is important. Many feel pushed around by PTB and again, on a teeny, tiny scale that is what is happening in my 'little' part of the world. There has been no respect or consideration for the people who live here and pay the taxes that support the infrastructure. And as I said before, we will likely lose, as there is a lot of political muscle being used against us. In the beginning, it was all done very stealthily until the man who was in charge of the Pulitzer Prizes found out what was happening behind our backs and wrote a piece in Huffington where I and a lot of others found out what was happening. It was then they, the museum and Mr. Gilder, were called out.

And why exactly, does a ‘science center’ have to be built in the middle of a small park on the Margaret Mead 'mall'? And who do you suppose she would support?

[msanthrope]

16. Ask New Yorkers.....natives, those of us who were here as children, and who

went as children to the Museum...... ask them what it was like seeing the dinosaurs the first time, or having one of the docents explain the exhibits in detail.... for so many New Yorkers the museum was the embodiment of science, and of course we're all going to support the expansion.

[Me.]

18. I Am A New York Native Also

And have seen too many examples of corporate big-footing and the misguided use of taxpayer money to think any of this is ok.

[Me.]

7. If You Think Upper West Siders Are All 1%ers

You don't know what you are talking about. THe upper west side has morphed into a family oriented neighborhood. And while there is concern about foot traffic, which is already overwhelming, the loss of trees and park space is what is really devastating. And yes we will probably have to deal with it for as Helen Rosenthal, Community Board Seven, Parks Commissioner Silver, Gale brewer, The Museum, Stringer and others have made quite clear the fix is in and they are standing with the museum. Further, it seems to me in a time where there are so many homeless and problems needing to be addressed that handing over millions and millions for a vanity building is shameful.

[msanthrope]

15. I know exactly what that neighborhood contains. The same people who complain when PoC

schoolchildren walk through "their" neighborhood and "their" park on their way to visit the Museum are the ones complaining now. The same people bemoaning that the money could be used for the homeless? Same ones who call the cops incessantly about the homeless.

Yes....the chief complainers seem to be those who moved next to a Museum, and are now pissed that the Museum wishes to expand.

[Me.]

17. Again

You have no idea what you are talking about

[Scurrilous]

3. OT, but...

Scarlett Johansson’s band Sugar for Sugar covers New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle.”