Update: In the primary, Adriano Espaillat defeated City Councilmember Miguel Martinez. In the general election, he will face William Buran. Buran was the New York City organizer for the grassroots Ron Paul presidential campaign and credits Paul for motivating him to run. Buran calls for less government spending and smaller government.
At the end of the most recent reporting period, Espaillat had about $150. Buran had $2,858.
Three hundred and two years ago at the Battle of Fort Washington, the British defeated the Americans. This fall, in the neighborhood of that historic fight, the uppermost tip of Manhattan will find itself a different kind of battleground.
City Councilmember Miguel Martinez announced on June 2 that he would challenge incumbent State Assemblymember Adriano Espaillat in the Democratic primary for the State Assembly District 72. This year, as in every even-numbered year, all seats in the New York State Assembly and Senate are up for election. Primaries for State Assembly positions are often a non-event, but this year many races are unusually heated.
This is especially true in Manhattan, where term limits on the city's elected officials will make nearly three quarters of the City Council unemployed after the 2009 elections. The term limits restrict elected city officials to two full terms. For those whose tenure will come to an end in 2009, the 2008 elections in Albany offer a shot to continue in government.
That seems to be the situation facing Martinez, whose two terms expire at the end of 2009. Despite that, his decision to run against his former mentor and current rival, incumbent Espaillat, comes as a surprise to many -- including Espaillat.
"Yes, I'm surprised," he said of Martinez's decision. "Martinez comes out of our club and we did everything we could back in 2001 to get him elected. It's like someone from your own house turning on you."
Espaillat and Martinez were once both members of the same political club, Northern Manhattan Democrats for Change. Martinez worked in Espaillat's first campaign, and Espaillat helped Martinez with his campaign for City Council in 2001. Martinez left the club and formed his own, Democrats in the Heights. Since then, there has been little communication or cooperation between the two. Last September, they backed rival candidates for a district leader post. What once seemed to be a mentoring relationship is now more strained.
Espaillat has a long record in the area's politics. In 1996, he became the first Dominican American elected to any state legislature, representing District 72, which includes Washington Heights, Inwood and Marble Hill. Now chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, he cites his work to give free college tuition to veterans of the current war through the CUNY system as one of his accomplishments. He also initiated "Nos Quedamos," a program for tenants. Through it, Espaillat said, hundreds of residents have attended town-hall meetings about issues facing renters and he has secured the money and resources for a free legal clinic for tenants.
"A testament to my good work done is more people moving in," Espaillat said.
Martinez has served on the City Council since 2002 and chairs the Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice Services as well as being a member of several others. He is the Democratic district leader in Inwood Community. He says bringing money into the community has been his major accomplishment as a council member. That achievement, though, has recently raised some questions about whether he funneled money to an organization where his sister served on the board.
Both candidates see the primary campaign as a chance to demonstrate what they have done for their constituents. "This gives the community the opportunity to evaluate his work and my work," voiced Martinez.
As a longtime member of the Assembly, Espaillat had lined up support for his re-election. The looming question is, of course, whether or not that will withstand Martiez's unexpected challenge.
Espaillat holds an endorsement from the New York Working Families Party. The Empire State Pride Agenda and the United Federation of Teachers have not completed their endorsement process, but the Pride Agenda has contributed funds to his current campaign and the teachers have endorsed him repeatedly in the past. "Everywhere I go I've been getting signs of support," Espaillat said.
Martinez, too, feels he is garnering support, though he has not yet registered with the Campaign Finance Board.
With two former allies running against each other, the race has gotten buzz in the blogs. But some dismiss the talk of an epic feud.
"I don't see the battle. The only things you hear are rumors here and there," said Ebenezer Smith, district manager of the local community board.
"The media is putting the negative connotation on the race," according to Martinez.
"I am not involved in a feud," Espaillat said.
While reports of hostility between the two have been raging in online forums, both men maintain a civil, if nuanced, demeanor when trying to distinguish themselves from each other. And in many respects, they agree. When asked the most important issue facing the district, both men concur that it is the cost of rent. Additionally the two voice concerns about economic development and education.
They do disagree on how effective the other one has been. Martinez blames Espaillat for the lack of funding for the district from the Empire State Development Corp. Espaillat feels that Martinez "has not been a strong voice for housing."
Ydanis Rodriguez, who is looking to run for City Council in 2009, feels the competition is inspiring others to get involved in improving their neighborhood. "The community is tired of looking at races that focus on personal issues. We want to look at what [the candidates] have done," he said. "Any race should be open to whoever can do the better job for the community. We should encourage voters to look at who will serve them best," commented Rodriguez.
Smith agrees. "Whoever is elected will find a Community Board willing to work with that person," he said. There is no evidence that they will not find an equally receptive and cooperative community.
In fact, rather than seeing this campaign as a detriment to the community, many see it as a benefit. "This is part of what makes this nation great, the democratic process," Martinez said.
On that Espaillat agrees. "The voters will have their say," he said.
New York State Board of Elections (campaign finance information)
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With its four Tony Awards, including the one for best musical, "In the Heights" has not only thrust itself onto New York's radar screen, but also has put its revered neighborhood of Washington Heights, on a high ridge in northern Manhattan, fully on the map.
"I used to think we lived at the top of the world," sings Nina, the hit's lead, as she reminisces about her idyllic childhood uptown, "when the world was just a subway map and the one slash nine climbed a dotted line to my place." She has returned home from Stanford University, where she was lost academically and socially, to find her place again in her old neighborhood. "In the Heights" is about love, family, aspirations, disappointments and finding one's way in a difficult world - all sung and danced by gorgeous young Latin performers to original music, as the set's George Washington Bridge shimmers in the background.
What "Sex and the City" and "Friends" did for Lower Manhattan, "In the Heights" may well do for Washington Heights. That would be useful, because some New Yorkers are not sure what or where it is. Jon Paul Buchmeyer, co-owner of Tentpole, a Midtown public relations and communications firm, said that when he bought a house on 183rd Street "a lot of friends reacted with: Where is that? Is that even in Manhattan? That sounds like the Bronx!"
In fact, Washington Heights - which extends from 155th Street north to Dyckman Avenue and from the Hudson River to the Harlem River - is the ultimate New York neighborhood of dramatic topography (two ridges run north and south along its entire length), admirable parks and open spaces, elegant early 20th century housing stock, renowned cultural institutions, excellent restaurants, diners, food carts and bars, and glorious ethnic diversity. It has magnificent architectural bones, at least in part because the wealthy aristocrats who laid out the Audubon Terrace section of the neighborhood in the early 1900s deliberately designed buildings, streets and public spaces to attract households from the Upper East Side. By the time of the Great Depression, handsome apartment houses had already been built, and important institutions - including Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and Yeshiva University - had opened. Though it became one of the city's most successful immigrant neighborhoods in the 20th century, Washington Heights had the housing stock and institutions of the wealthy-not the tenements of, say, the Lower East Side, built for the poor.
Primarily Dominican today, Washington Heights has hosted nearly every immigrant group - Irish, German, Jewish, Italian, Puerto Rican - welcoming, absorbing, and transforming its residents. "The word diversity is beaten to death," said Andy Linares, who grew up in Washington Heights and who now owns Bug-Off Pest Control Center, which he says is the largest supplier of pest-control products in the city.
"But this neighborhood was always diverse," he continued. "Everybody worked together. There was no predominant group. We shared each other's culture. We celebrated Italian holidays and hung out with the Irish kids. Now we're seeing an influx of people from other areas of the city. Great! Fine with me so long as they're going to be invested in the neighborhood and make it better."
Buchmeyer agrees. Having moved to Washington Heights from the East Village, he recalled briefly worrying about missing that area's hipster hangouts. But now, he said, "what appeals to us are the little mom and pop places, like La Cabana Salvadorena, up the street, owned by immigrants from El Salvador, or La Caridad, our local diner, which shows up in 'In the Heights.'"
On a beautiful weekend afternoon both are packed with customers - several stand outside Salvadorena on Broadway and 187th Street eating pupusas, golden-brown corn cakes filled with pork and cheese, costing $2. Upscale restaurants like Hispaniola at One Nagle Avenue are also doing well, relying on word of mouth and repeat customers. Owner Rolando Lantigua says that while Hispaniola is a little expensive for the area, about 65 percent of its customers are local while the rest come from Westchester and Rockland Counties.
Latin immigrants - who brought Washington Heights back to life after the dark, dangerous days of the 1970s - have stamped their own ethos on the neighborhood, which is stuffed with retail shops, boutiques, salons and vendors. The streets teem with customers spending money. Indeed, upper Broadway may well be Manhattan's most vibrant commercial street, still lively well into the evening.
Now that Washington Heights is becoming a destiny of choice for young people trying to move to New York as well as for households priced out of the West Side, can all the residents live in peace?
Lucie Bilbao, who owns Lucie's House of Beauty on 183rd Street and Andy Linares' mother, hopes so. "A lot of American young people are moving in, artists and writers," she said. "They're very nice. A few are starting to come by. But they don't like to take care of the face as much as Dominicans do."
Jeffrey Gardere, a part-Haitian and part-Dominican real estate broker with Corcoran who grew up in Washington Heights, said he tells newcomers, "You have to reacclimate yourself and understand the culture of the new neighborhood. If you want the best café con leche, we have it. Or the best seafood spiced up with rice and beans, come up here. And while we don't have Whole Foods, we have fresh foods-the best possible fruits and vegetables that you can buy off the stands on the street."
He believes that Washington Heights real estate offers Manhattan's premiere bargain. The handsome buildings on Riverside Drive, like the Rivera and the Grinnell, have apartments that are some 40 to 50 percent less than comparable apartments 70 blocks south on the Upper West Side. A seven-room co-op in mint condition in the Rivera, for example, is listed at $1.195 million. A four-room apartment in excellent condition at 930 St. Nicholas Avenue is listed at $429,000.
Will prices stay relatively low? Probably not over the long term, but yes in the short run, since many buyers fleeing high Upper West Side prices will turn to Harlem before heading further north to Washington Heights.
Meanwhile, the characters of "In the Heights" worry about the woes of gentrification and ever rising real estate values. "Our neighbors started packin' up and pickin' up and ever since the rents went up it's gotten mad expensive," sings Usnavi, the stand-in for the playwright. "But we live with just enough."
Planner Alex Garvin who, as a housing official in the Beame and Koch administrations oversaw the city's neighborhood preservation programs in the 1970s, argues that "immigrant succession patterns is what New York is all about." The Dominicans are not being pushed out, he says, any more than the Greeks were before them. As Dominicans move up economically, many will move to more prosperous areas, including the suburbs, while others will stay, investing in their businesses and residences.
"It's my view," said Garvin, "that you can't predict population movements accurately. Too many factors are involved, including what happens to Dominican immigration. What's important is that the neighborhood remain a welcoming place for immigrants."
In the musical, crime is minimal-a minor break-in and a little graffiti. Even the graffiti turns out to have been done by a true artist-and one with a generous spirit.
Crime in the real neighborhood, however, is more complex. Wracked by drugs in the 1970s and 1980s, Washington Heights started to emerge from the nightmare of violence in the early 1990s with the waning of the crack epidemic. And while violent crime is down roughly 80 percent since 1993, it is by no means gone. Washington Heights's 33rd Precinct has had 10 rapes reported so far this year-double 2007's 5 rapes.
Robberies are up to 101 from last year's 92. There have been no murders, as opposed to 3 in 2007. Its adjacent 34th Precinct, also in Washington Heights, has had one murder so far this year, as it did last year, and 11 rapes, as opposed to 10 in 2007. The 34th's robbery and felonious assault statistics are almost identical to last year's, and grand larceny is up about 25 percent.
Linares, who said he was saddened when the neighborhood went downhill with drugs, considers it safe today. "People who are invested in the neighborhood are moving in," he said. "And watching things."
Linares, however, finds "In the Heights" a little annoying. One of the plot lines is about the neighborhood beauty who is eager to move up by moving downtown. "Why would she want to do that?" Linares asked. "This neighborhood is about people wanting to move in, not out."
Ultimately both the beauty and Usnavi stay, prompting Jon Paul Buchmeyer to note that many Dominicans have been making that same decision. "What's cool and authentic," he said, "is that neighborhood change and improvement is coming from third generation Dominicans like Usnavi, who decides to stay and redo his shop. They're investing and reaping the benefits of the great neighborhood they've created."
Julia Vitullo-Martin is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.Â
More than a year has passed since Mayor Michael Bloomberg stood in the Hall of Ocean Life at the Museum of Natural History and announced his PlaNYC2030 for a green and growing city. The wide-ranging proposal immediately attracted much attention and general praise for taking a long-term look at the city and for offering specific ideas to reduce pollution, increase energy efficiency and expand New Yorkers' access to transit and parks.
Since then, the city has planted trees, opened new bike lanes, left schoolyards unlocked after 3p.m. -- and seen its congestion pricing plan fail. Given that mixed record, what does the future hold for PlaNYC -- for the rest of the Bloomberg administration and beyond.
Earlier this spring, Gotham Gazette launched Sustainability Watch with Hunter College's Center for Community Planning & Development. Last week the center's Tom Angotti, professor at the Department of Urban Affairs & Planning and Gotham Gazette’s land use columnist, sat down for an online chat about planning for the future -- and for sustainability.
Gotham Gazette: Congestion pricing aside, what do you think the successes and failures were in the first year of PlaNYC?
Tom Angotti: This is the city's first long-term sustainability plan and a rare adventure into the future.
It is really tempting to list presumed successes and failures, but to do that we would have to suspend any belief that this is a long-term plan that deals with fundamentally critical problems like air and water quality, transportation, energy and housing. There have certainly been some steps forward in every area, but then the question arises whether they have anything to do with the 2030 plan or what would have been made in any case. The real test is whether the ambitious goals of creating a greener and healthier New York will be achieved. That just defies quick fixes and short-term solutions.
Voila -- the real benefit of a long-term plan: It can't be just a platform for the next election or two.
Gotham Gazette: How damaging was the demise -- at least for now -- of congestion pricing to the mayor's overall plan?
Tom Angotti: The loss of congestion pricing was serious both because of the real value it would have had in reducing traffic in the city and because of the political momentum it could have created toward significant traffic reduction. Congestion pricing's benefits to Manhattan were real, but compared to the huge task of reducing traffic in the city, it was a very small step.
Missing from the start was a serious comprehensive plan to reduce traffic. If the city had started with a better plan to address real concerns throughout the city (and not just Manhattan) about traffic congestion, it might have had a better chance on congestion pricing. Maybe now there will be more political space to put forth such a plan.
Gotham Gazette: I'm wondering how much of PlaNYC incorporates building support statewide, not just within the city. In the case of congestion pricing, it seems the proposal lacked consideration from people outside of the mayor's coalition and from outside the city. How important do you think it is that PlaNYC reaches beyond New York City to secure its many goals?
Tom Angotti: Clearly an ability to work with Albany is key. But the other missing element is the region, including three states, hundreds of municipalities and thousands of independent authorities. It may be mind-boggling, but how can you reduce the city's carbon footprint when the city is a fraction of the region's population and land? How can the city reduce traffic when Jersey and Connecticut are widening freeways? What about the city's waste being burned in the incinerator on the Jersey side?
The task of even starting a regional discussion is daunting, but NYC is the most important player and the one most likely to kick it off.
Gotham Gazette: You have faulted the administration for not involving community groups and others in the drafting of PlaNYC. Is it too late for the mayor to reach out and involve community boards to ensure the survival of the plan? What could he do to improve the plans; chances of survival in the 18 months that Bloomberg has left?
Tom Angotti: Excellent question. I can't think of a better way to use the next 18 months than to launch 59 discussions, one in each community board, about long-term sustainability. They could and should go far beyond existing community board membership. Community boards can be the hosts of a wide-open, inclusive dialogue that will certainly lead to many new ideas. The mayor's office could challenge each community to come up with its own priorities for long-term sustainability, affordable housing creation, open space, and transportation. Let the communities speak!
Gotham Gazette: Some people would argue that devising a proposal as sweeping and ambitious as PlaNYC requires a top-down approach because individual communities tend to focus on their own narrow interests rather than those of the city as a whole -- the whole not in my backyard (NIMBY) phenomenon. How can you involve local interests and still come up with a big vision?
Tom Angotti: Alas, if I could be assured that everyone in city government was more committed to the public interest than the city's own residents, I would have to agree. But where is that evidence? In fact, there are many examples where city officials have enacted policies that dump on low-income neighborhoods, many of them communities of color, because they were fearful of confronting NIMBYites in wealthier neighborhoods. In my book, that makes them NIMBYs.
There is also a big difference between NIMBYism and just caring about a better quality of life in your neighborhood. It really is insulting for people in government to paint everyone who cares about their communities as NIMBYish.
Gotham Gazette: This question comes from the Planning Center at the Municipal Art Society. Given the lack of an up-to-date comprehensive planning framework for New York City, how can community-based planners take advantage of the creation of the Long Term Planning and Sustainability Office and/or PlaNYC? Does this offer any tangible opportunities for community-based planners derived from the existence of this new organism/initiative?
Tom Angotti: By all means, PlaNYC should make sustainability planning legitimate. In it, communities can find support for many of their sustainability initiatives that began long ago -- for example the effort to deconstruct the Sheridan Expressway and create open space and affordable housing (see Melissa Checker's ttp://www.gothamgazette.com/article//20080529/210/2535/recent article).
What remains to be done is to create a more open and transparent process whereby community-based and City Hall planners can talk to each other. That is sorely missing because the process is really still top-down.
Gotham Gazette: It seems that the administration has relied largely on rezoning to ensure sustainable neighborhoods and to preserve their character. Does this kind of downzoning address the needs of a growing population?
Tom Angotti: Zoning isn't the answer to all of the complex questions about the quality of the environments we live and work in. Zoning only creates a regulatory framework, and the huge roll of rezonings has created as many development opportunities as it has preservation opportunities.
It seems to me that some of the rezonings are protecting very low-density enclaves in the city, areas where there is potential for much more development. Some of these areas -- because of their low density -- are bigger energy consumers, are auto-dependent and contribute less to long-term sustainability than denser areas.
Gotham Gazette: While much of the plan focuses on emissions from vehicles, as you know, buildings are responsible for the lion's share of greenhouse gas emissions in the city. Beyond city-owned buildings the plan does not have much to say about that. Should New York be doing more in this area? What would you like to see?
Tom Angotti: True, this is a big gap in the plan. A new building code may help, but will not address the vast majority of existing buildings. A few things that can be done (by no means an exhaustive list):
- Promote solar: Reduce the red tape, increase incentives, provide capital, for solar in buildings of all sizes and shapes.
- Help homeowners and building owners create green interiors that are healthier and less carbon-intensive.
- Work at the neighborhood level, with owners and tenants, to install energy-saving equipment, reduce heating needs and reduce air conditioning use, which also entails improving public spaces.
Gotham Gazette: For years, advocates have pointed to the city's overflow sewage system as a source of pollution in our waterways. What can the city do to solve this? Is a total overhaul even feasible given the cost, and how does PlaNYC 2030 address this issue?
Tom Angotti: PlaNYC acknowledges the problem, but its solutions are fairly sketchy and could well be countered by other developments. For example, population growth combined with rainfall increases could yield a more dire scenario. The effect of sea level rise wasn't taken into account either. And even if 90 percent of surface waters are cleaned up -- the plan's quantitative goal -- the other 10 percent could be deadly. Where will that 10 percent be?
Gotham Gazette: This is another question from the Municipal Art Society. Rumors have been flying about the possible agenda for the next Charter Revision Commission. Should PlaNYC be made part of the city’s charter?
Tom Angotti: It would be more important for the mayor and future mayors to observe more diligently the mandates for long-term planning already in the charter. PlaNYC could have been presented as a citywide plan and put through the review process outlined in Section 197-a of the charter. It wasn't. That deprived community boards, the City Council and the borough presidents of an opportunity to engage in the process.
I am skeptical that putting more enabling language in the charter by itself will make the executive office care about having a sustainable planning process. More useful would be a series of changes to local law that require the executive to plan in cooperation with other levels of city government. That could be combined with a charter change, but again, by itself, there's no guarantee it will mean anything.
Gotham Gazette: What do you think the plan's likelihood of survival is? And how can New Yorkers who support the plan, or at least parts of it, increase those odds?
Tom Angotti: The next mayor could disown the whole plan. Projects and programs already funded would obviously continue but those are only beginnings in what is supposed to be a 23-year effort.
I think the mayor's office needs some "tough love." It does no good to continue praising the plan for its obvious virtues. Some serious critical challenges need to be raised to the mayor, such as: If you're not around, who is going to do all the things that are supposed to be done? You can't cut community boards and at the same time expect them to carry forward the banners of NYC2030. With all new agency heads in a new administration, where will the plan's supporters be in government?
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