537 West 59th Street (Google Maps)
About a year ago, demolition permits were filed at 537 West 59th Street (between Amsterdam and West End avenues) to turn the former site of Manhattan Neighborhood Network into a women’s shelter run by Project Renewal, a non-profit organization which offers housing and resources to the homeless.
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In May of this year, a group called “Friends of Ederle Playground” launched a petition to prevent this project from happening. As of writing, this petition has collected 2,223 signatures.
“While we support a compassionate solution for individuals experiencing homelessness in New York City, we strongly oppose the proposed location of this large-scale temporary shelter given that it would be located directly next to the Gertrude Ederle Playground and its closeness and proximity to several schools,” the petition states.
A protest was held at the site of the project in June, where residents voiced additional concerns that many of the residents are expected to suffer from mental illness and be chemically addicted, while also pointing out that the shelter’s smoking courtyard will be right next to the playground.
Photo by Bobby Panza
Photo by Bobby Panza
On Monday, Gerstman PLLC – a government relations law firm representing Friends of Ederle Playground – announced that Gale Brewer would be joining Friends of Ederle Playground for a press conference on September 12 at 11:30 a.m. to “call for the $500M women’s shelter currently being constructed at 537 West 59th Street to be utilized as desperately needed permanent affordable housing instead.” Local residents and small business owners are expected to attend the press conference as well. Members of the public are welcome to attend.
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“Research and experience have overwhelmingly shown that investments in permanent affordable housing are extraordinarily effective in reducing homelessness—as well as being cost effective,” states a press release from Gerstman PLLC. “This is why Councilmember Gale Brewer is joining the Friends of the Ederle Playground, a local UWS community group who has collected over 2,000 signatures in a petition, in calling for the new building to be utilized as permanent affordable housing instead of a homeless shelter.”
The press release continues, “The fundamental cause of homelessness is the widening housing affordability gap. In New York City, that gap has widened significantly over the past decades, which has seen the loss of hundreds of thousands of units of affordable rental housing. At the same time that housing affordability has worsened, government at every level has cut back on already-inadequate housing assistance for low-income people and has reduced investments in building and preserving affordable housing.
“In this case, the people of the city of New York are paying for a NEW shelter when there is appeal all over the five boroughs for permanently affordable units. One question remains: why is this site not constructing what every New Yorker is asking for?”
Protect our children! They deserve safe green spaces NOT a women’s shelter. Th is is a family neighborhood!
Even if they don’t build a shelter, if you expect this to be a “green space,” you are delusional.
Are there areas withOUT playgrounds or schools? Maybe they’re a bunch of NIMBYs.
The meaning of the term NIMBY has now changed –
it now means “Not In My Bank – Yours, “
Why?
Because the vendors and the owners of the building are making millions – in nothing but a money grab. They are wolves in sheep‘s clothing..
So it’s time we woke up to the new meaning of NIMBY.
What about the shelter across from P..84? Where were the politicians in n this case?
We read that a concern is, many (of the proposed shelter’s occupants) “are expected to suffer from mental illness.”
So, if this isn’t a correct place to house/shelter woman with mental health problems who don’t have homes, where should those women be housed or sheltered?
Mental illness is no more the individual patient’s fault than is a broken leg or a burst appendix. Maybe this isn’t the right location for such a facility. But, as part of the politics of the matter, City Council Members should also be finding ways to help get people with mental health issues onto a better track. On the one hand these problems are very complex, but on the other hand often what a patient most needs is to get on the right medication(s) properly titrated.
This is a straw man argument. This is not going to affect the playground or the children at all. The people who show up to protest against a shelter that will help women escaping domestic violence are saying that they don’t want vulnerable people close to them in proximity and would prefer them farther away in another borough. Thankfully those protestors don’t get to make decisions property by property or they would never approve any amount of support for vulnerable New Yorkers and would always want it “somewhere else.”
The fact is we need MORE of this type of emergency service with on-site wraparound services and we need it right here where it can benefit people who live and work and breathe right here.
By this logic, we also need wider roads and more parking to solve congestion problems. The reality is it is not a sustainable solution.
The City’s number one priority should be providing people in shelters with access to permanent housing, not just building more large shelters (especially right next to playgrounds).
This is not appropriate for the upper west side. This is a family neighborhood with children and elderly. Our neighborhood does not have the funds to support these shelters. We want safe places for our children and to raise our families. Why are they not putting the safety of the residences first? This is upsetting. We want more green spaces not women’s shelters. We want safety not domestic violence.
And what neighborhood does not have children or the elderly? Who’s residences do not want to be safe? What neighborhoods have the funds for this? Would you rather have them sleep on the streets? All complaining but no better ideas.
I work in Midtown where there are no playgrounds or schools – just offices and other commercial premises.
Having a MICA shelter “a few blocks away” from a school or a playground is very different from having it right next to it. Not “around the corner”, not “down the block” – it would be literally a few feet away.
I grew up in this neighborhood from the age of 6. All during my upbringing, shelters were being built all over the UWS. Never once did I feel unsafe. As I got older, I never once felt that shelters (which continued to be built) made me feel unsafe, or were in any inappropriate for this neighborhood.
If you want to live in a gated community, with a homogenous population and the “safety” you seem to want, then you need to move from the UWS, because that has NEVER been what we are.
The City of New York, on taxpayers’ dime, is sponsoring a “smoking courtyard” for sick people who can’t afford a roof over their heads, let alone $12/pack cigarettes – all on some of the most expensive patch of land in the world?
Cute.
Bingo!
It’s time that we wait woke up to how they’re spending our tax-dollars… without our consent.
People shouldn’t be blindly supporting a new shelter. That’s an EMPTY plot of land that can be used to build actual housing.
But instead, the city is spending half billion dollars to DISPLACE housing and build a shelter instead.
When lack of housing and affordability is the main issue causing homelessness, this new shelter is absurdly perpetuating the homelessness issue it’s purported to be solving.
I agree– we don’t want this in our neighborhood. We want more luxury apartments, condos and green spaces!
More luxury apartments and condos? I wish I believed you were joking. That has to be one of the most obnoxious ideas I have ever heard!
Brewer has traditionally supported shelters of all types, including the new Safe Haven on 83rd Street, and many others. But her logic here is incontrovertible. If this were re-use of a building or property, then a shelter might be appropriate. But as this is new building, it makes far more sense to build new, affordable housing, depending on how “affordable” it actually is, if built.
As for “green space,” which has been mentioned by several people, that is an entirely different issue/problem, and will not be solved with EITHER a shelter or new construction. This is a separate fight, but one well worth having.