Neighbors Working Together for a Safer and More Beautiful Block!

Please join us for our Summer Celebration on Saturday June 22, 2024 from 11-2!
at Grace & St. Paul's Church at 123 West 71st Street


at Grace & St. Paul's Church at 4pm

123 West 71st Street

Our next meeting: Saturday March 23rd at 4M. Come meet your neighbors and share and your concerns for our block!

Join us for refreshments,

Block Association T-shirts,

literature, and more.

Children are welcome!


The West 71st St Block Association covers the blocks between Central Park West and Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

West 71st Street is a great place to live and we are working together to make it even better!

Current issues we are looking into are: Stopping the proposed e-bike charging station for the bow-tie intersection (sign petition below!), beautifying the tree wells, rats, trash/litter on the sidewalks, scaffolding, nighttime noise and illegal behavior, working with the 20th Precinct and outreach groups to help the homeless, and replacing the newspaper bins with newer and fewer ones.

We work on the above issues by collaborating with local legislators, city agencies, police, both churches on the block, local businesses, outreach to the homeless, Sanitation and Health Departments, landlords, neighbors.


How to help:

1. Tell your neighbors about our block association and have them e-mail us to add them to our list.

2. Call 311 or e-mail 311 at http://www.nyc.gov/apps/311/about.htm to report block issues. Or call the 20th police precinct at 212.580.6411.



Thursday, March 30, 2023


                                   CB7  speaks to Eyewitness News in opposition to the proposal

Help us oppose the proposed e-bike charging station for 71st and Broadway on the subway island!

 

Please call City Council Woman Gale Brewer’s office to voice your concerns and to ask for her to take action to stop the creation of the e-bike hub on the triangle. Politicians actually keep track of the number of calls they receive from constituents on any given topic, so it's important for people to speak up.   We suggest focusing on the safety aspect and the danger this project would pose. 

Please call Brewer’s office at: (212) 873-0282. Or visit the office at 563 Columbus Ave. (87-88) M-F 10am-6pm

 

Our letter to Brewer is below:                                                    You can sign the petition here! 

 

Dear Council Member Brewer,                                                             March 23, 2023

 

We are reaching out on behalf of the West 71st Street Block Association regarding the City's current proposal to locate an e-bike charging station/rest area on the pedestrian "island" located at West 71st/West 72nd/B'way/Amsterdam. 

·       Could you please update us on the status of this proposed site following CB7's resolution opposing this location that was passed earlier this month?

·       If this site is still under consideration, what are next steps? Specifically, which City agencies/City Council committees will be holding meetings and when? 

·       What is your position on this proposed site? Can we please count on your support to oppose this site?

It is very clear that the proposed e-bike hub would greatly exacerbate the challenging safety issues at the dangerous "bowtie" intersection. Introducing the flow of e-bikes onto this pedestrian island would completely defeat the pedestrian triangle's purpose as a safety zone/extension of crosswalks and create extremely hazardous conditions (please see attached map); we suspect that the Parks Commission and the Mayor's office have not taken this into account. We also suspect that NYC DOT has not been fully informed of this proposal. Performing additional safety studies on this location would be a waste of City/taxpayer resources; the location has already been proven to be extremely dangerous and should be eliminated as a proposed site.

 

We'd also like to make you aware of a new discovery we have made: the entire triangle-shaped island is protected by NYC Landmark status. We’ve attached a screenshot of the Landmarks Preservation Committee's document dated January 9, 1979, which relates to the W72nd St Control House, also refers to "designation of the related Landmark Site," defined as:

"The island on Broadway bounded by the southern curb line of West 72nd Street on the north, and by Broadway on the east, south, and west, and which is contiguous to Tax Map Blocks 1143 and 1163."

I've attached a screenshot of this portion of the document; Source: Landmarks Preservation Commission January 9, 1979, Designation List 122 LP-1021. The entire document can be found here: http://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/1021.pdf

 

Councilmember Brewer, we are extremely concerned that this proposal is moving forward despite the outpouring of concerns for safety and objections of the neighborhood. We would truly appreciate your help in this matter.

 

Sincerely,

West 71st Street Block Association     

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)