Inside an AC&C Manhattan shelter, November 13, 2010. (Photo: Jeff Latzer)

At an animal rights debate last week, five mayoral hopefuls voiced their support for a change in city oversight of animal shelters.

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio set his sights on Animal Care and Control of New York City, the organization that runs the city’s shelters. “AC&C has been a mess,” Mr. de Blasio said. “It’s been unfair to animals and unfair to everyone who cares about animals.”

According to volunteers, Mr. de Blasio’s comment is right on the mark.

“A dog will have a Post-it note on its kennel card saying ‘move to isolation ward’ and it’ll be there for five days and they’ll put a new arrival right next to it,” said one volunteer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “There is no disease management or infection control.”

Jeff Latzer, an ex-volunteer, agreed. “If you really want to quarantine your animals,” Mr. Latzer said, “you need to have a separate HVAC air system going into the quarantine system, and a separate one for adoption, and a third one for incoming animals. When it’s all combined you have this stale air, which becomes a petri dish for disease and infections.”

Mr. Latzer is one of a group of ex-volunteers whose experiences helped inform a report, put out early this year by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, which raised questions about AC&C shelter facilities.

Mr. Stringer’s report portrayed a chronically underfunded and overcrowded shelter system in which employee negligence and unsanitary conditions lead to an infection rate of nearly 100 percent for animals after intake.

AC&C spokesperson Richard Gentles, however, disputed critics’ characterizations of sanitary conditions.

“AC&C has cleaning policies, procedures and protocols in place to help limit the spread of infectious illnesses in the care centers,” Mr. Gentles said via email, explaining that all kennels are thoroughly broken down and cleaned at least once a day.

“Volunteers,” he added, “play a vital role in the operation of our shelter system, and we are very grateful for their support and hard work.”

A squalid shelter cage, May 21, 2011. (Photo: Jeff Latzer)

According to those who have spent time volunteering, though, few people show up on a regular basis to help out. Whether it’s the stress of spending time at a shelter where animals face the threat of euthanasia or the burden of working in an environment where, some say, basic needs of animals are often neglected, turnover is high.

Mr. Latzer said that volunteers find different ways to try and make animals’ lives better in the shelter environment. For some, this means buying extra toys and healthier food. Others help out by obtaining euthanasia lists—released every night—and anonymously asking animal rescue organizations to save the animals before it’s too late.

But it is slow going, and some have moved to advocate for systemic change.

Esther Koslow, a former AC&C volunteer, serves on the board of the Shelter Reform Action Committee, a coalition of animal rights advocates devoted to reforming the city-funded shelters.

The SRAC advocates for a divorce of the animal shelter system — which operates shelters in Harlem, Brooklyn and Staten Island under a five-year, $36 million contract— from the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The committee argues that the department is much more concerned about animal control than animal care, resulting in poor funding to AC&C—which has not had a full-time medical director since 2010, according to Mr. Stringer’s recent report.

“If you look at the Department of Health mandate,” Ms. Koslow said, “the only mention of animals is to protect people from animals and animal diseases.”

Ms. Koslow and other ex-volunteer advocates favor a conservancy model for the shelter system, which would allow for an independent and expanded board of directors with more animal care expertise and fundraising prowess.

Unsanitary conditions, November 20, 2010. (Photo: Jeff Latzer)

AC&C, for its part, has begun to make some changes on the heels of Mr. Stringer’s report. The agency is hiring new staff for several positions and creating a separate department devoted to adoptions. It’s also slated to receive a total of $10 million in additional funding from the city by next year, which it will use to add more shelter staff and expand some existing services.

But volunteers-turned-reformers say they’re skeptical much is changing.

“The AC&C has been in operation since January 1, 1995,” Ms. Koslow said, “and they just decided, oddly enough after the Stringer report came out, that, ‘Gee, you know what, we should have an adoptions staff.’”

Ms. Koslow and Mr. Latzer both said they will fight to change the system from the outside, whether it’s by testifying at City Council hearings or spreading the word to the public in New York and beyond through social media.

The city, they added, contains enough compassion for animal welfare, as well as the resources and energy to make reform a reality—if only New Yorkers knew what was going on right under their noses.

This story was produced by The New York World.

Thumbs up. (Morphosis)

The public review process known as ULURP, through which most every large-scale development in the city must pass, is rarely an easy one. New York created the NIMBY, and ULURP is about the only way Joe Public can even pretend to influence such projects as Columbia or NYU's new campuses, the Hudson Yards redevelopment, Riverside South, the Kingsbridge Armory, Chelsea Market... the list of contentious projects goes on and on. A better acronym for the Uniform Land-use Review Process might well be DIVISIVE.

That is what makes CornellNYC, the upstate university's Roosevelt Island tech campus, such an interesting anomaly. After beating out Stanford in a breathless deathmatch for Mayor Bloomberg's blessing to build the campus, the project has so far sailed through ULURP with nary a protest. Back in December, the campus was approved by the local community board (typically a bastion of browbeating), and now Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer gave the new campus his enthusiastic thumbs up.

"I am proud today to announce my recommendation for conditional approval of the Cornell NYC Tech, which will help integrate this important economic development project with the local community,” Mr. Stringer said in a statement. “I believe the modifications agreed to today will bring this proposal further in line with sound planning and community preferences.”

His conditions are strikingly limited. Rather than asking for a reduction in the size of the buildings or promises of affordable housing or partnerships with local kindergarteners, Mr. Stringer is requesting a number of transportation tweaks and construction mitigation measures. From his announcement:

Mitigate construction by actively pursuing barging, and agreeing that if it is not feasible, protocols will be developed to limit noisy deliveries; to have independent monitoring and air quality monitoring through demolition and excavation; and pursue a construction remediation plan for potential soil contaminants;

Increase Red Bus service on the island through construction, develop programs to encourage its employees to use mass transit; and study pedestrian access improvements to the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge;

Ensure the proposed open space on the campus remains open until 10 PM, cannot have private café seating, and its design will be informed by a new community advisory committee;

Continue to work on potential parking impacts, conduct a study of potential parking impacts from the hotel and corporate co-location building, create a new certification process to evaluate parking impacts if no parking is created,

Commit that all new laboratories will comply with all performance standards outlined in the zoning resolution for M1 zoning districts to minimize impact on surrounding residents.

One of the reasons the project has met so little conflict is it is actually expected by locals and planners to have less of an impact, not more, than the hotel that is already on the south end of the island. (Techies are far more likely to ride the subway than nurses coming in from the Bronx or Long Island.) Also, the project is green, both in terms of sustainable development and in opening up the southern portion of the island with generous public space.

"Borough President Stringer has been a true leader in supporting and guiding the growth of New York's tech sector and we're extremely grateful for his support of Cornell Tech," Cornell President David Skorton said. "Cornell Tech will help drive economic development in New York for years to come, but we know the campus will only be a success if we are good neighbors."

Audrey Gelman and Lena Dunham last week at Capitale, from Ms. Gelman’s Instagram account.

Audrey Gelman first appears in season two of Girls—which premiered Sunday night—coming out of the bathroom. She is carrying a tallboy that dwarfs her tiny frame, scolding her clingy boyfriend, Charlie, and looking for some weed. “Hi Audrey,” Marnie Michaels (played by Allison Williams) says, shooting daggers at her rival. Ms. Gelman’s role as Marnie’s headband-wearing foil, however, is an extended inside joke.

In real life, Ms. Gelman, 25, is close friends with newly minted Golden Globe winner Lena Dunham, and, by most accounts, is the model for Marnie herself: driven, serious, tightly wound.

These qualities serve her well by day as the spokesperson for Scott Stringer—Manhattan borough president, former mayoral hopeful and shoo-in for comptroller—as she walks reporters through wonky white papers on everything from Silicon Alley to economic abuse as a form of domestic violence. But she is equally comfortable downtown, where she lives with roguish fashion photographer Terry Richardson, mixes with young Hollywood and is a fixture at Cinema Society screenings and fashion shows.

“She doesn’t get a lot of time off, so the fact she can do all that is really extraordinary,” said Mr. Stringer, noting that Ms. Gelman generally sends him the day’s news, with commentary, by 7 a.m. The night before we spoke with him, she had also been out with him until 9:30. “That’s a hell of a work week,” he said.

Mayor Bloomberg once gushed about how Girls might inspire young women to pursue Hannah Horvath’s New York dream, but Ms. Gelman might be a better advertisement: Holly Golightly with a career. “Local politics is a pretty grubby, unglamorous scene, and she is like a bolt of lightning in that scene,” one veteran City Hall reporter told The Observer.

Ms. Gelman, who is a dead ringer for The O.C.’s Rachel Bilson, has large, brown eyes that can turn from sympathetic to sharp in an instant. Reporters who work with her say she can be nitpicky and tenacious on Mr. Stringer’s behalf. A total Marnie, in other words, though unlike Ms. Gelman, Marnie would never have a barrio-style tattoo inside her lower lip that says, “Let’s Go Mets.”

Another of Ms. Gelman’s five tattoos matches one of Ms. Dunham’s: a single word—“staunch” on her left tricep—an homage to Little Edie of Grey Gardens fame. Ms. Gelman and Ms. Dunham have been friends since they first met as high school students in Manhattan, becoming besties when they arrived at Oberlin together. Ms. Dunham told The L Magazine earlier this year that no one other than Ms. Gelman has “a cultural/emotional vocabulary I understand so well.” The accompanying scrapbook shows them in their campus days, a little less poised but not much younger, so quickly have they ascended the ranks of Manhattan’s power players.

Unlike Ms. Dunham—whose parents are both established artists—Ms. Gelman wasn’t born into Manhattan’s creative class. Her father is a microbiologist (and a fourth-generation cantor). Her mother is a psychologist. Raised on the Upper West Side, she attended the public Lab School and Bard High School.

Ms. Gelman dropped out of Oberlin after two years to work inside the high-pressure D.C. press shop for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. “In every campaign, there are a few interns and junior staffers who manage to stand out, and she was one of those,” said Howard Wolfson, who ran the Clinton campaign and now serves as deputy mayor. “The staff was impressed with her.” She went to work for Mr. Stringer in May 2010 and quickly rose to lead spokesperson—purportedly the youngest in city government, though this fact is surely cited more frequently than it is checked.

At a recent Stringer presser in Riverside Park on a chilly Sunday afternoon, Ms. Gelman could be found at the borough president’s elbow in a stylish bubble coat and enormous tortoiseshell glasses.

Mr. Stringer has done a lot with his modest post—turning the borough president’s office into a white-paper factory. The topic this Sunday was reform of the city’s animal shelters, and Ms. Gelman hustled armloads of press releases and staple-bound studies through the small crowd amid constant baying from the nearby dog run. Later, she posted an image of the TV coverage of the event to her personal Instagram account, alongside snaps of her cat, Lyle, and her French ombré manicure.

Ms. Gelman serves as a refutation to stiff social media gurus everywhere. Their advice is for outsiders. Use your real name? Her Twitter handle is @grumplstiltskin. Post a representative picture? Her avatar is Cam’ron in pink fur. Don’t post compromising images? She appeared in a light boudoir video for DKNY Intimates. Don’t date Terry Richardson? Well, that’s not social media advice, but her 18-month relationship with the whipping boy of feminist blogs seems to confound all but their intimates. (Complex magazine is in full-blown denial about it, having named Gelman the 21st “most desirable bachelorette in NYC” as recently as September.)

“I think they are actually a very interesting match,” downtown publicist Gina Nanni told The Observer. “People have the wrong impression about Terry, that he’s this guy living this debauched life, but he’s the nicest, sweetest guy. He’s a teddy bear.”

“Having your most public aide dating Terry Richardson, that can’t be great for you,” said one veteran city hall reporter of Mr. Stringer. “It’s distracting.”

But the borough president, who has been photographed with Mr. Richardson on more than one occasion, shrugs off such talk. “I view her differently because of the work she does here,” Mr. Stringer told The Observer. “The focus of her life is to be a government professional. The rest is extracurricular.”

The rules are changing. Can you feel it? Not so long ago, 20-somethings had to choose between promising City Hall careers on the one hand, and tattoos, lingerie ads and dangerous boyfriends on the other. Now “the rest is extracurricular.” Public and private are being renegotiated and Ms. Gelman stands at the frontier.

At last week’s after-party for the season two premiere of Girls, she could be seen agilely policing these shifting borders.

Mr. Stringer had just zipped back from Albany and Gov. Cuomo’s State of the State address to arrive at Little Italy’s chic party space Capitale, which was shoulder-to-shoulder with celebrities, from ?uestlove to Cindy Sherman. Ms. Gelman waved Steve Buscemi over to meet the beep and his wife, Elyse Buxbaum.

“I live in Brooklyn, so you’re not my borough president,” Mr. Buscemi said winningly as he pumped the pinstriped politician’s hand. “But you’re a very good borough president.” The Boardwalk Empire star pivoted to Mr. Richardson, who stood nearby, and Ms. Gelman snapped a picture of the pair.

Is Gelman, like lightning, a true anomaly, or is she a sign of things to come in a world where social media launders influence between divergent spheres—as long as you speak all the tongues?

“You know you are fluent in a language when you can think in that language and you don’t have to translate from one to the other,” Mr. Wolfson observed. “And that is her ability, to think fluently in social media.” Interestingly, before Ms. Gelman arrived, Mr. Stringer’s office suffered a social media scandal when an aide derided President Obama on her personal Facebook page. Ms. Gelman would be too cagey for that, and is canny enough to know that the answer is not to become invisible, but to appear as one wants to appear—professional, connected and recently manicured.

Witness her divide-crossing work with Downtown 4 Democracy, an alliance of creative professionals that formed around Howard Dean in 2003 and raised $1.5 million for John Kerry in 2004. The group had been largely dormant, but was rebooted in support of President Obama under Ms. Gelman’s direction, with a book, events and conspicuous support from Mr. Richardson and Ms. Dunham, who—at times—has also supported Mr. Stringer’s causes.

“The things that are an asset to her now might not have been an asset 10 years ago, when politicians hadn’t figured out how to speak to people like me,” observed Ms. Nanni, a founding member of Downtown 4 Democracy, discussing Ms Gelman’s unique position at the crossroads of many worlds.

After Mr. Stringer and his wife departed the Girls premiere, Ms. Gelman and Mr. Richardson held court before a passing parade of young celebrities like Aziz Ansari and Jonah Hill, whom Ms. Gelman air-kissed as fluently as she had the local TV reporter who’d arrived late to the Stringer presser earlier in the week. She sat and texted as a friend sketched her portrait, which would later appear on Vogue’s website.

A few minutes passed and Ms. Gelman turned to a reporter, whom she had allowed to linger for a moment. “I’m going to go back to my personal world now,” she told The Observer, shutting things down like just another press conference.

]]>

Audrey Gelman and Lena Dunham last week at Capitale, from Ms. Gelman’s Instagram account.

Audrey Gelman first appears in season two of Girls—which premiered Sunday night—coming out of the bathroom. She is carrying a tallboy that dwarfs her tiny frame, scolding her clingy boyfriend, Charlie, and looking for some weed. “Hi Audrey,” Marnie Michaels (played by Allison Williams) says, shooting daggers at her rival. Ms. Gelman’s role as Marnie’s headband-wearing foil, however, is an extended inside joke.

In real life, Ms. Gelman, 25, is close friends with newly minted Golden Globe winner Lena Dunham, and, by most accounts, is the model for Marnie herself: driven, serious, tightly wound.

These qualities serve her well by day as the spokesperson for Scott Stringer—Manhattan borough president, former mayoral hopeful and shoo-in for comptroller—as she walks reporters through wonky white papers on everything from Silicon Alley to economic abuse as a form of domestic violence. But she is equally comfortable downtown, where she lives with roguish fashion photographer Terry Richardson, mixes with young Hollywood and is a fixture at Cinema Society screenings and fashion shows.

“She doesn’t get a lot of time off, so the fact she can do all that is really extraordinary,” said Mr. Stringer, noting that Ms. Gelman generally sends him the day’s news, with commentary, by 7 a.m. The night before we spoke with him, she had also been out with him until 9:30. “That’s a hell of a work week,” he said.

Mayor Bloomberg once gushed about how Girls might inspire young women to pursue Hannah Horvath’s New York dream, but Ms. Gelman might be a better advertisement: Holly Golightly with a career. “Local politics is a pretty grubby, unglamorous scene, and she is like a bolt of lightning in that scene,” one veteran City Hall reporter told The Observer.

Ms. Gelman, who is a dead ringer for The O.C.’s Rachel Bilson, has large, brown eyes that can turn from sympathetic to sharp in an instant. Reporters who work with her say she can be nitpicky and tenacious on Mr. Stringer’s behalf. A total Marnie, in other words, though unlike Ms. Gelman, Marnie would never have a barrio-style tattoo inside her lower lip that says, “Let’s Go Mets.”

Another of Ms. Gelman’s five tattoos matches one of Ms. Dunham’s: a single word—“staunch” on her left tricep—an homage to Little Edie of Grey Gardens fame. Ms. Gelman and Ms. Dunham have been friends since they first met as high school students in Manhattan, becoming besties when they arrived at Oberlin together. Ms. Dunham told The L Magazine earlier this year that no one other than Ms. Gelman has “a cultural/emotional vocabulary I understand so well.” The accompanying scrapbook shows them in their campus days, a little less poised but not much younger, so quickly have they ascended the ranks of Manhattan’s power players.

Unlike Ms. Dunham—whose parents are both established artists—Ms. Gelman wasn’t born into Manhattan’s creative class. Her father is a microbiologist (and a fourth-generation cantor). Her mother is a psychologist. Raised on the Upper West Side, she attended the public Lab School and Bard High School.

Ms. Gelman dropped out of Oberlin after two years to work inside the high-pressure D.C. press shop for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. “In every campaign, there are a few interns and junior staffers who manage to stand out, and she was one of those,” said Howard Wolfson, who ran the Clinton campaign and now serves as deputy mayor. “The staff was impressed with her.” She went to work for Mr. Stringer in May 2010 and quickly rose to lead spokesperson—purportedly the youngest in city government, though this fact is surely cited more frequently than it is checked.

At a recent Stringer presser in Riverside Park on a chilly Sunday afternoon, Ms. Gelman could be found at the borough president’s elbow in a stylish bubble coat and enormous tortoiseshell glasses.

Mr. Stringer has done a lot with his modest post—turning the borough president’s office into a white-paper factory. The topic this Sunday was reform of the city’s animal shelters, and Ms. Gelman hustled armloads of press releases and staple-bound studies through the small crowd amid constant baying from the nearby dog run. Later, she posted an image of the TV coverage of the event to her personal Instagram account, alongside snaps of her cat, Lyle, and her French ombré manicure.

Ms. Gelman serves as a refutation to stiff social media gurus everywhere. Their advice is for outsiders. Use your real name? Her Twitter handle is @grumplstiltskin. Post a representative picture? Her avatar is Cam’ron in pink fur. Don’t post compromising images? She appeared in a light boudoir video for DKNY Intimates. Don’t date Terry Richardson? Well, that’s not social media advice, but her 18-month relationship with the whipping boy of feminist blogs seems to confound all but their intimates. (Complex magazine is in full-blown denial about it, having named Gelman the 21st “most desirable bachelorette in NYC” as recently as September.)

“I think they are actually a very interesting match,” downtown publicist Gina Nanni told The Observer. “People have the wrong impression about Terry, that he’s this guy living this debauched life, but he’s the nicest, sweetest guy. He’s a teddy bear.”

“Having your most public aide dating Terry Richardson, that can’t be great for you,” said one veteran city hall reporter of Mr. Stringer. “It’s distracting.”

But the borough president, who has been photographed with Mr. Richardson on more than one occasion, shrugs off such talk. “I view her differently because of the work she does here,” Mr. Stringer told The Observer. “The focus of her life is to be a government professional. The rest is extracurricular.”

The rules are changing. Can you feel it? Not so long ago, 20-somethings had to choose between promising City Hall careers on the one hand, and tattoos, lingerie ads and dangerous boyfriends on the other. Now “the rest is extracurricular.” Public and private are being renegotiated and Ms. Gelman stands at the frontier.

At last week’s after-party for the season two premiere of Girls, she could be seen agilely policing these shifting borders.

Mr. Stringer had just zipped back from Albany and Gov. Cuomo’s State of the State address to arrive at Little Italy’s chic party space Capitale, which was shoulder-to-shoulder with celebrities, from ?uestlove to Cindy Sherman. Ms. Gelman waved Steve Buscemi over to meet the beep and his wife, Elyse Buxbaum.

“I live in Brooklyn, so you’re not my borough president,” Mr. Buscemi said winningly as he pumped the pinstriped politician’s hand. “But you’re a very good borough president.” The Boardwalk Empire star pivoted to Mr. Richardson, who stood nearby, and Ms. Gelman snapped a picture of the pair.

Is Gelman, like lightning, a true anomaly, or is she a sign of things to come in a world where social media launders influence between divergent spheres—as long as you speak all the tongues?

“You know you are fluent in a language when you can think in that language and you don’t have to translate from one to the other,” Mr. Wolfson observed. “And that is her ability, to think fluently in social media.” Interestingly, before Ms. Gelman arrived, Mr. Stringer’s office suffered a social media scandal when an aide derided President Obama on her personal Facebook page. Ms. Gelman would be too cagey for that, and is canny enough to know that the answer is not to become invisible, but to appear as one wants to appear—professional, connected and recently manicured.

Witness her divide-crossing work with Downtown 4 Democracy, an alliance of creative professionals that formed around Howard Dean in 2003 and raised $1.5 million for John Kerry in 2004. The group had been largely dormant, but was rebooted in support of President Obama under Ms. Gelman’s direction, with a book, events and conspicuous support from Mr. Richardson and Ms. Dunham, who—at times—has also supported Mr. Stringer’s causes.

“The things that are an asset to her now might not have been an asset 10 years ago, when politicians hadn’t figured out how to speak to people like me,” observed Ms. Nanni, a founding member of Downtown 4 Democracy, discussing Ms Gelman’s unique position at the crossroads of many worlds.

After Mr. Stringer and his wife departed the Girls premiere, Ms. Gelman and Mr. Richardson held court before a passing parade of young celebrities like Aziz Ansari and Jonah Hill, whom Ms. Gelman air-kissed as fluently as she had the local TV reporter who’d arrived late to the Stringer presser earlier in the week. She sat and texted as a friend sketched her portrait, which would later appear on Vogue’s website.

A few minutes passed and Ms. Gelman turned to a reporter, whom she had allowed to linger for a moment. “I’m going to go back to my personal world now,” she told The Observer, shutting things down like just another press conference.

]]> http://observer.com/2013/01/meet-audrey-gelman-shes-like-marnie-only-successful/feed/ 0 jhanasobserver Audrey Gelman and Lena Dunham last week at Capitale, from Ms. Gelman’s Instagram account. http://observer.com/2012/11/hudson-square-hallelujah-scott-stringer-approves-trinity-rezoning-with-shorter-towers-more-open-space/#comments Tue, 27 Nov 2012 13:32:37 -0400 http://observer.com/2012/11/hudson-square-hallelujah-scott-stringer-approves-trinity-rezoning-with-shorter-towers-more-open-space/ Matt Chaban http://observer.com/?p=278776

Towers will be slightly smaller than initially proposed following an agreement between the borough president and Trinity. (Trinity Real Estate)

The new towers in Hudson Square are going to look more, well, square.

That is after Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer wrangled a deal with Trinity Church to reduce the size of new towers as part of a rezoning the rectors are undertaking in the formerly industrial neighborhood just north of the Holland Tunnel. This was among the concessions extracted by Mr. Stringer before giving the project his conditional approval, which he signed yesterday as part of the rezoning's public review process.

The buildings will be a bit wider, though, so as not to lose their density, but they can only rise to 290 feet, rather than 320 feet. Stocky towers instead of slender spires, basically. But that is in many ways fitting with the areas already stolid building stock of former printing plants, which typified the neighborhood for a century before it became a popular haven for Soho expats and minor celebrities (hello James Gandolfini and Lou Reed!). 

Hoping to capitalize on the newfound popularity of the neighborhood, Trinity's rezoning seeks to add housing stock to what was primarily an warren of offices and light industry—albeit a still very popular one, with the likes of Viacom, Edelman, Saatchi, New York magazine and the Daily News among the media and tech firms calling the area home. The rezoning calls for creating between 2,000 and 3,200 new apartments spread across some 20 possible development sites.

To help sop up all those new residents, or at least their kids, the borough president has also redoubled the call for a new school, which Trinity has tentatively committed to. He also wants more opportunities for open space in the district to accommodate the new residents, which should be undertaken with consultation from the community, Mr. Stringer said.

“I am proud today to announce my recommendation for conditional approval of the Hudson Square Special District, which will address many long standing community concerns,” Mr. Stringer said in a statement. “I believe the modifications agreed to today will bring this proposal further in line with sound planning and community preferences.”

Another big piece of the agreement is the elimination of an area known as Subdistrict B, that would have restricted building heights near to the Holland Tunnel. Some landlords within the area, most notably Edison Properties, had complained about Trinity telling them what to do with their properties. Now those developers could seek taller towers, such as one Edison has proposed for a lot it owns near the Holland Tunnel.

Trinity has also agreed to the Borough President's request that any hotels with more than 100 units require a special permit, a provision meant to limit hotel development (while also giving the hotel worker's union sway through the City Council over any new towers).

“The proposed modifications will help to align the proposed rezoning with community concerns,” Mr. Stringer said. "I am pleased that Trinity Church was willing to not only provide a new public school prior to ULURP commencing, but agreed to work to address outstanding issues."

For its part, Trinity is satisfied with the changes.  "I wish to thank you for your thoughtful suggestions for modifying the proposed Special Hudson Square District and your recommendation that the proposed Special District be approved," Trinity Real Estate president Justin Pizer wrote Mr. Stringer on Monday in a letter the company shared with The Observer. "Your recommendation is a vote for the balanced growth of Hudson Square as an active mixed-use community."

Next, the rezoning will have to be approved by the City Planning Commission, followed by the City Council, which has the final say. Previously, the local community board gave a conditional disapproval to the project with many of the same open-space and height concerns that Mr. Stringer reached an agreement on. Their anxieties may well have helped him strike this deal.

Now if only anyone could do something about all the honking from the tunnel traffic.

Correction: Edison Properties' site is not within Subdistrict B. Rather, this was a carve out meant to protect a row of historic rowhouses in the area that might actually now be susceptible to demolition and redevelopment. The reason for this exception was not immediately clear (The Observer has put in a request to the Borough President's office for clarification). Meanwhile, a rep for Edison explains that the firm is still dissatisfied with the rezoning and will be testifying about the firm's reservations tomorrow.

Fostering fancy apartments. (dbox/Zeckendorf Holdings)

Those Zecekendorfs sure do love their starchitects.

From William Zeckendorf's work with I.M. Pei and Minoru Yamaski in the 1960s and '70s to his grandsons' projects with the likes of  KPF and, most notably, Robert A.M. Stern, who created both the brand new 15 Central Park West and the newly renovated 18 Gramercy Park South, the Zeckendorfs have a thing for high design.

Add to that now 50 UN Plaza, a 44-story condo tower on the East Side that will be Lord Norman Foster's first residential commission in the United States. Mr. Foster is well known for his work on the Hearst Tower, World Trade Center Tower 2 and the new Sperrone Westwater Gallery on the Bowery, as well as a new commission for 425 Park Avenue for L&L Holdings. With this latest commission, he cements his place as an all-around architectural power in the city.

Tomorrow morning, Arthur and William Lie Zeckendorf, real estate scions like few others, will break ground on the project at 345 East 46th Street, on the corner of First Avenue. The location will afford the project prime river views, as well as a prominent place on the skyline right between the United Nations headquarters and the Trump World Tower. The Observer has obtained an exclusive rendering of the project, which shows a glassy building of in the high-tech vein for which Foster + Partners is best known.

More demure than buildings like Hearst or the so-called Gerkin in London, 50 UN Plaza seems to strike the proper balance of brash understatement the Zeckendorf's so seem to favor.

The project holds special significance for the Zeckendorf family, since they got their start at the United Nations. William Zeckendorf, Sr., assembled the land that Nelson Rockefeller than bought to build the United Nations complex, and Arthur and William Lie Zeckendorf's maternal grandfather was Trygve Lie, who served as the first secretary general of the United Nations.

A special announcement of a gift to the neighboring Daag Hammarskjold Plaza park is expected at the ground breaking, with Borough President Scott Stringer in attendance, as well as local Councilman Dan Garodnick and Eyal Ofer, head of Global Holdings and a partner in both 50 UN Plaza and 18 Gramercy Park South.

The project will include 87 units, ranging from one-bedrooms as large as 1,100 square feet to three bedrooms as big as 3,000 square feet. There will also be a number of full-floor residences twice that size, as well as a penthouse duplex measuring some 10,000 square feet. Like at 15 Central Park West, one of the marquee features will be a private driveway. It is Lord Foster's first American apartment tower, following on the success of work he did in Vancouver, at Jameson House, completed in 2004.

The development of 50 UN Plaza is expected to cost $500 million to build, with completion by the end of 2014. If it is even close to the success of 15 Central Park West, which sold $2 million worth of units when it first came on the market (and is worth probably twice that now given a gangbuster market for resales in the famed building), then the Zeckendorfs and their partners should have no problem making an easy return on their investment here.

It looks like have just wrested the crown of New York's most luxurious development back from Gary Barnett.

Scott Stringer (left) and Terry Richardson (via terrysdiary.com)

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer is a busy guy--dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and gearing up for the 2013 mayoral race--he's considered among the frontrunners to succeed Michael Bloomberg. But there's always time for a quick photo op.

Fashion photographer Terry Richardson (who's worked with the likes of Harper's Bazaar and GQ, with infamous shoots including the Glee stars "Gone Wild" and model Kate Upton licking a popsicle) posted a photo to his blog of himself and the Beep; Mr. Richardson gives his usual thumbs-up, while Mr. Stringer looks composed.

The connection between these two unlikely pals--besides celebrity? (Mr. Stringer's other supporters include Scarlett Johansson, who's hosted fundraisers for him.) Mr. Stringer's press secretary, recent Vogue profile-ee Audrey Gelman, is dating Mr. Richardson, as first reported by The Observer.

Given that one of Mr. Richardson's favorite gambits is to make subjects try on his oversized glasses, we'll be waiting eagerly for any future photos.

Can the city really handle a marathon right now?

"My first instinct was sure, we're going to be ready for the big event. We can do anything in the world. We're New Yorkers and that's what New Yorkers do," said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. "But after visiting shelters around the city, seeing the devastation in Staten Island and Breezy Point and knowing that people are trapped in buildings on the Lower East Side and we cannot get to them, this is not the time."

On Friday, Mr. Stringer voiced his opposition to holding the marathon this Sunday, joining a growing number of politicians who feel that the city should not host a major event while so many residents are struggling for access to electricity, food and water.

Even in the midst of rising opposition, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and city officials have pressed on with plans to hold the marathon, asserting that it's an important sign of resiliency for the city and will help raise money for relief as well as reviving the local economy. The marathon has rechristened itself a "race to recover," declaring its dedication to helping communities impacted by Hurricane Sandy.

Still, an increasing number of New Yorkers are criticizing the decision to go through with the marathon, arguing that the resources needed to host thousands of runners cannot be spared when whole neighborhoods still lack basic necessities. In a particularly unfortunate coincidence, the race's starting line is in Staten Island, which suffered the highest death toll in the city with 19 dead. And the number may rise in the days to come as search teams continue digging through the debris of thousands of destroyed homes. Staten Island Councilman James Oddo has called the decision to hold the race "idiotic," and at least one Brooklyn runner is planning to scrap her race plans in favor of volunteering in the battered borough.

"I think it's admirable that Bloomberg wanted to hold the event to show the city's resiliency. The mayor has done an excellent job providing resources around the city," said Mr. Stringer. "But right now we don't have enough generators and people are lining the streets of the Lower East Side looking for food and water. We cannot take fire services and ambulances away from the places that need them."

kvelsey@observer.com

Josh Fox, Scarlett Johansson, and Scott Stringer at 'Gasland' benefit.

Outside of the IFC Center Thursday evening, three men in hazard suits were holding up signs and chanting things, seemingly picketing the crowd lined up to see Josh Fox's Academy Award-nominated film about fracking, Gasland.

"Wait, are these protesters?" Another reporter in our small group asked, peering out the window. "Are they against anti-fracking?"

"No, I think they are here to support anti-fracking," another replied. "But they've been protesting for so long that they've forgotten how to communicate normally."

Well put, and an apt analogy for the entire movement against hydraulic fracturing. Much like people who set out to expose Scientology and in the process become crazy-eyed zealots in their own right, the people who are against driving pipelines into shale and then pumping chemicals through the ground (and possibly the water supply) are obviously on the right track, but speak so intensely about the subject that it can be difficult to keep up with them.

For a good example, check out Mark Ruffalo--the celebrity face of the movement, and "the natural gas industry's worst nightmare," according to Rolling Stone--as he tries to explain the process of fracking to Stephen Colbert. Passionate to the point of incomprehension, Colbert had to gently break out of character to walk viewers through the issue while Ruffalo hyperventilated into a bag.]

It's a testament to how important this movement is, that even despite its relative complexity and fire-eyed zealots, more and more celebrities are turning up for anti-fracking events every day. Lady Gaga just threw her hat into the ring. Matt Damon is making a movie about it, Promised Land, in which he plays opposite John Krasinski, another clean water proponent. Robert Redford, Fred Armisen, Alec Baldwin, Ethan Hawke, Debra Winger, Paul McCartney, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Carrie Fisher were among the 140 celebrity names who signed a petition begging Gov. Cuomo to ban the use of hydraulic fracturing earlier this summer. (With all the famous faces, the anti-fracking community might actually be confused for Scientologists if one isn't paying close attention.)

And then there's Scarlett Johansson, who appeared at the Gasland screening that evening with Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer to answer questions with Mr. Fox. The actress, rocking an owl T-shirt, jeans, thick glasses and a ponytail, was surprisingly chill for a Clean Water advocate: no pulpit speeches, no talk of fire and brimstone and methane emissions from shale gas.

"Should we call you Scarlett or Ms. Johansson?" one reporter asked timidly.

"You can call me anything you like, just call me," she said, laughing with that deep Katharine Hepburn rasp.

She deferred most questions about Gov. Cuomo's involvement with fracking. (Basically, he was all set to approve fracking for several New York counties, but lately he's been delaying his decision, citing a need to gather more evidence about the environmental effects from horizontal drilling.) That left the questions to Mr. Fox or the borough president, whose "Go Green" initiative early on included calling for a statewide moratorium on hydraulic fracturing.

"I think the governor is going to be very smart and wise," Stringer said. "One of the great things about him is that he seems to get Albany right, and he seems to understand balance. I'm very hopeful. I think with the celebrity support like Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon and Scarlett Johansson ... more people will know about the dangers of fracking after tonight." Not to mention that the benefits from the screening were going to the Water Defense and WOW International Company, two major anti-fracking groups.

"And don't forget about Gasland II," Ms. Johansson murmured, before claiming that she was actually playing the borough president in the film. (She didn't, though that would have been great.)

"I'm not sure if we want to get into the radon issue right now ..." Mr. Fox said, before getting shut down over a time issue. Luckily, he was able to spend most of his pre- and  post-movie time holding court over just such things. ("I couldn't stand the debates," he told The Observer earlier in the evening. "Mitt Romney would say 'Pick me, I'm going to drill more!' And then Obama would counter with, 'No, I'M going to drill more!'")

After the film, Mr. Fox was joined onstage by Sean Lennon and Cibo Matto's Yuka Honda. "We're at a turning point in history," said Mr. Lennon. "It's not just about fracking, it's about changing the direction of society so that we don't fall off a cliff of nonsustainable living."

Though passionate, we couldn't help thinking that the celebactivist was preaching not just to the choir but to the entire Roman Curia. Everyone who had come to the sold-out Gasland viewing that evening was a fervid anti-fracker. One had even brought a jug of vicious brown water that Mr. Lennon claimed could soon be coming out of our bathtubs.

"Like that stuff in Ghostbusters II?" we thought, suddenly scared that Harold Ramis had accidentally predicted the future with that pink slime lying in New York City's sewers.

If we left the theater less corybantic than the rest of the audience, it was only because Gasland’s powerful message had been somewhat undermined by the 'Town Hall on PCP' frenetic question and answer portion of the evening. In fact, during the meet-and-greet upstairs, we had asked if it was possible to explain the problems of fracking in layman's terms. "Could you talk about it like you were teaching a class of third-grade children?" We asked, hoping that someone would be able to un-Ruffalo the situation for us.

"I'm not sure children should be taught fracking in our schools," the borough president replied. "That's something we should really be letting the parents tell their kids about."

Jerry Stiller and Angela Lansbury. (Photo credit: Getty Images).

In a glossy media city that values professional polish, NY1, Time Warner’s no-frills news channel, enjoys a certain cult following, as evidenced by the high-profile fans who gathered at the New York Public Library last Thursday to celebrate two decades of “weather on the ones.”

The event reflected the unassuming charms of the station, where anchors style themselves and pan-away shots reveal a bullpen that is more Community than The Newsroom. Though there was an open bar, the wine glasses had thick stems, and the hors d’oeuvres, while tasty, might have arrived straight from Trader Joe’s.

“I love being part of New York City, and a part of New York City that is very unique is a small station called NY1,” said Jerry Stiller. “Pat Kiernan is wonderful with the newspapers. He starts reading them at 6 o’clock and you are ahead of the game already,” Mr. Stiller continued. “But there are no twists. It’s just the pure news; no other station does that.”

Earlier this year, Mr. Kiernan—whose In the Papers segment has made him as famous as one can be in New York without being famous everywhere—publicly lobbied to sit next to Kelly Ripa on Live! With Kelly at the more humane hour of 9 o’clock. Then, very publicly, he didn’t get the job. “It usually isn’t so public,” he told the Transom. “Even for TV jobs, you usually just go into a studio somewhere and the crew knows you are auditioning, but you haven’t had five million people critique your audition.”

Many of the guests at the anniversary party were relieved Mr. Kiernan didn’t get the gig.

“My girlfriend, Sandra, can’t live a day without it,” said Scott Adsit, who plays Pete the producer on 30 Rock. “We’ve been to a lot of Hollywood-type parties and Broadway-type parties, but I’ve never seen her this excited to meet celebrities in my life. She’s beside herself to be in the same room as Pat Kiernan.”

So he was trying to impress her?

“Yes! I’m trying to get some,” Mr. Adsit replied.

“Is that—what’s her name, the woman who does the parenting report?” Sandra Bauleo, Mr. Adsit’s tall brunette girlfriend, whispered. Indeed, it was Shelly Goldberg, who has been recommending kid-friendly activities to viewers for years.

Meanwhile, mayoral hopefuls (when asked, most said that they will announce “after the presidential election”) came to kiss Errol Louis’s ring. Mr. Louis hosts Inside City Hall, the nightly show about city politics.

“They are my constituents; I represented them when they were on 42nd Street and I represent them in Chelsea Market,” City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said.

“I’ve been watching NY1 literally since they started. I was on the Dinkins campaign,” said Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. “I’m a ‘weather on the ones’ type of guy. And of course, Inside City Hall.”

“There are two shows I DVR: the first is Boardwalk Empire and the second is Inside City Hall,” said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

Veteran NY1 anchors Roma Torre, Louis Dodley and Budd Mishkin accepted praise and blue Tiffany’s boxes—they were part of the original team of reporters who started 20 years ago.

“I couldn’t live without NY1. I wake up to it and I go to sleep to it,” said Angela Lansbury. “It’s like a very dear friend.” Ms. Lansbury hummed the channel’s soft-jazz theme music.

Waiters passed around miniature black-and-white cookies and cake lollipops. It was time to head home.

The anniversary party was the same night as the vice-presidential debate, so the library cleared out promptly as everyone rushed home to watch Joe Biden duke it out with his “friend, the congressman.”

The next morning, like always, we woke up to NY1

Show me the money. (MTA)

After years of construction, and many more years before that of planning and debate, the uptown connection between the 6-Train and the Sixth Avenue line finally opened yesterday at Bleecker Street. “50 years ago, we have three different subway systems and there was very few connections between all of them,” MTA chairman and CEO Joe Lhota said. “Our goal is to make the system more connective. It takes time, and it takes money, but we’re getting there.”

Mr. Lhota, wearing a red tie printed with fanciful gray trees and elephants, stood beneath the bright, color-shifting tube lights that make up Leo Villareal’s Hive installation. The honeycomb-shaped light show serves as a dynamic signpost for the new stairs and escalator that are an integral part of this new connection. In addition to connectivity, the station transformation is all about accessibility.

But there would be no uptown connection, no wheelchair-friendly elevators, without money, and more than anything, that was what Joe Lhota and his cohort really wanted to talk about on this day. The MTA had made four such connections over the past three years New York City Transit chief Tom Prendergast reminded everyone: the R and 1 trains at South Ferry; the R to the A, C and F trains at Jay Street; the 7 to the G trains at Court Square; and Bleecker Street. Without capital funds, none of them would have been possible.

“These projects are important because they create jobs, and they are an important reminder of the vital role our capital program plays in building the region,” Mr. Lhota said. “I’m fully aware our 2015 capital program is still unfunded and that’s why we need all your support working on a new capital program.” He seemed to be talking simultaneously to the press, the Albany and City Hall pols on either side of him, and the public hopefully listening at home.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer recalled the collapse of the system in the 1970s and how much it had taken to get back to where the city and the system are now, though he also underscored the fact that the current stability from the system is far from assured. “I’m glad we have an MTA chair who understands that investing in transportation is investing in New York,” he said.

At least some Albany legislators are prepared to take up the fight of funding the MTA. “It’s like the chairman said, we have to do more at the state level to fund our mass transit,” Senator Daniel Squadron said. He also mentioned that the ghost of Fiorella LaGuardia was with everyone today, as it was the mayor who started the work of intergrading the subway system.

Without the capital program, not only would there be no new trains and track, no new East Side Access or a Second Avenue line, there would also be no new escalators and elevators for the system, an important addition that eases access for all New Yorkers, particularly the elderly and those with disabilities.

The escalator and five new elevators were the work of Assemblywoman Deborah Glick, who not only contributed funds to have them built but also co-sponsored a bill in the 1ate 1990s--“It was so long ago, I can’t remember exactly when we passed it,” she said--that created 100 Key Stations, critical transportation junctures that needed better handicap access. The Bleecker Station counted as Key Station No. 79, Broadaway station (technically, they’re separate) counted as No. 80.

“It’s enlightened self interest, this station, we can all get up and down now, but god willing, we’ll get to put these elevators and escalators to good use when we’re older,” Assemblywoman Glick joked.