This picture was taken on my iphone and I am not happy with it...I altered it in Mac's version of photo shop because it was too dark which I never do. With my photos what you see is what you get...no alterations. I did this to make sure you could see the historic building next door, look to the top left hand corner to see how small it actually is and if could see the base of hideous ugly Cooper Square Hotel, the big white building that looks like a spaceship landed on the Bowery you will see small historic buildings.....so what is the point?
The point was this, Mike Bloomberg and company including the wicked witch of the East Village (despite puff pieces to the contrary courtesy of The New York Daily News and The New York Time--proving it pays to have powerful friends, so what is new?) Amanda Burden, wicked witch of the East Village, socialite mega millionaire planned to make the Bowery, East Village, Lower East Side into Wall Street keeping the bare minimum "token historic buildings" and NYU, Cooper Union and NY Law to name just three were included in the program with sky piercing zone busting mega dorms or in Cooper Union's case hideous ugly building that in some cases had nothing to do
with higher education but higher states of greed and abuse of "not for profit" status like some big delicious tax shelter from which to be a real estate magnate slash landlord!
Cooper Union, I am told learned from the best, Gordon Gekko, Mr. Greed is good, has been giving courses at Stern on how NYU can displace entire neighborhoods including small businesses and not abuse eminent domain like Columbia University! Cooper Union is NYU junior and their art students are not rebel rouser political activists but much more "show me the money" and screw the community for free tuition types. As I understand it -- if you buy a very expensive condo in the sky piercing mirrored building -- the hideous ugly one by the black cube that just makes you will there was drug testing for architects as well as the complete outlawing of self certification because folks we found out architects are not boy scouts!!! AND THE POINT IS YOU BUY A CONDO MORE MILLIONS, YOU OWN A LAND LEASED CONDO BECAUSE COOPER UNION OWNS THE PROPER. IF I AM WRONG PLEASE LET ME KNOW? THE BUILDING REMAINS MORE THAN HALF EMPTY.
I would bicycle by the NY Law Dorm and ask worker what are you building? They would always replay "I don't know." A fireman jokingly told me he heard it was going to be a Best Western but he wasn't far off; it is a hotel for NY Law students with balconies super out of scale with the neighborhood to encourage lawyers not to be activists, screw the community and pray at the alter of greed!!!!!! I never have understood how DOB gets away with these postings that don't reveal anything to a civilian New Yorker and the developers are not forth coming...gee I wonder why? Stealth supersizing at speedy velocity hints they want to get this done before the community can even figure out how to protest it. No wonder I hear the mayor wants to give New Yorkers 30 days only to register complaints against DOB.
This developer was unusual in the fact he made it clear what his intentions were from the start so he is going to supersize hideous ugly but at least he was honest about his greed and his goal as we still are all wondering how did Scarano, NY Law, NYU, Cooper Union, Cooper Square Hotel ....how did this all happen and of course it could only happen under Bloomberg and Burden...you go to bed one day in the East Village and you wake up in a bad xerox of mid-town, Dubai with the clear intention to extend Wall Street, the goal to start Wall Street from 14th Street down down to Battery Park.
If sheer stupidity and greed had not destroyed Wall Street, Mike Bloomberg, Amanda Burden and John Sexton, President of NYU, would have sent buses and trains to move us out for NYU students and financial types because NYU's need to expand is a real estate black hole the communities are just a damn inconveniene!!!!!
Supermarkets are now an endangered species thanks to Mike Bloomberg and NYU is a landlord to one remaining the East Village and that market may be heading the way of The Bottom Line as in landlord NYU wants to evict a valuable community resource.
Mike Bloomberg and the wicked witch of the East Village Amanda socialite city planner have only half succeeded in getting their goal done, aiding and abetting greedy developers and architects that look like they imbibed in cocaine or prozac (Scarano's Bowery Hotel looks like a prison) to make the Bowery in to Wall Street...half way there....we can only hope for some biblical sized miracle -- or should I say supersized zone busting miracle that ends the soulless take over make over of our neighborhoods city wide under Bloomberg tsunami of community crushing development which like the financial tsunami will have no longer term winners, just some very greedy lonely developers.
