New York State Senator Tom Duane has sold out the community of the Lower West Side of Manhattan. He has turned his back on the citizens, who depended on St. Vincent's Hospital. And to think he used to be an AIDS activist ?
St. Vincent's Hospital activist bird-dogs billionaire Bill Rudin over controversial luxury condo conversion plan.
Artist and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy confronts Bill Rudin on West 12th Street. Community anger towards Mr. Rudin has inspired many protests, including a sustained protest and vigil outside the sales office of the new luxury condos. Mr. Rudin has ruthlessly ignored the community’s need for a full-service hospital. Mr. Rudin paid pennies on the dollar to buy St. Vincent’s real estate, and Mr. Rudin now stands to sell luxury condos and townhouses that, once constructed, are expected to have a combined fair-market value of over $1 billion.
Peninsula Hospital Center - Protesters Take Over Lobby - Hospital Closings in NYC
Approximately 200 union employees, residents of Far Rockaway, in Queens, and local officials, gathered in the rain outside Peninsula Hospital Center, across the bay from JFK Airport. Peninsula Hospital Center has filed a plan to shut its doors. The hospital’s owner is embroiled in a political and financial scandal, but employees and residents are worried about the threat to public health, should the hospital’s closure plan be approved.
Attendees of the rally braved the rain, then, once the rally had ended, stormed into one of the lobbies of the hospital, until hospital officials called the police, to clear the lobby of its own employees.
This week, President Obama agreed to severe budget cuts to social safety net programs, that underpin the social contract we make with our government and amongst ourselves. More budget cuts to Medicaid and Medicare will lead to a further collapse of our healthcare system. Is Christine Quinn in Bermuda with Mayor Michael Bloomberg each time a hospital closes in New York City ? Is President Obama surfing in Hawaii each time a hospital closes in America ?
If we obediently listen to people, who are in power (the same people who work for us, the very same people who are closing our hospitals), telling us to leave the lobby of a closing hospital, then it just makes it that much easier for the New York State Department of Health/Christine Quinn to keep closing hospitals.
Queens' Peninsula Hospital Center set to close ; New York Downtown Hospital putting patients on stretchers in the hallway to accommodate unmanageable influx of emergency patients.
"Sources say the Far Rockaway, Queens, hospital will shutter after owing millions to vendors and falling behind on its union benefits funds payments; the closure would cost the area about 1,000 jobs," reported Crain's.
Meanwhile, following the illegal closing of St. Vincent's Hospital last year, there reamins only one hospital south of 16th Street in Manhattan, New York Downtown Hospital, which The New York Post has reported as being ''overwhelmed,'' and is leading to an ''emergency-care crisis,'' the newspaper reports.
Bankruptcy Judge Cecelia Morris has let the management of St. Vincent's avoid Freedom of Information requests and has let the Rudin Family to gut St. Vincent's and is about to let the Family take a wrecking ball to it. Now, Judge Morris is going to let the Management and the Family destroy evidence.
Management of St. Vincent's Asks Bankruptcy Court to Approve Document Destruction, So That No Investigation Can Ever Determine Why the Hospital Closed Abruptly And Without Any Legally-Mandated Closure Plan.
No politician -- not CB2 Chair Brad Hoylman, not City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, or Senator Tom Duane -- is willing to do anything to prevent the luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's. With the shredding trucks about to pull into the ambulance bays of St. Vincent's, the obstruction of justice will be complete : there may be no more hope to ever investigate the shady decisions that lead the hospital to close on April 30, 2010. It's exactly as Sarah Jessica Parker said : ''The community needs a hospital — and I think there’s been some clever obfuscation.''
Under the cover of darkness, over a holiday weekend, and in usual opaque fashion, Community Board 2 announced with very short notice a meeting for tomorrow that will keep pushing a first aid clinic to replace St. Vincent's Hospital.
JOINT LANDMARKS & PUBLIC AESTHETICS & ST. VINCENT’S OMNIBUS : Tues., 7/5 @ 6:30 PM– NYU Silver Building, 32 Waverly Pl. Room 208 - 30 Seventh Avenue (O’Toole Building) - Application for façade changes and new entrances. For more information go to: http://bit.ly/iNUSWj
Community Activist Yetta Kurland presented a stack of over 7,500 signatures on a petition to a representative of the Rudin development family. The petition demands that the Rudin Family must be blocked from undertaking a luxury condominium conversion of the former site of St. Vincent's Hospital. In her presentation, Ms. Kurland explained the history of a prior deal that gave the Rudin Family use of a hardship exemption, but, which Ms. Kurland said, no longer applies. As William Rudin salivates over the condo conversion deal, Jane Jacobs is turning in her grave.
Too bad we can't count on Tom Duane to fight for the healthcare of her own community.
Eileen Dunn, R.N., tells residents of the Lower West Side of Manhattan that Mayor Michael Bloomberg put the ''knife to the chest'' of St. Vincent's Hospital, and that the mayor is responsible for blocking the restoration of a hospital to the Lower West Side.
''Asked what she thought of the latest post-St. Vincent’s proposal, for an emergency-care facility at the site of the former hospital’s O’Toole building, the Sex and the City star looked skeptical. 'I’m concerned, let’s put it that way,' she said. 'The community needs a hospital — and I think there’s been some clever obfuscation.' As a parent of three young children, she noted, she’s especially concerned about local healthcare. 'I would like to see a proper, functioning [hospital] — not a walk-in,' she stressed. She said she had spoken to Council Speaker Christine Quinn about the issue.''
The interview given by Ms. Parker took place before information came to light about a deceptive political campaign brochure, which was mailed to residents of the Lower West Side by a front group calling itself the ''Westside Healthcare Coalition.'' A WhoIs search on Network Solutions today showed that the website for the front group is registered to Mehigan, Bellone & Associates, Inc. Whereas Ms. Parker was not directly speaking to the example of the campaign brochure as political subterfuge, you can see how she has already been concerned with the pattern of clever obfuscation.
North Shore-LIJ have a vested interest in installing a first aid clinic in the O'Toole Building in the West Village, so that the Rudin Family can build luxury condominiums on the former site of St. Vincent's Hospital. Meanwhile, watch this video about what having a full-service hospital in the Lower West Side means to one parent, whose child was treated by the live-saving emergency room at St. Vincent's Hospital :
Sen. Tom Duane - Shamed on St. Vincent's Hospital Closing
On 1 May 2011, activists organised a flashmob protest outside Brad Hoylman's apartment in Greenwich Village, NYC. Mr. Hoylman is chair of Manhattan Community Board 2's omnibus committee on St. Vincent's Hospital. On this day, Mr. Hoylman was hosting a networking brunch for Sen. Tom Duane. Each of Chairman Hoylman and the Hon. Senator have a role in restoring a full-service hospital to the Lower West Side. Watch as protesters speak to citizens, who don't even know the true fate of St. Vincent's Hospital, and who speculate about how could such a important public institution could be sold and bulldozed only to be turned into more and more glass and steel luxury condominiums. The opinions expressed during these sidewalk interviews were made by average citizen-voters, who are solely responsible for their content. Response videos are invited, to help create a dialogue for the community, so that citizen-voters can learn the whole truth about the ultimate fate for St. Vincent's. Video responses submitted by the Hon. Senator and the Rudin family are strongly encouraged, so that a balanced perspective can be offered.
Sen. Tom Duane - Shamed on St. Vincent's Hospital Closing
In 2010, Sen. Tom Duane said he, Assemblyman Dick Gottfriend, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and Rep. Jerry Nadler would restore a full-service hospital at the site of St. Vincent's. As of 2011, each of them has turned their back on us. Here is an exposé on Sen. Tom Duane. More to follow.
Nurse Eileen Dunn spoke at a rally for a new hospital on Saturday, April 30, 2011, at the site of the former St. Vincent's on the one year anniversary of the shady closing of St. Vincent's Hospital. The protest against Sen. Duane took place on Sunday, May 1, 2011, at 30 Fifth Avenue, outside of Brad Hoylman's apartment building. Mr. Hoylman is chair of Manhattan Community Board 2's omnibus committee on St. Vincent's. The 2010 flashback was recorded at a community forum that took place at Our Lady of Pompeii Church in the West Village.
Nurse Eileen Dunn worked for 25 years at St. Vincent's Hospital -- right up until the time that the hospital was closed after shady meetings between the hospital's management, politicians, potential buyers, and officials with the Department of Health.
In this video, which was recorded on 30 April 2011, at the one year anniversary of the hospital's closing, Nurse Dunn asked if the crowd was angry at Mayor Michael Bloomberg or New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn for not doing a thing to help save a full service hospital for the Lower West Side in Manhattan.
