Illegal Hotels Threaten Affordable Housing In New York

Article By Vivan Riffelmacher A Founding Member of the West Side Neighborhood

Imagine that every weekend your home is invaded by strangers.   The room next to yours is occupied by crowds of backpackers; kids in their late teens and 20’s on their own in New York city, partying loudly all night.  Imagine they have no keys so when they (or their friends) need entrance at midnight, two, three in the morning, they hammer on the door until you wake up and crawl out of bed to let them.  Imagine your landlord shrugs when you complain, “You don’t like it? Leave!”   The police can do nothing; your landlord’s actions are a civil issue, not a crime.   Complaints made to the Mayor’s office elicit no response. 

 

 “How can this happen?” you ask.  Yet for years in residential buildings all over the city, Illegal Hotels and Youth Hostels have been a way for landlords to make quick cash while they drive out their rent-stabilized tenants.  Tenants are cut adrift, often winding up homeless, and hundreds of affordable housing units are lost at a time when the need for such housing is at a crisis. 

 

In June 2005 the New York City Law Department filed a lawsuit against the owners and managers of Dexter House, a residential SRO on West 86th street, for running the building commercially as a youth hostel advertised on the Internet.  It was the first time the City of New York had brought such a case, and a vital chance to set legal precedent on the issue. 

 

Two years later with our case still pending in court, it is clear Illegal Hotels have spread beyond SRO’s to apartment buildings and an entire industry of “short term housing” now threatens the future of residential neighborhoods in Manhattan.  A task force of elected officials has received complaints from over 100 residential buildings where Illegal Hotels are taking residential space away from real tenants.

Where are tourist rentals legal?  Check the Certificate of Occupancy on file for your building at NYC Department of Buildings.  Look it up on the Dept of Buildings website or visit their offices at 280 Broadway.   Tourists rentals are illegal in Type “A” Residential buildings.  Buildings such as The Chelsea Hotel are “A/B” or “mixed use” and both commercial and residential rentals are allowed.  Many buildings listed as “Hotels” under the City Finance Codes are still residential buildings.  An “H-6″ Hotel, for example is strictly residential.  Zoning is also an important factor.  On side streets not zoned for commercial or mixed use, the hotel is a zoning violation.

Keeping the issue in the public eye, West Side Neighborhood Alliance, working with Housing Conservation Coordinators and West Side SRO Law Project, has organized town hall meetings and protest rallies.  A letter writing campaign is now underway to support Intro 534 a bill introduced by Council Member Gale Brewer.

To learn more, come to meetings for Illegal Hotels and help strategize how to save our homes.  This fall we hope to get a hearing in the City Council on Intro 534 and we’ll need WSNA members to testify.  Whether or not Illegal Hotels are a problem in your building we’ll need everyone’s help to protect the integrity of residential neighborhoods in New York.   Tourist dollars and corporate housing may be a good source of revenue for the

Deconstructing the Myth of a Liberal Media

 

        There still seems to be a certain perception about the media by many of the conservative public and is perpetuated by those within the current administration. That view is that when ever the media actually does its job, the conclusion that the reporter may come to is nothing more than liberal bias. But when asked about what liberal media are they referring to, the answer that is issued is often convoluted and rambling. After all when one looks at the last of the five top media outlets, you see some of the largest financial supports of the George W Bush election campaigns of 2000 and 04. On top of that list is Clear Channel but not far behind was Viacom and the Murdoch Company that owns all Fox channels, several radio stations, the New York Post and the Wall street journal. For the record that is three of the sister’s five that pushed for the ultra conservative agenda of the Bush administration. Then there is Disney which despite its image, turns a blind eye when it comes to the fact that the average age of the workers who make their merchandise is 11 years old and of those, the average age of retirement, a polite way of saying being forced out of their position is 21. But more to the point, some of their latest movies over the past 20 years make no scruples about portraying different racial groups under a negative light. In Aladdin  for example paints the picture of the Arab as thieves, cunning, croaked and so on. Finally, G.E. whose history speaks for itself, both as a major polluters and as a major support for Republican campaigns and has been known to kick off a few progressive reporters such as Phil Donahue.

            For one to hold the idea that the media is too “liberal” really should follow the pattern of media stories from any time period over the last forty + years. Let’s take the New York Times for example, the supposedly liberal New York news paper, one in which the Bush administration has chastised on several occasions. From late 2002 to 2003, some of the largest advocates for going to war with Iraq wrote for the publication. In fact prior to the now infamous mobile chemical factory speech given by Colon Powell, the writings of such journalists as Judith Miller read as if they had came straight from Pentagon papers. In several pieces she to refer to the WMDs that Saddam Hussein supposedly had stored somewhere in Iraq along with his desire to by nuclear materials from Africa. All of this, mind you, without a shred of evidence. As we now know, Miller had become accustomed to holding private talks with some of those within the Bush administration, including Dick Cheney and Karl Rove as was evident in the Valerie Plame case. This could very well explain why there was no critical questioning towards the claim of WMDs despite the testimony of Joseph Wilson which claimed that there was no credible evidence to support such a notion. Even before the Wilson report, Scott Ritter had stated, while on tour warning the American people of a possible war with Iran around the time the first bomb had dropped. The link below follows a speech that he gave in shortly after the war began.

            The New York Times was far from being  the only media outlet that have gotten reports on the Iraq wrong due to a lack of skepticism. According to a report by Fair.org, several media sources jumped on a military claim that on March 20, two days into the war, that the Iraqi army launched the Soviet made Scud missile which has a range that exceeds the range of any legal weapon that the country was allowed to posses according to 1991 agreements. Some in the media questioned the validity of the report but others, like Matt Lauer swore that the report was true while offering no analysis. “We understand they have fired three missiles. One of those was a Scud missile. It was destroyed by a Patriot missile battery as it headed toward Kuwait.”  As the authors point out other news show hosts also jumped on the store. Tim Russert made the same claim, “Because of last night’s activity, clearly the Iraqis are now trying to respond with at least one Scud fired at the troops mapped on the border of Kuwait and Iraq.”  But the most telling of those reports came from the supposedly liberal NPR’s Bob Edwards, “”Iraq this morning launched Scud missiles at Kuwait in retaliation for the American strike on Baghdad a few hours earlier.” But the Pentagon never made any solid claims that they knew for shore what kind of rocket was launched by the Iraqi Government. On March 22^nd report by the associated press reported that “Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the vice director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference that the Iraqis have not fired any Scuds and that U.S. forces searching airfields in the far western desert of Iraq have uncovered no missiles or launchers.” But even after the report was released, some journalists were still trying to make the case that Iraq had in deed launched a scud missile.

            When looking at the policing of local citizens in a manner that surrounds the Iraq war only one paper gave full coverage to the issue. In fact, the Olympian of Olympia Washington is one of those rare jewels in the media that could be in danger if major media outlets have their way and are able to expand their ownership over smaller presses, did a video piece on the Pudget sound police and their policies towards political activists. On the video, one could clearly see a peace gathering in front of the gates of Fort Lewis which were guarded by authorities garbed in riot gear. At one point one of the officers ordered the crowd to disperse but when they did not, tear gas and rapid fired rubber bullets were shot into the crowd. You can see this on the sites link below. There were also a few moments on the tape where the police were shooting mace or pepper spray into the eyes of some of the protestors at point blank range. These actions by those in charge are very reminiscent of the actions taken by the police in the streets in Seattle during the WTO meetings in 1999 after attempts by undercover officers who had infiltrated some peace groups attempted to start a riot failed miserably or in the streets of New York in 2004 after most of the major media outlets had left and the leashes were taken off so to speak.

            In an article done by Dana Hull of Common Dreams in January of 2003, entitled “Police Violence Shocks Activists, Others at Port of Oakland Protest” the story follows one of the worst shootings on political activists conducted by the police in recent years. In the shooting, the police used, used an array of dangerous and so called “non-fatal” arsenals. These included wooden dowels, “sting balls,” concussion grenades and tear gas. Several protestors and some longshoremen who were the area were all seriously injured. Activists had been protesting in the area for weeks without any trouble, according to the report, so the attack caught those at the gathering off guard.  Many of those who were injured received their injuries while attempting to leave to leave, including one lawyer. Two other factors made the event even more shocking. First, the city of Oakland is considered one of the most progressive within the Unites States and the anti-war gathering even drew in some public officials. Second, the Mayor of the city, Jerry Brown later defended the actions by the police. But through all this, Fox news, NBC, ABC and Clear Channel did not find the story news worthy among the orgy of false reports of WMDs.

            Finally there is the issue of who the media personalities choice to paint as an authoritarian on any given subject. In early November of this year, a Sarasota teacher who works at the Bay Heaven School For Basics plus was reprimanded after she worked with her class on a project that would have listed all the names of people who oppose the Iraq war. The reporter, Bob Hite sighted Rush Limbaugh and his listening audience as a symbolic stage of morality. In what was describes as an “international outrage” over the situation, Mr. Hite sited some harsh comments towards the teacher. One of Rush Limbaugh’s callers was a soldier who had called in from Afghanistan and gave a rather lopsided explanation on the subject. The trooper in question stated that the holiday was meant to teach people why troops go to war and fight for their country. What his statement failed to take into consideration is the long list of those who went to war to only oppose war as a whole while over seas; this includes those whose names range from I.F. Stone to Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Also this point of view disregards the fact that by 1968 more than a third of the anti-war movement was made up by Vietnam vets and today we have several veterans groups like Iraq Veterans against the War are starting to crop up. Finally the idea fails to recognize the tens of thousands of soldiers who are considered heroes while they are on the battle field but, are left by the VA to fend for themselves once they get home, many suffering mental illnesses to physically injuries. Perhaps Mr. Hite should have reported that.

Until next time.    

 

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0407-07.htm

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1627

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0328-09.htm

http://www.groundhog.tv/apps/editor/staticplayer.jsp?clip=1195854140737.wmv

http://videos.theolympian.com/vmix_hosted_apps/p/media?id=1562999