Another Anti-Extell Rally Planned for One Manhattan Square Project Site

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While the height of Extell’s new market-rate tower on South Street is still in question – either 72 or 80 stories (who can keep track?) – the opposition is anything but. From the get-go, there was resistance to the gargantuan project, with claims that Gary Barnett and his upper crust cronies were forcing themselves onto the Lower East Side waterfront without regard for the community. We’ve already seen the results from several months of pile driving and excavation efforts – project site flooding, cracks in neighbors’ apartments, the sinking of Cherry Street, etc.

In response to the Extell blight (aka One Manhattan Square), the Coalition to Protect Chinatown and the Lower East Side is staging a second rally this morning (11am) near at Cherry and Pike Streets. The advocacy group is expected to reiterate its party line of calling the development – and its “poor door” affordable tower next door – a “racist” endeavor. They’ll also announce a march from the Pathmark site to City Hall in September to let Mayor de Blasio know that “communities of color have had enough with the city’s racism and efforts to push us out!”

From the mailbag:

Since the passing of the 2008 rezoning plan that only protected the East Village while excluding Chinatown and Lower East Side, many residents and small businesses have been displaced from our communities. The Coalition to Protect Chinatown and the Lower East Side met with the Department of City Planning (DCP) on August 5th and asked the DCP to give the same protections to Chinatown and the Lower East Side, which are mixed communities of color, as given to the East Village, a majority white community. The Coalition was told that we were too ambitious and our rezoning plan could not be implemented.

On August 20, 2015, 11am, the Coalition to Protect Chinatown and the Lower East Side will hold a press conference at 227 Cherry Street where Extell is building a racist tower that will include a “poor door”. We will tell Mayor de Blasio that communities of color have had enough with the city’s racism and efforts to push us out! We will also call for a march to City Hall on September 25, 2015, from the former Pathmark site.