Brad Hoylman has been handpicked by Deputy Mayor Christine Quinn to run for City Council. As you may know, Hoylman, Quinn, and their cronies have sold out to the dark side of the Bloomberg administration, betraying progressive Democrats, their constituents, and they are strong advocates for bad development that closes hospitals, schools, and fire houses in a mass displacement of working families -- all in order to build more and more luxury condominiums.
Health Petition : Mayor Michael Bloomberg : Stop the Rudin Luxury Condo Conversion Plan
Sign Our Petition ! The Rudin Luxury Condo Conversion Plan will set a dangerous public health precedent. City politicians would be saying that a top 1% real estate developer can make hundreds of millions of dollars in private profit by converting the charitable public real estate buildings of the former St. Vincent's Hospital, whilst the 99% have no replacement Level One Trauma Center or Full-Service Hospital. If Rudin's Condo Plan is approved, Mayor Bloomberg would be saying that it is O.K. for an entire section of New York City to have no full-service hospital. How can this be a responsible public health care policy ? Mayor Bloomberg needs to stop the Rudin Condo Plan for St. Vincent's Hospital until a full-service hospital is created.
Please join the masses and flood Rudin Management Company's phone and email this week so they are aware of the growing wave of public disgust with them stealing a hospital from the community !
CALL RIGHT NOW: John Gilbert, Rudin Management Group COO - 212-407-2400;
AND EMAIL: jgilbert@rudin.com
Rudin will LIE TO YOU and tell you the Urgent Care Center they plan on putting in one of the St. Vincent Hospital's buildings will replace what St. Vincent's provided. They will LIE TO YOU and tell you no hospital system will step up and reopen the campus to be a full service hospital.
Will Plans To Install An Unwanted Urgent Care Center In The O'Toole Building In The West Village Impact North-Shore LIJ's Bond Rating ?
North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System is making a multi-million dollar investment in an urgent care center that is proposed in the catchment area that used to be served by St. Vincent's Hospital.
The urgent care center is a risky and experimental investment by North Shore-LIJ, because this is the first time that the New York State Department of Health has approved an urban urgent care center to replace a Trauma Level 1, full service hospital in New York City.
Since the closing of St. Vincent's, community activists have organised and demanded that politicians help the community first save, then replace, St. Vincent's. A companion real estate development project that will turn the primary campus of St. Vincent's into luxury condos by Rudin Management Company also faces unified community opposition.
It is not yet known how much revenue North Shore-LIJ is projecting from its proposed urgent care center, which will face calls for a community boycott, and what such a boycott will mean to North Shore-LIJ's return on its investment and on its larger finances.
Last night, residents from the Lower West Side held a "mass civilian trauma exercise," where participants recreated a "field hospital" on the sidewalks outside where St. Vincent's Hospital used to operate.
The "mass civilian trauma exercise" was organised by activists, who oppose Community Board 2's lockstep effort to approve a controversial plan to rezone St. Vincent's into luxury condominiums. Bill Rudin, the head of the Rudin real estate empire, stands to sell luxury condos worth over $1 billion, if CB2 approves his rezoning application.
After William Rudin's giant scheme to take over St. Vincent's Hospital real estate properties has triggered an investigation by prosecutors, the Rudin Family went to great lengths to make sure that its luxury condominium conversion plan would be fast-tracked, pulling out all the stops.
But new information came to light this week : one top official of North Shore-LIJ hospital system, Jeffrey Kraut, is chair of the committee, which will recommend or deny North Shore-LIJ's application for a Department of Health license to operate a controversial stand-alone Emergency Department.
The Emergency Department is a consolation prize for the loss of a full-service hospital and Level 1 trauma center after St. Vincent's Hospital closed on April 30, 2010. Thus far, Mr. Kraut's actions has not been referred to the Attorney General's office, which oversees the ethics of the State's executive agencies, such as the Department of Health.
Mr. Kraut's conflict of interest in having influence over his own company's financial contracts and government licenses provide fresh evidence about the lack of integrity in the Rudin condo version plan.
In order to build its luxury condos, the Rudin Family encouraged North Shore-LIJ's application for the stand-alone Emergency Department. Because the Rudin condo conversion plan depends on the approval of North Shore-LIJ's application before the Department of Health, community members question Mr. Kraut's influence on other members of the Committee on Establishment and Project Review Meeting and Public Hearing, which will determine the outcome of North Shore-LIJ's permit application.
The information about Mr. Kraut's conflict of interest is another negative blight on the Rudin Family, who have also tried astroturfing, lobbying, and distribution of propaganda by mail. The Rudin Family has also been criticised for opposing freedom of information requests that might be useful in investigations.
Separately, the Department of Health has been criticised for its inaction in saving other hospitals from closure, and for the absence of any investigation or prosecution of individuals, who were involved in the hospital closure crisis.
Chief Abdo Nahmod calls Rudin Plan for St. Vincents a ''Geographical Nightmare''
Watch as the community of the Lower West Side of Manhattan confront New York City EMS Chief Abdo Nahmod over the intentional confusion being propounded by Brad Hoylman, the chair of Manhattan Community Board 2, over ambulance "Response Time" and "Transport Time" in the wake of the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital.
Chief Nahmod said that Manhattan CB2 would be providing statistics about ''response time'' versus ''transport time,'' but no such disclosure has been made.
Residents of the Lower West Side believe that Mr. Hoylman is working against replacing St. Vincent's with a full-service hospital with a Level 1 Trauma Center and is, instead, trying to help the billionaire Rudin Family turn St. Vincent's into more and more luxury condominiums for Greenwich Village.
September 11 Tenth Anniversary - St. Vincent's Fallen Hero Tribute
On September 11, 2001, the only Level 1 Trauma Center below 14th Street in Manhattan was St. Vincent's Hospital -- it was the hospital that would have treated thousands of people, had there been more survivors. Sadly, many people perished on that awful day. Less than 9 years later, St. Vincent's Hospital was closed, as part of a luxury condo conversion plan by the billioniare Rudin Family.
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.
Question : What has Brad Hoylman done to save St. Vincent's Hospital ? Answer : He hasn't done one thing.
Brad Hoylman has joined Christine Quinn's and Mayor Bloomberg's campaign to tear down St. Vincent's Hospital and build luxury condos.
At One Year Anniversary Rally of the Illegal Closing of St. Vincent's Hospital, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn were booed by the Crowd.
It was almost like a repeat of the St. Patrick's Day Parade booing and the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire booing. Only the trigger that made the crowds boo at the unpopular mayor and city council speaker was the mere mention of their names.
At the one year anniversary of the hospital's closing, several speakers spoke at a rally, demanding that a hospital be restored at the site of the former St. Vincent's. 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.
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.''
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.
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 Brad Hoylman to fight for the healthcare of her own community.
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
Just Say No to St. Vincent's Luxury Condo Conversion !
Willaim (''Bill'') Rudin is the head of a billionaire real estate development family, and the family wants to take a wrecking ball to the former space of the only full-service hospital and Level 1 trauma center in the Lower West Side. The Rudin family wants to turn the former St. Vincent's Hospital into more luxury condos. Jane Jacobs is turning in her grave.
At the May 31, 2011 Manhattan CB2 meeting, residents of the Lower West Side overwhelmingly demanded that each of the North Shore-LIJ, Brad Hoylman, and CB2 open a hospital to replace St. Vincent's.
''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 :
Manhattan Community Board 2 - St. Vincent's Omnibus Committee will be holding a ''discussion'' about the first aid clinic that North Shore-LIJ wants to install at the O’Toole Building on Seventh Avenue.
Brad Hoylman, chairman of the St. Vincent's Omnibus Committee, will be presiding over a public discussion at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 31, 2011.
The meeting will be taking place at the Auditorium of P.S. 41, located at 116 West 11th Street, New York City.
To begin a discussion about using the O'Toole Building for a first aid clinic would be the first step in a back-door attempt to run through the Rudin Family's hundred million dollar luxury condo-conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital.
Brad Hoylman, CB2 Call Police : Is this a Violation of Open Meetings ? (St. Vincent's)
On June 14, 2010, Brad Hoylman, as chair of Manhattan Community Board 2's Omnibus St. Vincent's Committee, presided over a public meeting to discuss a proposal for a first aid clinic to replace St. Vincent's Hospital. With no hospital now in the Lower West Side of Manhattan, everybody is concerned about healthcare.
After one senior citizen became upset, Community Board 2 called 911 and asked for police to come to the meeting. Was the call for police a way to intimidate senior citizens from asking healthcare questions ? In your comments, please discuss whether the calling of police was a violation of New York's open meetings law.
Police officers show up at the end of this video. The St. Vincent's Omnibus Meeting at Community Board 2 was a complete disaster. Brad Hoylman, who acted like the chair of the meeting, asked for the cops to be called -- this was after an angry citizen gave the Community Board a piece of his mind.
Community Board 2 will be an essential part of any land-use decision (aka "zoning") regarding the old St. Vincent's site.
Community Board 2 needs to hear from you that we will not accept anything less than a hospital for our community. Please send your e-mails to : info@cb2manhattan.org
After the sudden, shady bankruptcy and closing of St. Vincent's Hospital, local politicians initially proposed that an "urgent care center" could replace St. Vincent's Hospital. And that's exactly what Community Board 2 was trying to do last night, as it supported LIJ's push into the community to only provide primary healthcare through its "urgent care center."
Meanwhile, an "urgent care center" cannot meet the public health and safety needs of this community. It will not be able to offer level 1 trauma healthcare services, an emergency room, an intensive care unit, nor hospital beds. Nor would it support the complex web of health care this community depended on with St. Vincent's and needs. This includes but is not limited to pediatric, oncology, HIV/AIDS and birthing services. A hospital will also be able to bring income to our City and the State through Federal funding, and other sources, not available to an urgent care center.
For more information about other politicians, who have sold us out in favour of more and more luxury condominium development, please visit : Tom Duane Sold Out.
Last year, when Brad Hoylman intimidated citizens at the Community Board 2 meeting, I submitted a communication to the NY Department of State, Committee on Open Government in respect of the acts of intimidation used at this meeting. I never heard any reply ; what is more, my computer was attacked and destroyed by viruses.
In an apparent conflict of interest, Beth R. DeWoody, Madeleine R. Johnson, Eric C. Rudin, Jack Rudin, Katherine Rudin, and William C. Rudin each donated $4,950 to Christine Quinn's presumed 2013 mayoral campaign. During this time, the Rudin family has been trying to salvage a multi-million dollar real estate purchase of the buildings that belong to the bankruptcy estate of St. Vincent's Hospital. Since the Rudin family wants to build luxury high-rise condos on the site of St. Vincent's, do these large campaign donations explain why Speaker Quinn has done nothing to restore a hospital to the former St. Vincent's site ?
Jane Jacobs would save St. Vincent's Hospital. Why can't Brad Hoylman ?
Jim Fouratt exposes the dangers faced every single day by residents of the Lower West Side of Manhattan : in a healthcare emergency, every minute matters.
Elizabeth Adam, commuity organizer, senior advocate, and health care worker, suffered a stroke on April 1, 2011. Luckily, she was at work in Brooklyn and not at home on West 12th Street in Greenwich Village. At the time of her healthcare emergency, she was 8 minutes away from a hospital. Who knows how long it would have taken if she was at home, where there is now no full-service hospital. None of the 14 URGENT CARE CENTERS on the West Side could have saved her life. She need a full-service hospital. Community activist Jim Fouratt said that this is why we are fighting to get the Rudin Family to take back the O'Toole Building they bought, tear it down, and build their condos there -- so we can restore a full-service hospital with an emergency department and a Level 1 Trauma Center at the former site of St. Vincent's Hospital. This story has a happy ending ... this time.
Brad Hoylman is chair of the Omnibus St. Vincent's committee of Manhattan Community Board 2. Since the illegal closing of St. Vincent's, the community successfully pressured CB2 to pass a resolution that would prevent any change in zoning of the former site of St. Vincent's Hospital. But since then, Mr. Hoylman had done nothing to enforce that resolution, because he is bed with Deputy Mayor Christine Quinn and her rich developer friends. In fact, the Rudin Family, who want to tear down St. Vincent's in order to build more and more luxury condos, has donated approximately $30,000 in disclosed donations to Deputy Mayor Quinn's expected campaign to run for mayor in 2013.
