Bill Rudin Hospital Evacuations and NYC Marathon Reality Check

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Even before Hurricane Sandy made landfall, weather experts were predicting massive flooding, which would have caused damage to the city's infrastructure. Two of the most critical infrastructure facilities that took a hit as a result of Hurricane Sandy were the subway system and the city's hospitals.

Bill Rudin said that it would be safe to close St. Vincent's Hospital, which was the only Level I Trauma Center and full-service hospital in all of Lower Manhattan. He and his billion-dollar real estate development company got easy building permits, zone-busting waivers, and approvals from New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. At the time, Mr. Rudin and Speaker Quinn said that if people in Lower Manhattan became sick, or if there was a mass civilian trauma event, patients could be transported to Bellevue Hospital, which was the next closest Level I Trauma Center.

But the aftermath of hospital evacuations at NYU Langone and Bellevue Hospitals following destruction by caused by Hurricane Sandy expose the risks of the Rudin Condo Conversion Plan approved for St. Vincent's Hospital.

Note that the NYC Marathon would have three giant electricity generators, which would be used for the media tent, meanwhile, NYU Langone and Bellevue Hospitals had to be evacuated due to backup generator failures.

Watch this NBC News report about the hurricane destruction. Note that Mr. Rudin is a sponsor of the NYC Marathon, and he wants the Marathon to still take place this week-end, even though first responders haven't yet finished recovering all the dead bodies on Staten Island, or, for that matter, ensuring public safety or providing emergency care to the people rendered homeless by the tsunami of the storm surge and flooding.

NYU Langone Is Evacuated As St. Vincent's Hospital Becomes Luxury Condos

From The New York Times :

To the Editor :

Looking at the images of ambulances in front of NYU Langone Medical Center evacuating the hospital, one remembers the cry for the preservation of St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan made by the community and its doctors.

Let us join together to come up with a solution so that the people of New York will have access to the critical emergency care they need.

ROBERT B. GOLDBERG
New York, Oct. 31, 2012

The writer, dean and professor at the Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine, is a former attending physician at St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan.

The St. Vincent's Effect On Hurricane Sandy Hospital Evacuations

Who is politically accountable for the failure of the emergency management plan in response to Hurricane Sandy that lead to infrastructure failure at New York City hospitals ?

Following the infrastructure failure of critical hospitals in New York City because of flooding and storm surge associated with Hurricane Sandy and related power failures, some healthcare activists began to demand answers for the failure of New York City's emergency management planning. The fault does not lie with the doctors and medical staff at the impacted hospitals ; rather, the politicians in charge of the city's emergency management plan must account for this irresponsible and dangerous situation. How could it be that New York City's resources would prioritise reopening business when critical hospitals could be left in the dark ? One activist has posted a new YouTube video requesting political accountability for the dangerous risks posed to public health by Mayor Michael Bloomberg's lack of real emergency planning.

Video Link : http://youtu.be/ggjOOjbTKZs

Background

In the community effort to demand a replacement hospital for St. Vincent's, politicians imposed on the community the burden of participating in a needs assessment to determine if a full-service hospital was required in the Lower West Side of Manhattan.

"The hospital evacuations following the destruction by Hurricane Sandy expose the risks of the Rudin Condo Conversion Plan approved for St. Vincent's Hospital," said Louis Flores, an activist who produced this YouTube video. "New York City needs a Level I Trauma Center and full-service hospital in the Lower West Side for disaster recovery efforts. And New York City needs real resources to improve the infrastructure of all of our hospitals, including Coler Hospital on Roosevelt Island and SUNY Downstate Hospital in Brooklyn."

Hurricane Irene

In 2011, St. Vincent's activists organized a mass civilian trauma event exercise to demonstrate what grassroots community activists described was a major risk to public health : where would sick and injured patients receive emergency and trauma care in the event of a major national disaster under conditions that had created an irresponsible geographic distribution of hospital beds in Manhattan.

See related link : http://thevillager.com/villager_443/traumadrama.html

Hurricane Sandy

In the time leading up to and following the landfall of the effects of Hurricane Sandy, the infrastructure of full-service hospitals on the East Side of Manhattan has failed. Hospital patients were forced to be evacuated from NYU Langone and Bellevue Hospitals.

To Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Speaker Christine Quinn, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, to City Planner Amanda Burden, Brad Hoylman, Bill Rudin, and to the Partnership for New York, where are New Yorkers supposed to go now, in case of a medical emergency ?

Save St. Vincent's Petition

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.

John Gilbert Rudin Phone Zap

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.

North Shore-LIJ Bond Rating Outlook

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.

#OccupyWallStreet Marches to St. Vincent's

The activist group called Hands Off St. Vincent's endorses the #OccupyWallStreet march to St. Vincent's Hospital.

Could it be possible to march past Brad Hoylman's coöperative apartment building at 30 Fifth Avenue ?

Mock Swine Flu Death

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.

Jeffrey Kraut North Shore-LIJ

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.

9/11 Tenth Anniversary

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.

St. Vincent's Document Shredding

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.''

1782-Motion Re Info Mgmt Services and Trust Ageement and Document Retention Plan

Hoylman St. Vincent's Medical Malpractice

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.

Nurse Dunn also said that the municipal governments in Miami, Florida, and Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, either forbid ambulances from taking emergency patients to the kinds of first aid clinics that Lenox Hill plans to build at the O'Toole Building in the West Village, or forbid to license such first aid clinics altogether.

Too bad we can't count on Brad Hoylman to do the right thing -- and fight for a full-service hospital to replace St. Vincent's.

Hoylman St. Vincent's Hardship Exemption

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.

Sarah Jessica Parker : We hope that Brad Hoylman reads Sarah's Interview About the Need For a New Hospital in the West Village

Sarah Jessica Parker endorses a Full-Service Hospital to replace St. Vincent's.

In an interview with The Villager newspaper, Sarah Jessica Parker expressed her support for a full-service 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 :

St. Vincent's 9/11 Tribute

I Will Wait For You -- St. Vincent's Hospital -- RIP 9-11 Tribute

Jane Jacobs would have saved St. Vincent's Hospital. Too bad Brad Hoylman couldn't.

Brad Hoylman Open Meetings

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.

See also the longer video version of the way Brad Hoylman does things.

Brad Hoylman wants to turn St. Vincent's Hospital into Luxury Condos

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.

Later, Mr. Hoylman created a circumstance of fear and intimidation in the room when he forcefully yanked the microphone out of Yetta Kurland's hands, before she was able to finish speaking. The whole audience community witnessed this brazen act, and it is now on YouTube for you to see, as well.

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.

Rudin Family Political Donations

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 ?

For Stroke Victims, Every Minute Matters

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.