Dear friends,
It's another busy weekend closely followed by the general election on
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2nd
!
TODAY (Saturday)at NOON: Join a bike ride to save the East River Park.
TOMORROW (Sunday) from NOON to 6pm is the Community Art and Health Fair organized by the Coalition to Save Chinatown and the Lower East Side.
EARLY VOTING STARTS TODAY! Find your polling place here and follow us on social media where we have gathered advice on how to vote for the proposals and more..
To see photos of the lively FAIR RENT RALLY on Thursday go here.
Volunteer for the CHRIS MARTE Campaign between now and election day
Click here for early voting
Click here for election day
We are still painting the mural by Marisela Vanegas! Come today at noon-6pm (Essex and Grand) to help paint (and next week too)! Keep an eye on on our calendar or email us to join.
And the Jing Fong Picket continues. Wednesday to Sunday every week. Join us!
Next AAD Monty meeting will be Tuesday, November 9th. RSVP to join! All are welcome..
RIDE FOR THE PARKSATURDAY, OCTOBER 23th, noon (start north of the tennis courts)
On Saturday October 23rd at 12 noon, community residents and supporters on bicycles, scooters, skateboards, wheelchairs, and any other kind of wheels will be rallying at the Labyrinth to oppose its destruction of East River Park. Meet just north of the tennis courts (between the Delancey St. and Houston St. entrances). The ride is sponsored by East River Park Action www.eastriverparkaction.org, Sixth Street Community Center www.sixthstreetcenter.org, Coalition to Protect Chinatown & Lower East Side http://peoplefirstnyc.org and East River Park Conservancy www.eastriverparkconservancy.org
The East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) project, what the community calls the “Kill the Park” plan, will bulldoze every bit of the park including 1,000 trees, sports fields, natural spaces and picnic areas. 47 acres of living parkland will be buried under 8 feet of landfill to create a new park with more concrete and artificial turf at a cost of over $1.5 billion.
“How long does it take to replace an 80 year old tree? The park and trees that have been here for decades continue to protect us while this plan will decimate an entire ecosystem and leave us completely vulnerable to floods and rain. It's an obscene affront and betrayal to our community,” states community resident Jessica Hall.
Many residents are concerned that the ESCR plan will be harmful to the community’s health by causing more respiratory problems in the middle of a pandemic. Construction will expose them to more toxic particles with the one million tons of landfill to be dumped on the park.
The community’s far less destructive plan for a berm along the FDR Drive with green decking over it (vetoed by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2018) would protect the community from floods and greenhouse gas emissions while preserving the largest green space below Central Park.
The plan for the rally is for riders to circle the loop around the park and then ride to deliver their demands at a rally and press conference at City Hall. The ride begins at noon in East River Park. Riders will arrive at City Hall at approximately 2pm. The demands are:
● A halt to the current plan
● A new, independent environmental impact review
● A return to the original vision for the park that works with nature, not against it
● Serious transportation alternatives to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions on the FDR Drive
● Construction of a green deck over the FDR Drive
COMMUNITY ART AND HEALTH FAIRSUNDAY, OCTOBER 24th, noon-6pm in front of MoCA (215 Center Street in Manhattan)with a special short program and performance at 12:15pm
The Chinatown and the Lower East Side communities are collaborating with concerned artists to host an art and health fair, addressing the issues of racism, displacement and the health challenges that so many of us are facing. Organized by the Coalition to Protect Chinatown and LES and Peter Kwong Immigrant Workers Learning Center, the event will be located in front of the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) to support the Chinatown workers’ ongoing picket line against the museum’s racism and selling out of our community.
Come join us to see works by artists in the Lower East Side, Chinatown and other communities facing the same issues, with photos, paintings and poetry performance on topics ranging from reopening Jing Fong dining room to defending precious green space, as well as calling out police brutality and stopping luxury towers and Mayor de Blasio’s racist displacement agenda. Also in the exhibit are historic photos of Chinatown workers fighting against racism and to improve their working conditions, which are often ignored by elite cultural institutions like MOCA.The exhibit inspires us all to join the fight to protect Chinatown and the Lower East Side from racism, displacement and the destruction of people’s wellbeing, and makes it clear that neither the City nor sellout institutions like MOCA represent the interests of our community!organized by The Coalition to Protect Chinatown & the Lower East SidePlease sign the petition