Top photo by Lola Sáenz
A holiday front window view at the great Academy Records on 12th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue.
Of course, he missed going into the store, said his wife and partner of 42 years Randy Klein. "He would go in every day with gusto. Never angry or with frustration."Phil and Randy Klein are a New York story if ever there was one. Having met 43 years ago at a bus stop in front of the New York Public Library, they were both going to the same stop at 34th Street to Penn Station — one to Flushing and the other to Long Island. That became a ride of love, and they married a year later in 1982.You could say that fateful meeting started them off on the same road into a shared future that led to Whiskers Holistic Pet Care. Born from their commitment to trying to save their own dog from cancer and the frustration and anger with traditional recommendations and medicine.
The decision comes suddenly as the public was alerted in the last three weeks that the hospital would close by summer 2024. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic’s wider exposure of systemic inequities in New York City's health care system, particularly in regard to the increasingly low levels of inpatient beds provided to under-served communities, the community is rallying to demand the availability of services.With the closure of Mount Sinai Beth Israel, there will be one hospital south of 23rd Street, an area that has a population of 400,000 people. Councilmember Rivera will lead a rally letting Mt. Sinai know that we need our hospital!
In January 2019, the developers sued New York City, the City Council and Councilmember Carlina Rivera over rejecting their Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) application for the project.
[T]he LPC voted to approve the development next door to the Merchant's House, despite overwhelming and unanimous opposition from the community, preservation organizations, public officials and, of course, from the Merchant's House and our engineers and preservation architects.When asked, the developer's engineers admitted that they have no data about what standards are appropriate when dealing with historic decorative plaster. Further, none of the participants today was aware of the plaster study that confirmed irreparable damage will take place.The LPC mandated that certain standards relating to vibration monitoring be established. However, even the most state-of-the-art vibration monitoring systems only announce when the vibration limit has been reached — at which point the damage has already occurred.Today's vote by the LPC to greenlight a development that is certain to cause irreparable damage to the Merchant's House Museum is a warning to every other landmark in New York City. If the Merchant's House, one of New York's most treasured historical assets, can be subjected to adjacent construction that will destroy its historic fabric, then every landmark in New York City is at risk.This decision, even if reversed, will be a permanent stain on the Commission, which has failed in its existential duty to protect Manhattan’s first and New York City’s oldest residential landmark. The Merchant’s House Museum will take aggressive legal action to halt this unacceptable development.Thank you to all who wrote letters of support to the LPC and to those who were able to attend or listen to the meeting today. We couldn't do it without you.