ACORN Protesters Storm The Beacon Tower
The anti-gentrification movement stepped it up a notch yesterday with ACORN protesters storming the open house at the Beacon Tower, Shaya Boymelgreen’s 23-story condo development at 85 Adams in Dumbo. What a shame! What a pity! We can’t live in New York City, the 50-odd protesters chanted while blanketing the sales office with flyers that…
The anti-gentrification movement stepped it up a notch yesterday with ACORN protesters storming the open house at the Beacon Tower, Shaya Boymelgreen’s 23-story condo development at 85 Adams in Dumbo. What a shame! What a pity! We can’t live in New York City, the 50-odd protesters chanted while blanketing the sales office with flyers that read, Beacon Tower developers get rich off the backs of working families.” The protesters main gripe? That luxury projects like the Beacon still receive tax breaks in a holdover from a program started in the 1970s to stimulated development. The ambushed Corcoran agents manning the open house called in the cops who removed the protesters. Prospective buyers didn’t appear to be too sympathetic to the cause. “Tell them to get jobs and go live in the projects,” said Jenny Malone, who was there checking out apartments. “People just want something for nothing.”
Activists Protest Dumbo Condos [Metro]
More coverage in the print edition.
New Yorker,
Your attitude is typical of the holier-than-thou types that permeate NYC. You lose your patience with anyone who disagrees with your views.
I also love how the demonstrators were the ones who disrupted the open-house and had to be escorted out by law enforcement, yet it is the realtors, developers, and prospective buyers who are being excoriated as the bad guys. It’s interesting how paternalistic liberals have such low expectations of poor people in terms of behavior.
Being poor is tied to several basic factors: education, marriage or partnership, and children. Anyone with little formal education who fails to form some sort of union with a partner and who has one or more children before age 25 will most likely wind up poor. It’s an unpopular truth, and screaming at open houses or beseeching well-to-do people to give away their wealth will never change that.
Amazing how so many people shift this debate to their attitudes about low income people!
Are you really willing to subsidize owners of $600,000 to $2million dollar condos so that they only have to pay $22-$34 a month in property taxes?
I’d rather see some of this tax subsidy go towards developers who are willing to offer a broader range of affordable units, not to Boymelgreen and other luxury housing developers.
Go ACORN!
Just look at the international news and you will see that as the gap between rich and poor grows in many countries there is a significant increase in social disruptions. As the poet said some decades ago: “The revolution will not be televised, the revolution will be live”.
I for one do not want to live in such interesting times. And, as a native NY’r I do not want this city turned into a playground for the wealthy. We need a good balance of classes and we need to make sure that we use our tax money to increase the overall health of our society directly and not through some kind of trickle-down (sounds like piss to me) economics.
this amazing machine of a city has come this far and is what it is because of the network of people rich and poor and middle class that make its wheels turn on a daily basis. we all make it happen, we all contribute so we all deserve the same amount of respect.
to anonymous: most people up and down the social ladder bust their asses every day. any person well educated on social issues and patterns knows that the poor arent poor because they dont work hard. that is completly ignorant to say. your optimism as far as the money going back into the city to build the second ave. line, is cute.
these people need to grow the F*** up and stop acting like bratty children who don’t want to share the sand box. and no! people shouldnt have to leave the city or work in another borough or live with their parents. that is the most ridiculous list of suggestions you could have possibly listed. I’m curious ANonymous, are you from new york city or are you some kind of midwest transplant?
Jism, “cunt-nest” is a wonderful lil description. looks like jenny there will fit in nicely.
Just a quick response to the anonymous person who responded to me: You are correct that the real focus should be on affecting local change. But I would argue that the gap between rich and poor people has nothing to do with hard work. I would also suggest that tempering our brand of cut-throat capitalism with some of the tenets of communism would make our country better. More than anything, I just hate to see those with all the advantages of money and education turn their backs on those who are often too entrenched in the disfunction of poverty to pull themselves out by their own bootstraps.
Shrieking and disruption are all that ACORN knows. Their tactics have proven beneficial with Bruce Ratner (though a good case can be made that the affordable housing in the Atlantic Yards is not truly affordable), but in this case it seems that they turned off more people than converted.
tinarina, here is a dissection of your points.
sure there are poor people who work hard, and they will inherit a better life, at least the smart ones will. these protesters arent making a difference in their personal lives.
here is a list of places people can live that are not 2 hours away. i know plenty of middle class people who commute from the burbs that are around 2 hours away and they are not complaining. but here is a list anyway:
1. parents house
2. not in nyc, work somewhere else
3. plenty of places in bk
4. plenty of places in queens
5. plenty of places in si
6. plenty of places in the bronx
need i say more, exaggerating does not make your argument stronger.
Anon 10:12–C’mon, there are plenty of poor people who work very hard–much harder than 20-30 years ago when light manufacturing was a good and stable job in NYC.
Now folks with a high school degree or less work in the service economy with its largely minumum wage jobs–so people work multiple jobs to get by. Where should these people live? Two hours away? Who will wait on you at Starbucks?
Dear “you people suck…”,
Wake up. Take a look at how New Jersey’s high taxes has produced a huge web of NEW public transportation. And we only have the AirTrain to show. Shame on you if you’re about to defend all of the holdout wackos in rent-controlled apartments (most of whom are able MIDDLE-CLASS) who contribute NOTHING finacially to NYC but only whine and like Jenny said “want something for nothing.”
There’s a reason why when you go to he Met Opera and open up the program and the top donors are listed first because their ONE contribution is equivalent to 500 other people contributing in the lowest category. Shouldn’t the same respect be for taxpayers?