Court Reverses - Bloomberg, NYU Lose + Other Local News

Excellent news for saving at least some of the West Village south from NYU and the other developers! This is part of my neighborhood, where I work, walk, shop and live.

This is part of what they want to tear down.

In connection with the above story -- lately on Bleecker Street, kids have been stopping me, asking where to find the places that are in the Coen Brothers latest film, Inside Llewyn Davis, set in the Village folk scene back then. All I can do is roll my eyes and say, "That stuff was all gone even before I got here!" Sure some of the sites were still here in the early 80's but they were pretty much deader 'n a horse shoe nail in 2014  winter, and were trying anything and everything else -- while rents started soaring. But a folk scene in the Village? Not since Bob Dylan moved on to national and international stages.

This is equally great news! Billionaire Mikey outta here for less than week --  here we go. The judge ruled (as if we didn't know!)

The judge, Donna M. Mills, of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, ruled that the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had wrongfully agreed to turn over three public parks to the university to enable construction without first obtaining approval from the State Legislature. 

However, one does wonder if this would be the same ruling if Billionaire Mikey Real Estate Developer was still mayor, he whose private fortune during his 12 -- TWELVE! -- years of wreaking mayoral havoc went from  4 point something billion to 30 point something billion (blind trust my whatsis).  Still, New York Assembly Woman, Deborah Glick,  was part of those leading the fight to stop those towers. And, not incidentally at all, our only super market within many blocks of where I live, and the gardens and parks too, have been saved.

That's the supermarket in the back, the single story edificace, not that tower behind it, of which several are planned by NYU in this stretch of supermarket (serving thousands) and the gardens and park

However,  the fight continues. We haven't won decisively yet. And never will because the NYU real estate developer bottomless pockets won't allow it. But for another year or three or four (or until they can get a mayor back in that cooperates) we have a supermarket and community garden --

The Time Landscape

a goodly portion of which is not planted in anything, but is being put back via entirely voluntary, community effort (though with the cultivation of getting rid of Russian weeds and so on) in the natural habitat of Manhattan Island, called the Time Landscape.  It's currently a  bird and squirrel paradise. The strip is filled with trees and flowers.  You can breathe real oxygen there on the most polluted, heated days. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point a fox might try denning there.

In New Jersey news, he who is a state power, but wants to be national, Gub Christie's got no time for those R-t-bagger types. He's a thug, old-school style. Nevertheless a thug who thinks he can be POTUS and wants to be. If Joe Kennedy could get one of his boys in the White House, by golly he can go there too. Watch me now, watch me -- uno, dos, tres, cuatro -- blam blam blam!

I'm guessing Christie's political fate, if he goes for the R-nom, will be the same as that other false front, sharing the name of one of the Original Gangstas, Giuliani.