Dear Neighbors-

This is an important follow-up on the proposed Marine Transfer Station (MTS) for garbage truck-to-barge transfer at East 91st Street – please sign the online petition 

As a result of Monday’s meeting at the Stanley Isaacs Center with members of Community Board 8 and more than 250 neighborhood residents in attendance, we learned that we have once again been caught off guard. In Council Member Jessica Lappin’s May Newsletter the success in thwarting the development of the Marine Transfer Station (due to lack of funding as a result of the City budget crisis) was the lead story. Everyone was lulled into a false sense of security. The ink on Lappin’s Newsletter was still wet when $125 million was found in the city’s Capital Budget and the MTS at 91st St. was back for a vote. Mayor Bloomberg wants the MTS and Speaker and Council Member Christine Quinn is supporting the Mayor. The effort to stop this development MUST be initiated and successfully stopped by the time the city’s budget is voted on JUNE 30th.

We are racing against the clock! The City Council has to be convinced to vote against the MTS at East 91st Street.

Should the City succeed in building the MTS it will negatively impact our diverse and densely populated neighborhood both economically and environmentally. The proposed plan has the MTS open 24/7 to both city sanitation trucks and private carters. The already poor air quality in our neighborhood will be further compromised by the toxic fumes from the idling garbage trucks as they wait in line. The garbage will attract rats and other vermin as well as scavenging birds that will negatively impact adjacent parks such as Carl Schurz, various neighborhood schools, local businesses, residential buildings and homes as well as the playing fields of Asphalt Green. The   MTS would be built adjacent to the not for profit athletic complex, Asphalt Green (and its entrance will bisect the Aqua Center and the playing fields  that serves more than 100,000 people a year and offers many free community programs. In a city which promotes Green programs and encourages our children and adults to partake in sports and exercise – why would the Mayor take one of New York’s best sporting areas for children and expose them to a toxic environment of a garbage transfer station right next to a high usage sports field. There is something very wrong with this scenario! Alternative sites in Manhattan, that are cost-efficient and do not abut densely populated residential areas, have been repeatedly proposed to the Mayor, as well as rail transfer methods which would be environmentally safer and far more cost effective. The Mayor will not listen to any alternative suggestions. This project will not only cost hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when the City is cutting funding to already overcrowded schools and closing firehouses, but will completely change the neighborhood as we know it!

While we have the support of a number of elected officials including Council Member Lappin and Garodnick and State Assembly Member Kellner, we need every neighborhood resident and business to sign this petition which will be sent to the Mayor’s office, Speaker Christine Quinn, and Council Member Letitia James, Chair of the Sanitation committee, Domenic M. Recchia, Jr., New York City Council Finance Chair.

We also URGENTLY need you to please send emails opposing the East 91st Street Marine Transfer Station to: 

Christine C. Quinn

New York City Council Speaker

speakerquinn@council.nyc.gov

212-788-7210 or 212-564-7757

 Domenic M. Recchia, Jr.

New York City Council Finance Chair

drecchia@council.nyc.gov

212-788-7045 or 718-373-9673

EVERY SIGNATURE &  LETTER  COUNTS to help preserve the health and the economic well being of our residents and our entire community. Pass this information on to your friends and neighbors as well as local businesses. Please go to our website and sign the online petition: www.east93blockassoc.org

Together we can stop the garbage dump, but we need your help!

Sincerely,

The East 93rd Street Block and Neighborhood Association

Watch Jennifer Ratner on WNBC with Chuck Scarborough – click this link Jenifer Ratner on WNBC  

Circle and Picket Tree Guard

We are renaming the block association

East 93rd Street Block and Neighborhood Association

to incorporate our neighbors in the East 90’s.  We would also like to welcome two new board members, Brenda B. Hersh from The Waterford and Melissa A. Murray from East 92^nd Street. We are pleased to be expanding our outreach and our work in the neighborhood and the east 90’s.

The first of our many planned beautification projects will begin next week  – clean up of our tree wells along  both sides of 93rd Street between First and Second Avenue –

We have engaged Green Keepers– Green Keepers is Goddard Riverside’s social purpose business that provides horticulture and sanitation services throughout the New York City area to clean up all the tree wells along both sides of East 93^rd Street. 

• They will remove old brick, dirt, debris, loosen soil as well as add new soil and nutrients to a total of 14 trees and install tree guards on selected trees *. 
•  We will also be installing both perennial and seasonal plantings in the tree wells. 

The work will officially start Wednesday June 1 (weather permitting) and we are very excited  that this project has finally become a reality. This could not have been accomplished without the many donations we have received from our residents, building owers and neighborhood businesses.

*We have limited funds so the remaining trees will not receive tree guards at this time – unless we can raise more funds !!! 

Many residents, building owners, and businesses have already joined – many have given more than one donation.   However, we would like to challenge our neighborhood residents to raise money for the remaining trees. 

If you have not already made a contribution or joined the block association  you can make a difference and help add 10 additional tree guards to our block, as well as help with seasonal maintenance and plantings. 

The Tree Guard is being made by Kaufman Iron Works – style D – a circle and picket design and will be sloped to the sidewalk to take into account for parked cars above is a photo of the style of tree guard that will be installed

If residents in the neighborhood would like to contribute to the tree guard installations the cost per tree guard is $800. While this is a tall sum please ask your neighbors if they would consider pitching in any amount to add another tree guard, pay for seasonal plantings or  maintenance.  If you haven’t joined our organization it’s as  little as $5.00 a year and can be paid by credit card on our website any amount will help with the beautification of our street and neighborhood.

Please help water the trees and the plantings !

To keep the trees and plantings attractive and healthy it is very important that they get enough water. As you well know, summers in New York  have their share of very hot days and often periods of drought. We very much need the assistance of the superintendents on the block. 

We are also designing signs for each tree well to remind our neighbors with pets to bring their dog to the curb and keep our tree wells litter free ! 

Let’s improve the quality of the streetscape in the East 90’s.  After so many years of neglect our streets can and will improve with the help of our residents!!!!

For more information or if you would like to know which trees still need tree guards, learn more about our organization or to donate, please visit out website at www.east93blockassoc.org

We would like to thank MillionTreesNYC for the four new trees that were planted on East 93rd Street between First and Second Ave. this week.

Please support our fellow neighborhood organization — 93rd Street Beautification Association on July 19th when they present at Community Board 8: 93rd Street Beautification Association

Keeping Our Block Historic & Green

www.savemarxbrothersplace.wordpress.com

Come One, Come All To Hear Marx Brothers Place at CB8 93rd Street Beautification Association co-chairs, Leslee Browning & Susan Kathryn Hefti, cordially invite you to attend, write about, blog about, tweet about, honk about, talk about, broadcast about, post about, testify at, cheer us on or otherwise demonstrate your support for our July 19th presentation to Community Board 8’s Landmarks Committee – which is finally scheduled to hear the Association’s Request for Evaluation (RFE) asking the city to extend the Carnegie Hill Historic District one block east so as to include historic Marx Brothers Place! Please join us on Monday, July 19 at 6:30pm at Hunter College School of Social Work – 129 East 79th Street – in the Hexter Lounge – when the Association will present its RFE to CB8’s Landmarks Committee.

And please be sure to bring all your friends; neighbors; colleagues; aunts; uncles; mothers; babies; puppies; grandparents; any unattended unicycles you might see on the sidewalk; pet monkeys (if you don’t have a pet monkey, please consider adopting one at www.SaveAMonkey.com); Giraffes; Lions; Tigers; Bears; Harpo horns; Groucho glasses (with nose & mustache); Animal Crackers; Flags; Posters; Bumper Stickers; Megaphones; Trumpets; Drums; Confetti or anthing else you think would make for a rollicking good time!

The Association would also like to thank NY Theater Critic & Huffington Post contributor Leonard Jacobs for writing about our efforts to protect our beloved block on his popular web site The Clyde Fitch Report. Please check out Jacobs’ most recent piece about historic Marx Brothers Place by just clicking on this link.

Thanks for your continued interest in historic Marx Brothers Place in Carnegie Hill! We hope to see you all on Monday evening, July 19th at the CB8 Landmarks Committee Meeting!

Thanks for your continued interest in historic Marx Brothers Place ! For more information about the 93rd Street Beautification Association or Marx Brothers Place, please contact us at 93rdst.beautification@gmail.com or 212.969.8138 or visit our blogs at: Save Marx Brothers Place or The Marx Brothers Place Report.

If you wish to make a tax-deductible contribution to help keep the preservation campaign alive, please just click on this link. And please don’t forget to visit our YouTube Channel Page for all of our latest videos and movies. We also invite you to join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or view our Marx Brothers Place MySpace profile.