Posted Jan 12, 2024, 5:12 PM
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New Yorker for life
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Borough of Jersey
Posts: 56,199
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• Video Link
https://gothamist.com/news/midtown-c...y-at-town-hall
Midtown community compares potential casino plan cash to ‘blood money’ at town hall
By Charles Lane
Jan 11, 2024
Quote:
Through shouts and heckling, developers pitched a $10 billion casino for Midtown East that would include a five-acre park, a museum, a 1,200-room hotel, restaurants, entertainment venues and 1,325 units of housing – 38% of which will be deemed affordable.
Representatives for the Soloviev Group dubbed the project Freedom Plaza and promised the creation of an independently-controlled community fund that would direct 2% of the casino’s back to the neighborhood. Still, community members who spoke at Thursday night’s forum overwhelmingly opposed it, comparing the developer to a “drug dealer” and calling the community fund “blood money.”
“I do not believe, deep in my heart, that a casino should come to a residential neighborhood,” said a woman who only identified herself as Amy who lived above the proposed location at First Avenue between 38th and 41st streets.
Residents at the town hall complained about having to potentially trade more traffic and crime in order to receive more affordable housing.
“The casino is the economic engine for the affordable housing,” said Robert Huberman, the Soloviev Group’s land use attorney. “Without the casino, we would not be developing the affordable housing.”
.....“We certainly welcome the money that it brings, but it also brings–” Robert Gottheim, district director for U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, tried to say before the audience began yelling, “blood money.”
“It may be blood money, but the money is coming,” Gottheim said.
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