Artists Against Williamsburg/Greenpoint Rezoning Plan
Posted February 26th, 2005 by Molly
The Change You Want to See Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn would like to invite you to huddle up this Sunday at 3pm. We’re drafting a dream team of creative folk to take on Dr. Doctoroff and the city’s insidious Williamsburg/Greenpoint Rezoning Plan. This is one of the most aggressive rezonings in NYC history. Don’t get me wrong… brownfields are eyesores and a waste of space. And they make your hair fall out if you live too close to them. Development can be a great thing. It can revitalize the local economy, give businesses a boost. But there’s good development and there’s bad development.Come plug in at this planning meeting so’s we can raise a ruckus and paint a picture of the world that we want to see.
WHERE: The Change You Want to See Gallery, 84 Havemeyer St @
Metropolitan Ave (across from Black Betty’s)
WHEN: 3pm, Sunday, February 27
WHAT: planning powwow to save our city
RSVP: beka [at] notanalternative.net
The city’s plan will create as many as 22 new 40-story luxury condos along the East River, will privatize and limit access to the waterfront, it provides no minimum requirement on low-income housing, will kick out the light industries in W’burg (metal shops, furniture shops, etc), won’t add parks or green space, won’t re-open the firehouse, won’t increase L or G train service, but will bring 40,000 new higher-income residents to the hood. Instant Soho-fication on steroids. You, me, local industry and businesses, and long-time residents…PRICED OUT.
We have to move fast…there are just a few months to affect the process. A number of bad apples with dollar signs in their eyes and designs on development have partnered with the Mayor. They seek to push the diversity and creative energy that defines the Big Apple toward the fate that has destroyed the core of so many small towns across the country. There’s been a lot of resistance to their rotten plan, from religious institutions, community groups, schools, and local residents. But the creative community needs to step up to the plate to support this work. We can fight back to stop the homogenization and borification of our neighborhoods. To preserve the diverse cultural landscape of our mixed-use, mixed income communities.
Invitees Include Reps From: Art Hijack, Art is Permitted Everywhere, Autonomedia,
AWAG (Anti-War Action Group), Axis of Eve, Black Label Bike Club, Blacked Out Media, Block Magazine, Bowery Poetry Club, Breaking in Style, Cinders, Circus Amok, Complacent.org, Flavorpill, Glassbead Video Collective, Greene Dragon, HOWL Festival, Hungry March Band, Independent Media Center, L Magazine, Madagascar Institute, Music for America, NoRNC Bike Project, North Brooklyn Alliance, Not an Alternative/The Change You Want to See, Oh De Twirlette, Ohms Video Collective, Repo History, Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir, Ring Out, Rubulad, THAW (Theaters Against the War), The City Reliquary, The Eh Team, The Lucky Cat, The Roundtable, The Williamsburg Warriors, Toyshop Collective, Visual Resistance, Vomitorium
About us: The Change You Want to See Gallery and Convergence Stage is a project of Not an Alternative, a Brooklyn-based arts collective. In support of creative resistance to the Republican National Convention last summer, Not an Alternative offered resources to artists and groups in the form of a space, arts materials, production crews, and organizing support. Not an Alternative also produced and curated larger-scale events including Majority Whipped at WhiteBox in Chelsea, and the NEO-CONey Island Block Party and Fashion Show.
