Linda Rosenthal

Extell Development has dropped its push to bring Costco to its planned "Riverside Center" site on the Upper West Side, part of the larger Riverside South development by the West Side Highway.

The developer told elected officials this morning that the planned store was off the table, dropping a controversial element of their plan, which calls for up to 2,500 apartments in a series of five towers between 59th and 61st streets.

From the West Side Spirit:

"Gary Barnett has heard the concerns of the community, the community board, and elected officials as well as City Planning Commission Chair Amanda Burden and her staff and has therefore eliminated Costco and 500 parking spaces from Riverside Center," said George Arzt, Extell's spokesman.

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Extell Development is in talks with discount bulk retailer Costco to occupy a large underground store as part of a new 3.3 million-square-foot development of mostly residential buildings on the Upper West Side.

Extell, led by Gary Barnett, is seeking to move forward on developing the last parcels of Riverside South, the 55-acre swath of Upper West Side land known as Trump City when Donald Trump first started planning the complex in the 1980s. The company's plans for the final parcels between 59th and 61st streets would need approval of the City Council and City Planning Commission, as the firm is seeking to change the initial restrictions to allow for more density and different uses (the original development planned for a commercial tower for NBC at the site).  read more »

Here’s a shot from the breakfast hosted Sunday morning by the Council of Orthodox Jewish Organizations on the West Side, which, as Grace Rauh noted, attracted nearly every 2009 candidate for citywide office.  read more »

Practically every major Democrat in the city was at the corner of 14th Street and First Avenue yesterday afternoon to announce the formation of a what they say is the largest housing coalition in the city’s history.

The group, New York Is Our Home, includes labor and tenant groups, the Working Families Party and others.

The most heated rhetoric (video here) came from the Central Labor Council's Ed Ott, who said, “The price of housing in this city is effectively theft” and that affordable housing units, like the ones in Stuyvesant Town behind him, “are being stolen by the greed of developers and the market.”

Which drew applause and energetic head nods from the crowd of elected officials behind him.

In attendance at the rally were Christine Quinn, Bill Thompson, Betsy Gotbaum, Tom Duane, John Sabini, Ruben Diaz, Jr., Keith Wright, Jonathan Bing, Linda Rosenthal, Dan Garodnick, Eric Gioia and Charles Barron, among others. Most of them spoke but none matched Ott’s directness.

After the speeches, the group formed a human chain around Stuy Town, which is several blocks long, and marched down to Union Square.

Practically every major Democrat in the city was at the corner of 14th Street and First Avenue yesterday afternoon to announce the formation of a what they say is the largest housing coalition in the city’s history.

The group, New York Is Our Home, includes labor and tenant groups, the Working Families Party and others.

The most heated rhetoric (video here) came from the Central Labor Council's Ed Ott, who said, “The price of housing in this city is effectively theft” and that affordable housing units, like the ones in Stuyvesant Town behind him, “are being stolen by the greed of developers and the market.”

Which drew applause and energetic head nods from the crowd of elected officials behind him.

In attendance at the rally were Christine Quinn, Bill Thompson, Betsy Gotbaum, Tom Duane, John Sabini, Ruben Diaz, Jr., Keith Wright, Jonathan Bing, Linda Rosenthal, Dan Garodnick, Eric Gioia and Charles Barron, among others. Most of them spoke but none matched Ott’s directness.

After the speeches, the group formed a human chain around Stuy Town, which is several blocks long, and marched down to Union Square.

UPDATE: Adolfo Carrion, Brian Kavanagh and Adam Clayton Powell IV also attended.

The Upper West Side’s special election on Feb.  read more »

The Upper West Side’s special election on Feb.  read more »

Brian Kavanagh, the second-place finisher in a crowded East Side City Council race last year, didn't contest the special election to the State Assembly by Sylvia Friedman yesterday in an essentially uncontested race.

But a recent call to Knickerbocker SKD, Kavanagh's consultants (who also worked for Mike, Scott Stringer, and new West Side assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal) found that their voicemail now has an option for "Kavanagh for Assembly."

This could produce one of the year's harder-fought primaries. Among other factors, Friedman didn't have to raise much money for her insider-driven Assembly win; Kavanagh broke $100,000 for his Council race, and a source says he's already brought in $60,000 for this fall.

The complex, weighted County Committee members' vote on who will get the Democratic nomination to succeed two departing members of the State Assembly is by definition an inside process, but yesterday's results suggest that it isn't quite as under control as, say, the bygone institution of judicial conventions. (Nostalgia sets in fast around here!)

Scott Stringer's choice to take his West Side seat, Linda Rosenthal, won a first round victory, albeit over a real challenge; but on the East Side, Sylvia Friedman Freedman beat Steve Sanders's preferred candidate for his seat.

My story a couple of weeks ago about the new West Side machine -- Tammany, the headline writer called it -- was truer than I knew. Jerry Nadler and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer -- freshly elected on a "reform" platform -- have spent the past few days leaning hard on County Committee members, in order to swing the vote to their favored candidate for State Assembly, Linda Rosenthal.

It's an unreformed, utterly inside process that gives a candidate the Democratic line and big leg up in the February special election.

"I felt like I was in some backwater town in Arkansas or something," said Mike Lupinacci, an outsider running on an education platform who made his way to a rules committee meeting one recent evening. "It's like the 19th century -- they don't know how to use modern technology.... They've just decided they think Linda's the person, which is fine, but the County Committee members won't even have met most of us until Sunday."

I asked him if this seemed like a "reform" process.

"Oh please. Give me a break. They're not even reforming their own back yard. The whole thing is so pathetic."

Another outsider, Charles Simon, said he hadn't been following the process closely.  read more »

"It's kind of old-school," he said. "I did have a few conversations with Scott over the course of the past several months in which Scott said he was happy with the process and he wasn't looking ot play kingmaker."

The Beep apparently changed his mind.

Some of the numbers are in for the contest to replace Scott Stringer in the State Assembly, a race whose first round will be fought in a vote of Democratic State Committee members sometime soon, and which will really be decided in what's expected to be a contested Democratic Primary in the fall.

Charles Simon leads the pack with $174,000 on hand, which includes a $100,000 loan from himself. Marc Landis has $123,600 on hand. And Linda Rosenthal, the Nadler staffer who is seen as a frontrunner, has just $10,000.  read more »

Of course, the state committee race is pretty much free. The fall primary probably won't be though.