Bill Rudin Tarnishes Family Name

By George Capsis

CONDOS COME FIRST: Bill Rudin, pictured with his wife Ophelia."Why aren't we getting into the Times?" Dr. David Kaufman, who co-heads the coalition to return a hospital to the West Village, quietly asked—and I thought, "Why not?" With more than 8,000 signatures on a petition, 500 people turning up for a street rally and a hard core of activists clamoring at every community meeting, why—for more than a year—have we remained invisible to The New York Times?

And then, on Sunday, October 16 comes this full-page article on a proposal to make the 15,000-square-foot, so-called "park" across from the hospital into a memorial and underground museum for New York's more than 100,000 AIDS victims.

But, hey, wait—one whole page and no mention of the thousands of living West Villagers who have been clamoring to get a hospital back?

So I called the Times Ombudsman Office and spoke to a very nice Justin Porter and he was sympathetic and oh yes he echoed my laments, but in the end he sent an e-mail to say the ombudsman's job was to correct errors, not to "push for coverage," and I should take to it up with Anemona Hartocollis who covers hospitals for the Times—and then Justin added, "who I am told, you have already been in contact with."

Future Rudin Condo Owners Are Among 99%

1% WANNABEES?: The playful Billionaires for Plutocracy joined protesters in Zuccotti Park on October 5. Photo by Maggie Berkvist.Rudin’s future condo owners are dupes as much as any of us, argues Janet Stern Capron. 

 By Janet Stern Capron 

First, a quick impression of the marchers: On Wednesday, October 5, I met with the thousands of other demonstrators at City Hall and marched peacefully and even serenely with everyone down to Zuccotti Park. The Working Families Party billed the march as, “The Community & Labor March on Wall Street (against corporate greed and the Big Banks).” Initially, the media tried to characterize the protesters as young and marginal; this got me riled up. I was there, and I know what I saw in vast numbers the most generic, heterogeneous crowd of people imaginable.

There is almost no way to characterize the group: all ages, from little children walking with their parents to doddering old folks with canes; all classes, from working poor to picketing union members to the Patagonia-clad bourgeoisie; all colors—every race and background that we are used to seeing around town gathered together to protest. Truly remarkable, and it was clear, unstoppable.

Occupy Wall Street Joins Hospital Fight

Rousing speeches at the Occupy Wall Street Rally spur the fight for a West Side hospital.

MAKING THEIR VOICES HEARD: Marchers arrive at St. Vincent's Hospital, Wednesday, October 26. Photo by G.K. Wallace

Occupy Wall Street joined forces with the Coalition for a New Village Hospital on Wednesday, October 26, to march and rally in front of the shuttered St. Vincent’s Hospital in support of restoring a hospital to the Lower West Side. Attorney-activist-organizer Yetta Kurland and Dr. David Kaufman, co-heads of CNVH, both spoke at the rally. This is Dr. Kaufman’s speech.

I will keep this tragically simple and short. Almost exactly 18 months ago St. Vincent’s Hospital closed. Prior to closure, the hospital treated 61,000 people in its Level I Trauma Emergency Room; 13,500 of those people were so critically ill or injured that they required immediate admission to the hospital. Every day of every year the hospital had at least 350 people in the intensive care units, the coronary care units, the pediatric intensive care units, the psychiatry units and the general medical surgical units. The operating rooms performed surgery on hundreds of patients every week of the year. The outpatient clinic system treated tens of thousands of patients a year.

Our 10,000-member Coalition for a New Village Hospital has attended and spoken at every public meeting available to us. For 18 months we have requested meetings with the Commissioner of Health, the Mayor, the Governor, the Attorney General, City Council members like Quinn, even the Rudins and NSLIJ. We have been met only with silence. No response. Nothing.