This will teach you…
Tonight Adam and I went to the Manhattan Community Board 8 full meeting. We were there in support of a proposal for Greenmarket addition to the Upper East Side. I for one am in favor of as many Greenmarkets as possible. However, I didn’t want to get too involved, because I’ve been in the middle of different projects, etc. I would put my name on petitions and go to the odd meeting.
Boy, was that stupid. More on that later.
One of the locations was in the midst of a neighborhood that feigned community but really didn’t know shit when it came to what really mattered. They showed up in force to this meeting and all gave their opinions. Following is a summary of the “public” portion of the meeting:
Apparently, none of the people who live around this area knew anything about the proposed Greenmarket in a schoolyard. They were outraged when they heard it in the New York Post article. The entire article is posted here, since it was sooooo short.
April 15, 2006 — A food fight is brewing on the Upper East Side - but at least all of the tomatoes thrown will be locally grown.
The neighborhood is planning to bring two new green markets to East 82nd Street, and although most residents are for them, there are notable exceptions.
At a Community Board 8 meeting Tuesday, most neighbors were behind the idea of produce being sold on Saturdays at the two locations, but a handful of co-op board members were opposed to the idea - as was grocer Eli Zabar, according to multiple sources who were at the meeting.
The planned green markets would be at East 82nd Street and York Avenue, in the parking lot of St. Stephen’s Church, and at 82nd and Madison Avenue, in the playground of PS 6.
Gabrielle Langholtz of Greenmarket, which operates 40 open-air produce markets throughout the five boroughs, said some opponents are worried about traffic congestion and parking problems. But, she added, “I think the real reason is that Eli Zabar sees us as competition.”
Zabar did not return numerous calls for comment yesterday.
The board casts its final vote on the plan Wednesday. If approved, Upper East Siders can be enjoying fresh cherries, plums and apricots by June.
They got 83 signatures in 24 hours against this location and got confirmation that everyone save one person they interviewed (how much do you wanna bet they asked 5 people?) did not know about this proposal. My question at this time was, how come I knew about the locations and I wasn’t even looking for any information? If these people were concerned about their community, they would have known about this proposal.
Their loudest complaint was about the rodent problem in that area, which would be heightened by organic refuse. My question is: if it’s such a big problem, shouldn’t you do something more than just complain about it? And hey, someone complained to the right people (the school officials) and steps are being taken to remedy the problem, which won’t be solved overnight.
What should have been among their loudest complaints, but wasn’t, was the trucks coming in early in the morning and waking up the family, as well as the traffic. To the first, the Greenmarket representative said that they have Greenmarkets in residential neighborhoods and haven’t had a problem. To the second I say, why do you have cars when you live and work in the city? The insurance alone for this city is so high that you could save tons of money by taking public transportation every day (the cons of this are a different story altogether.) Oh, I forgot, you all have second homes somewhere that public transportation doesn’t take you.
So my point is - this is an issue of the rich against the poor. There was so much that I wanted to say at the meeting (and still want to say) about their bourgeois crap, but I really couldn’t because that wouldn’t be civil. And we all know I’m a civil person…
Actually, this post is getting too long, and I’m rambling too much, so I’m going to stop shortly.
The big lesson in all this is - if you believe in an issue, find out what you can do to get your opinion heard. Just because you think an idea is good doesn’t mean that everyone thinks said idea is sound. This is a huge problem that is just starting to be remedied by smaller grassroots organizations against…well, pick your enemy. Petitions don’t do much, since corruption on both sides of an issue abound. Just being at a meeting, and (gasp!) speaking out is so valuable. Of course, I really shouldn’t have spoken at this meeting since I would have wailed at the “rich-bitches” that cared more about their precious Metropolitan patrons and their $50,000 cars than about a community that cares about good nutrition and good habits.
Update: As I was writing this post, Adam got a voicemail that both the proposed locations got approved! Apparently the Community Board saw through the complaints made by the residents of the affected Madison Ave neighborhood and voted to approve the measure. So any readers that are anywhere near 82nd between Park and Madison, shop at the new Greenmarket this summer!!!! Even though we live near the other location, we plan to shop at this location occasionally to support the decision made.
BTW, Adam has done a link about this as well. We’re linking to each other, because that’s how we are 
April 26th, 2006 at 9:04 pm
I don’t necessarily think that this is a rich v. poor thing; neighborhoods complain about development. Period. As much as I want a Greenmarket in the neighborhood, I think I would be very concerned if it were going up right next to me. Given that I’ve had some rodent/roach problems living over a restaurant, I might not necessarily jump on board. Granted, people aren’t very self-sacrificing when it comes to the public good if they aren’t seeing an immediate benefit. I mean, look at all the complaints about Sloan-Kettering building too high. For chrissake, they’re trying to cure cancer! So it’s not surprising that the rich residents of the UES would not want something around that (a) disrupts their quiet(ish) neighborhood and (b) brings rats and/or poor people.
And I hate to say it but you went to Brearley; you are the bourgeouis.
April 26th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
And I lived above the Boiler Room. My old apartment had rats, roaches, ants, etc that would come in through the front door and go right under the huge crack in my doorway. My new apartment has had rats, roaches, bugs, etc coming in from the first floor. If the GrrenMarket people here are anything like other people I’ve seen, these areas will be cleaner than they were before. I would love to have a GreenMarket next door to me, and am glad that there are now two within very close walking distance.
May 3rd, 2006 at 10:38 am
It is very much a class issue. The assumption that something like a greenmarket would of course be loud and dirty, associated as it is with the lower castes, is an elitist attitude. To the extent that we middle-class privileged individuals might share those reactions were we in their situation, it stems from our own desire (conscious or not) to be a part of and identify with the more privileged classes slightly above us. And so on up the ziggurat…
Certainly any neighborhood should have some control over what its larger community can impose upon it — hence block organizations, community boards, the whole system — but some people (and some neighborhoods) are more equal than others. Which brings me to my next point.
Wealth and privilege afforded them the ability to mount a strong defense incredibly quickly. Should they have succeeded and then plans for a second greenmarket gone forth in a poorer neighborhood, and if the lower class neighborhood were against it, they would likely not have had the ability to oppose it. This happens over and over with actual negative developments like industrial infrastructure.
I think the fact that there were two proposed locations, one in a wealthier area and one in a poorer area, supports either one of or both of these theories. There was no opposition to the greenmarket in the poorer area. Either they did not have the natural assumption of elites that such a thing would be noisy, dirty and attract poor people — or they did but didn’t have the skills and experience necessary to organize against it (they certainly knew about it, we flyered that neighborhood like the dickens). Or both.
(On the other hand, the flyering could have been the significant variable in this experiment — too bad we learned of the second location later than the first. Possibly it wouldn’t have made a positive difference, serving instead as advance warning to give them more time to find arguments to support their predisposed position — but I’m loathe to make my own class-based assumptions and further perpetuate and compound the problems. We’ll definitely be trying to get all power loci on our side “next time.” It would be nice to have the advantages of wealth and privilege working for us, to the benefit of everyone in the area.)