For State Assembly member Daniel O’Donnell, Manhattan Valley is a neighborhood that does not get enough attention. O’Donnell, at a local forum on Saturday, said that it is a unique area, where residents grow attached to the community, but due to high rents, cannot always stay.
O’Donnell, who represents Manhattan Valley and other sections of the Upper West Side, hosted a public forum on this specific area—which extends from 110th to 96th streets, bordered by Central Park and Broadway. The forum, which aimed to solicit feedback about the neighborhood’s problems and strengths, focused heavily on affordable housing and small businesses.
Held at the Red Oak Apartments on 106th Street, the event was part of a series sponsored by the Pratt Institute—which has done research on the social issues of the area.
Addressing a crowd of neighborhood residents, O’Donnell first lamented the fact that the neighborhood was “so often overlooked” compared to adjoining areas.
“We have a rich history, and we have people who have a long-term connection to the community,” he said.
“And you have, obviously, housing needs, because the housing stock is old, and many people have a difficult time staying. People get raised here and succeed here, but they won’t be able to stay in this location,” O’Donnell added.
He said the purpose of the event was to identify the best way interested neighborhood residents can collaborate and identify the important issues that plague the area—so that the government in turn can effectively address these local concerns.
“We have a great number of social service providers, but oftentimes those providers don’t interact and interconnect with one another in the most efficient way,” he said.
In the first phase of the event, groups of residents made lists of the area’s assets and challenges.
Complaints were widespread and wide-ranging, from wanting to see more youth programs, to increasing Spanish-language outreach to adding more public space.
“We need rent control,” resident Steve Max said. “We need strength in small business rent control.”
Ken Coughlin, a member of Community Board 7, said that he wanted to “repurpose the streets,” which he felt were being thought of “too much as parking space and not enough as a public area.”
On issues of housing, he added, “Landlords have been chasing people out of their houses because developers and the city are giving them more money.”
When residents ranked the issues they raised from most to least pressing in phase two of the event, protecting rent-controlled and affordable housing came out as the most important.
A related issue, which also scored highly, was the need to support small businesses and stop outside developers from overrunning the area.
The third portion of the event, which brought the discussion tables together for a debate, brought the two topics together.
Glory Ann Kerstein, president of the Duke Ellington Boulevard Neighborhood Association, spoke at length about problems of rent hikes.
“A major, major problem here in Manhattan Valley is affordable rents. If you look at the Pratt report, two out of every three people in the community are renters. But still, rents are going sky high. … We have to make our representatives in Albany responsive and pass housing legislation,” she said.
Kerstein in an interview said that though these neighborhood forums are important stepping stones, they are not ends in themselves.
“If we don’t do anything after we close this meeting, we’re the big failures. It’s up to us.”
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