Real Estate Board of New York Archives

Protesters Oppose RAD/PACT Privatisation and Demolition Public Housing Plan in Chelsea

A group of NYCHA public housing tenants and preservation activists gathered for a protest march on Thursday, Oct. 2. The protest began in the area in front of 224 W. 30th St., where Councilmember Erik Bottcher (D-Chelsea) maintains a district office.

Councilmember Bottcher has discretion over the approval or rejection of the RAD/PACT privatisation and demolition of Fulton Houses and Elliott-Chelsea public housing developments in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. He supports the upward transfer of wealth from a cash-strapped Local Public Housing Authority to MAGA billionaire Stephen Ross, who owns Hudson Yards. There plan is disastrous to public housing residents on many levels, including that this is a naked land grab by a donor and supporter of President Donald Trump’s White Nationalist agenda. The march concluded at Councilmember Bottcher’s apartment building, located at 415 W. 24th St.

The protest march was broadcast from both locations via the Citizen app, where it accumulated over 17,000 views amongst residents primarily concerned with quality of life issues in Chelsea.

Councilmember Bottcher faces a Nov. 4 general election against community activist Dominick Romeo, an independent.

Democrats will do the bidding of MAGA billionaires before they will answer to NYCHA public housing residents.

To celebrate the REBNY’s successful rezoning of the Midtown South section of Manhattan, Councilmember Erik Bottcher (D-District 3) took a walk alongst 34th Street with Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani (DSA-A.D. 36). Their walk was timed to gamely show for the cameras who would make the trip fastest : The pair of Democrats or the crosstown M34 bus.

The competition between the political pedestrians and the surface mass transit was meant to promote the idea of transforming 34th Street into a busway that would eliminate vehicular traffic in favour of improving the performance of the crosstown bus route. It was a noble gesture of a manufactured, public benefit from the controversial Midtown South rezoning, even though it would likely lead to the death of small businesses in a major retail corridor, much like how 14th Street was transformed into a ghost town after its own busway conversion.

The amount of community-crushing development about to befall Chelsea, Midtown South, and Times Square is unimaginable. Non-stop gentrification was always the goal of REBNY-adjacent Democrats.

We have the Midtown South rezoning, the new Port Authority bus terminal, the Hudson Yards expansion, a possible casino (Larry Silverstein or Jay-Z), a new Trump-controlled Penn Station, a high-rise in the Meatpacking District, and now the RAD/PACT privatisation and demolition of NYCHA. How much construction can we take in our community ? Democrats will roll over, spread their cheeks, and let REBNY jam its throbbing, blood funnel into anything that smells like money.

These big budget projects are why Democrats have lost their base, because there’s always money for upward transfers of wealth, like from a cash-strapped NYCHA to certain REBNY members in the real estate development industry, but there’s no there there to address the extremes of exploitation in late-stage Capitalism. There’s no help for the Democratic Party’s base, especially not amidst a housing crisis.

And for Councilmember Bottcher and Assemblymember Mamdani to gaslight voters into believing that a busway on 34th Street was the perfect solution to a housing crisis, the inflation in consumer prices, and the MAGA assault on the republic was exemplary of how the Democratic Party has lost touch with reality. The Democrats are united in ending public housing, and their inferior consolation prize is a busway. Only those disassociated from reality would believe this gaslighting.