Upper Green Side

Upper East Side Electronics Recycling

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We all love our electronics — in turns they make our lives easier, more enjoyable, and enhance our abilities. But they’re chock full of lead and other heavy metals, and as the fastest growing portion of our waste stream, it’s often very hard to figure out what to do with them when their lives are over.

That’s why the Carnegie Hill/Yorkville CSA, in conjunction with the Church of the Heavenly Rest and Lower East Side Ecology Center, will be hosting an electronics recycling event on Tuesday, September 19th at The Church of Heavenly Rest on 5th Avenue and 90th Street. Bring your outdated toys and dispose of them responsibly — acceptable electronic equipment includes computers, fax machines, TVs, stereos, cell phones and more.

For more information, see the Carnegie Hill/Yorkville CSA and Lower East Side Ecology Center websites.

UPDATE: Of course, if your electronics are still in working order and you just don’t want them anymore, let someone else get some use out of them. You can try selling them online, or passing them on to people in your community with Freecycle, an innovative project that harnesses the power of e-mail to connect people with things they want to throw away with others who can use those things. The New York City Freecycle group is very large and active.

Upcoming Upper Green Side Meetings

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Late August will be filled with chances to meet Upper East Side citizens concerned about global warming, resource depletion, local quality of life issues and in general creating a more sustainable society. If you haven’t done so already, sign-up for our Meet-Up site which we use to handle our email alerts and invitations to meetings and events. We currently have 56 members, just since February.

First, we will be having a Meet ‘n Greet Party at a member’s apartment on Friday, August 25th. That will be a casual gathering without any formal agenda or activites aside from having a good time and getting to know our neighbors. Please RSVP today!

The next day, Saturday August 26th, Glenn McAnanama will be representing Upper Green Side on a panel discussion of transportation issues prior to a screening of “Contested Streets” a film that shows what NYC might be able to learn how to control automobile congestion from other innovative projects at cities around the world like Copenhagen, Paris, London and Bogata. This event will start at 8pm at Solar 1 (23rd Street and the East River). We encourage you all to turn out for this event.

Then we will have our regular monthly meeting on August 30th at 7pm at our new space in All Souls Unitarian Church (80th Street and Lexington Ave), where we will discuss progress on our various projects and discuss next steps for each. This will begin our regular schedule of monthly meetings which will take place on the last Wednesday of each month and be at All Souls.

Ways of Searching for Green Restaurants

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A few weeks ago when we kicked off our Green Restaurant campaign, I sent a note over to our good friends over at the Yorkville/Carnegie Hill CSA on which restaurants they consider more green than the rest, and they came back with two really good suggestions.

First, you can look up restaurants, health food stores and other interesting shops and organization at Sustainable Table. You can also see which restaurants have chefs that buy from greenmarkets around the city on the CENYC Greenmarket page, click on “Chefs who buy from us. The list is copied below.

And don’t forget to promote the Green Restaurant Association by using the tip suggestion cards.

Continue reading Ways of Searching for Green Restaurants…

Survey Finds Voter Discontent on Traffic Congestion

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Some new survey data on the Mayor’s performance on a wide variety of issues find particular voter discontent on traffic congestion and transit times through the city. As reported on by Streetsblog, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign survey of 800 New Yorkers revealed that:

59% of New Yorkers say the mayor is doing only a “fair” to “poor” job of reducing traffic jams and delays on city streets, highways and bridges. On only one other issue, increasing the stock of affordable housing, does the Mayor receive a higher net negative rating (60%).

Let’s face it – the Bloomberg administration has accomplished next to nothing on traffic problems since taking office. A few potentially promising initiatives, like speeding buses through traffic and enforcing truck routes, seem stuck as endless studies,” said Kate Slevin, associate director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, sponsor of the survey project.

At the top of the traffic congestion relief agenda should be passage of City Council Intro 199, Councilmember Gail Brewer’s Traffic Relief Bill, which would challenge the Department of Transportation to reduce the amount of traffic flowing into the city as well as accelerating plans for Bus Rapid Transit, onstreet bike paths/greenways, reducing the number of government employee issued parking permits and increasing fees on parking meters in downtown areas.

Continue reading Survey Finds Voter Discontent on Traffic Congestion…

Freedom to Assembly Under Threat

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Assemble for Rights NYC

The freedom of people to peacefully assemble and speak their mind is one of America’s oldest and most cherished rights that is protected under the United States and New York State Constitutions. These rights allow the public to voice their opinion to other citizens and their government. Without it, public debate would be severely limited only to private conversations behind closed doors and would represent a loss to a democratic society.

New rules by the NYPD threaten our basic rights to free assembly in our great city. It would require the request and approval of a permit long in advance of any event with more than 20 cyclists in the street or 35 people on the sidewalk, even if they do not violate any traffic rule. Furthermore, the rule would allow the police to arrest any group of 2 or more people that break a traffic rule (like jaywalking) for “parading without a permit”. These rules would be an unacceptable imposition on our freedom to peacefully assemble for a cause and would allow the government through the police to limit speech that it does not like or does not agree with in a capricious and arbitrary manner.

A growing number of people are just becoming aware of these new rules. You can find out more about what you can do to prevent these rule from going into effect at Assemble for Rights NYC. Transportation Alternatives also has a nice page related to this issue.

CB8 Transportation Analysis

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Percentage of Residents by Primary Mode of Travel to Work - US Census 2000

We’re preparing for the local Transportation Survey that Upper Green Side received a grant to conduct. In that preparation effort we have started to sort through whatever secondary data we can find about our neighborhood before going out to collect primary data. So in the first of what will probably be a number of posts about this subject, here are some charts contrasting our neighborhood, defined by Community Board 8’s Boundaries (zip codes 10021, 10028, 10044 and 10128) to Manhattan, New York City, New York State and the entire USA. Here is the breakdown on what I have found so far.

Continue reading CB8 Transportation Analysis…