TV Ad : Did Christine Quinn Take Campaign Donations To Approve Rudin Luxury Condos ?

The latest ad by New York City is Not for Sale 2013 blames Christine Quinn for her role in St. Vincent’s Hospital closure.

A group of citizen activists has previewed an advance look at a new TV advertisement that blames New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn for the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital.

The TV ad, released by the group known as NYC Is Not For Sale 2013, exposes how there has been an appearance of a quid-pro-quo between Speaker Quinn and Rudin Management Company, the real estate developer, which foreclosed on St. Vincent's Hospital. Members of the Rudin family, who own the billion-dollar Rudin Management Company enterprise, donated $30,000 to Speaker Quinn, who conveniently later supported a zoning change that paved the way for the Greenwich Village hospital to close.

Read more : SEE IT: New ad blasts Christine Quinn for role in closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital

In exchange for $30,000 in campaign donations, did New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn sell out her community ?

Do the political campaign donations by Beth R. DeWoody, Madeleine R. Johnson, Eric C. Rudin, Jack Rudin, Katherine Rudin, and William C. Rudin, who each donated $4,950 to Christine Quinn's presumed 2013 mayoral campaign, amount to influence peddling ? After all, since even before St. Vincent's Hospital closed, Speaker Quinn has been toeing the Rudin family line : close down St. Vincent's and replace it with an inferior urgent care center.

Not only did Speaker Quinn say that we only needed an urgent care center to replace St. Vincent's, but she approved the Rudin family's plan, allowing St. Vincent's Hospital to be rezoned into luxury condos. Since 2010, the Rudin family has been trying to get approval for a billion-dollar real estate development plan for the buildings that belong to the bankruptcy estate of St. Vincent's Hospital. Since the Rudin family wants to build luxury high-rise condos on the site of St. Vincent's, and since they needed City Council approval from Speaker Quinn, do these large campaign donations explain why Speaker Quinn did nothing to restore a Level I trauma center and full-service hospital to the former St. Vincent's site ? Does Speaker Quinn's official acts come as a result of sizable campaign donations from the likes of the Rudin family ?

To Preet Bharara : Do @chriscquinn's official acts come as a result of campaign donations ? christine-quinn-sold-out.blogspot.com/2011/02/rudin-… #StVincentsHospital

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) April 4, 2013

Do Rudin Donations And Christine Quinn's Inaction Amount To Influence Peddling ?

Do the political campaign donations by Beth R. DeWoody, Madeleine R. Johnson, Eric C. Rudin, Jack Rudin, Katherine Rudin, and William C. Rudin, who each donated $4,950 to Christine Quinn's presumed 2013 mayoral campaign, amount to influence peddling ? After all, since even before St. Vincent's Hospital closed, Speaker Quinn has been toeing the Rudin family line : close down St. Vincent's and replace it with an inferior urgent care center.

Not only did Speaker Quinn say that we only needed an urgent care center to replace St. Vincent's, but she approved the Rudin family's plan, allowing St. Vincent's Hospital to be rezoned into luxury condos. Since 2010, the Rudin family has been trying to get approval for a billion-dollar real estate development plan for the buildings that belong to the bankruptcy estate of St. Vincent's Hospital. Since the Rudin family wants to build luxury high-rise condos on the site of St. Vincent's, and since they needed City Council approval from Speaker Quinn, do these large campaign donations explain why Speaker Quinn did nothing to restore a Level I trauma center and full-service hospital to the former St. Vincent's site ? Does Speaker Quinn's official acts come as a result of sizable campaign donations from the likes of the Rudin family ?

To Preet Bharara : Do @chriscquinn's official acts come as a result of campaign donations ? christine-quinn-sold-out.blogspot.com/2011/02/rudin-… #StVincentsHospital

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) April 4, 2013

Rudin Political Donation Hedging

When both Anthony Weiner and Christine Quinn were the front-running mayoral candidates, the Rudin Family made sizable campaign donations.

Do the Rudin Family's $70,000 in political donations to Christine Quinn, Peter Vallone, and Anthony Weiner constitute a corrupt effort to make sure that the Family gets approval for their controversial luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital ?

The Family's equal total donations to each of former Congressman Weiner and Speaker Quinn were calculating, because now that Mr. Weiner is out of the mayoral race, they had a Plan B in Speaker Quinn.

Councilmember Vallone is chair of the Public Safety Committee : now, there will likely be no councilmember, who will be allowed to speak out to the irresponsible public health aspect of closing charity hospitals, privatising their real estate, and doing nothing as luxury condos are built on the former site of St. Vincent's Hospital.

You can confirm the sources of the funding from these links : (i) Eric C. Rudin, Jack Rudin, Katherine L. Rudin, and William C. ("Bill") Rudin ; (ii) Beth R. DeWoody ; and (iii) Madeline R. Johnson.

The Rudin family has spent almost $70,000 in political donations, and another $500,000 in lobbying expenses -- all in a desperate attempt to get approval for the luxury condo conversion scheme for St. Vincent's, because there is profit that is valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars at stake.

Distribution of Hospital Beds in Manhattan

After St. Vincent's Hospital closed, a Gross Imbalance in the Distribution of Hospital Beds in Manhattan.

How can this be responsible public healthcare policy ? Don't let the congested Lower West Side of Manhattan to be turned into a testing ground for North Shore-LIJ's free-standing first aid clinic experiment. We will pay for this risky experiment with our own lives.

After St. Vincent's Hospital closed, a Gross Imbalance in the Distribution of Hospital Beds in Manhattan

St. Vincent's #OccupyCB2 YouTube Documentary

2011-10-17 Stop the Rezoning of St. Vincent's Hospital Flyer #OccupyCB2

William Rudin Peninsula Hospital

Is the Rudin Family eyeing their next real estate harvesting operation on the dead carcass of the Peninsula Hospital Center in Queens ?

After he's done with St. Vincent's Hospital, it has been heard on the street that William Rudin is considering another real estate harvesting operation, this time at the Peninsula Hospital Center in Queens.

Yetta Kurland Delivers Petitions to Preserve St. Vincent's Facilities

Yetta Kurland - Presenting Petitions to Rudin Family to Block Condo Conversion of St. Vincent's

Community activist Yetta Kurland presented a stack of over 7,500 signatures on a petition to a representative of the Rudin development family. The petition demands that the Rudin Family must be blocked from undertaking a luxury condominium conversion of the former site of St. Vincent's Hospital.

In her presentation, Ms. Kurland explained the history of a prior deal that gave the Rudin Family use of a hardship exemption, but, which Ms. Kurland said, no longer applies.

As William Rudin salivates over the condo conversion deal, Jane Jacobs is turning in her grave. Meanwhile, Brad Hoylman is counting on the Rudin family to donate to his future political campaign the same way that the Rudin family has donated to Christine Quinn's mayoral campaign.

St. Vincent's Medical Malpractice

Eileen Dunn, R.N., tells residents of the Lower West Side of Manhattan that Mayor Michael Bloomberg put the ''knife to the chest'' of St. Vincent's Hospital, and that the mayor is responsible for blocking the restoration of a hospital to the Lower West Side.

Nurse Dunn also said that the municipal governments in Miami, Florida, and Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, either forbid ambulances from taking emergency patients to the kinds of first aid clinics that Lenox Hill plans to build at the O'Toole Building in the West Village, or forbid to license such first aid clinics altogether.

Too bad we can't count on Christine Quinn to do the right thing -- and fight for a full-service hospital to replace St. Vincent's.

Lenox Hill Hospital St. Vincent's Greed

Community Activist Yetta Kurland presented a stack of over 7,500 signatures on a petition to a representative of the Rudin development family. The petition demands that the Rudin Family must be blocked from undertaking a luxury condominium conversion of the former site of St. Vincent's Hospital. In her presentation, Ms. Kurland explained the history of a prior deal that gave the Rudin Family use of a hardship exemption, but, which Ms. Kurland said, no longer applies. As William Rudin salivates over the condo conversion deal, Jane Jacobs is turning in her grave.

Join us at St. Vincent's on the One Year Anniversary since the Hospital was Wrongfully Closed ; Rally to Demand a New Hospital

Join us at 2 pm on April 30 at St. Vincent's for a rally to demand a new hospital for our community. Register to attend our rally on Facebook.

If the Rudin real estate development company and North Shore-LIJ can find $125 million and can use a building that was donated for free to build a clinic, then, with a little more pressure from the community, we can use those resources toward restoring a hospital to the Lower West Side of Manhattan.

Community activist Yetta Kurland gave an interview about how it is possible to restore a hospital at the former site of St. Vincent's. In this video, she urges everybody to join us for the April 30 rally to mark the one year anniversary of the wrongful closing of St. Vincent's.

A year ago, we were told that there was no money for a hospital. Look at what resources Rudin and North Shore-LIJ have found, thanks to your efforts. Keep up the good work. Thank you for all that you do.

Slick LIJ-Rudin PR Campaign ?

The community of the Lower West Side of Manhattan are outraged over a deceptive political campaign brochure that was mailed to residents in connection with a proposed first aid clinic that may replace St. Vincent's Hospital.

Community anger has reached a new high, such that one member has launched a new blog, Every Minute Matters, to counter the hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent by North Shore-LIJ and the Rudin family, to make sure that their greedy hundred million dollar condo conversion deal goes through.

The slick mass mailer is an act of political subterfuge, community residents say, because it is being mailed by a front group calling itself the ''Westside Healthcare Coalition.'' (A WhoIs search on Network Solutions today showed that the website for the front group is registered to Mehigan, Bellone & Associates, Inc.) The intention of this fake political brochure can only be to intentionally confuse the public between the front group and the real group called the Coälition For A New Village Hospital. The real group has been fighting for over one year to, at first, save St. Vincent's Hospital from closing. Then, once the hospital closed under shady conditions, the real Coälition has been fighting in court to save the hospital buildings and zoning, so that a new hospital can open on the location of the former St. Vincent's site.

Here is an anonymous line item review of what some community members describe as deceptive advertising that is printed on the controversial political brochure, which was mailed through the U.S. Postal Service :

West Side Healthcare Coalition is a Lie

The community isn't surprised that the axis of evil (aka North Shore-LIJ-Rudin Family) would resort to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a sick and twisted public relations stunt ; the Rudin family stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars from the luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital. Even in the face of these deceptive political advertisements that are being mailed to city residents, the community continues to be likewise outraged by the veil of silence around City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who have taken no concrete actions to save St. Vincent's.

In North Shore-LIJ and Christine Quinn Plan for St. Vincent's, a Fear of Union-Busting

OP-ED : Update on Community Effort to Create a Hospital to Replace St. Vincent's in the Lower West Side of Manhattan

When a deal was announced for the transfer of bankruptcy assets from the 501(c)(3) charity that was St. Vincent's Hospital to the private real estate developer tycoon William Rudin at values that may not fairly represent the full market value, the bankruptcy assets transfer was hailed as a health care miracle, because it would replace the Level 1 Trauma Center that was St. Vincent's with a first aid clinic.

But just a mere examination, at first blush, of the beneficial transfer of assets to insider creditors, the jobs that it would create, and the services it would provide, show that this deal is fraught with potential legal challenges.

The transfer of St. Vincent's principal assets -- its real estate -- to the Rudin family, who has always had an ''inside track'' on condo-conversion plans -- may be fraudulent, if the transfer does not happen at full market value prices. There is also community concern that the North Shore-LIJ landlord taking over the first aid clinic is going to hire only non-union employees for the 400 jobs that are expected to be created at the first aid clinic, and that the new clinic will forbid any efforts at collective-bargaining ; presently, only approximately 36 per cent of North Shore-LIJ employees receive union benefits. The services to be provided by the first aid clinic will not be able to treat ''women in labor, patients with severe trauma such as gunshot wounds or open fractures, or those requiring immediate surgery or cardiac interventions.'' In the face of the lack of life-saving services to be provided by the first aid clinic, and even the dishonest comparison of ambulance response times between 2008 and 2009 (even though St. Vincent's closed in 2010), predictably Deputy Mayor Christine Quinn can still be ''encouraged'' by the flimsy outpatient center.

Meanwhile, here is a video of a press conference outside Friday's appellate court hearing in connection with a freedom of information lawsuit.

Why Are They Closing St. Vincent's Hospital? (Pt. 23) - Freedom of Information from g. sosa on Vimeo.

As Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Deputy Mayor Christine Quinn try to destroy the social safety net by trying to close firehouses, shut down senior citizen centers, cut childcare, layoff teachers, pretend like votes don't go missing, build luxury condos on the hallowed ground of St. Vincent's Hospital, make money from government information, and end Progressive Era reforms, we are left to wonder. When will the focus of irresponsible real estate development at the expense of the middle class spark a voter backlash, that will lead to mass protests at the city's legislature, or a revolution of the likes that have been happening elsewhere ? What will be the spark that will trigger mass protests in New York ?

(Christine Quinn is Speaker of the New York City Council, but she has made her bed alongside Mayor Bloomberg on many controversial issues that often times she acts more and more like his Deputy Mayor than an independent voice for Democratic Party ideals.)

Rudin Family Can't See Past Greed In St. Vincent's Condo Conversion Mega Deal

Last month, four community activists were arrested after orchestrating a sit-in to save St. Vincent's Hospital from being sold to the greedy Rudin family, which stands to make millions and even hundreds of millions of dollars from converting the hospital into luxury condos. It was reported earlier today that St. Vincent's Hospital is going to become luxury condos. Do no politicians hear the plea of voters, who ask for a downtown hospital ?

St. Vincent's Condo Conversion

Christine Quinn Sells St. Vincent's Hospital to Rudin Family ; Jane Jacobs is Turning in Her Grave. :'(

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn continues her campaign to sell New York City landmarks to real estate developers, activists say. Witness the latest announcement involving the historic real estate of the former St. Vincent's Hospital.

From Curbed :

If this graphic looks familiar, it's because we've seen it before, back when the Landmarks Presrevation Commission approved the highly controversial St. Vincent's redevelopment plan. In the intervening months, the hospital's closure took that redevelopment plan off the table, and the great St. Vincent's sell-off began. And then this bombshell: the Observer reports that, actually, the sawtooth O'Toole Building will be retrofitted and reopened as an emergency medical facility, with assistance from Rudin Management, the developer behind the previous plan, and North Shore-LIJ hospital. A victory for preservationists? Yes and no.

One thing the preservationists didn't want was the construction of an FX Fowle-designed residential building on Seventh Avenue South. Win some, lose some: that aspect of the old plan is back in a big way (as is the Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates makeover of St. Vincent's Triangle). The building will contain 450 units of luxury condos. Last time the subject came up, the LPC ordered the 233-foot building cut down a few stories, so we don't know what the final version will look like. We're guessing the architectural surgeons will still end up with something similar to the last design.

The rumour amongst activists it that, for an encore, Speaker Quinn will join forces with Mayor Bloomberg, to bust the unions of public employees, like teachers.

Rudin Gives Interview About St. Vincent's ; Nothing But Silence From Christine Quinn

Rudin Interview on New York Real Estate Harvesting From Bankrupt Hospitals.

William Rudin, chief executive officer at Rudin Management Co., talks about New York City's real estate and the outlook for commercial property, including the millions the family stands to make from the carcass picking of the real estate property of St. Vincent's Hospital. Watch at 5:40.

To add insult to injury, naturally this interview was broadcast on Bloomberg Opinion, in keeping with Mayor Michael Bloomberg's worldview of starving the beast until it dies in the back of an ambulance, stuck in crosstown traffic.