Happy New Year, everyone.  I’m practicing writing and vocalizing “two thousand and tha-ree,” and hope to have it down pat by July.  Sherie and I spent Christmas in southern California visiting relatives.  We attempted to make civilized conversation that didn’t include any reference to Roosevelt Island.  We failed miserably.

Something exciting is percolating through the organizations and leadership circles of the Island.  Bonnie Sherk is president of Life Frames, Inc., a non-profit organization that works with communities to “create site and culturally-sensitive community learning environments and transform public places to incorporate the resources of the area: human, ecological, economic, historic, technological, and aesthetic.“  She has been meeting with leaders of the senior association (RISA), the visual arts association (RIVAA), the historical society (RIHS), the disabled association (RIDA), and RIOC (as well as me), under the auspices of Principal Sherry Gregory of PS/IS 217, to create a “Living Library and Think Park.”  On Wednesday evening, the RIRA Common Council was offered an opportunity to participate in the Phase I planning stage.  What this means, and what concrete forms it will translate to, will depend on what a steering committee of

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Islanders, working under a Ford Foundation grant awarded to Life Frames, Inc., make it.  Ms. Sherk presented a San Francisco project as a template in which underutilized concrete- and asphalt-covered land surrounding several schools was transformed into gardens.  The Roosevelt Island Living Library will reflect and incorporate the needs and aspirations of Island students, parents and teachers, artists and interest groups, seniors and the disabled, RIOC, RIRA, housing managers, and tenants.  A multimedia digital archive will be developed that will link to other Living Library projects in San Francisco and Michoacan, Mexico, the site of another undertaking.  The Ford Foundation grant will cover Phase I, in which a conceptual master plan is to be developed over a year’s time.  At the end of the year, the steering committee will help develop Phase 2, a future action and funding plan.

I’ve had the opportunity to see a professionally-produced video as well as considerable written material on the completed San Francisco project and other planned undertakings.  There is an opportunity to enhance our community along guidelines that we, ourselves, set.  Where this endeavor will go and how it will end up remain to be seen.  In the meantime, Island groups and individuals are coalescing around Ms. Sherk’s leadership and expertise as an artist, landscape architect, and community planner.  As this steering group takes shape, and as ideas start to evolve, I will keep you informed.  Stay tuned.

When I wrote my last column, the RIOC hearings on the Octagon Apartments project had yet to take place.  You read about those hearings in the December 14 issue of The WIRE.  About a hundred people showed up and were almost unanimous in their condemnation of the project for a variety of reasons:  aesthetic, environmental, legal, philosophical, political.  Speaker Gifford Miller, Assemblymember Pete Grannis, and Congressmember Carolyn Maloney offered statements that were read into the record, as did the RIRA Common Council.  They, too, were unanimously opposed to the project for similar reasons and because it contravenes the requirements of the Roosevelt Island Open Spaces bill, signed into law last September.  One hundred people do not represent a majority of Islanders, but they do represent a consensus of those who took the time to express an opinion at the hearings.

The Common Council, through its Planning and Development Committee, will continue to monitor the progress of the Becker and Becker Associates plan for the Octagon through the RIOC Board of Directors approval process.  We are on record as opposing piecemeal amendment of our General Development Plan; this is a de facto dismantling of Roosevelt Island as a planned community.  We’ve seen the Octagon apartment wings grow from six to thirteen stories, a virtual bait-and-switch over the years the project has been on the table.  We’ve seen subsidized housing added to the mix, but only for the poorest of families and certainly not as an addition to our middle-class, affordable housing stock.  We’ve even read of the potential inclusion of a floor of medical research facilities, buried in the lengthy environmental assessment report but never discussed at any of the Town Meetings convened to present the latest plans for the apartment complex.  As much as I value saving the Octagon landmark from extinction, I no longer think that this project, or any residential project, is a reasonable price to pay.  Let’s bring back Octagon Park as it was originally envisioned including the Urban Ecological Center called for in the GDP.

And finally:  The RIOC Board appropriate to consider the future development of Roosevelt Island should be the new Board composed of a majority of Island residents, as called for in the statute that became law last September.  However, that Board has yet to be appointed, and a majority of the current Board of Directors still travel here once a month to determine our futures.  Four months is more than enough time to implement this law.  Mayor Bloomberg can recommend two Board members but, ultimately, all the members are gubernatorial appointees.  Roosevelt Island seems to be last on everyone’s agenda.  Call, write, e-mail the Governor and the Mayor and demand that the law be carried out expeditiously.  Let’s take charge of our own destiny.