2016-06-15 – 僑報
【侨报记者高诗云6月14日纽约报道】14日上午10时许，来自华埠包厘街83-85号公寓的数十名住客与“保护华埠和下东城联盟”及反逼迁运动支持者们，在位于布碌仑下城Fulton街479号的Dr.Jay’s服装连锁公司门前举行示威集会，抗议该公司老板、同时也是83-85号公寓房东的Joseph Betesh，使用恶劣手段逼迁住客。
愤怒的示威民众要求房东停止“表面和解，暗里逼迁”，应立即按照法庭判决对公寓进行维修，并前往市府将该公寓登记为租金稳定的住房。据悉这桩逼迁案诉讼已耗时一年，将于15日在曼哈顿高等法庭再次开庭。
2016-06-03 – 明報
June, 3, 2016 – The Tyee
Who should have the last say in our cities’ planning decisions, the planner experts or the non-expert citizens who must live with the results?
If I wanted to make the case for the role of the non-expert, I could say just two words and then stop: Jane and Jacobs. The great urbanist author was the ultimate skeptic and analyst, a non-professional, an observer, and we have been celebrating her centenary and legacy in recent weeks. In the pre-architecture courses I took at UBC around 1970, all the professors were modernists and so told us to read the mega-project loving Le Corbusier and study Brasilia for ideas about the future. Reyner Banham with his love of Los Angeles was similarly fashionable, partly for the novelty of endorsing something as outrageous as a car-captive lifestyle in an architecturally kitschy landscape.
Chinatown Town Hall in 廣東話 Cantonese and 普通話 Mandarin
June, 14, 2016 – Bedford + Bowery
This morning shoppers looking for American flag swimsuits or bright-patterned leggings at Dr. Jay’s streetwear store in downtown Brooklyn were greeted by a flurry of slogans and posters decrying the brand’s owner, Joseph Betesh, as a slumlord. Tenants from 83 and 85 Bowery were gathered with local activists out front, chanting against Betesh’s efforts to evict them.
The tenants, mainly low-income Chinese families, have been organizing against eviction for more than a year and trying to get their apartments recognized as rent-regulated. Back in 2013 the building was bought by Betesh’s Milestone Equities for $62 million. Last March, Betesh refused to renew leases, arguing that the building was not in fact rent-regulated because it underwent substantial rehabilitation. When that didn’t work (they dropped a court case against one of the residents and paid his legal fees) they seemingly changed tactics, deeming the building “structurally unsound” and ordering all the tenants to vacate so they could make repairs.
June, 14, 2016 – The Globe and Mail
The lot near the corner of Keefer and Quebec streets is no historic gem. Once the site of a garage, it is now covered with gravel and a smattering of parked cars.
But it has turned into a Waterloo for Vancouver’s Chinatown, with a wide range of groups viewing whatever is built there as the indicator species for the future of this small historic neighbourhood.
At the heart of the debate are these questions: Are some buildings just too big for Chinatown? And what will do more to improve this beleaguered area, which has been losing businesses and vitality since the 1970s – more social housing for the poor or more market condos to attract the middle class?
June, 11, 2016 – Edmonton Journal (Video + Article)
Dr. Donald Yung wears a T-shirt declaring his love of Calgary’s Chinatown at a Saturday conference in Edmonton looking at the future of Chinatowns in big cities. SHAUGHN BUTTS / POSTMEDIA
Lan Chan-Marples thinks Edmonton’s Chinatown can learn some lessons from Chicago.
More than 100 years ago, before the term “gentrification” existed, residents of the Illinois city’s Chinatown were displaced thanks to rising property values.
The neighbourhood relocated, but after a few decades, an interstate highway roared through and residents lost their only recreational facility.
The community spent the next 50 years trying to recover.
June, 10, 2016 – Coalition to Protect Chinatown and LES
Slumlord Millionaire Fakes Settlement, Pushes for Evictions!
PRESS CONFERENCE AND RALLY AT DR. JAY’S
479 Fulton Street, Downtown Brooklyn
Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at 10am
We, tenants of 83 & 85 Bowery, Coalition to Protect Chinatown & the Lower East Side and supporters, are calling on slumlord millionaire Joseph Betesh, owner of Dr. Jay’s, to right his wrongdoings.
June, 1, 2016:
Roundhouse Radio – Rezoning Opposition says adding a cultural centre to Chinatown “isn’t enough.”
A rezoning application for 105 Keefer Street is being disputed by a group called the ChinaTown Concern Group.
Organizer King Mong Chan says the plan to build a cultural center is just not enough.
“The cultural space that they are offering now is only 1000 feet, next to the alleyway and it’s only for a 10 year rental agreement. We don’t think that this development is appropriate for that site and something better for the community should be at that site instead.”
Chinatown Concern Group 唐人街關注組 