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Call for Artists: Luxeye Optical

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SEEKING ORIGINAL ARTWORK THAT FEATURES EYEWEAR:

Do you have artwork that incorporates eyewear? Either the subject is wearing eyewear or you’ve used optical related materials in your piece? Luxeye Optical is looking for all different mediums—photography, painting, drawings, or sculpture and installation pieces.  The show will be held in congruence with our Grand Opening celebration. The event will be catered and have a DJ and a photographer on site taking pictures of our clients and models in eyewear.  Invited guest will include local Williamsburg residents as well as some optical industry people—who may be looking for commercial artwork to use in their campaigns. Luxeye Optical hopes to promote the artistic community we thrive in and bring together individuals in the name of stylish eyewear, art and fun! Event will be held on March 25th, 2011 at 291 Bedford Ave from 5-9pm. Local NYC area artists are preferred.

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Greenpoint Community Meeting

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greenpoint community meeting

The Greenpoint Community Meeting is a conversation between community advocates who have spent most of their lives fighting for North Brooklyn, area artists whose work is deeply connected to sense of place and transformation of space, but who rarely attend advocacy and political meetings, along with professionals in design, architecture and landscape architecture whose work integrally engages and serves communities.

The meeting was organized by the Institute for Applied Reporting and Urbanism with support from Susannah Drake of Dland Studio. The studio is located at Greenpoint View, a gallery at 82 Oak Street owned by sculptor Stephen Balamut, and run by Sascha Asher, an interior designer specializing in textiles.

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Bloomberg whines while ARod slides into a tax-abated home

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Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg released a budget that calls for closing 20 firehouses, senior centers and layoffs for over 6,000 NYC public school teachers. The New York Times called this a “good news” budget! Another headline stated that New York Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez was buying a new condominium at The Rushmore on the Upper West Side. The condo is selling for a reported six million dollars. ARod made 33 million dollars last year, 9 million dollars more than the second highest paid player in major league baseball. So you may be wondering where am I going with this. When I checked out The Rushmore I discovered that they are a recipient of a 421a tax abatement. A look at the Corcoran website that is offering units at The Rushmore, shows ARod’s six million dollar condo pays about $103 a month in property tax or $1,236 a year.

I am a homeowner who pays more in property tax on my one-family, 112-year-old home. The 421a program is a topic of great debate since it expired in December 2010. The REBNY (Real Estate Board of New York) has been lobbying for a return to the old program that requires no affordable housing to be built in return for this abatement that can last up to 25 years. The Independent Budget Office said in a recent New York Times article that the 421a program will cost a projected 930 million dollars in forgone tax revenues this year.

Just think what we could do with an additional 930 million dollars. We could save teachers, senior centers and firehouses, and have cash left over to build affordable housing. I’m certain that not-for-profits would do a better job than private developers at building affordable housing and they would do it for considerably less money.

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