Christmas Eve Protest at St. Vincent's

Contact : Louis Flores, 1-646-400-1168, lflores22@gmail.com

STOP THE “POTTERSVILLE” OF NEW YORK CITY : CHRISTMAS EVE CAROLING AND SLEEP-OUT AT ST. VINCENT’S HOSPITAL

New York, NY (Dec. 21, 2011) – On Christmas Eve, an ad hoc group of community activists will be standing outside the former Emergency Room of St. Vincent’s Hospital, singing Christmas Carols and distributing Band-Aids.

START: Saturday, Dec. 24, 2011, 7:00 p.m.
END : Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011, 7:00 a.m.
PLACE : St. Vincent’s Hospital, Seventh Avenue South and West 11th Street

Activists will sing Christmas Carols to celebrate the charitable role of St. Vincent’s in New York City history — for caring for lives during the cholera epidemic of 1849, the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, the AIDS crisis during the 1980’s, the September 11 attacks, and the Hudson River landing of a jet airplane in 2009.

Activists will also hand out Band-Aid bandages as a symbol of the “Band-Aid approach” to public health as a result of the inferior North Shore-LIJ/Lenox Hill urgent care center, which is being pushed onto the community by politicians, lobbyists, and Bill Rudin.

SOME ACTIVISTS WILL SPEND THE NIGHT OUTSIDE IN SLEEPING BAGS ON THE FRIGID SIDEWALK, TO DEMONSTRATE HOW PATIENTS ARE BEING “LEFT OUT IN THE COLD” IN THE NEW “POTTERSVILLE” TREND IN HEALTHCARE IN NEW YORK STATE.

In the short term, activists want to force civic leaders, such as billionaire Bill Rudin of the Rudin Management Company, to take the lead in building a Level 1 Trauma Center and full-service hospital to replace St. Vincent’s.

In the long term, activists demand a single-payer healthcare system in New York State to put an end to the constant healthcare cuts, layoffs, hospital closings, and corruption that is endemic in the state’s broken healthcare system. Just this year alone, witness the bribery cases against MediSys chief executive David P. Rosen and New York State Senator Carl Kruger, each of whom were involved in hospital-related corruption.

For more information : https://www.facebook.com/events/323722307646371/

2011-12-24 St Vincents - Christmas Eve Caroling and Sleep Out

OWS Health Action Meeting at St. Vincent's Hospital

Community Remains Opposed To Rudin Management Company's Luxury Condo Conversion Up-zoning Plan For St. Vincent's Hospital.

Michael D. D. White is an attorney, urban planner and former government public finance, and development official, has submitted testimony to City Planner Amanda Burden that was critical of Rudin Management Company's "fairly nefarious deal" that foreclosed on St. Vincent's in order to convert it to luxury condos.

Community opinion has uniformly opposed the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital and the subsequent luxury condo conversion up-zoning that would benefit Rudin Management Company.

Meanwhile, as more and more community members and activists become educated on the dire healthcare implications of hospital closings across New York City, new activists are coming together to demand accountability for irresponsible public health decisions.

OWS Protesters March To Protest Healthcare System

OWS Protesters March To Protest Healthcare System: MyFoxNY.com

Updated: Saturday, 17 Dec 2011, 7:42 PM EST
Published : Saturday, 17 Dec 2011, 7:42 PM EST

MYFOXNY.COM - Occupy Wall Street protesters showed up at St. Vincent’s Hospital to take on the health care system.

The protesters say St. Vincent’s Hospital, which was shut down last spring, is the symbol of what’s wrong with the system.

OWS says what used to be a functioning hospital is now being turned into luxury condominiums.

OWS NYPD Raid Backlash

Quinn Human Rights Report Card

No wonder New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was absent during the press conference of politicians after the controversial NYPD raid ordered by Mayor Michael Bloomberg of the #OccupyWallStreet encampment. Speaker Quinn has flunked the 2011 New York City Council Human Rights Report Card.

Raid happening NOW @ #OccupyWallStreet

Bloomberg + Quinn = Epic Fail.

Watch live streaming video from occupynyc at livestream.com

Christine Quinn ABNY Healthcare

Watch what people in the community are calling the "Kiss of Death of St. Vincent's Hospital" at 1:49

In a speech sponsored by the Association for a Better New York, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn spoke about the Great Recession and the dire straits in which that working families find themselves. Who knew that she was talking about the conditions created by William Rudin ?

You see, William Rudin is the figure head owner of the company called Rudin Management Company. He, his company, and his entire family have bought the real estate of St. Vincent's Hospital from bankruptcy court for only $260 million. After he supersizes the campus and converts it into luxury condominiums, he is going to sell exclusive luxury condos and townhouses for a combined market value of over $1 billion.

It is the #corporategreed of the Rudin family and the Association for a Better New York that is shredding the social safety net right here in New York City by denying emergency and trauma care to the entire Lower West Side. That is why William Rudin and his company have become the targets of protests by #OccupyWallStreet. Has anybody told that to Speaker Quinn ? Will it be the end of her political career for her to be seen kissing the man, who is the target of #OccupyWallStreet ?

Did Christine Quinn Give Up On Saving St. Vincent's In Exchange for Campaign Donations From The Rudin Family ?

In an apparent conflict of interest, Beth R. DeWoody, Madeleine R. Johnson, Eric C. Rudin, Jack Rudin, Katherine Rudin, and William C. Rudin each donated $4,950 to Christine Quinn's presumed 2013 mayoral campaign. During this time, the Rudin family has been trying to salvage a multi-million dollar real estate purchase of 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, do these large campaign donations explain why Speaker Quinn has done nothing to restore a hospital to the former St. Vincent's site ?

OccupyWallStreet Snow Storm

NYC Texting Alert : City is Closing Parks Due To Snow

I was talking to one of my blogger contacts using my iPhone tonight when NYC.gov sent me a text alert.

Will Mayor Michael Bloomberg use weather as an excuse to close Zuccotti Park ? He already used weather to raid the park for any electric generators.

Christine Quinn Pays Lip Service To St. Vincent's Hospital

''The whole planet pays homage to Ground Zero, but they pay lip service to the hospital that was on the front lines that day,'' said a man named Christopher, who spoke at a rally at the end of a healthcare march by #OccupyWallStreet. Christopher spoke outside St. Vincent's Hospital. Because St. Vincent's was a Level 1 Trauma Center, it was the hospital designated to receive those injured by the September 11 attacks. It was closed in 2010, because we don't have a single-payer healthcare system. Right now, Brad Hoylman and Christine Quinn want to turn St. Vincent's into luxury condominiums in a controversial plan by the Rudin Management Company.

Keith Olbermann reports about #OccupyWallStreet's march to St. Vincent's Hospital

#OccupyWallStreet Healthcare march to St. Vincent's Hospital is reported by Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Keith Olbermann interviewed Dr. Steven Auerbach about the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital and the #OccupyWallStreet march for Healthcare for the 99%. (The segment about St. Vincent's and the #OWS march begins at about 0:34.)

St. Vincent’s was a Catholic-run hospital, which had a charity mission to serve the under-insured and uninsured.  St. Vincent’s lacked the corporate clout to negotiate fair reimbursement rates from profit-driven insurance companies, leading to financial instability.  Moreover, the short-term focus of the highly-paid executives and consultants pushed St. Vincent’s into bankruptcy – leading to a public health emergency:  there is now no hospital on the Westside below 57th Street.

Politicians ranging from New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to Manhattan Community Board 2 Chair Brad Hoylman to Mayor Michael Bloomberg did nothing to save St. Vincent's.

Two months ago, The New York Post reported that the Manhattan District Attorney was investigating whether hospital executives intentionally let St. Vincent’s fail, so that the Rudin Management Company could buy the hospital’s real estate as part of a controversial luxury condominium development project.

Rudin paid pennies on the dollar to buy the hospital’s real estate, and Rudin now stands to sell luxury condominiums and townhouses, once constructed, that are expected to have a combined fair-market value of over $1 billion.

#OccupyWallStreet Marches to St. Vincent's

The activist group called Hands Off St. Vincent's endorses the #OccupyWallStreet march to St. Vincent's Hospital.

NYPD Joining OccupyWallStreet ?

NYPD is One Layoff Away from Joining #OccupyWallStreet

Seeing as how we living under weekly threats by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Mayor Michael Bloomberg of layoffs of important first responders and other providers or protectors of the important social safety net in New York City, it should be noted that the New York Police Department is probably one layoff away from joining the activists at #OccupyWallStreet.

Quinn Looks The Other Way After Mass Arrests -- Again

Live Mass Arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge #occupywallstreet - Streaming Video by We are Change

In a flashback to the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, police rounded up and arrested over 700 activists on the Brooklyn Bridge during a political demonstration.

Police said that those activists, who impeded vehicular traffic on the bridge were were arrested. But The New York Times reported that "many protesters said they believed the police had tricked them, allowing them onto the bridge, and even escorting them partway across, only to trap them in orange netting after hundreds had entered." Look at this independent video :

Some of the activists, who were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge, had their hands bound with plastic ties that the NYPD has used at other mass demonstration. Separately, the NYPD admitted that they police force had taken their own videos of the protesters, who had taken part in the demonstration, deliberately and intentionally tracking and monitoring the peaceful activists.

Attorney Wylie Stecklow, whose law firm represents many of the activists, who were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge, said that the pattern of the NYPD's behaviour toward the Occupy Wall Street protesters was reminiscent of the mass arrests that police made during the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Once again, Speaker Quinn has not challenged the NYPD over the #OccupyWallStreet mass arrests, just like she did nothing over the NYPD mass arrests during the 2004 Republican National Convention.