People you like vs. people you don’t.
View of the 29th St. & 10th Ave. lot from the High Line.
There is a type of person I don’t particularly like who is never fully present. This is the person who won’t stop texting while you’re at coffee; who won’t stop scrolling Insta while you’re oversharing on the phone; who won’t stop scanning the room looking for a marginally cooler person when you’re talking to them at a party (remember those?); who always acts like they only have five minutes maximum to talk; who won’t take their fingers off the keyboard when you sit down in their office trying to get a nugget of advice. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you may just be more beautiful and interesting than me and I’d like to direct you in particular to our Become a Member page.
That brings me to Leslie Boghosian Murphy, who is running for City Council in District 3, and who I met over the phone previously and at coffee last week. I was reflecting with a block resident named Juju (more on Juju later) about why I like Leslie despite not really knowing her at all and having no dog whatsoever in the City Council race. The answer is, I think, that Leslie is fully present when she’s talking to you. I don’t pretend to have a strong grasp of the policy differences between the different candidates running for City Council, but I’m here to tell you today that this person will look right into your face when you’re talking and will hang on your every word. It’s nice.
Anyway, Leslie and I took a walk around the block and checked out the lot that we want to turn into a community garden. Leslie pointed out something rather obvious, which is that given the block’s proximity to the High Line, organizations associated with the High Line may want to get involved with developing it.
That happens to dovetail with an idea that Shanti Nagel at Design Wild recently raised with me, which is the following: We likely need a “fiscal sponsor” nonprofit organization to basically (i) accept tax-deductible donations on our behalf; and (ii) act as the lessee for the land. The lease piece is critically important because, based on my read of the NYC tax code, the owner of the lot has to lease the lot to a nonprofit in order for him to get a property tax exemption.
So if you’re aware of any nonprofits that you think would be willing to take a phone call from me and consider acting as our “fiscal sponsor,” please let me know. Given my conversations with Shanti and Leslie, I now have my heart set on the nonprofit organization Friends of the High Line, and I’m going to be emailing them this week. But we need ideas here.
Posts you missed this week:
What the hell is fly fishing? (whatever it is, it’s filming on our block tomorrow)
