independent retail

Testimony last updated September 18, 2009

Testimony to NYS Senate and NYS Assembly Standing Committees on Cities

During the past decade, locally owned retail businesses in neighborhoods all over New York City were on the losing end of the city’s strengthening economy. Prosperity turned into a threat as rising rents made it difficult for many of them to continue operating.

Testimony last updated March 30, 2009

Testimony to Brooklyn Borough President on Coney Island Rezoning
March 30, 2009

I’m Vicki Weiner, Director of Planning & Preservation at the Pratt Center for Community Development. Thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony today.  The Pratt Center is a university-based non-profit organization that works for a more just, equitable, and sustainable city for all New Yorkers by helping communities to plan for and realize their future.  For decades, Coney Island has been a haven for working class New Yorkers. A century ago, it was the first place that working people could reach, and afford, for a break from their daily grind in sweatshops. It has remained for decades a place that people of every walk of life can get to by subway, and yet feel they have gone to another world. As the City of New York proposes to redevelop Coney Island, it must ensure that Coney remains a place that creates opportunity for working New Yorkers.