| Current mood: |  accomplished |
My Mom Kicks Ass at the Community Board 5 Meeting
Remember that day were I had to send my Mom to speak at the CB5 Meeting in NYC because I was stuck in class? Well, she kicked ass. The people there kicked ass. We kicked ass. We did it, we got the CB5 on our side.
See my Mom saying the speech, she is on the first half:
Funny thing is, she edited the full speech down to the 3-4 minutes. Here is the full speech in it's unedited glory:
"My fellow Community Board 5 Members. My name is #&$^@ &*$*#&. I am a photographer of this city, a student at the New School University and a local frequent commuter from New Jersey.
Before I lived in New Jersey, I lived in Boston, Massachusetts for two long hard cold years of my life. Both winter’s of each year, I would travel up to the icy shores of the Plymouth Harbor in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Every time we would visit a landmark that while hugely important in US History, deserves its title as “Most Underwhelming Landmark You Will Ever Visit.”. I am talking about Plymouth Rock, the slab of stone were the Mayflower crew disembarked after traveling across the Atlantic Ocean.
Once you enter the faded and plain stone superstructure, ironically designed by McKim, Mead, and White, the same genius architects who built the Hotel Penn, you encounter a sand box like you would on any playground. The sand often gets muddy in the rain, were in the middle of said sand box there is a decaying slab of rock with the number 1620 chiseled on the side of it. This is the first time the Puritans, our ancestors, set foot in America and here is the un-amazing monument that we have to remember them by, rotting and decaying rock near the shoreline where animals defecate around the monument at will.
I know what everyone is thinking at this point, why is this person talking about Plymouth Rock when we are all gathered here to talk about the Hotel Pennsylvania? The reason I am bringing all this information up about Plymouth Rock, is because the Hotel Penn both historically and its inherent usefulness to society could not be even more far removed from what Plymouth Rock is.
Plymouth Rock is in its essence a one hit wonder. It’s only claim to fame is that it was supposedly the rock that the Mayflower scout boat just happened to collide into when the Pilgrims arrived on American soil. That was around three centuries ago, after that event the rock has done nothing for its community other than being a minor tourist attraction while it rots in public view. Hotel Penn meanwhile while being only a century old has had a consistent line up of non-stop historical events from when it was first erected to modern times.
Did Glenn Miller Orchestra wrote a song called “PLymouth-1-620”? No, but he did wrote a song called “PEnnsylvania-6-5000” after the Hotel’s infamous old phone number that still rings today. Famous “Big Bands” like Dorsey brothers, Fred Waring, Benny Goodman, Count Basie and Duke Ellington were not flocking to Plymouth Rock to perform Jazz concerts, but they were doing so a century ago at Hotel Penn. The Maury show never once did a special about Plymouth Rock, but said show is recorded at Hotel Penn. Charlie Chaplin being investigated as a communist, William Faulkner writing his best selling books, Dog Shows, Hackers on Planet Earth…none of these things ever happen at Plymouth Rock, only at Hotel Penn.
In fact because of Hotel’s Penn constant history, it is amazing that a building erected in 1919 still having a modern relevance in this day and age. Plymouth Rock as it stands today is about as culturally relevant as when pet rocks became popular in the 70’s. Nobody really remembers them anymore, and while a foot note in history, public opinion shows that in this day and age, nobody cares for the rock.
Hotel Penn also has another huge achievement over Plymouth Rock, the Hotel provides cheep and affordable rooms for forging travelers and local New Yorkers. Every time I visited Plymouth Rock, there was no gift shops or even a tour guide. There was no Plymouth Rock Lodge were you could stay over night. Besides it being a large rock struck by the Mayflower, the rock itself offers nothing back to the community other than it just being a rock discovered in 1620. It is also worth mentioning that while people do complain about Hotel Penn being scummy, I have bought rooms to stay in Penn. The worst room in Hotel Penn, would be classified as being as the 4 Seasons compared to the superstructure surrounding the Plymouth Rock that has worn down and decayed over the years.
So hopefully as you can see, compared to Plymouth Rock, Hotel Penn is a very interesting and wonderful place to be. It has tons of historic value stretching an entire century and still relevant in today’s modern world. It provides both services for local New York residences as well as from people all over the globe. Its not only historical both in modern times and back to the turn of the century, but its also practical for the people and gives to people of New York on a daily basis.
There is only one major difference where Plymouth Rock triumphs over Hotel Penn. Plymouth Rock is a land mark, even though it is not culturally relevant today nor has a consistent line up of historic value after 1602. Yet Hotel Pennsylvania, with all the history and business, cannot even gain the landmark status it deserves and we have to sit here to argue about why we should landmark it. To me, this is absurd and bizarre.
So I would like to say, as both someone who has stayed in the Hotel Pennsylvania in the past, knows its full rich history, and realizes how much the building is culturally relevant today, to please land mark it and preserve this majestic relic. Reason being, if a moss covered slab of rock that nobody cares for anymore can get to be a land mark, then I believe that the Hotel Pennsylvania with all its history, business and practicality in our city, more than deserves it.
Thank you for giving me your ears and time on hearing what I have to say on the issue, and I fully trust in the Committee’s decision on this matter.
Thank You.
-- Jordan
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
sidepocket_pro) wrote,
