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Council Member Salaam questions developer Teitelbaum about community trust
0:47:58
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147 sec
Council Member Yusef Salaam questions developer Bruce Teitelbaum about community trust following previous issues with the One45 for Harlem project site. Teitelbaum acknowledges past mistakes, apologizes, and highlights recent community-focused efforts to rebuild trust.
- Teitelbaum admits the truck depot was a mistake and apologizes for it
- The developer describes providing free space and services to community organizations
- Salaam acknowledges seeing some of these community investments
Yusef Salaam
0:47:58
I wanna move to the community trust.
0:48:00
The following following the withdrawal of the one four five application in 2022, the site was left in disrepair and worse, partially turned into a truck stop, truck depot.
0:48:12
This was a really disregard of and degrading of what the community trust could be.
0:48:23
That trust was very, very slim already And, you know, between the community and yourself, I wanna know if you can answer a question that's been on the minds and hearts of many in our community.
0:48:36
Why should the community trust you now?
Bruce Teitelbaum
0:48:39
Yeah.
0:48:39
So I'll say three things.
0:48:41
One, I've already said publicly, I think twice at the community board hearings, once at the city planning commission hearing when I was asked specifically about this by one of the commissioners, what my thinking was about the truck depot.
0:48:54
I said then I'll say it now.
0:48:55
In retrospect, it was a mistake.
0:48:57
It should not have been done.
0:48:58
I would not have done I would not do it again and I apologize for it.
0:49:02
Two, to get to your specific question about trust.
0:49:06
Over the last two or three years and there were people I believe here who gonna testify as such, we have used that.
0:49:12
We by the way spent a significant amount of money to clean up and to make that site suitable for the use of not for profit organizations that have used that site to provide invaluable services to the community.
0:49:27
We have not charged anyone a penny.
0:49:30
We have spent thousands and thousands of dollars to renovate portions of the site in order to make it usable for these community groups.
0:49:38
We have for a period of time used one of the sites for a free food giveaway, which we also partly sponsored.
0:49:44
So what I would say is you have to look at the totality of the record.
0:49:49
Look at what we've done over the last few years with the site.
0:49:51
Look at the community groups that we've worked with.
0:49:54
Look at the amount of support that we've invested in the community and I would respectfully suggest that that record when you look at it from that perspective, is a very very good one.
0:50:04
And again, I I am trying to look prospectively, not retrospectively, to see what kind of great things that we can accomplish and I think we can.
Yusef Salaam
0:50:14
I wanna move well, thank you.
0:50:16
Thank you for that.
0:50:17
And I actually have seen some of those those, for lack of a better word, investments in the community.