Run Layla Run: Can Layla Law Gisiko Stop the Chelsea Demolition and Save Public Housing?
New York City Council Candidate Layla Law-Gisiko is running to replace Erik Bottcher and stop plans to demolish the FEC public houses in Chelsea. Photos/Joe Maniscalco
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By Joe Maniscalco
Community activist Layla Law-Gisiko wants to be in the New York City Council in May so that she can stop the political machine from getting any closer than it already is to demolishing two thriving communities in Chelsea—and putting yet another nail in public housing’s coffin nationwide in the process.
Opponents in the race to fill former City Council Member Erik Bottcher’s vacated District 3 seat tried and failed earlier this week to knock Law-Gisiko off the ballot before the April 28 special election using a mix of dirty political maneuvers she calls “half Trumpian and [half] Tammany Hall.”
Now they have to deal with a fiercely determined candidate with enthusiastic grassroots support whose overriding mission it is to stop the Mamdani administration from picking up right where former Mayor Eric Adams left off.
Adams—and now Mamdani—advocated a public-private scheme allowing private developers to swoop in over the next two decades and completely remake the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea [FEC] public houses in the tony image of the nearby Hudson Yards development with all its glass and steel towers.
Gone will be the trees, public benches, and playgrounds that now dot the existing working class communities stretching from West 16th to West 27th streets and in between Ninth and Tenth avenues. Gone too, demolition opponents fear, will be the FEC’s low-income families, too.
“Public housing is on the brink of a disaster—and I have a plan on day one [to stop it].”
“Public housing is on the brink of a disaster, and I have a plan on day one [to stop it],” Law-Gisiko told supporters gathered outside the Hudson Guild center at 441 West 26th Street on Wednesday.
Bottcher, as reported here earlier, casually withstood the sustained pleas of FEC tenants—many of them elderly immigrant people of color—who oppose the demolition plan and insist the City of New York and the New York City Housing Authority [NYHA] should instead pursue a path of re-investment and more affordable repairs. Community Board 4, also debated the demolition plan at length last year—and soundly rejected it.
City Council Member Christopher Marte [r] endorses Layla Law-Gisiko’s candidacy outside the Hudson Guild on W. 26th Street this week.
None of that moved Bottcher, however, and instead of being voted out of office, he now holds the State Senate seat Brad Hoylman-Sigal left behind after winning election to become Manhattan Borough President in January.
Former Bottcher chief of staff Carl Wilson, along with Community Board 4 Chair Leslie Boghosian Murphy, and former Deputy Secretary for Economic Development Lindsay Boylan are all challenging Law-Gisiko for the vacant District 3 councilmanic seat.
“This is a community, and what this community deserves is investment—not erasure. But this is what my opponents want to destroy. We will not let that happen.”
“This is a community, and what this community deserves is investment—not erasure,” Law-Gisiko further told supporters on Wednesday. “But this is what my opponents want to destroy. We will not let that happen.”
Cea Weaver, director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, told Chelsea public housing residents last month that the Mamdani administration is interested in moving ahead with the demolition scheme.
Council Member Christ Marte [D-1st District]—sponsor of the “No More 24” bill to end round-the-clock shifts in New York City’s home care industry, as well as legislation to protect municipal retiree health care from privatization—endorsed Law-Gisiko’s candidacy this week saying she understands “the meaning of this fight—and is never gonna give up.”
Chelsea Addition tenant Yu Story [r] , one of the stalwart Chelsea residents who are refusing to be forced out there homes, voices her support for Layla Law-Gisiko’s City Council run.
“She has a plan to save the residents of public housing today and this year. That’s why it was so devastating to her at the time that she was off the ballot,” the council member said. “Really, that shows who she is—it wasn’t about her political career, it wasn't about personal gain—it was about the residents that live in these developments.”
Law-Gisiko told Work-Bites on Wednesday that she’s been involved in New York City’s public housing issue at a “super-granular level” and that she is running expressly on behalf of Chelsea’s public housing tenants opposing demolition.
“I know exactly what could be done,” she said. “Maybe others don’t have the foresight—or maybe others don’t see that there are other tools, or other ways [to fund NYCHA]. I can’t speak to that—but the one thing I can say is that I know exactly how to turn these things around—how to use different programs, how to implement different housing policies. The truth exists, it’s not like we have to re-invent the wheel.”
The City Council candidate expressed a certain degree of reticence about further revealing her strategy, however, indicating that she does not want to inadvertently benefit her challengers. But Law-Gisiko did say that as the next City Council member representing the 3rd District she would have strong allies in the State Legislature opposing demolition in Chelsea, too.
Former State Senator and City Council Member Tom Duane says Layla Law-Gisiko has widespread community support to be the next City Council Member representing Chelsea.
“I know exactly what kind of legislation should be introduced,” she said. “Actually, some of it has already been introduced by [State] Senator [Leroy] Comrie that would make a big difference in the way that NYCHA interacts with the New York City Council and the administration, so that we can actually effectuate the changes that we need.”
Comrie is sponsor of Senate Bill 4315, which seeks to grant the New York City Council greater oversight over NYCHA’s operations and activities. The bill currently sits in the Housing, Construction And Community Development Committee. A similar bill is also pending in the Assembly.
Former State Senate and City Council Member Tom Duane, meanwhile, jeered efforts to knock Law-Gisiko off the ballot earlier this week and said the notion she doesn’t have widespread community support in Chelsea is “completely and utterly and totally absurd.”
“They look pretty bad because there is no knocking our girl back,” Duane said.
The April 28 special election to determine Bottcher’s successor will be a non-partisan vote—early voting starts April 18.