Nice to see some self help happening in the wake of Sandy. If those who suffered from the power of Sandy, wait for the "proper" authorities to sort things out, their misery will drag on and on, but if they get together and sort it out themselves, things will start to happen.
Read the full article HERE:Construction Materials Expropriated from Luxury Developments in Manhattan, Delivered to Victims of SandyNEW YORK, NY—Over the past two weeks, a group of concerned New Yorkers has been expropriating thousands of dollars worth of tools and materials from luxury residential developments across Manhattan and delivering them to neighborhoods devastated by Superstorm Sandy.The confiscated materials, some of them never even used, include: shovels, wheelbarrows, hand trucks, pry bars, tarps, buckets, hard bristle brooms, industrial rope, contractor trash bags, particulate masks, work lights, work gloves, flashlights, heat lamps, and gasoline.Liberated from their role in building multimillion-dollar pieds-à-terre for wealthy CEOs and Hollywood celebrities, these tools are now in the collective hands of some of the hardest-hit communities in the city where they are now being allocated and shared among the people who need them most. These expropriations will continue as long as the demand for them exists.The targeted developments are being financed with over a billion dollars in bank loans plus untold millions in tax breaks from the city. All are slated to become high-end residential towers with apartments starting at upwards of $2 million, all no doubt with unparalleled views of the city—perhaps even all the way to its outer edges, where tens of thousands remain without power, heat, and hot water weeks after the storm. People continue to wait hours in line for blankets and batteries while the tools to improve their lives, the tools to help them literally dig themselves out from under the rubble, sit idle behind chained fences, safely tucked in beneath all-weather tarps or locked inside heated office trailers.
