JHL’s proposed 20-story New Jewish Home on the West97th Street parking lot of Park West Village presents significant concerns for the quality of life and safety of the frail, elderly people who would reside there.
As for quality of life, JHL’s plan would placetheir frailest, long-stay residents on top floors, while allocating rooms on lower floors for people requiring short-stay rehabilitation services. This would have the effect of severing street-level connections for resident likely to spend the rest of their lives in the high-rise tower, while allowingthose who would stay for only a month or two to with easy access to the normalcy of street-level life.
As for safety, there is neither a plan nor possibility of evacuation of the tower in the event of a fire or natural disaster. Fire experts have stated that elderly residents in nursing homes are at risk of dying from smoke inhalation. Evacuation from a 20-story tower is problematic when elderly residents are housed on top floors. And JHL’s proposed location is already on a heavily congested block, which takes ambulances and fire trucks as much as threetraffic light rotations to travel just the one block between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues.
Manhattan is severely under-bedded in nursing home beds for people needing long-stay skilled nursing residential services, and the Upper West Side does need a nursing home. Despite this, as its response to the recommendations of the Berger Commission (2006), JHL proposed and the NY State Dept. of Health approved a reduction of 100 beds, or approximately 20 percent of JHL’s current capacity, for the proposed location.
JHL’scurrent building on West106th Street has deteriorated. But thatlocation, containing 2.5 acres on a wide street, allows for a lower building that would be safer for its residents, without the traffic and safetyissues at West 97thStreet. That is why it should be rebuilt on 106th Street – as originally approved by the State Health Department in 2008.
As for quality of life, JHL’s plan would placetheir frailest, long-stay residents on top floors, while allocating rooms on lower floors for people requiring short-stay rehabilitation services. This would have the effect of severing street-level connections for resident likely to spend the rest of their lives in the high-rise tower, while allowingthose who would stay for only a month or two to with easy access to the normalcy of street-level life.
As for safety, there is neither a plan nor possibility of evacuation of the tower in the event of a fire or natural disaster. Fire experts have stated that elderly residents in nursing homes are at risk of dying from smoke inhalation. Evacuation from a 20-story tower is problematic when elderly residents are housed on top floors. And JHL’s proposed location is already on a heavily congested block, which takes ambulances and fire trucks as much as threetraffic light rotations to travel just the one block between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues.
Manhattan is severely under-bedded in nursing home beds for people needing long-stay skilled nursing residential services, and the Upper West Side does need a nursing home. Despite this, as its response to the recommendations of the Berger Commission (2006), JHL proposed and the NY State Dept. of Health approved a reduction of 100 beds, or approximately 20 percent of JHL’s current capacity, for the proposed location.
JHL’scurrent building on West106th Street has deteriorated. But thatlocation, containing 2.5 acres on a wide street, allows for a lower building that would be safer for its residents, without the traffic and safetyissues at West 97thStreet. That is why it should be rebuilt on 106th Street – as originally approved by the State Health Department in 2008.