One45 Truck Stop Battle Escalates As Richardson Jordan Protests

HARLEM, NY — Council Member Kristin Richardson Jordan took to the streets Tuesday to protest a developer's plan to open a truck stop on the site of the failed One45 rezoning — even as the developer insists that the lawmaker herself is to blame for the unwanted facility.

Richardson Jordan and other community groups gathered Tuesday afternoon near the corner of 145th Street and Lenox Avenue, where developer Bruce Teitelbaum had sought to build two towers containing more than 900 apartments before pulling the project at the last minute in May, due mainly to Richardson Jordan's opposition.

Instead, Teitelbaum plans to open a depot for large trucks on a portion of the site — much to the dismay of Harlemites, who anticipate noise and air pollution.

"Our community should not have to choose between a high rise luxury apartment complex that will displace our people in the last Black community in manhattan and a truck stop that will add to the already dire levels of asthma in our community," Richardson Jordan wrote in an Instagram post about the rally.

The rally's stated goals included asking state officials not to license the depot, and calling on Teitelbaum to "stop the attacks on our community & negotiate with our city councilwoman."

The final plans for One45 would have included 458 apartments considered affordable, including 112 units listed at 30 percent of the area median income. But Richardson Jordan demanded more affordable units, alleging the project would indirectly displace Harlem's longtime Black residents.

A new rezoning could still be proposed for the site, since One45 was voluntarily withdrawn and not voted down. But Teitelbaum, for his part, has suggested it is Richardson Jordan who has refused to negotiate.

"I could have made a deal with every other member of the Council except for one-KRJ, who adamantly refused to negotiate in good faith and knew full well that her rejection of 1,000 apartments would mean self-storage, a truck depot and other market rate uses," Teitelbaum told Patch in a text message.

"No matter how hard she tries to spin it now, she is to blame, she rejected 1,000 homes nearly half deeply affordable for existing Harlem residents and explicitly told me she would prefer our as-of-use rights to 1,000 apartments," he said.

The truck stop itself is slated to occupy a former gas station on the midblock of West 145th Street between Lenox Avenue and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard.

While Teitelbaum initially said it would open by late December, he now says it is slated for sometime in January, pending the hiring of security workers and finalizing insurance policies.

Though critics have called the truck stop an act of spite for Richardson Jordan's rejection of One45, Teitelbaum has insisted that he and his business partners are simply doing what they can to get some value out of the site. A truck stop is one of several uses allowed by the block's current zoning scheme, along with self-storage facilities or market-rate housing — both of which Teitelbaum has floated as possibilities if a rezoning is never approved.

Others who joined Richardson Jordan's protest on Tuesday included Tanesha Grant, leader of the neighborhood groups Parents Supporting Parents and Moms United for Black Lives, who said the choice between a truck stop and the One45 project was a false one.

"'Something is better than nothing' — how long have Black folks been hearing that in this country?" Grant said.

Related coverage:

• Truck Depot On Harlem's One45 Site Almost Ready, Developer Says
• Harlem's One45 Site To Host Big-Rig Truck Depot, Developer Says
• Harlem's One45 Project Defeated; Storage, Condos Likely Replacement
• One45 Thrown Into Confusion As Sharpton Wavers