Electchester is a cooperative housing complex at Jewel Avenue and Parsons Boulevard in South Flushing, Queens, established by Harry Van Arsdale, Jr. and Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in New York City.

Electchester was established in 1949, when Harry Van Arsdale Jr., worked with the Joint Industry Board of the Electrical Industry to purchase of the former Pomonok Country Club and build apartment buildings. 5,550 people live in about 2,500 units in 38 buildings, many of which are six-story brick structures. It is adjacent to Pomonok. It is served by Public School 200, which is on land donated by Electchester. The union provided the majority of the mortgage. New York state offered tax abatements. Electchester was classified as a "limited dividend nonprofit", subject to state regulations. The first families paid $475 per room for equity shares, and carrying charges of $26 per month per room, on apartments ranging from three and a half to five and a half rooms.

References

New York Times; March 15, 2004; Electchester Getting Less Electrical; Queens Co-op for Trade Workers Slowly Departs From Its Roots. The meat cutters had Concourse Village in the Bronx. The garment workers had Seward Park Houses in Manhattan. The printers had Big Six Towers in Queens. Decades ago, local unions sponsored more than a dozen cooperatives that provided almost 50,000 decent and affordable apartments to working-class families. As the power of labor waned and real estate values skyrocketed, though, most of these co-ops either lost their direct union connection or allowed their shareholders to sell their units on the open market.

Category:Neighborhoods in Queens

Anthony David Weiner (; born September 4, 1964) is a former U.S. Representative who served from January 1999 until June 2011. A Democrat, Weiner held the seat previously occupied by Democrat Charles Schumer and won seven terms, never receiving less than 59 percent of the vote. He was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of New York City in the 2005 election, and had begun to amass a campaign fund to run again for mayor in 2013.

Previously, Weiner was a New York City councilman from 1992 to 1998, and a congressional aide to then-U.S. Representative Schumer from 1985 to 1991. A New York City native, he attended the public schools and graduated from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh in 1985 with a bachelor of arts degree in political science.

Weiner resigned from Congress due to a sexting scandal that began when he accidentally posted a link to a sexually suggestive picture of himself on his public Twitter account. He resigned effective June 21, 2011. A special election is scheduled for September 13, 2011, to fill the remainder of his term.

Early life, education, and family

Weiner was born in Brooklyn, New York, one of three sons of Mort Weiner, a lawyer, and his wife Fran, a public high school mathematics teacher. The family lived for a time in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. Weiner described his ethnic and religious background in 2011: "We weren't a very religious household," he said, "but we had a very strong sense of our Judaism." His older brother, Seth, was killed at age 39 in a hit-and-run pedestrian–car accident in May 2000. His younger brother, Jason, is a chef and co-owner of New York restaurants.

Weiner took the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT), qualified for Brooklyn Technical High School, and graduated in 1981. He attended the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, where he played on the hockey team and initially aspired to become a television weatherman. His interests turned towards politics; he became active in student government and was named most effective student senator.

Upon receiving his bachelor of arts degree in political science in 1985, Weiner joined the staff of then-Congressman and current Senator Chuck Schumer. He worked in Schumer's Washington, D.C. office for three years, then transferred to Schumer's district office in Brooklyn in 1988 when Schumer encouraged him to become involved in local politics.

New York City Councilman: 1992–98

After six years of working for Schumer, Weiner's first chance at political office came in 1991 when the New York City Council was expanded from 35 to 51 seats. Considered a long-shot, Weiner faced strong primary competition from two other candidates who had better local name recognition and more funds. Right before the September 1991 primary, Weiner blanketed the largely white 48th council district with anonymous race-baiting leaflets playing on the voters' fears and racial hostility in the immediate aftermath of the Crown Heights race riots and tying his white opponents to black politicians who were deeply unpopular in the district. Weiner won the primary in a surprising upset, besting his opponents by 125 and 195 votes, and guaranteeing his victory in the general election in the majority Democratic district. Weiner then became, at age 27, the youngest councilman in City history.

Over the next seven years on the City Council, Weiner initiated programs to tackle quality of life concerns. He started a program to put at-risk and troubled teens to work cleaning up graffiti. He spearheaded development plans for historic Sheepshead Bay that led to a revival of the area; and, when supermarkets started leaving the neighborhood, Weiner worked to reverse the trend.

As Chairman of the Subcommittee on public housing, he fought to increase federal funding, to ban dangerous dogs, and to add more police officers to the beat. His investigation into the cause of sudden, fatal stairwell fires made headlines; he exposed dangerous practices that eventually led the city to replace the paint in developments citywide.

U.S. Congressman: 1999–2011

In the 1998 primary election, Weiner won the Democratic nomination to succeed his mentor and long-term boss, U.S. Representative Chuck Schumer who had given up his seat in the House to run for the U.S. Senate. At that time, victory in the primary was tantamount to election in the heavily Democratic 9th District which included parts of southern Brooklyn and south and central Queens. Upon winning the general election, Weiner became only the fifth person to represent the District since its creation in 1920.

Domestic issues

He received a 100% rating from the NARAL Pro-Choice America in 2003 and a 0% rating from National Right to Life Committee 2006, indicating a strong pro-choice voting record. He was critical of the 2009 Stupak-Pitts Amendment to the health reform bill, calling it "unnecessary and divisive" and saying it would prevent health insurers from offering abortion coverage regardless of whether an individual uses federal funds to purchase an insurance plan.

In April 2008, Weiner created the bi-partisan Congressional Middle Class Caucus. Weiner received an "A" on the Drum Major Institute's 2005 Congressional Scorecard on middle-class issues.

In June 2008, Weiner sponsored a bill that would increase the number of O-visas available to foreign fashion models, arguing that it would help boost the fashion industry in New York City. Weiner has criticized UN diplomats for failing to pay parking tickets in New York City, claiming foreign nations owed $18,000,000 to the city.

During the health care reform debates of 2009, Weiner advocated for a bill called the United States National Health Care Act, which would have expanded Medicare to all Americans, regardless of age. He remarked that while 4 percent of Medicare funds go to overhead, private insurers put 30 percent of their customer's money into profits and overhead instead of into health care. In late July 2009, Weiner secured a full House floor vote for single payer health care in exchange for not amending America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (AAHCA) in Committee mark-up with a single-payer plan. When a public health insurance option was being considered as part of America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, he said it would help towards reducing costs, and set up a website to push for the option. He attracted wide attention when described the Republican Party as "a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry, teaming up with a small group of Democrats to try to protect that industry", and proclaimed in front of Congress in February 2010 that: " every single Republican I have ever met in my entire life is a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry."

He was the chief sponsor of the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act (PACT) of 2009, which makes the selling of tobacco in violation of any state tax law a federal felony, and effectively ends Internet tobacco smuggling by stopping shipments of cigarettes through the United States Postal Service. Weiner said, "This new law will give states and localities a major revenue boost by cracking down on the illegal sale of tobacco", and added that "Every day we delay is another day that New York loses significant amounts of tax revenue and kids have easy access to tobacco products sold over the Internet."

On July 29, 2010, Weiner criticized Republicans for opposing the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. This act would provide for funds for sick first responders to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, many of whom reside in Weiner's district. In a speech on the floor of the House, he accused Republicans of hiding behind procedural questions as an excuse to vote against the bill.

In October 2010, Weiner urged YouTube to take down Anwar al-Awlaki's videos from its website, saying that by hosting al-Awlaki's messages, "We are facilitating the recruitment of homegrown terror." In November 2010, YouTube removed from its site some of the hundreds of videos featuring al-Awlaki's calls to ''jihad''.

Weiner voted against the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010. He said the Republicans turned out to be "better poker players" than Obama.

Foreign policy

Weiner voted for the authorization to use force in Iraq in 2002,

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External links

Anthony Weiner ''official campaign site''

Anthony Weiner on YouTube

Live from New York, It's Anthony Weiner. Daphna Berman, ''Moment Magazine'', May/June 2011

Video of Weiner's June 6, 2011 Press conference (CBS News), with transcript (''New York Post''), June 6, 2011

Category:1964 births Category:American Jews Category:Jewish members of the United States House of Representatives Category:Living people Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from New York Category:New York City Council members Category:New York City politicians Category:New York Democrats Category:People from Brooklyn Category:Public officeholders of Rockaway, Queens Category:State University of New York at Plattsburgh alumni

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