MSCC, John Mudd, September 12, 2026

“Andrew Berman’s crusade to preserve the West Village has put him at odds with just about everyone.” —NOT EVERYONE!

The last NIMBY in YIMBY Town article attempts to smear long time advocate Andrew Berman, executive director of Village Preservation, ‘who has fought for a quarter-century’ to stop the invading terrorists from blowing up historical sites, skylines, landscapes, affordable housing, and more. So shamefully soaked with inaccuracies it makes for a propaganda piece for the cabal of developers who are in the midst of ravaging our landscapes and destroying us economically to amass more wealth than their current Total global property value of $393.3 trillion.

What is YIMBY, but a propaganda campaign to allow developers to squeeze us out of home and stability for their wealth and power. YIMBY is but a word used by their partners to stand aside, do nothing, or worst, support the vulture capitalists in achieving their goals of power and wealth. The news isn’t news, and politicians pretend, posture, and gas-light us to go along with the political and policy schemes of the predatory class.

Hiring and firing (or not firing leftovers from previous administration) to expedite heinous self-serving policies isn’t new, Trump’s administration is filled with pro corporate unpeopled ideas. Our Mayoral administration is filled with controversies and contradictions.

The City Council on Thursday approved Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s nominee for a key housing post, despite concerns from some who criticized the appointee as too dismissive to local residents’ concerns about new development.

John Mangin, a Department of City Planning official, will take the helm at the Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA), an oft-overlooked, five-person board charged with interpreting the city’s zoning rules and, in certain cases, whether to grant exceptions to developers whose projects don’t conform to them.—City Limits

Why the contradictions? They all serve the ruling class whole heartily, and will gladly drop breadcrumbs to keep up the pretense that we matter. Even the breadcrumbs are at risk of being whisked away by City smut covered pigeons: The Rent Guidelines board gave the renters a freeze as per Mayor Mamdani’s campaign promise, and the cabal of landlords are having a meltdown; even though, they received a huge increase during Mayor Adams’ administration. Rallying together with attorney Randy Mastro, who served as former Mayor Eric Adams’ deputy, they seek to overturn this year’s rent freeze for roughly one million rent-stabilized apartments.

They will destroy our housing stability and landscapes for a copper penny. The Chelsea public housing struggle is a prime example of corporatocracy bastardization. Assemblymember Simone, Councilman Wilson, Senator Bottcher, Presumed (not by me) Representative Lasher and soon to be former Representative Nadler, are all in on Related Companies and NYCHA’s demolition of Fulton House and Elliott Chelsea houses and land theft of almost 14 acres of public land.

The nod and wink to the ruling class as our homes, landscapes, and resources are traded for position and power by politicians and elected officials from the local to the federal level is sadly commonplace—and made possible with the support by the media.

The Freedlander characterization of Andrew Berman as a “NIMBY” relic is a masterclass in modern gaslighting. It attempts to rewrite New York City’s history and erase the devastating impacts of unregulated real estate development under the guise of progressive “abundance”.

For decades, Andrew Berman and Village Preservation have not been fighting progress; they’ve been fighting erasure. To reduce his heroic stewardship of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo to mere obstructionism is to carry water for the multi-billion-dollar real estate lobby.

Here’s the truth about Berman’s legacy and the vital importance of his work.

He’s preserved our collective patrimony. The physical history of NYC belongs to all New Yorkers, not just the highest bidders. Berman has assiduously protected the architectural, cultural, and human-scale fabric of neighborhoods that birthed the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, the avant-garde art scene, and generations of working-class immigrant communities. Once a historic block is bulldozed for a glass-and-steel luxury tower, that history is gone forever. Berman understands that a city without a past has no soul.

Let’s address the YIMBY Myth of “Abundance” because the current corporate-backed YIMBY narrative claims that building luxury high-rises will magically trickle down to lower housing costs. In a hyper-globalized market like Manhattan, luxury towers do not create affordability—they act as safe-deposit boxes for international capital and ultra-wealthy investors. Organizations like Open New York often act as the de facto PR wing for developers, weaponizing progressive language to dismantle zoning laws that protect communities. Berman accurately identifies this for what it is: a Trojan horse for predatory real estate speculation.

It seems that human-scale livability means nothing to Freedlander. Sunlight, air, architectural diversity, and vibrant street life are what make New York livable.  The fact is that Berman’s fight against out-of-scale rezonings is a fight for the psychological and physical well-being of everyday residents. The alternative is a sterile, corporate monoculture dominated by shadow-casting supertalls that suffocate local small businesses and price out long-time neighbors.

What we have here is the battle all NYC is facing…true community advocacy vs. top-down callousness: Berman’s detractors paint him as elite, yet his work actively defends the human beings who populate these historic districts. By fighting out-of-scale developments, he protects existing rent-stabilized tenants from the intense displacement pressures that inevitably occur when a neighborhood is upzoned for luxury development.

No, Andrew Berman is not an obstacle to New York’s future. He’s the guardian of its enduring identity. In a city driven by relentless greed and callous erasure, his fierce, uncompromising defense of our shared heritage is not just admirable—it is entirely necessary. —Sandy Reiburn, CPH Coalition Member