Winds of Change on the Lower East Side

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/26/opinion/winds-of-change-on-the-lower-east-side.html

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On Tuesday evening, to a standing-room audience in an old theater on Grand Street on the Lower East Side, a drama played out that hasn’t been seen in the neighborhood in 40 years.

It was a candidates’ forum, with a cast of six, each seeking to take over the role of Assembly member from New York State’s 65th District. From 1977 until early this year, only one person had that part: Sheldon Silver, who was convicted in November of multiple counts of fraud and extortion, and sentenced to 12 years in prison. In the decades he controlled the seat he became powerful, rich and a living embodiment of all that is opaque, corrupt and cynical in Albany.

Five of the candidates — Don Lee, Gigi Li, Yuh-Line Niou, Paul Newell and Jenifer Rajkumar — presented themselves as reformers, poised to bring new ideas and energy in representing southernmost Manhattan, a diverse district that includes Chinatown, the gentrifying Lower East Side, Wall Street and Battery Park City.

The sixth candidate, Alice Cancel, is a novice politician, like the others, but she is also the incumbent assemblywoman, having won a special election in April to fill out Mr. Silver’s unfinished term. Mr. Silver and his cronies maneuvered her onto the ballot, for reasons that were never really clear. Her performance on Tuesday deepened the mystery; if she has qualifications for the job, she kept them well hidden.

Mr. Silver was the elephant in the room — though he wasn’t in the room; he’s out on bail, trying to delay his appointment with a prison cell. A question about Mr. Silver’s legacy gave Ms. Cancel an opportunity to disown his blackened record and acknowledge the harm he had done. She demurred.

Asked how she would stop gentrification and high-rise construction from destroying affordable housing, she drew a blank: “To be very honest with you, I don’t know the answer to that question, in terms of how do we stop what’s going on,” she said, before suggesting that maybe rezoning would help, which might have been a good answer if she were running for City Council.

But the other candidates stepped in to fill the vacuity, on housing and other issues, like policing, schools and climate change. It soon became clear that voters in the district could indeed have a real opportunity to move beyond Mr. Silver and his echo, Ms. Cancel.

Mr. Lee made a businessman’s case for technology and job creation. Ms. Li, Ms. Niou, Mr. Newell and Ms. Rajkumar gave thoughtful, informed answers about infrastructure, land use and police-community relations. Mr. Newell, who ran against Mr. Silver in 2008, showed a strong command of housing policy, discussing the need for rent regulations and tenant protections to keep people of modest means in their homes.

The room was full of partisans, with badges and T-shirts, so it was hard to tell how the evening might affect the vote. But the quality of the questions and the mere existence of new faces were invigorating. On the Lower East Side of Manhattan, it was possible to feel a breeze off the East River. It smelled of fresh starts and possibilities. The primary is Sept. 13.