Festivus 2025: Our Airing of Grievances!
The ‘holiday’ of Festivus was developed as an alternative to the commercialization of the Christmas season and is celebrated annually on December 23rd. First celebrated in the mid-1960s by author and editor Daniel O’Keefe (father of Seinfeld writer Dan O’Keefe), it was popularized on Seinfeld’s December 18, 1997 episode “The Strike,” in which Kramer refuses to work on Festivus and pickets his employer, H&H Bagels.
Seinfeld has a few links to the Village, including Kramer’s disorienting journey to 1st Street and 1st Avenue (“the nexus of the universe”) and Newman’s job at the Cooper Station post office. But Festivus has taken on a life of its own beyond Seinfeld. Festivus features a celebratory Festivus Pole made of unadorned aluminum (selected for its high strength-to-weight ratio), the Feats of Strength, and the Airing of Grievances.
The Airing of Grievances takes place at the Festivus Dinner, where you gather your family and tell them all the ways they have disappointed you over the past year. As George Costanza’s father Frank eloquently stated:
Village Preservation Airing of Grievances!
2025 Charter Revision Commission
The political hacks appointees of the 2025 Charter Revision proposed several recently approved items that will result in less community control and fewer benefits for communities throughout NYC. The measures passed by a smaller than anticipated margin due to efforts of groups like Village Preservation and the majority of the City Council who opposed these power grabbing efforts. We will all see how this plays out over the upcoming years but in all likelihood, it wont be good.
NYC Department of City Planning
We took stock at the one third mark, and to no surprise, the NYC Department of City Planning’s estimates of all the housing and affordable housing that would be built following the Soho/Noho Rezoning were WRONG.
We wish we didn’t have to be so right all the time, but WE TOLD YOU SO!!!! It was almost too easy to predict these results. At the time, we shouted from the rooftops that this plan would lead to the destruction of rent-regulated housing. Loopholes would let developers build housing without any affordable option. Commercial development would likely be built as a result of the rezoning rather than promised affordable housing. The City turned a deaf ear to these concerns, leading to no new affordable housing built in the rezoned neighborhoods. Read our full report here.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams
Last, but definitely not least, is our disgraced, soon-to-be-former mayor, Eric Adams. Last year he made the least for being the THE WORST LANDMARKING MAYOR EVER, a reputation he maintained throughout 2025. This past year, he refused to protect the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center although repairs had been funded, denied protections for the area south of Union Square, and gave away what may be the largest (and is definitely the tallest) residential giveaway in our local history in Gansevoort Square.
Fortunately, this will be the last year Mayor Adams will be on our list as it is his last year as Mayor. Here’s to hoping our next mayor stays off our list in 2026 and beyond…