NEW YORK, May 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ – On May 12th, author and television personality Julie Edelman, aka, “The Accidental Housewife;” local women volunteers from Habitat for Humanity-New York City; Teresa Edwards, five-time Olympian and WNBA Legend coach and player; and Lowe’s Heroes, came together to paint and garden at the New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA) Youth Chorus center at Taft Houses in recognition of National Women Build Week.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120518/NY10089 )

Julie Edelman and Teresa Edwards helped make this event a great success with their enthusiasm which brought excitement to all the volunteers.  Julie really dug into gardening and painting in style.  Teresa representing the WNBA Cares program, a program that promotes community outreach, was more than happy to get paint on her hands by showing her creative side to help paint a mural by the garden area.

The NYCHA Youth Chorus sang several inspirational songs including a rousing rendition of “I Smile” by Kirk Franklin.

This event was part of a nationwide initiative of Habitat for Humanity’s Women Build program developed in partnership with Lowe’s.  Lowe’s, underwriter of Habitat’s Women Build, has been a longtime supporter of the program since 2004.

Additional pictures and a video of Julie Edelman and Teresa Edwards shooting hoops can be found on our Pinterest board: Women Build 2012 pinterest.com/habitatnyc/.  To learn more about the WNBA Cares program visit wnba.com/cares/. To get helpful tips from Julie Edelman aka “The Accidental Housewife”, go to juliestips.com/.  To learn more about Habitat for Humanity International visit www.habitat.org.  To find out more about Lowe’s in the community visit Lowes.com/SocialResponsibility. For information about the Youth Chorus please call (212) 427-6648 or visit http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/html/community/youthchorus_auditions.shtml

About Habitat for Humanity-New York City 
Habitat for Humanity – New York City transforms lives and our city by building quality homes for families in need and by uniting all New Yorkers around the cause of affordable housing. With the help of thousands of volunteers every year, Habitat-NYC has built 268 affordable homes in the five boroughs of New York City.

For more information please visit www.habitatnyc.org/

Contacts: 
Theresa Fortune 
Habitat for Humanity-New York City
212-991-4000 x344 
PR@habitatnyc.org

Bicycles have already become an essential part of our culture, but now they’re shaping our urban and social spaces too.

New York City isn’t known as a biker’s paradise, with its overcrowded subways, pedestrian-packed sidewalks, yellow taxis snarled in traffic, and noisy buses. Yet even New York City is heading in the direction of places like Portland, Paris, and Copenhagen, which have embraced and promoted bike culture and bike sharing in the urban environment. Over the past four years, the Bloomberg administration has rolled out more than 250 miles of bike lanes. And this summer NYC will introduce its own bike-share program with 10,000 bikes and 600 docking stations around the city.

While New Yorkers pride themselves on always being first, the city is just catching up when it comes to bikes. In fact, the bicycle is the most commonly used mode of transportation around the world. Think of a bike as a tool, a toy, a connector and a mode of expression with a low barrier to entry. It’s probably the most hackable (and hacked) simple machine on the planet. Bikes not only get us from place to place, they are the focus of a number of conversations about how we organize communities and define and share social boundaries, and how we can harness human power to recycle energy back to the grid. Most importantly though, bicycles are an intrinsic part of how we imagine and design the city of the future. They will play a significant role in shaping identity and communities and influencing social dynamics in urban areas, because they are the next great technology platform.

Mode of Self-Expression

Most people remember their first bike. Mine was a BMX, which immediately gave me a shared identity with the coolest guys I knew. It also made me more adventurous. I felt I could go anywhere and do anything because my BMX gave me freedom not only to roam, but also for self-expression. I customized my bike to look like my favorite BMXer bikes. But it wasn’t just about the look; the changing features and functionality I made were my first steps toward creativity and experimentation. I tweaked the bolts on the front axel so they accommodated foot pegs I had fashioned to do certain tricks. I designed and built my own ramps to help me jump higher. Bikes were already inspiring me to add things to my environment. I was becoming a designer.

Here in New York we’re seeing that search for self-expression on a much larger scale in the form of subcultures like the Black Label Bicycle Club, a so-called “outlaw bike club” whose members custom-make “mutant” cycles known as tall bikes (two conventional bike frames soldered one atop the other). This community of bikers go dumpster diving for spare parts. They also find vegetables to share at vegan meals, an activity directly tied to ideas about reusing resources wasted by others.

Black Label and similar groups can also be seen as a form of anarchic and anti-consumerist expression, as symbols of freedom. Bicycle culture is their inspiration to live off the grid. My brother has traveled to New York from Nashville several times to participate in Black Label’s annual “Bike Kill” tall bike jousting event. He often travels here via a tight network of tall bikers that can be likened to an underground railroad, a community that connects cities.

Community

Go to a bike shop in your neighborhood and you’re likely to find a social space where you can not only buy a new saddle, but also get in touch with like-minded members of the biking community. People swap ride stories and repair tips. Bike shops are community hubs, where groups and new friendships are forged and social activism takes root.

You see this in the emerging movement to open nonprofit bicycle shops in large urban areas to engage troubled youth and redefine the behaviors of communities. One organization called Red, Bike and Green, a community-building collective of black urban cyclists founded in 2007 in Oakland, California, wants to create a “sustainable Black bike culture” that will improve the physical and mental health of African-Americans and improve their neighborhoods. RGB is a direct response to a number of health and environmental problems that are the result of misguided city policies.

Bicycles help create cohesion in communities and aid social services, especially in developing countries. In many African countries — Zambia, for example, where frog has worked on projects — bicycles are converted (or hacked) into makeshift ambulances that help voluntary health workers transport women in labor to far away birthing centers. Bicycles are also used to stay in touch with mothers after the birth to ensure adherence to HIV testing programs for the infant, as well to deliver critical services.

Shared Social Space

These community hubs and organizations reflect how bikes help create new shared social spaces. That’s because the bike is an inherently social machine. It has no walls; it’s human powered and we can all (some more than others) try our hand at hacking and repairing them. In turn, bike-share programs like Capital Bikeshare in Washington, D.C., raise questions about ownership and social spaces. As a mode of transportation in crowded cities, bikes take space from cars, which can be seen as a form of environmental protest. Critical Mass, a cycling event held monthly in over 300 cities around the world, is a good example of biking as a mass movement that many regard as a form of political protest. Not surprisingly, a backlash is brewing against pro-bike policies: In New York, opponents of bike lanes accuse the city of favoring bikers over car drivers.

Technology Platform

Bikes help you get around cities and can also tell you about your city and your interaction with it. The Copenhagen Wheel project, in that Danish city, transforms ordinary bikes into hybrid e-bikes (an electric bike that harvests the energy you input while braking and cycling and stores it for when you need a boost). They are also mobile sensing units that can map pollution levels, traffic congestion and road conditions — all in real time and of course controlled from your smartphone. In this way the bike becomes a sensing platform that captures data about people, behavior, neighborhoods, and health.

Bikes have already changed our relationships to each other and the urban environment, but consider the potential for so much more.

Imagine a future where cities go beyond bike lanes and build the urban environment around bikes. What would a bike highway look like? What would city life be like without cars? Imagine a healthier city — no more kids in the Bronx with asthma — and reduced automobile fatalities.

The biggest opportunity here is that given what we know about how bikes change our social dynamics, how would this play out on a mass scale? Amplify that with sensing and tracking technologies on board the human battery-powered bike platform and the possibilities are endless. Handgrips that monitor your pulse and heart rate multiplied by millions will help us better understand the people who live in entire neighborhoods, and the pace of life from a global perspective. Such data will inspire exciting design solutions.

In many of the most crowded, densely packed cities around the world a bicycle is the most convenient (if not always the safest) way to move around. Now even cities with more well developed transportation infrastructure are catching up and adding bicycles to the mix. That’s because bicycles are an essential part of our culture and our lives. They stir memories and self-expression. They encourage social interaction in urban environments that can be lonely and isolating. They are a mechanism for political and social organizing and activism. And with new technologies, bikes are a way to gather information about how we live and relate to one another in the shared space that is the city.

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Justin Piasecki joins Avison Young as a Principal as firm continues to deepen its bench of real estate professionals in Tri-State region

NEW YORK CITY, May 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ – Arthur J. Mirante, II, Principal and Tri-State President of Avison Young, Canada’s largest independently-owned commercial real estate services company, announced today the hiring of two top-producing capital markets professionals to join the company’s New York City office.

Effective immediately, Justin Piasecki joins Avison Young as a Principal and Amy Levenson joins as an Executive Vice-President in the New York office. Piasecki most recently worked at the Carlton Group, where he was one of the firm’s top producers and dealmakers. Previously the head bank note trader with Goldman Sachs, Levenson brings more than 20 years of Wall Street experience to her role at Avison Young. As members of Avison Young’s capital markets team, both Piasecki and Levenson will focus on loan and note sales as well as financial structuring and restructuring of real estate capital transactions. 

In recent weeks, Avison Young has aggressively expanded its Tri-State market presence, making several high-profile hires following last month’s announcement of the firm opening its first office in New York City.

“We have built strong momentum in the Tri-State market with a number of strategic hires, and this latest announcement reflects our focus on continuing to strengthen our platform by welcoming the industry’s top talent to our organization,” comments Mirante. “With these new hires, we are expanding our slate of services considerably and furthering our ability to deliver the high-level, integrated solutions that have become the hallmark of our firm.”

Avison Young Principal Greg Kraut in New York adds: “Avison Young is building a strong reputation in the New York Metropolitan Area through a selective approach to recruitment and methodical assemblage of a hand-picked team. The broad-based capital markets expertise that Justin and Amy bring to our regional operations will greatly enhance our service offerings and business development capabilities.”

Over the past three years, Avison Young has grown from 11 to 31 offices and from 300 to more than 900 real estate professionals across Canada and the U.S.

“I am excited by the opportunity to join Avison Young as a Principal and play an instrumental role in growing a thriving capital markets practice in the Tri-State market from the ground up,” says Piasecki. “The ability to access Avison Young’s unparalleled network in both the U.S. and Canada will provide our team with a unique competitive advantage in executing deals and delivering high-quality consulting services to our clients.”

“I am thrilled to be part of the high-caliber team that Avison Young is building in the Tri-State market, and leveraging my years of experience and industry relationships to support the growth of the firm’s capital markets group,” states Levenson. “I am confident that Avison Young’s team-oriented culture and extensive North American platform will greatly enhance our ability to produce high-level results to the benefit of our clients.”

Today’s announcement comes on the heels of Avison Young opening an office in Charleston, South Carolina earlier this week.

Biographies

Justin Piasecki
Justin R. Piasecki has extensive secondary market experience and expertise, including origination of loan packages for sale and placement, debt and equity capital raises, and investment sales. Over the past four years, he has sold $2.5 billion of loans for banks in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

Prior to joining Avison Young, Piasecki was a Senior Vice-President at the Carlton Group, a global real estate investment banking firm, where he was one of the company’s top producers and dealmakers. Before joining the Carlton Group, Piasecki served as the Chief Operating Officer and Vice-President of Zurich Mortgage Capital, a national direct private equity lender with annual originations of more than $150 million.

Piasecki began his career at Triple Crown Properties, a luxury home developer and real estate company in Palm Beach, Florida, where he was promoted to Vice-President of Operations before joining United Appraisal Network, which he helped grow to become the # 2 residential appraisal company in the U.S. Throughout his career, Piasecki has been recognized in the industry with various accolades, including being named to The Real Deal’s “Top 35 Under 35″ up-and-coming real estate moguls in New York City in April 2011, and to Real Estate Forum‘s “40 Under 40″ in commercial real estate in October 2011. He is a graduate of Rutgers University, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in political science and was a four-year letter winner on the men’s basketball team. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute.

Amy Levenson
Amy Levenson comes to Avison Young after more than 20 years on Wall Street and as a veteran of Goldman Sachs. At Avison Young, Levenson will focus on origination of recapitalization opportunities as well as financial opportunities such as REO and non-performing and performing loan portfolios. She will sub-specialize in multi-family and retail. Levenson will also contribute to the team’s execution capabilities by utilizing her extensive financial engineering skills and her relationships with the nation’s top institutional capital.

While at Goldman Sachs, Levenson served as the head bank note trader during the RTC era. She also traded the debt of banks, financials, retailers, homebuilders and REITs. In 1996, she moved into fixed-income sales at Goldman Sachs, where she was awarded many honors as one of the company’s top institutional salespeople in North America.

Levenson migrated to commercial real estate as a Managing Director at Grubb & Ellis, after which she was recruited to build the commercial real estate division at NewOak Capital. There, she served as Chair of commercial real estate notes and property. Most recently she ran the triple-net lease/sale-leaseback group at NAI Global, where she was an Executive Managing Director.

Levenson has worked with some of the nation’s top retailers and has also been engaged with several top private equity firms. Additionally, Levenson has published various articles and has been a well-received speaker at numerous commercial real estate conferences. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from Barnard College, Columbia University, and an MBA from Columbia Business School. She also received the State of New Jersey Senate and General Assembly Citation of Accommodation and Praise award in 2008 for her extraordinary volunteer activities. She is a member of the Real Estate Board of New York and the International Council of Shopping Centers.

In February, Avison Young was named a winner of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies program for 2011, sponsored by Deloitte, CIBC, National Post and Queen’s School of Business.

Founded in 1978, Avison Young is Canada’s largest independently-owned commercial real estate services company. Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Avison Young is also the largest Canadian-owned, principal-managed commercial real estate brokerage firm in North America. Comprising more than 900 real estate professionals in 31 offices across Canada and the U.S., the full-service commercial real estate company provides value-added, client-centric investment sales, leasing, advisory, management, financing and mortgage placement services to owners and occupiers of office, retail, industrial and multi-residential properties.

•Editors/Reporters: please click on links to view and download photos of Justin Piasecki and Amy Levenson

http://www.avisonyoung.com/sites/default/files/content-files/Media_Room/Temp/AY_JustinPiasecki_2012.jpg

http://www.avisonyoung.com/sites/default/files/content-files/Media_Room/Temp/AY_AmyLevenson.jpg

For further information/comment/photos:

New York Media Relations:

• Christa Segalini, Vice-President, Beckerman PR: (201) 465-8021
• Elliot Baum, Principal and Vice-President of Marketing, New York, Avison Young: (212) 729-7465

Avison Young Media Relations:

• Sherry Quan, National Director of Communications & Media Relations, Avison Young:
  (604) 647-5098; cell: (604) 726-0959
• Arthur J. Mirante, II, Principal and Tri-State President, Avison Young: (212) 729-1896
• Earl Webb, President, U.S. Operations, Avison Young: (312) 957-7610
• Mark Rose, Chair and CEO, Avison Young: (416) 673-4028

www.avisonyoung.com

Avison Young is a winner of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies program for 2011, sponsored by Deloitte, CIBC, National Post and Queen’s School of Business

Follow Avison Young on Twitter:
For industry news, press releases and market reports: www.twitter.com/avisonyoung
For Avison Young listings and deals: www.twitter.com/AYListingsDeals

Follow Avison Young Bloggers: http://blog.avisonyoung.com

NEW YORK, May 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ – Author and television personality Julie Edelman, aka, “The Accidental Housewife;” local women volunteers from Habitat for Humanity-New York City; Teresa Edwards, five-time Olympian and former WNBA coach and player; and Lowe’s Heroes, all representing “The Build Generation,” raised their paint brushes at the New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA) Taft Houses Youth Chorus Center today in recognition of National Women Build Week. Held May 5-13, the week-long event is a nationwide initiative of Habitat for Humanity’s Women Build program developed in partnership with Lowe’s.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20050501/NYSU020LOGO)

This year’s theme, “The Build Generation,” reflects the event’s goal to recruit and train women volunteers, as well as welcome the next generation of Habitat Women Builders – young women, ages 18-24 – to help support Habitat’s mission to create affordable housing and revitalize communities in need.

Today, the women volunteers in New York City are helping revitalize the NYCHA Taft Houses Youth Chorus Center, which provides residents, ages nine to 21 with intensive vocal training and lessons in music history and choreography. In addition to teaching music fundamentals, the Chorus also fosters self-esteem among its young musicians.

“Community revitalization addresses quality-of-life issues in neighborhoods and helps create resilient and sustainable communities,” said Rachel Hyman, Acting Executive Director. “We are so pleased to bring together all these dedicated women volunteers for this particular revitalization project during National Women Build Week. We hope the work we do here today will help inspire the next generation to carry on Habitat’s mission.” 

Edelman, spokeswoman for the New York project and a long-time Women Build supporter, built with women in Paterson, New Jersey, in addition to leading the volunteers revitalizing the Youth Chorus Center.

“As a mother, I understand how important ‘community’ is in the safe, healthy development of our children,” Edelman said. “It’s so important to share our knowledge and passion with younger women, equipping them to join us in this effort to create affordable housing, revitalize communities and build a better world for us all. And I can’t imagine any better way to celebrate this amazing initiative than having women of all ages helping women leading up to Mother’s Day!”

Lowe’s, underwriter of Habitat’s Women Build program, has committed more than $1.3 million to the 2012 National Women Build Week in support of 275 participating affiliates. National Women Build Week is one of the major initiatives supported through Lowe’s five-year, $20 million pledge to Habitat. Lowe’s conducts “How-To” clinics at stores to teach women construction skills, enabling them to support Habitat projects across the country

“Lowe’s has been the proud sponsor of Habitat’s Women Build program since 2004,” said Marshall Croom, chairman of the Lowe’s Charitable and Educational Foundation. “Women Build encourages women from all ages and walks of life to pick up their hammers and build affordable homes alongside local families. Lowe’s salutes all the women volunteers who take time to build this week and values the difference Lowe’s and Habitat are making in the lives of families across the nation.”     

New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo sends his greetings to New Yorkers in celebration of Women Build Week: “I applaud your commitment, enthusiasm, and support for this valuable goal. You are true ‘builders’ in every sense of the word and tremendous inspiration to each and every New Yorker.”

The U.S. Census Bureau reports more than 12 million children — one out of every six — are living in poverty in the United States, where more than 70 percent of Habitat’s U.S. houses are built in partnership with women heads-of-household. According to the Neighborhood Preservation Coalition of New York State, in New York City, more than 40 percent of renters pay 35 percent or more of their income towards rent– this represents more families in need of affordable housing. Habitat’s Women Build program recruits, educates and inspires women to build and advocate for simple, decent and affordable houses in their communities. Since the inception of Habitat’s Women Build program in 1998 more than 1,900 Habitat for Humanity Women Build houses have been constructed in partnership with low-income families.

About Habitat for Humanity-New York City

Habitat for Humanity – New York City transforms lives and our city by building quality homes for families in need and by uniting all New Yorkers around the cause of affordable housing. With the help of thousands of volunteers every year, Habitat-NYC has built 268 affordable homes in the five boroughs of New York City.

For more information please visit http://www.habitatnyc.org/

About Lowe’s

Lowe’s supports the communities it serves through programs that focus on K-12 public education and community improvement projects. The company’s signature education grant program, Lowe’s Toolbox for Education®, has donated nearly $5 million in grants to K-12 public schools every year since its inception in 2006. Lowe’s Heroes employee volunteers support local community projects and our national nonprofit partners such as Habitat for Humanity and the American Red Cross. In 2011, Lowe’s and the Lowe’s Charitable and Educational Foundation together contributed more than $32 million to support communities in the United States, Canada and Mexico. To learn more, visit Lowes.com/SocialResponsibility.

About Habitat for Humanity International

Habitat for Humanity International is a global nonprofit Christian housing organization that seeks to put God’s love into action by bringing people together to build homes, communities and hope. Since 1976, Habitat has served more than 500,000 families by welcoming people of all races, religions and nationalities to construct, rehabilitate or preserve homes; by advocating for fair and just housing policies; and by providing training and access to resources to help families improve their shelter conditions. For more information, to donate or to volunteer, please visit www.habitat.org, or follow us at http://www.facebook.com/habitat or at http://www.twitter.com/habitat_org or join Habitat’s blog community at www.habitat.org/blog.