What do you think of when you hear the name Susan Sarandon? Besides “age-defying rack” and “awful taste in men.” That’s right: political activism! She’s all about speaking up for causes like UNICEF, being nice to gay people, not having wars, etc. She doesn’t care about the publicity. It’s not that she craves the attention. She really cares about people.
Which is why she and her jowly, scowly domestic partner Tim Robbins are protesting the building of a new hospital near their home in Greenwich Village. According to the NYT:
Since April, dozens of speakers have stepped before the open microphones of the Landmarks Preservation Commission during hearings to praise the quality of health care at St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan. But on Tuesday, two celebrity neighbors did not have kudos in mind.
The actors… who live a block from the hospital, took their turn offering comments along with 94 other speakers during a six-hour public hearing. The question before the commissioners was whether the hospital should be able to demolish five buildings in a $1.6 billion proposal to build a medical tower and a high-rise luxury condominium in conjunction with the Rudin Management Company on the land the hospital owns in the Greenwich Village Historic District…
She urged the commissioners “to slow down here and look at what the alternatives are.”
Possible alternatives:
- If somebody is sick and they make less money than Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, have them euthanized.
- Have you been injured in a car accident? You should have stayed home.
- Echinacea really does work wonders, you know!
Seriously, though, here’s the part I don’t get:
In an interview during a break in the hearing, she said that in visits to the emergency room and to patients in the hospital, she had been turned off by “the long lines,” and found the facilities “dirty.”
Right, so they want to build a new hospital. What’s the problem? Sure, the construction might inconvenience you, Susan, and maybe the architectural style offends your delicate sensibilities, but it would be good for the community. Why are you opposing it?
In the interview, Ms. Sarandon said she would continue to oppose the towers in an effort to preserve her neighborhood. “We value being downtown because of what downtown means,” she said.
Apparently downtown means not having adequate medical care unless you’re rich enough to go someplace else. Why are kids in Tanzania more important than kids in your own neighborhood?
P.S. So far I’ve been undecided, but Sarandon has pushed me off the fence:
“If McCain gets in, it’s going to be very, very dangerous,” she says.
“It’s a critical time, but I have faith in the American people. If they prove me wrong, I’ll be checking out a move to Italy. Maybe Canada, I don’t know. We’re at an abyss.”
McCain ‘08!
The only thing I can think is she doesn’t like the condo aspect of the development. $1.6b is a HUGE development and is certain to change the urban landscape. Yes, they need a hospital .. adding a condo-retail aspect certainly skews the purpose.
What’s the condo for? And next to a hospital? Is it for the elderly? Anyway I’m going to go browse the interweb for more pics of Susan Sarandon’s rack.
They should just ignore her. I probably couldn’t disagree with someone more politically but man…
I think it’s because she’s a redhead.
She and Tim Robbins, like all actors who stick their noses in politics, should just shut up and go away.
This might be important: Greenwich Village Historic District.
I’m assuming she’s objecting to historical buildings being demolished. Yeah, hospitals are obviously important, but so is preserving history.
And if it means subpar medical care for people who need help… ehhh! At least the last thing they see on earth won’t be a building Susan Sarandon doesn’t like.
As a NY resident, and someone who wishes we had a few fewer luxury condos and more affordable housing that is a notch or two above section 8 options, I have to say the lux condo part of the project smells like NY-cockroach-ridden crap to me. I think St. Vincent’s probably does need new and better and bigger facilities, but … yet another freakin’ condo tower??? I doubt any patients will be in there, so if their objection is to yet another one of those sun-blotting blots on the landscape in a part of the city that doesn’t have canyon after canyon of highrises (yet), then I can understand why. My neighborhood doesn’t have them (yet) either, except for some projects about 10 blocks away, and if something like that the condo tower was proposed I’d be pretty wound up about it too. I’m kinda lefty/liberal, though not as much as the Sarandon-Robbins unit are usually, but I’m thinking they may have a good point with this one.
HH LL
Yeah, who cares about a bunch of poor people?
>>“It’s a critical time, but I have faith in the American people. If they prove me wrong, I’ll be checking out a move to Italy. Maybe Canada, I don’t know. We’re at an abyss.”<<
As a Canadian, I have to politely ask you to keep your trash on your side of the lines. We have enough morons up-here, we don’t need to import more.
“Simon Scowl
Jul 16th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Yeah, who cares about a bunch of poor people?”
I’m not sure any poor people can afford to live in Greenwich Village any more. I’m guessing that the only qualifiably poor residents in the area actually live on the STREET. Where celebs and other rich residents can step over them on their way to other hospitals, or while moving to Canada or Italy, presumably.
The argument that New York would somehow be blighted by a high rise condo building? And there really is nothing a notch or two above section 8. I lived in a complex that offered section 8 housing. I was paying $1605.00 a month. And that was 10 years ago. A pretty nice place. It has something to do with the way leases are offered. I don’t know exactly how it works. All I know is I wasn’t paying section 8 prices.
Oh here’s how it works. If you’re interested. I know I’m not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_(housing)
I think there may be more to this than what we’re hearing. They want to demolish buildings in the Historic District for a medical tower (that’s offices, by the way) and luxury condos?
And when I think of Susan Sarandon, the first thing that comes to mind is Rocky Horror.
“Jowly, scowly”…you guys quack me up. X-D
If only all the celebupeeps who promised to move away actually would.
“The argument that New York would somehow be blighted by a high rise condo building?”
Not all of us like high rises and/or condos unconditionally; not all of us think this place is so bad that we might as well go ahead and trash it completely by building only multimilliondollar condos unaffordable for most of the people who live in the city (at least for now). So, yes, depending on circumstances, a high-rise condo tower might well qualify as a neighborhood blight. If you live in a neighborhood of any kind and then construction in the area changes its character, and not necessarily for the better, you have a right to express your opinion on this. Change is inevitable but that doesn’t mean you can’t try to affect the type it is. What will probably happen in this situation is that, like Columbia U. did in displacing a lot of residents in its neighborhood, the hospital (which I don’t argue needs updating) will probably claim eminent domain and the city council will roll over and let it happen. Again. On the other hand, if construction cranes in this city keep fatally falling down like they have been due to alleged corruption and ineptitude, that high-rise may not get built any time soon anyway …
The boobjob and all the botox treatments this bimbo has, makes her look even more digusting.
Is she a homosexual and married to whats-his-name as a business arrangement ?
No tapes, no DVD with her mug in it, or that of her alleged husband, is permitted
in this household.
We can only hope she fulfills her promise to leave America when McCain is elected.
Hospitals are good in theory, but when the screams of the hurt & dying interfere with Ms. Sarandon’s daily living, that’s just not right.
God, why are the hurt and dying so selfish?
shae, ithought u were the best, until i read craptastic! u guys rock-period! i am laughing out loud! she does look like a guy, doesn’t she? u kill me! i have 2 go-but i’ll be back 4 more
“She and Tim Robbins, like all actors who stick their noses in politics, should just shut up and go away.”
Like Ronald Regan. To be he went away after so much fail in office.
Cogently expressed.
Once again two people who have no problem speaking out about other peoples back yards, but let it come to their back yard………
LOL Toubrouk.
Don’t worry, we can’t get rid of ours either. They promised to move away 8 years ago when Dubya was elected, and yet they’re still here. To them, America is a great country…for pissing on.
Thank you for your support, Nunya. My country (Canuckistan) is already too pinko-commie for my taste, we don’t need more whiners…
If I had a nickel for every time an actor said that they would move to another country, I would be a rich man.
Age defying rack??? Hardly. She sags! Which all women do at that age,but not all women walk the red carpet in revealing braless dresses.
Her boobs don’t look a day over 50.
Yeah 50 POUNDS! *choke choke* It’s the best I could do.
For age defying rack google SUSAN SARANDON PRETTY BABY. Make sure your search filter is off.
Aside from that, because these two morons think they are above reproach and because they have such a holier then thou opinion of themselves…I would suggest instead of Canada or Italy…why not try Afganistan…she could hide her face and wear a burka and he could blow things up. Or maybe Irag…she could hide her face and wear a burka and he can have his fun in Abu Ghraib. Or maybe Iran…she could hid her face and wear a burka and he can blow Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or is it blow up…not sure…Robbins looks gay though.
“If they prove me wrong, I’ll be checking out a move to Italy. Maybe Canada, I don’t know.”
Can we get this in writing, maybe a contractual form? Because I’ve been burned on this sort of
thing before…
I’d like some verification that this is real before deciding to vote for McCain. I think it would be worth it, but only if we can verify that she really will move away.
I have mixed feelings about this. I don’t care for the fact that they seem to be protesting the building of a hospital, however, as far as those AFC’s (Another F**king Condo) are concerned, I don’t care for those at all. I happen to think she has good taste in men. Tim is still pretty hot. They have been together for a couple of decades. He seems loyal to Susan, as she is to him, and a true partner in every sense of the word. So it seems to me like they are a good match. Now if you don’t like their politics, that’s another issue altogether.
Thanks for the great work, deceiver.com!
You need to do a little homework on this one.
A hospital is already there. No one is going without health care. And no one is going to be getting better health care if this deal goes through. In fact the hospital added a huge addition less than 20 years ago. The hospital, just in the last couple of years, made renovations to it’s current buildings. So why build a new one just across the street you may ask?
Well because the land the hospital currently occupies happens to front on two very desirable residential blocks that can be re-developed as very, very high end housing. They can tear down their 5 story outpatient facility across, busy, less desirable 7th avenue and put up a new 19 story slab forever changing the character of major Greenwich Village intersection.
St Vincent’s is not some poor underdog institution. It’s a well connected, heavily politicized operation, (home to the Rudy Guliani Trauma Center.) There’s no one in the village that supports this.
Interesting point, “Leo.” (By the way, I loved you in Bull Durham!)