I’m a land use advocate, a parks activist, a documentary film producer, a mom, and a New Yorker. And I’m running for City Council to represent NoHo, Union Square, Lower East Side, East Village, Kips Bay, Gramercy Park, Greenwich Village because we need accountable leadership, who will put District 2 constituents first.

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Hello, my name is Allie Ryan and I am running for the Democratic Party nomination to represent Council District 2. I have lived and worked here for 20 years alongside my husband, a native New Yorker whose family has resided in District 2 more than a 100 years. Living in the Lower-East side neighborhood, we are continuing the family tradition and raising our two daughters here. 

 

As a documentary filmmaker, I have tackled a wide range of subjects from former inmates re-entering society/post-incarceration, to mass transit alternatives such as urban cycling infrastructure, to advocating for free speech/right to assembly.

 

As an organizer and land use advocate I have fought for protecting our green spaces, putting a halt to over-development, and fighting against displacement of residents, small businesses, and the jobs these crucial services create.

 

While I have always been a community organizer and activist, I became involved politically as I watched our current City Council member, Carlina Rivera, lead and approve the wanton destruction of East River Park, feeding into the pockets of greedy developers and ignoring her constituents. I had to speak up! I joined alongside neighbors and residents who created the East River Park Action group to advocate for a sensible community-led flood protection plan. A plan that would have saved over a 1000 tree’s in East River Park; a plan to save the forest that survived the hundred year storm of Hurricane Sandy, but couldn’t survive the ambitions of our current District 2 representative. 

 

I am dissatisfied with how our current leadership has been running our district. Council District 2 is less safe, less clean, less affordable with no relief in sight! My mission for DISTRICT 2 communities is to "take back" our neighborhoods from greedy special interests who do not care about the destruction of character and spirit of our neighborhoods. The vast majority of our voting constituents come from humble beginnings and we have had enough!           

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I am running for office because I WANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

 

My Affiliations/Issues:

 

• Coalition to Save Manhattan Small Businesses- Village Leader working directly with small business owners, merchants to craft legislation that works for our neighborhoods to foster business development, ending the empty retail store-front apocalypse.

• Citywide People’s Land Use Alliance- Founding member, a grassroots organization to promote intelligent  community-led rezoning plans, share resources, and support constituents during government land-use review process.

• NoHo Neighborhood Association, Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, Soho Alliance, Broadway Residents Coalition- groups of residents fighting the SoHo NoHo Rezoning

• Coalition United for Equitable Urban Policy (CUE-NY), a coalition of residents and block associations throughout New York City, fighting to end Mayor Adam’s permanent outdoor roadway dining shacks.

• Save Our Supermarket- residents fighting NYU to save Morton Williams Supermarket and the LaGuardia Community Garden at the corner of Bleecker and LaGuardia Streets.

• Metro Area Governors Island Coalition (M.A.G.I.C.), a coalition working to prevent the overdevelopment of/and preserving the incredibly unique green space quality of Governors Island, a place also very dear to me as it is where my husband and I married thirteen years ago!

• Elizabeth Street Garden, a nearly 200 year old public space where neighbors are fighting the city with a lawsuit to preserve it as a community land trust.

• Friends of Tompkins Square Park- Co-founder- a group working in partnership with NYC Parks Department to clean up the park to pre-pandemic quality, reseed grassy areas in partnership with Loisaida United Neighborhood Gardens (LUNGS), and get funding to restore much need infrastructure restoration.

• Earth Celebration’s Ecological City Parade, an annual environmental artistic parade that showcases the climate change solutions created in the community gardens in East Village and East River Park.

• Time’s Up! a 30 year old non-profit, direct-action environmental organization based in the Lower East Side that uses events and educational programs to promote a more sustainable planet. I organized Time's Up! amazing historic archive of footage and photos documenting the rise of bicycling and the fight to save the community gardens in the Lower East Side.

• Stuyvesant Square Park East Gardeners, a group of community gardeners who came together during the pandemic to revitalize the gardens of Stuyvesant Square Park East.