Month: September 2016

Growing Up Suddenly

Helaina Hovitz was a 12-year-old middle school student attending I.S. 289 on September 11th, 2001. The events and experiences that are part of collective memory for Lower Manhattan residents were a very real part of Helaina’s life, and are still vivid in her memory today: the sickening thud of falling bodies hitting cars, the crumbling...

Today in History

455 – Emperor Avitus enters Rome with a Gallic army and consolidates his power. 1776 – Part of New York City is burned shortly after being occupied by British forces. 1792 – French Revolution: The National Convention declares France a republic and abolishes the absolute monarchy. 1934 – A large typhoon hits western Honshu, Japan,...
A little after midnight on September 21, 1776, the Fighting Cocks Tavern on Whitehall Street caught fire. The revelers inside the tavern were unable to contain it and soon it raged into a dangerous inferno, spreading up the west side of Manhattan.

Squadron Renews Call for BPCA to Allow Public Comment at Board Meetings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRAD-shh2sE&feature=youtu.be State Senator Daniel Squadron took the floor at Tuesday’s meeting of the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) board to push once again for residents of the community to be allowed to speak at meetings where decisions about their futures are made. This is the second consecutive meeting of the BPCA board at which Senator...
State Senator Daniel Squadron, makes the case for public comment at BPCA board meetings while Authority chairman Dennis Mehiel looks on.

Today in History

1498 – The 1498 Nankai earthquake generates a tsunami that washes away the building housing the statue of the Great Buddha at Kōtoku-inin Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan; since then the Buddha has sat in the open air. 1737 – The Walking Purchase, an agreement between the Penn family and Lenape tribe, is finalized which forces the session of 1.2 million...

LETTERS

To the editor, I went to the BPCA town hall meeting back in December and after an orientation, the floor was open to questions.  One person spoke asserting adamantly that he cannot get a mortgage. He referred to “the exotic nature of home ownership in the community ( which is based on a landlease rather...

So what happened to Sully's airplane?

The Airbus A320 that ditched in the Hudson River in January, 2009-without the loss of a single life-and came to rest alongside Rockefeller Park (above) was hoisted onto a barge, after which salvage operator Weeks Marine cut off the wings and tail assembly, to allow the fuselage to be hauled on a flatbed truck through...