1066 – William the Conqueror and his army set sail from the mouth of the River Somme, beginning the Norman conquest of England. 1540 – The Jesuit Society of Jesus receives its charter from Pope Paul III. 1590 – Pope Urban VII dies thirteen days after being chosen as the Pope, making his reign the […]
Archives for September 2018
National Museum of the American Indian
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian at One Bowling Green offers New Yorkers the best of what Washington D.C has to offer: free admission to museums. This summer, the museum opened Taíno: Native Heritage and Identity in the Caribbean. The exhibit is a reflection of a growing interest across the Caribbean in […]
Chin Rails about Jail
City Council member Margaret Chin is raising a broad range of concerns related to the plan, currently being pushed by the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio, to build a new, 40-story prison in Lower Manhattan. In a letter sent to City Hall on Monday, Ms. Chin objects first to what she sees as a […]
More Time to Rebuild the Maritime Building
The decade-long effort to refurbish the historic Battery Maritime Buildingmay soon resume, after years of inaction, thanks to a new investment by Midtown Equities, a real estate firm that is a partner in Larry Silverstein’s 99-year lease on the World Trade Center, and also purchased the nearby landmarked office building, One Broadway, earlier this year. […]
‘Egrets, We’ve Had a Few…’
Downtown dweller Patrick Sheldon was the first of several readers to report on Lower Manhattan’s newest celebrity resident: an as-yet-unnamed Great Egret. Spotted for the first time at a paddle-board race at North Cove Marina on September 25, this majestic creature was seen stalking a mouse. (Egrets, like all herons, subsist on fish, frogs, and […]
Where the Population Is Rising Faster Than the Sea Level
Developers have filed permits with City agencies to create another 813 apartments in the Financial District, in the twelve-month period ending July 1, 2018, according to a new analysis by Localize.city, an online database that uses artificial intelligence to provide buyers and renters with critical insights for every New York City address. This marks FiDi […]
Demand for School Space Increases as Financial District becomes the Diaper District
This month, Blue School is opening a 40,000 square-foot campus at 156 William Street to house students in grades four through eight. The new space will allow Blue School to double its enrollment over the next ten years. The school hopes to cement their dedication to the FIDI and South St. Seaport neighborhoods with the […]
Hope Floats
Shimon Attie, a visual artist who first made his reputation in the 1990s by projecting slides of scenes from Jewish life in Germany before World War Two onto the sides of buildings in modern Berlin, will be treating Lower Manhattan residents to a silent film about asylum seekers for the next several nights. The film, […]
Wildlife in Lower Manhattan
Downtown resident Patrick Sheldon reports a sighting: Meet the Great Egret. That long neck is pulled in when he flies and those wings appeared to be more than four feet across in the air. The egret can have four- to five-foot wingspans. He appeared the day of the paddleboard races (September 25th) and there were […]
EYES TO THE SKY September 18-30, 2018
At nightfall, look for the Great Square of Pegasus suspended above the eastern horizon. The Great Square is an easy to recognize pattern that is shaped by three stars of the constellation Pegasus – the winged horse of ancient Greek mythology – and one star belonging to Andromeda, the constellation that follows Pegasus in the […]
Today in History September 20
1498 – The Nankai earthquake generates a tsunami that washes away the building housing the statue of the Great Buddha at Kotoku-in in Japan. The Buddha now sits on open air. 1519 – Ferdinand Magellan sets sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with just under three-hundred men on his expedition to circumnavigate the globe. 1737 – […]
Tales of Derring-Do During Spy Week
Nestled in the heart of the Financial District lies Fraunces Tavern Museum, where familiar words and traces of forgotten history are illuminated. On the ground floor at 54 Pearl Street, a jazzy tune drifts out of the roped-off bar to the left, and clinking plates and chattering tourists and Wall Street workers are reminders that this tavern has […]
West Thames/Rector Street Project
To the editor: Is the West Thames Street Bridge a typically managed public project in New York City? Publicity and public meetings are concerning. Questions begin to arise. Why does such a project cost so much? Who benefits? It doesn’t seem to be the taxpayers. How does a $20 million contract become a $40 million […]
How to Help People Who Struggle with a Mortgage, Instead of Rent
Community Board 1 (CB1) is advocating to protect a constituency that is often overlooked in discussions about affordable housing: residents who own their apartments, rather than renting them. A resolution passed at CB1’s July meeting calls upon the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio to create protections for homeowners in Lower Manhattan, as part of […]
Quantifying the Community
City Comptroller Scott Stringer has issued his annual Neighborhood Economic Profiles report, which provides a financial and demographic snapshot of each community throughout the five boroughs of New York City, and yields some interesting insights about Lower Manhattan. For the purposes of this report, Downtown is defined as Manhattan, south of 14th Street, west of […]
Who’s Eco-Friendliest?
Three State legislators who represent Downtown in Albany have been given high marks by the New York League of Conservation Voters (NYLCV), the only statewide environmental organization in New York that campaigns for clean water, clean air, renewable energy and open space through political action. In its annual State Environmental Scorecard, the NYLCV evaluated every […]
Does It Feel Like ‘Logan’s Run’ Around Here?
Lower Manhattan is emerging as a mecca for millennials (defined here as people born between 1977 and 1996), according to a new report prepared by RENTCafe, a nationwide apartment search website. The study, produced by Nadia Balint, a senior writer and researcher at RENTCafe, finds that urban cores across the nation are magnets for this […]
The Choice
“I have told my family that I’ve decided to survive this,” says Theseus Roche, the grieving father who lost his 15-year-old daughter, Imogen, when she died on September 2, in an accidental fall from a fifth-floor fire escape at the Tribeca apartment where she was attending a party. She will be honored and remembered tomorrow […]
Nothing Is Set in Stone
According to a discussion at a summer meeting of the Battery Park City Authority(BPCA) board, there may yet be an opportunity to revise the most controversial aspect of the plan to build resiliency measures in Wagner Park, but the potential scope of such modification appears to be limited. At the July 24 BPCA board meeting, […]
Responding to the Responders
A new State law, sponsored by Assembly member Yuh-Line Niou, which extends health benefit for first responders to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, was signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo last Friday. Ms. Niou said, “the attacks left a profound scar on Lower Manhattan and all of New York. We remain forever […]