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 […]