About Matthew Fenton

Keep It Light Condo Boards Question Need for South End Avenue Redesign After Installation of Traffic Signal A rendering of the BPCA’s plan for changes to the South End Avenue streetscape, with widened sidewalks shown in red, new medians in green, and the new “speed table” in brown. At the October 2 meeting of the […]

Joint Pains City Hall Hints at Scaled-Back Plan for Lower Manhattan Jail, While Pushing Ahead on Plan for New Prison Downtown A rendering that illustrates the bulk and shape of the 45-story, 1.27 million-square-foot prison complex that Mayor Bill de Blasio proposes to erect in Lower Manhattan. City Hall is now reportedly considering a scaled-back […]

Aesthetic Inventory BPCA’s Public Art Collection Represents Multiple Layers of Value The Pylons, a pair of granite and stainless steel obelisks by sculptor Martin Puryear (who represented the United State at the 2019 Venice Biennale) is one component of a public art collection owed and maintained by the Battery Park City Authority that appraisers estimate […]

Saloon Scuffle Residents Riled about Tribeca Tavern Community Board 1 is urging the State Liquor Authority to delay (and possibly decline) an application by Tribeca’s MI-5 to continue operating. More than a dozen concerned Tribeca residents turned out for the September meeting the Licensing and Permits Committee, which weighs in on the granting or renewal […]

Sin of Omission City Agency Leaves Cash-Strapped Local Museum Off Roster of Cultural Institutions The City’s Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) has omitted from its list of dozens of New York-based cultural institutions that receive public support the museum that chronicles the oldest community anywhere in the five boroughs. Since the 1870s, City Hall has […]

Condo Embargo BPCA Puts the Brakes on Conversions of Rental Buildings within Community Controversial plans to convert rental apartments to condominiums (and in the process, force longtime tenants from their homes),as happened in 2014 at this building, located at 212 Warren Street, may no longer be allowed under a new policy recently announced by the […]

Damascus on the Hudson Lower Manhattan’s Old Syrian Quarter to Be Recalled in Sunday Walking Tour This map from 1899 highlights the area of the Lower West Side known as “Little Syria”, which a walking tour on Sunday will highlight. Today, the stretch of Greenwich and Washington Streets between Battery Place and Albany Street — […]

Court of Appeal Local Leaders Urge Preservation of Justice Complex The New Deal-era Criminal Courts Building at 100 Centre Street is widely regarded as a historic treasure, but does not enjoy any legal protection that would prevent it from being sold, demolished, and replaced by a skyscraper. Community Board 1 (CB1) is urging the City’s […]

Vertical Values Costs to Rent or Own in Lower Manhattan Are Matched by Lofty Local Earnings A slew of recent reports documents what everyone who lives or works in Lower Manhattan already sensed in their bones: This is a mind-numbingly expensive place to call home. In September, RENTCafé issued a new analysis of the most […]

Getting Squeezed Coming and Going Influential Planning Group Wants Two-Way Congestion Pricing For Lower Manhattan residents who already feel aggrieved by the State’s pending congestion pricing plan (which will charge people who live here to drive to their homes), the Regional Plan Association (RPA) has a suggestion for how to make it worse: levy a […]