About Matthew Fenton

What If All This Is Not Enough? Pondering Whether $300 Million and 16.5 Feet of Protection Will Matter 85 Broad Street parking garage after Sandy At the October 29 meeting of the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) board, Catherine McVay Hughes raised a potentially troubling question. As BPCA management reviewed plans to spend some $300 […]

Connection Reduction CB1 to Consider Cutbacks in Number of Stops on Free Bus Service A map illustrating the planned cutbacks in the number of stops served by the Downtown Connection free shuttle bus. Each of the nine triangles marked with an “X” represents a stop that is slated for elimination. Tonight (Tuesday, December 3) the […]

Excise Revise CB1 Endorses Plan to Ease Downtown Traffic with Toll Modification Miles Away The Verrazzano Bridge is located more than eight miles from Lower Manhattan, but a multiple studies indicate that tolling patterns there have a significant impact on traffic congestion here. Community Board 1 (CB1) has weighed in on a proposal to change […]

Special Cay Governors Island Caps a Banner Season; Faces Momentous Decisions in 2020 This rendering shows the size and location of the development zones that the de Blasio administration plans for Governors Island, in the hope that the revenue brought in by these projects will fund the public amenities elsewhere on the Island. Governors Island […]

Eighteen Years Later, What about the Children? Schools Agency Begins Belated Outreach Effort to Former Lower Manhattan Students at Risk of 9/11 Illness The dust cloud from the collapsing World Trade Center Tower advancing on PS/IS89 and Stuyvesant High School on the morning of September 11, 2001 photo: NYPD The City’s Department of Education (DOE) […]

Rents Within Reach for 50 Years Lower East Side’s Depression-Era Equivalent to Gateway Plaza Preserves Affordability Through 2069 Knickerbocker Village, in Two Bridges City Council member Margaret Chin has brokered an agreement that will preserve affordability for rental tenants at Knickerbocker Village, a giant apartment complex in the Two Bridges neighborhood, which was built by […]

The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Shoot Chin Pushes Legislation to Rein in Production Permits A late-night film shoot on Tribeca’s Staple Street, one of the sites most frequently requested by production companies filming in New York City Council member Margaret Chin is co-sponsoring a package of bills in the municipal legislature to clamp […]

What’s In Store? Amid a Booming Economy, Lower Manhattan Retail Space Languishes Vacant storefronts dot the landscape of Downtown A new report from City Comptroller Scott Stringer finds that in one Lower Manhattan zip code — 10013, which covers parts of western Tribeca SoHo, and the Canal Street corridor in Chinatown — there are 319 […]

Putting the Tension in Detention City Council Approves de Blasio Controversial Plan for New Jail Complex in Lower Manhattan; Legal Challenges Likely A rendering that illustrates the original bulk and shape of the 45-story, prison complex that Mayor Bill de Blasio proposes to erect in Lower Manhattan, which has now been scaled back by approximately […]

Adding Insult to Penury Ridership Survey Indicates That Ferry Coming Soon to Battery Park City Primarily Serves Affluent Riders An analysis of who uses the NYC Ferry service, which the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to expand to Battery Park City next year, shows that riders are primarily white passengers who earn more […]

Out of Their Depth Volleyball Players Rescued from Hudson, After Jumping Into River to Retrieve Ball Two young men were pulled from the waters of the Hudson River on Saturday morning, after jumping from the Battery Park City Esplanade to retrieve a volleyball that went over the railing, near North Cove Marina. The men, whose […]

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 […]