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 […]

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 […]

A Guardian of Local Children Falls Esteemed Lower Manhattan School Safety Officer Victim of Murder-Suicide Naire McCormick, who served for years as the School Safety Agent at Millennium High School, in the Financial District A protector and defender of Lower Manhattan school children is gone. Naire McCormick, who has served as the uniformed School Safety […]

Influx Reflux Study Predicts 300 Fewer Vehicles Per Day on Local Streets If Verrazzano Toll Changes The Verrazzano Bridge is located more than eight miles from Lower Manhattan, but a new study indicates that tolling patterns there have a significant impact on traffic congestion here. A new analysis commissioned by the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel […]

Freedom of Movement BPCA Board Allocates Funds to Support for Free Downtown Shuttle Bus At its August 27 board meeting, the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) allocated more than $1.2 million to continue support for the free Downtown Connection shuttle bus service, operated by the Downtown Alliance. BPCA vice president Eric Munson explained, “for the […]

Remembrance of Things Aghast Residents and Local Leaders Recall 18 Septembers Ago Firemen at Liberty Street and South End Avenue  on the afternoon of September 11, 2001.  photo: Robert Simko Today’s anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 was the subject of shared recollection and reflection on Sunday evening, when a panel of […]

Tenets for Tenants Elected Officials Urge Prompt Renewal and Expansion of Gateway Affordability Protections A coalition of five elected officials representing Lower Manhattan is urging the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) and the landlord at Gateway Plaza to strike a deal preserving affordability at the community’s largest resident complex. In a July letter addressed both […]

Pup, Pup in the Air Schumer Blasts ‘Doors-Off’ Chopper Flights That Now Carry Dogs A dog aboard a similar flight, as the FlyNYON aircraft cruises  high above the Statue of Liberty.   U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer announced yesterday that a New Jersey-based helicopter tour operator — still being investigated for a March, 2018 crash in […]

Anniversary Anamnesis Looking Backward and Moving Forward, A Dozen and a Half Years Later Eighteen years later, the scars on the local landscape have mostly vanished, but the internal wounds persist for those who survived the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. For this constituency, Lower Manhattan resident Helaina Hovitz Regal (author “After 9/11: One […]

Garden Gets Going Ground Broken on New FiDi Park, After a Decade of Planning Local leaders ceremonially break ground on the new  Elizabeth H. Berger Plaza Park in the Financial District A planned new public space that Lower Manhattan community leaders have been advocating for since 2009 took a significant step closer to being realized […]

Litigation Ligation Federal Court Dismisses Suits Against BPCA By September 11 Cleanup Workers The pulverized World Trade Center blankets Lower Manhattan  on September 11, 2001. United States District Court judge Alvin Hellerstein has dismissed more than 100 suits against the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA), brought by rescue, recovery and cleanup workers who were made […]