Red Light on Redistricting

Attempt to Push Boundaries on Congressional Lines Before Mid-Term Elections is Blocked
This map created by the New York State Supreme Court illustrates how redrawn Congressional district lines might have united Lower Manhattan with Staten Island, before the U.S. Supreme Court halted consideration of the case.

The New American Youth Ballet Performs the Nutcracker in Tribeca

The New American Youth Ballet, which has been performing and offering ballet classes in Lower Manhattan for 15 years under the direction of Elizabeth Flores will be presenting the Nutcracker Holiday Show at the Barnes & Noble Tribeca location at 97 Warren St, on Saturday December 10th at 4pm. Founder Elizabeth Flores recalled that “We...

Farewell to a Friend of Lower Manhattan

Robert Douglass, who helped to spark and lead Lower Manhattan’s continuing resurgence as a residential community and newly vibrant business district, died Tuesday from complications related to Parkinson’s Disease. He was 85 years old. Less than 24 hours later, the board of the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) adopted a resolution urging that the new...
Robert Douglass (right), shown at a 2015 award ceremony with Downtown Alliance president Jessica Lappin and Battery Park City Authority founder Charles Urstadt.

December 7

43 BC – Marcus Tullius Cicero is assassinated. 1703 – The Great Storm of 1703, the greatest windstorm ever recorded in the southern part of Great Britain, makes landfall. Winds gust up to 120 mph, and 9,000 people die. 1869 – American outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery in Gallatin, Missouri. 1930...
The USS Cassin, a destroyer, has capsized against the USS Downes, another destroye, in a Pearl Harbor drydock. The USS Pennsylvania is astern, occupying the rest of the dry dock.

Valediction: Robert Serpico

“It’s a home run,” Robert Serpico, the retiring vice president and chief financial officer of the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) says, looking out the window of his office in Brookfield Place. “The mix of residential and retail and commercial development, with one-third of the land set aside for parks and public space, plus museums...
Battery Park City Authority vice president and chief financial officer Robert Serpico: "I always knew the community had a bright future, but I could not have dreamed that it would be this positive. I feel privileged to have had a seat at this table for 30 years and to have been able to help contribute to what's out there now."

December 6

963 – Leo VIII elected Pope 1060 – Béla I of Hungary is crowned king of Hungary 1631 – First predicted transit of Venus (Kepler) is observed 1790 – The U.S. Congress moves from New York City to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 1825 – Pres John Adams suggests establishment of a US observatory 1862 – Pres Lincoln...
Gerald Ford

The Bad News Keeps on Coming

At the November 17 meeting of the School Overcrowding Task Force, Eric Greenleaf, a Tribeca parent who has served for almost a decade on the panel, sounded a dire demographic warning. Amid ongoing jubilation about plans (announced in earlier this year) to open a new public elementary school on Trinity Place, in the Financial District,...
School Overcrowding Task Force member Eric Greenleaf: Students who grow up in apartments now being built in Lower Manhattan, "will not be in the position of waiting for the new Trinity Place school to open. They will be in the position of having no school at all. No school for them has been funded, or is even currently planned."