Feds Propose Enclosing Plaza for Crowd Control; Residents Demur
Lower Manhattan residents are pushing back against a plan by federal officials to fence off approximately 16,000 square feet of public space behind an eight-foot tall barricade in the Civic Center neighborhood. The existing plaza, which is a legally protected landmark, connects Pearl and Worth Streets, via a passageway between the east side of the New York State Supreme Court building (60 Centre Street) and the west face of the Moynihan federal courthouse (500 Pearl Street).
Officials with the General Services Administration (GSA), which manages the federal government’s real estate, want to enclose the plaza behind a 237 linear feet of iron fencing (200 feet on the Worth Street side, and 37 feet on the Pearl Street end of the plaza) as “part of a post-9/11 and post-summer 2020 response to high profile cases, large crowds, peaceful protests, and civil unrest.” The GSA is promising to leave the four gates that will be built into this fence open from 7am to 7pm every day, although this assurance is being greeted with skepticism among area residents.
The City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission has signed off on the plan because the proposed barricade, “while on the landmark site, is located at the back of the site and attached to modern walls, and has no effect on significant project architectural features.”
But community leaders are objecting, because the plan could close a well-used pedestrian connection and restrict access to an important work of public art. Jan Lee, a Chinatown community leader who co-founded three community groups (the Civic Center Residents Coalition, the Chinatown Core Block Association, and Neighbors United Below Canal), said, “there is no need to impose a permanent steel perimeter around this site, especially not in a neighborhood like Chinatown, where public space is already vanishing block by block. In my community organizing work over the past three decades, I’ve become all too familiar with the pattern. Government agencies promise our neighborhoods open and welcoming plaza spaces, but one by one, these spaces are slowly taken away. First it is temporary barricades, then permanent fencing, surveillance, and restricted access. I’ve seen how the language of ‘security’ becomes a justification for closure.”
This development comes against the backdrop of multiple large tracts of Lower Manhattan public space being enclosed and made unavailable in recent years. This includes 20,000 square feet at the AT&T Long Lines Building (33 Thomas Street), 23,000 square feet at the former Manhattan Detention Complex (125 White Street, where the plaza was effectively commandeered for use as a parking lot for government employees years before the jail was demolished), and 10,000 square feet alongside One Police Plaza (where a playground and open space were fenced off as a security measure after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001).
“All of these spaces were once open to the public,” Mr. Lee added, “and I watched as they were fenced in and shut down in exactly the same way. First came soft closures. Then came permanent lockdown. It always starts with fencing. It always ends with silence.”
Architect and Lower Manhattan resident Bill Bialosky said, “public access rarely vanishes all at once; it is eroded gradually, often under the guise of temporary necessity. Once gates are installed, closure becomes easier and, too often, permanent.” He also pointed to the public sculpture, Sounding Stones (left), by renowned artist Maya Lin (best known for designing the acclaimed Vietnam Veterans Memorial, in Washington, D.C.), situated on the plaza between the courthouses. “This significant public artwork is inspired by Chinese garden traditions and expressed through Lin’s signature minimalist aesthetic. It invites contemplation of place, perspective, and the relationship between humanity and the natural world. It is also a public memorial, honoring generations of immigrants who lived in the historic Five Points neighborhood. Many of them struggled and perished here in pursuit of survival and opportunity. This site must remain visible and accessible to all.”
In practice, the plaza between Pearl and Worth Streets has been littered with “temporary” police barricades for many years, which are regularly deployed to close the plaza. As a further justification for the proposal, the GSA said it “helps to simplify and clean up existing NYPD barricades that have been placed there in some fashion on and off since 9/11.” The agency further argues that the plan will “provide federal law enforcement [with the] ability to crowd control as needed.”
Opponents of this plan may face an uphill battle. In legal terms, the federal government has almost unfettered discretion when it comes to taking action on publicly owned property, especially when such plans involve security. That noted, GSA has not announced a timeline or budget for the plan to enclose the plaza adjacent to the courthouses.