Community Board 1 (CB1) has enacted a forceful resolution calling upon the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio to appoint as chief of the City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) an advocate for protecting historic New York City structures. The resolution, which was enacted at CB1’s May 22 monthly meeting, begins, “the Community is pleased to...
Roger Byrom, chair of Community Board 1's Landmarks & Preservation Committee: "I'm hoping that the mayor will see some sense and appoint a chair of the Landmarks Preservation Commission who will support the landmarks law. We haven't had that for quite some time, and under this particular chair, we have had someone who definitely does not support the landmarks law."
City Comptroller Scott Stringer is pushing back against critics of his report, “The Impact of Airbnb on NYC Rents,” which was issued earlier this month, and concluded (among other allegations) that residents of Lower Manhattan who lease (rather than own) their apartments are collectively paying more than $49 million per year in extra rent as...
City Comptroller Scott Stringer: "Our report offered a sober, independent analysis of how Airbnb's growing presence in many of our neighborhoods has served to push rents up by increasing demand for housing."
A rare copy of what is widely regarded as the first credible map of Lower Manhattan was recently sold at auction for $150,000. This was an edition of the “Ratzer Plan,” created in the late 1760s by British Army surveyor and cartographer Bernard Ratzer, who was ordered by General Thomas Gage to compile a detailed...
The map by Bernard Ratzer was the first comprehensive chart of New York ever produced.
A new online tool offers startlingly precise snapshots of public health, as measured by a wide range of metrics, at the neighborhood level through New York City, and yields some surprising findings for Lower Manhattan. The City Health Dashboard, which was created by a partnership between two arms of New York University — the Langone...
The City Health Dashboard breaks out data about public health by neighborhood using federal census districts. While the names of the 12 communities outlined are informal and somewhat arbitrary, the demarcations are not -- these are the boundaries used by government statisticians when analyzing demographic trends at the local level.
On May 6, near twilight, two vessels passed one another along their respective port sides. Ghost, a 37-meter sailing yacht by legendary naval architect Luca Brenta, was approaching North Cove, while the 265-foot motor yacht Air was outbound from her berth in Chelsea Piers. A day earlier, Ghosthad arrived from Newport. A day later, Air...
Sailboat GHOST passes Yacht AIR in New York Harbor
Lower Manhattan cyclists and pedestrians recently got back a piece of their streetscape: More than 10,000 square feet of Park Row, which has been closed since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, has opened to bikes and walkers. This new corridor creates a connection from Frankfort Street (at the southern end, near City...
A City Department of Transportation rendering of the new bike and pedestrian lanes on Park Row, which are now open.
