The annual membership meeting of the Gateway Plaza Tenants Associationwill be held tomorrow (Wednesday, October 17), in the auditorium of P.S./I.S. 276 (55 Battery Place, near the corner of First Place). The doors will open at 6:00, and the meeting will begin at 6:45 pm. There will be presentations by multiple elected officials — among […]
The Price of Resiliency
At an October 2 Open Community Meeting, officials from the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) discussed for the first time the overall budget for the resiliency plan they are formulating for the community. Authority president B.J. Jones said, in response to a question, “the overall resiliency cost for all four phases is about two-thirds of […]
Survivor Skills
A Town Hall meeting to answer questions and provide information about medical care and financial compensation available to Lower Manhattan residents who lived through the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath will be held on Monday (October 15) at the Municipal Building (One Centre Street, near the corner of Chambers Street). This […]
Pile On!
What is currently a “sea of asphalt”, in the words of NY State Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Commissioner Rose Harvey, will soon morph into a full-fledged construction site. In 2020 the Hudson River Park’s first ecology themed pier will open with “something for everyone” – with woodlands, wetlands, and even soccer fields. Diana […]
Local Elected Officials: Save Our School
City Council member Margaret Chin and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewerare pushing back against a plan to close P.S. 150, a highly regarded local school also known as the Tribeca Learning Center. In a letter sent Tuesday, the elected officials urge Stellar Management, the owner of the residential portion of Independence Plaza (the giant housing […]
The Felicity of the Commons
The Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) has completed a year-long study, conducted in partnership with the sociology faculty at Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC), to determine how many people use the community’s parks, who they are, and what those parks users think of the 36 acres of public space spread throughout the neighborhood. The […]
The Lessor Evil
A new online data tool from a leading housing advocacy group, the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD), indicates that Lower Manhattan is undergoing a gradual, but inexorable, transformation: Affordable housing, in the form of rent-regulated apartments, is steadily disappearing from the local landscape. ANHD’s Displacement Alert Map, which went live earlier this week, […]
Asking for the Millennium
Community Board 1 (CB1) is pushing the City’s Department of Education (DOE) to lease more space within the historic Financial District skyscraper that houses Millennium High School. Tricia Joyce, who chairs CB1’s Youth & Education Committee, said at the Board’s September 25 meeting, “Millennium High School is the gem of our community. It was started […]
Vendor, Vidi, Vici?
The City Council has enacted a bill, sponsored by Margaret Chin, which will expand the zone surrounding the World Trade Center that is off limits to street vendors. The original catchment, in effect since 2004, barred food vendors and souvenir hawkers from a district bounded by Liberty, Vesey, and West Streets, and Broadway. The larger […]
Chin Rails about Jail
City Council member Margaret Chin is raising a broad range of concerns related to the plan, currently being pushed by the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio, to build a new, 40-story prison in Lower Manhattan. In a letter sent to City Hall on Monday, Ms. Chin objects first to what she sees as a […]