Here are the last words of Patrick Turner, aged 16: “So much pressure is placed on the students to do well that I couldn’t do it anymore. There is never a moment to brake. Finals have pressured me immensely, along with a lot of other people. I want you to know that my parents were […]
Perjurious Promises about Penitentiary Plaza
Lower Manhattan residents have one more reason to be skeptical about any assurances from City Hall regarding givebacks to the community in exchange for acquiescing to a large new jail at the site of the current Manhattan Detention Complex (MDC). At the January 22 meeting of Community Board 1 (CB1), district manager Lucian Reynolds recounted […]
Appellation Rail
Question for Big Apple Trivia Buffs: What does New York have only six of, although it might be due for a seventh? The answer was the focus of a discussion at the January 22 meeting of Community Board 1, where Transportation Committee Reggie Thomasnoted that, “Pace University’s assistant vice present of government and community relations, […]
Setting Priorities
This Sunday (February 3), Assembly member Yuh-Line Niou will host her annual Legislative and Budgetary Town Hall to discuss priorities for the Albany lawmaking session that began earlier this month. That session has already seen the passage of measures relating to election reform, reproductive choice, gender rights, and financial aid for undocumented students, among other […]
To Renovate or Enervate
Community Board 1 (CB1) is taking a dim view of a developer’s plan to modernize a trio of historic structures in Tribeca. The buildings are located at the Leonard Street and West Broadway. Because all three buildings (29 and 31 Leonard Street, and 198 West Broadway) fall within the Tribeca West Historic District, they are […]
Don’t-Drink-the-Water Street
The square-block parking lot in the South Street Seaport district purchased by Howard Hughes Corporation (HHC) last summer as a development site may be contaminated with multiple toxins. At the January 2 meeting of Community Board 1 (CB1), Manuel Romero, co-chair of that panel’s Land Use, Zoning and Economic Development Committee reported that the site […]
The Pace of Change
Lower Manhattan’s Pace University, held a ribbon cutting ceremony on Monday to unveil the recently completed first phase of a multi-year plan to upgrade its campus: the extensive modernization to its signature Downtown structure, One Pace Plaza (built in 1969), and the adjacent historic structure, 41 Park Row (which dates from 1857). The renovation, which began […]
‘You Know Best’
The New York Law School, located in Tribeca, hosted a panel discussion on January 18 that featured Jonathan Lippman, who served as Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals from 2009 through 2015, and later headed up the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform. That panel’s recommendations — […]
Fiat Lux, But Maybe a Little Less?
Lower Manhattan may be on the verge of wrestling yet another title from Midtown, but one that few who live Downtown would wish for: The profusion of lighted building facades, LED displays, and animated digital signs on the local streetscape is beginning to remind some residents of Time Square, and inspire less-than-glowing reviews. The illuminated […]
The Madding Crowd
Another office building conversion to residential use will soon bring an additional 345 apartments to the Financial District. The building at Two Washington Street (also known as 17 Battery Place North) will soon undergo a partial reconfiguration into dwellings, its owner, the Moinian Group, has announced. The remainder of the structure, located between Battery Place […]