The BroadsheetDAILY ~ 1/09/20 ~ News of Lower Manhattan

At his annual State of the State address, delivered Wednesday in Albany, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo included on his list of dozens of proposals an announcement that he was directing the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) to develop an expansion plan for the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, located within Wagner Park, on Battery Place.

Near the end of his 90-minute address, Governor Cuomo said, “I am directing Battery Park City to develop a plan to expand our magnificent Jewish Museum on the Holocaust, which is located in Battery Park City. We want to expand the Holocaust Museum, so it can host school children from all across the State. Let’s make a visit to the Museum part of a rounded education. Because to know the history of the Jewish people is to know our mutual love and connection. Because New York would not be New York without the Jewish community.”

Setting aside that the Governor appeared to be confused about the name of the institution he was praising, this idea raises multiple questions, among them how much park land will be expropriated for the expansion. In this context, it is worth noting that the Museum of Jewish Heritage, which originally opened in 1997, has already expanded, opening an 80,000-square-foot new wing in 2003, which entailed the taking of many thousands of square feet of formerly open, public space.

Another issue will be the budget for this expansion, and where these funds will come from. If the BPCA is called upon to subsidize this plan, it will necessarily raise questions among residents and community leaders, who have been repeatedly told by the Authority that other local priorities (such as housing affordability within Battery Park City) must be weighed against competing imperatives, such as the mandate to convey the maximum possible excess revenue to the City of New York each year.

Any new expansion of the Museum of Jewish Heritage also appears likely to entail significant costs. The 2003 enlargement project was budgeted at $22 million, all of which came from public sources. What other uses local leaders might prioritize for tens of millions of dollars in BPCA funds is a discussion that has yet to begin.

As recently as 2016, according the filings with the Internal Revenue Service, the Museum booked a deficit of more than one million dollars. How these challenges would be made more manageable by calling upon the Museum’s management (and the donors who underwrite their efforts) to preside over a larger physical plant is unclear. Moreover, Governor Cuomo is presiding over a State budget with a projected deficit of $6 billion for the coming fiscal year. Where Mr. Cuomo plans to find room for this largesse in an already strapped balance sheet was not addressed in his Wednesday speech.

Another financial question hinges upon whether the Governor is to be taken literally at his word about bringing school children from around New York State to the Museum of Jewish Heritage. As of this year, there are approximately 2.65 million public school students enrolled in primary and secondary schools throughout the State, according to the federal government’s National Center for Education Statistics. The cost of transporting any significant percentage of this population (from cities as far away as Buffalo, Rochester, Utica, and Syracuse, as well as hundreds of other, smaller school districts), along with teachers and chaperones, while providing all of them with food and (in some cases) overnight accommodation, so that they could spend even a few hours at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, would likely run to many tens of millions of dollars per year. The source for this funding was also unspecified in the Governor’s speech.

Some of these questions may be resolved (or at least clarified) later this month, when Governor Cuomo is scheduled to deliver his annual budget address.

At Wednesday evening’s meeting of the Battery Park City Committee of Community Board 1 (CB1), chairwoman Tammy Meltzer asked, “where is there parking for all of the buses needed to bring these children in?” BPCA representatives agreed to inquire about this aspect of a plan that they said was still in its preliminary, conceptual stages. They also offered assurances of collaboration with the community in developing the proposal.

Turns Out That Ignorance of the Law Is an Actually Pretty Good Excuse

212-912-1106   editor@ebroadsheet.com

Landmarks & Preservation Committee
Community Board 1 – Conference Room 1 Centre Street, Room 2202A-North
AGENDA
1) 245 Water Street, interior renovation of an existing residential building with associated exterior work including new rooftop structure using metal, wood, and cement based cladding materials, bulkhead, and window replacement – Resolution
2) Broad Street and Wall Street, proposal of concept design which include lighting, identifying delivery areas and replace existing concrete benches in the Stock Exchange, Federal Hall, and Broad/Exchange seating areas – Resolution
3) 15 Park Row, storefront master plan for current and future storefront alterations, and restoration work including door locations, bulkheads, signage and marquee sign – Resolution

Click here for any changes to agendas prior to the meeting dates.

Epicenter of a Notorious Slum Proposed for Commemoration

In 1831, the City government considered a petition that warned, “that the place known as “Five points” has long been notorious… as being the nursery where every species of vice is conceived and matured; that it is infested by a class of the most abandoned and desperate character.”