The BroadsheetDAILY – 1/21/22 – Easier Access to Governors Island Begins Monday, January 24

The Broadsheet: Lower Manhattan’s Local Newspaper

Ferry Good News

Easier Access to Governors Island Begins Monday

Above: The 172-acre island, now open to the public year-round, has become Lower Manhattan’s equivalent of Central Park. Below: A new stop on an existing ferry line will allow passengers from the Lower East Side of Manhattan (as well as two stop in Brooklyn) to access Governors Island.

Starting Monday, Governors Island will become easier to reach. The Trust for Governors Island and the City’s Economic Development Corporation announced Thursday that expanded waterborne access will connect Governors Island to both the Lower East Side of Manhattan and stops at Red Hook and Sunset Park in Brooklyn. Boats operated by the NYC Ferry service on its South Brooklyn Route will begin stopping at Yankee Pier (on the east side Governors Island, facing Buttermilk Channel) starting on January 24.

“This past year, we made historic progress in announcing that New Yorkers will now be able to enjoy all that Governors Island has to offer, 365 days per year, and we’re thrilled that we’ll now have expanded connections to Brooklyn and Manhattan through NYC Ferry,” said Clare Newman, President and CEO of the Trust for Governors Island. “Expanded ferry service will connect more New Yorkers than ever to Governors Island’s open space, cultural, educational, and historic resources while increasing access for our growing community of tenants.”

The South Brooklyn Route of the NYC Ferry service (shown in yellow) will connect Corlears Hook and Wall Street (in Manhattan) to Governors Island, while also providing access from Sunset Park and Red Hook (in Brooklyn)

“This is a great day for New Yorkers, 20 years after fighting to return Governors Island to New York, year-round ferry service and seven-day access to Governors Island is finally here,” said Congressman Jerry Nadler.

“Over the past two years we have learned just how important the accessibility of our City’s open public spaces are to the health and well-being of all New Yorkers,” said Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine. “Opening daily ferry service year-round to Governors Island will unlock one of New York’s great centers of open space and is another giant step for increased inclusion to all our City’s wonderful parks.”

“I’m glad Lower East Siders, and many other New Yorkers, will have greater access to our district’s largest park on Governors Island,” said City Council member Christopher Marte. “We desperately lack green space in the Lower East Side, and this expanded ferry line is a good step toward making the public amenities and resources of our City more equitable.”

This announcement follows the kickoff, last November, of Governors Island being open 365 days per year. Since opening to the public in 2005 (initially in warm-weather months only), the 172-acre greensward off Lower Manhattan has become Downtown’s equivalent of Central Park.

Governors Island has experienced a renaissance in recent years, welcoming almost one million visitors in 2019 (the last full season before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic). They were drawn, in part, by the debut of recreational amenities such as the Hills—a chain of beautifully landscaped, manmade ridges and bluffs, ranging in height from 26 to 70 feet, adorned with 41,000 shrubs and 860 newly planted trees. Another attraction is Picnic Point, where outdoor cooking grills and wooden dining tables are available for public use. Parents will small children flock to Slide Hill, which features three shorter slides (including a family slide built for two people to ride at once), and a fourth with a curving, 57-foot descent—the longest anywhere in the City.

The island is now also home to an Arts Center, operated by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the soon-to-be-expanded Urban Assembly New York Harbor School, which announced a planned buildout earlier this year. Visitors are additionally lured by a broad range of culinary offerings from high-end food trucks, as well as fee-based activities such as zip lining, rock climbing, and the luxury open-air hospitality experience known as “glamping.”

Matthew Fenton

Curb, His Enthusiasm?

Plutocrat with Passion for Historic Properties Buys American Stock Exchange Building

A Lower Manhattan landmark that nobody seems to know what to do with has been purchased by a billionaire known for buying properties that nobody knows what to do with.

Ron Burkle, who made his first fortune buying and consolidating chains of supermarkets in California during the 1980s, paid $155 million in October for the American Stock Exchange Building at 86 Trinity Place, which has been closed since 2008.

Culprits Remain Consistent

Crime Data for Lower Manhattan Show Steady Levels for Most Offenses

Crime statistics for the NYPD’s First Precinct are now available for the full year of 2021. The command (which covers Lower Manhattan, south of the Brooklyn Bridge and City Hall, along with the area west of Broadway, up to Houston Street) logged two murders, along with 15 rapes, 135 robberies, and 121 felony assaults. These were in addition, 191 burglaries, 848 grand larcenies, and 68 grand larcenies of a motor vehicle.

These metrics represented mostly minor fluctuations from the prior year, when the First Precinct experienced one murder, 19 rapes, 151 robberies, and 81 felony assaults. During 2020, the First Precinct also cataloged 247 burglaries, 667 grand larcenies, and 31 grand larcenies of an automobile.

Weir Waiting

City Hall Finalizes Seaport Resiliency Plan Days Before Administrations Change

In one of its last acts in office, the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio released the finalized version of its Financial District and Seaport Climate Resilience Master Plan, which aims to protect the nearly mile-long stretch of East River waterfront between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Staten Island Ferry Terminal.

Projected to cost between $5 and $7 billion, and to take a minimum of 15 years to construct, the plan focuses on “passive” flood defense, which translates into refashioning the landscape and elevating the riverbank, thus creating a physical barrier that will stop flood waters. The documents released by City Hall in December envision building a network of decks, berms, and breakwaters that will extend into the East River between 90 and 200 feet. The outermost edge of this complex would rise to an elevation between three and five feet above the waterline, while its landward side would reach as high as 15 feet.

The Calendar

FRIDAY JANUARY 21

6-9PM

Silent Disco Dance Party

Light up your best “après-ski” look and strut your stuff at our cold weather family-friendly silent dance party. Three live DJs from QuietEvents will illuminate the night as they pump beats through illuminated headphones to get you moving. Headphones are free, ID required, RSVP highly recommended. Free. Battery Park City Authority

CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS

Swaps & Trades, Respectable Employment, Lost and Found

To place a listing, contact editor@ebroadsheet.com

Sending Love to Janet Lovell

Last summer, Janet Lovell—“Ms. Janet” to her many young charges—retired after 35 years at the Battery Park City Day Nursery. As she stood outside the nursery school on her last day, kids of all ages and their parents came by to reminisce and wish her well. As planned, Janet soon retired to her native Belize.

In October, her sister Denise visited Janet and her husband in Belize. On their way to a resort to celebrate, they were in a car accident. Denise was killed and Janet sustained a devastating spinal cord injury.

Ms. Janet is back in New York for medical attention. If you would like to send good wishes to this wonderful woman who has meant so much to many of our children, the nursery school will collect notes, cards, letters and artwork and forward them to her. Please mail (or drop off) your messages to Janet Lovell c/o the Battery Park City Day Nursery, 215 South End Ave, New York, NY 10280, and administrative director Judy Sklover will forward them to her. If you have any questions, please email the nursery at info@bpcdaynursery.com and address your messages to Judy Sklover.

A fundraiser to help Janet pay mounting expenses has been set up by parents of her former charges.

What Never Went Up in the First Place, Still Comes Down…

Lower Manhattan Site Purchased for $390 Million Being Shopped for Half-Off

In a story first reported by the Real Deal, the financial distress plaguing property investment firm China Oceanwide Holdings (itself part of the wider contagion surrounding Shenzhen-based real estate firm, Evergrande) has led to a fire-sale price for a trophy Lower Manhattan parcel.

The company purchased 80 South Street (located between John Street and Maiden Lane) from the Howard Hughes Corporation in 2016 for $390 million. This transaction included a companion site, at 163 Front Street, that shares a mid-block border with 80 South Street. The combined parcel, plus air rights from nearby lots purchased and assembled by Howard Hughes, gave China Oceanwide the right to build a tower with a height of more than 1,400 feet, enclosing more than one million square feet of interior space. To read more…

Beside the Pointe

At 41 River Terrace, Affordability Provisions Extended for Low-Income Residents But Not for Middle-Income Renters

The Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) announced Tuesday that it had reached an agreement to preserve 70 affordable rental apartments in the Tribeca Pointe building through the year 2069. The deal will require that the building owner, Rockrose, continue to offer deeply discounted rents to residents of 70 apartments within the 340-unit structure. These households are set aside for residents earning below either 40 or 50 percent of the “area median income” (AMI). This income bracket currently ranges from $33,440 to $41,800 (for a household consisting of one person), and goes as high as $47,720 to $59,650 (for a household of four).

When Tribeca Pointe opened in 1999, these requirements translated into $343 or $429 per month in a studio (for those earning up to 40 or 50 percent of AMI, respectively), $368 or $459 for a one-bedroom apartment, and $441 or $451 for a two-bedroom unit. Today, the same formulas (which cap rent at 30 percent of the two income thresholds) restrict rent on a studio apartment, inhabited by one person, to $836 (for a tenant earning below 40 percent of AMI) or $1045 (for a renter earning below 50 percent of AMI).

De Gustibus

Annual Food Fest Puts Lavish Meals within Reach of Thrifty Epicures

New York’s annual food celebration, Restaurant Week continues for five weeks, until Saturday (February 13).

For those disinclined to venture above Canal Street, the goods news is that of all the 481 establishments participating throughout the City this year, more than five percent are located in Lower Manhattan.

Lower Manhattan Greenmarkets

Tribeca Greenmarket

Greenwich Street & Chambers Street

Every Wednesday & Saturday, 8am-3pm

Food Scrap Collection: Saturdays, 8am-1pm

Open Saturdays and Wednesdays year round

Bowling Green Greenmarket

Green Greenmarket at Bowling Green

Broadway & Whitehall St

Open Tuesday and Thursdays, year-round

Market Hours: 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Compost Program: 8 a.m. – 11 a.m.

The Bowling Green Greenmarket brings fresh offerings from local farms to Lower Manhattan’s historic Bowling Green plaza. Twice a week year-round stop by to load up on the season’s freshest fruit, crisp vegetables, beautiful plants, and freshly baked loaves of bread, quiches, and pot pies.

Greenmarket at the Oculus

Oculus Plaza, Fulton St and Church St

CLOSED FOR THE SEASON

The Outdoor Fulton Stall Market

91 South St., bet. Fulton & John Sts.

212-349-1380 info@fultonstallmarket.org

Fulton Street cobblestones between South and Front Sts. across from McNally Jackson Bookstore.

Locally grown produce from Rogowski Farm, Breezy Hill Orchard, and other farmers and small-batch specialty food products, sold directly by their producers. Producers vary from week to week.

SNAP/EBT/P-EBT, Debit/Credit, and Farmers Market Nutrition Program checks accepted at all farmers markets.

TODAY IN HISTORY

January 21

1911 – The first Monte Carlo Rally takes place. Here’s a look at the first Grand Prix race at Monte Carlo in 1929.

1535 – Following the Affair of the Placards, French Protestants are burned at the stake in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris

1774 – Abdul Hamid I became Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Caliph of Islam.

1793 – After being found guilty of treason by the French National Convention, Louis XVI of France is executed by guillotine.

1861 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis resigns from the United States Senate.

1908 – New York City passes the Sullivan Ordinance, making it illegal for women to smoke in public, only to have the measure vetoed by the mayor.

1911 – The first Monte Carlo Rally takes place.

1950 – American lawyer and government official Alger Hiss is convicted of perjury.

1954 – The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut by Mamie Eisenhower, the First Lady of the United States.

1960 – Little Joe 1B, a Mercury spacecraft, lifts off from Wallops Island, Virginia with Miss Sam, a female rhesus monkey on board.

1960 – A coal mine collapses at Holly Country, South Africa, killing 435 miners.

1968 – A B-52 bomber crashes near Thule Air Base, contaminating the area after its nuclear payload ruptures. One of the four bombs remains unaccounted for after the cleanup operation is complete.

1981 – Production of the iconic DeLorean sports car begins in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.

1997 – The U.S. House of Representatives votes 395–28 to reprimand Newt Gingrich for ethics violations, making him the first Speaker of the House to be so disciplined.

2004 – NASA’s MER-A (the Mars Rover Spirit) ceases communication with mission control. The problem lies in the management of its flash memory and is fixed remotely from Earth on February 6.

2017 – Over 400 cities across America and 160+ countries worldwide participate in a large-scale women’s march, on Donald Trump’s first full day as President of the United States.

Births

1264 – Alexander, Prince of Scotland (d. 1284)[3]

1824 – Stonewall Jackson, American general (d. 1863)

1869 – Grigori Rasputin, Russian Mystic (d. 1916)

1905 – Christian Dior, French fashion designer, founded Christian Dior S.A. (d. 1957

1905 – Karl Wallenda, German-American acrobat and tightrope walker, founded The Flying Wallendas (d. 1978)

1922 – Telly Savalas, American actor (d. 1994)

1929 – Radley Metzger, American filmmaker (d. 2017)

1951 – Eric Holder, American lawyer, judge, and politician, 82nd United States Attorney General

1955 – Jeff Koons, American painter and sculptor

Deaths

420 – Yazdegerd I, king of the Sassanid Empire

1793 – Louis XVI of France (b. 1754)

1924 – Vladimir Lenin, Russian lawyer and politician (b. 1870)

1959 – Cecil B. DeMille, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 188

1994 – Bassel al-Assad, Son of the former President of the Syrian Arab Republic Hafez al-Assad (b. 1962)

1998 – Jack Lord, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1920)

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