The BroadsheetDAILY ~ 10/14/21 ~ George Tsunis, BPCA Chair will Depart to Serve as Ambassador to Greece

The Broadsheet: Lower Manhattan’s Local Newspaper

Athens Bound

BPCA Chair will Depart to Serve as Ambassador to Greece

George Tsunis, the chairman of the Battery Park City Authority since 2018 (shown here chatting with residents protesting in Rockefeller Park, in July 2021) is likely to step down, after being confirmed as President Biden’s nominee to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to Greece. Below: Mr. Tsunis speaks at a recent meeting of Community Board 1, as part of the community engagement that has characterized his tenure at the BPCA.

The White House announced on Friday that President Joe Biden plans to nominate George Tsunis, the chairman of the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) since 2018, to serve as the United States Ambassador to Greece. Assuming that Mr. Tsunis, a real estate developer and philanthropist, is confirmed by the United States Senate, as seems likely, he will soon be required to vacate his current post, overseeing the 92 acres of landfill between West Street and the Hudson River, which is home to more than 10,000 residents.

Mr. Tsunis said, “I am honored and humbled by the nomination, and if confirmed I look forward to promoting American interests and values in the bilateral relationship—as well as to deepening and strengthening an already strong relationship.”

The choice of Mr. Tsunis’s successor is likely to arouse heated discussion among Battery Park City residents and community leaders. His position will apparently be filled, at least on an interim basis by Martha Gallo, the current vice chair of the Authority, one of two BPCA board members who live in the community. (The other is Anthony Kendall, chairman and chief executive officer of Mitchell Titus, one of the leading minority-controlled accounting firms in the United States.)

For years, Lower Manhattan activists have pushed for legislation that would guarantee a majority of the Authority’s seven board seats to people who reside within the neighborhood. In 2018, legislators representing Lower Manhattan succeeded in passing a compromise bill that required two places on the Authority’s board be filled by residents.

The transition in the BPCA’s leadership comes at a time of multiple inflection points for the community. The Authority has plans to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to implement resiliency measures designed to protect the neighborhood from the effects of climate change, which are likely to transform its built environment, especially along the waterfront. Some of these, such as a proposal to redesign and raise the elevation of Wagner Park, remain a source of concern for some residents, in spite of an ongoing process of community engagement that has been the BPCA’s practice during Mr. Tsunis’s tenure. Other plans, unrelated to resiliency, such as proposal to redesign South End Avenue and West Thames Street, have also inspired grave reservations among some residents, although Community Board 1 unanimously endorsed this scheme in 2018.

Battery Park City dwellers are also increasingly restive about the prospects for affordability within their community. Rental tenants are regularly being priced out of the neighborhood, and condominium owners are facing relentlessly spiraling common charges, driven by drastic escalations in both yearly remittances of “ground rent” (negotiated between the BPCA and individual buildings), as well as so-called “payments in lieu of taxes” (PILOT), which is set by the City of New York. Concerns about this arrangement have grown acute in recent years, as more residents have come to realize that, under the current terms of the ground lease and absent any change, their homes will disappear in 48 years, as ownership of all the real estate in Battery Park City reverts to the Authority. For condominium owners, this worst-case scenario would mean that their property will be confiscated, while renters (in the same scenario) will face the prospect of eviction. Both owners and tenants would be rendered homeless by such a sequence of events.

While the BPCA has prided itself on consulting and engaging with the community during Mr. Tsunis’s tenure, relations between residents and the Authority were strained by the domineering style of former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was forced to resign in disgrace, amid a sexual harassment scandal, in August.

Under State law, the Governor controls the BPCA, and Mr. Cuomo used the community as an unwilling venue for multiple, high-profile projects that seemed calculated to curry favor with politically important constituencies as he faced (prior to his sudden departure from office) a tough bid for a fourth term in 2022. Among these were the Hurricane Maria Memorial (at Chambers Street and River Terrace) and the Mother Cabrini Memorial (near South Cove). A third such plan, Mr. Cuomo’s proposed Essential Workers Monument (to be located in Rockefeller Park), resulted in a political defeat that immediately preceded his downfall.

Residents reacted to the plan with fury, mounting a four-day, round-the-clock protest in Rockefeller Park, during which local parents and children camped out in early July, through blistering heat and torrential rains, to prevent demolition work from beginning. This same group, rallying under the social media banner of Pause the Saws, also began preparing for litigation, seeking legal remedies to delay construction work, which Mr. Cuomo had planned to ramrod to completion by the end of summer.

Mr. Tsunis answered these concerns by appearing at the protest and announcing, “this site is off the table.” He also convened multiple days of meetings with community leaders, seeking a compromise solution, which focused on possible alternate sites within the community. He later announced a further concession, saying, “we will put together a new and expanded Advisory Committee comprised of local stakeholders, essential worker representatives, and others to review options within Battery Park City to select a site and design for a welcome and world-class monument our essential workers so richly deserve.”

This Advisory Committee (a majority which is comprised of Battery Park City residents) was announced in July, but has yet to meet for the first time. Whether the new Governor, Kathy Hochul, and whatever new leadership she may appoint to the BPCA, will continue Mr. Tsunis’s legacy of outreach and dialogue, remains to be seen.

Matthew Fenton

Open Restaurants, Closed Neighborhoods

Concerns Raised about Proposal to Make Sidewalk Dining Permanent

Elected officials and local leaders are mobilizing against a plan by the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio to expand and make permanent the allowance that enabled restaurants to expand into City streets and sidewalks, originally adopted as a provisional measure during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On October 6, as the Department of City Planning began consideration of this proposal at its headquarters, at 120 Broadway, State Assembly member Deborah Glick, Community Board 1 chair Tammy Meltzer, and City Council candidate Christopher Marte joined other leaders and activists at a rally and protest outside to voice reservations about this plan.

Local Heroes

Annual Ranking of Most Powerful Manhattan Leaders Includes 11 Downtown Doyens

The highly regarded local political journalism outlet City & State has released its annual Manhattan Power 100 list, which ranks the borough’s leaders by their influence. This year’s edition contains 11 elected officials and not-for-profit executives whose work serves the Downtown community, and beyond.

Congressman Jerry Nadler took the number one spot for his continuing role, “in drawing attention to the ongoing health impacts of the 9/11 terror attacks in Lower Manhattan,” City & State says. Mr. Nadler has for years spearheaded efforts to secure healthcare services and financial compensation for residents and first responders made ill by exposure to environmental toxins in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.

A Taste for Learning

The 11th Annual Taste of the Seaport festival will come to the South Street Seaport on Saturday, October 16, with food from more than 30 Lower Manhattan restaurants, wares from local shops, and live music featuring local artists and musicians, plus a KidZone offering interactive demonstrations and activities.

Proceeds from the festival support enrichment programs for students at two highly regarded, local public schools: the Spruce Street School and the Peck Slip School. The fun will take place between noon and 3:00 pm on Piers 16 and 17 (South Street, roughly between John and Beekman Streets). For more information, or to purchase tickets, please browse: www.tasteoftheseaport.org

Flats for the Frugal

New Rental Building in Hudson Square Contains 30 Affordable Units

Downtown’s roster of affordable rental apartments will soon expand by 30 new homes, as part of a residential development at 111 Varick Street, two blocks north of Canal Street. The building will contain a total of 2100 rental units (with the remaining 70 apartments at market-rate rentals). In exchange for committing to affordability protections on the 30 units, the developer received tax incentives worth many millions of dollars, which helped to build the project.

People wishing to live in the affordable units at 111 Varick are urged enter the affordable housing lottery being overseen by the City’s the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

To enter the lottery for affordable apartments at 111 Varick (the deadline for which is November 23, 2021), please browse:https://housingconnect.nyc.gov/PublicWeb/details/2321 To read more…

“Substance” at Pace

The Pace University Art Gallery (located at 41 Park Row) has debuted its new, in-person exhibition, “Substance,” which brings together four abstract artists, who express meaning via materials, rather than representational imagery.

Diego Anaya celebrates his Mexican heritage through the use of ground corn, corn ash, and sand. Liz Atz’s bright, immersive artworks critique commercialism, materialism, and consumption. Linda Ekstromuses text from religious sources as both inspiration and commentary, exploring feminist issues, particularly within the role of Jewish and Christian tradition. And Alberto Lule critiques America’s prison-industrial complex as a form of modern slavery, using fingerprint powder as his drawing material, mining insights from his personal experience with incarceration. On display now through October 30. Admission is free, but a Covid vax card and ID are required to enter the gallery as per NYS guidelines..

An Ill Wind Blows

World Trade Center Health Program Faces Funding Shortfall

The World Trade Center Health Program, which provides medical treatment to people affected by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, is facing an impending budget shortfall that, if left unaddressed, could cause it to scale back services starting in 2025. Activists, local leaders, and elected officials are working to head off this possibility with new legislation.

More than 58,000 people are currently grappling with health problems arising from exposure to environmental toxins on September 11, 2001, and its aftermath. More have died from these illnesses in the years since 2001 than perished on the day of the attacks. There are now 21,000 people suffering from cancers related to September 11.

What Did Giuliani Know and When Did He Know It?

Nadler Presses City Hall to Release Documents from 2001 about Awareness of Ground Zero Health Risks

United States Congressman Jerry Nadler is calling upon the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio to make public previously unreleased City documents, which may shed light on what Rudolph Giuliani, who was Mayor at the time of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, knew about environmental health risks in weeks and months following of the destruction of the World Trade Center.

In a September 20 letter to City Hall, Mr. Nadler and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney write that, “we have yet to see a full accounting of what then-Mayor Giuliani and his administration knew at the time.” They argue that such an accounting would, “help provide injured and ill 9/11 responders, survivors, and their families a better understanding of what the City knew at the time about the likely scope of the health crisis and when they knew it.” To read more…

EYES TO THE SKY

October 4 – 17, 2021

Protect Earth’s night, essential to life on Earth

“For millions of years, there has been a night shift at work pollinating flowering plants and fruit trees.

“If you look at the diversity and the sheer numbers of moths out there, the other pollinators pale in comparison. So, you’re talking about a massive group of animals that probably contribute not just to fruit crops or crops in general … but to pollination overall, they may just be the most important pollinators as a group… The unsung heroes of pollination.”

Excerpts from Into the Night: Shedding Light on Nocturnal Pollinators

Darkness at night is under siege by an excess of poorly conceived and carelessly deployed artificial light, resulting in a sky polluted with a veil of wasted light and our neighborhoods with no oasis of darkness. Light pollution threatens pollination of our food crops and wild landscapes, bird migration, night vision, human health and our view of the universe. To read more…

TODAY’S CALENDAR

Thursday October 14

2PM

Museum of Jewish Heritage

Fania Wedro was born Fania Hellman in Koretz, Poland on August 25, 1927. When she was fourteen years old, the Nazis took away her father and the other men living in the village. Fania then spent six months in a work ghetto in Koretz, where she escaped two mass killings by the Nazis. After escaping the second mass killing, she lived in hiding in the forest for eighteen months. After being liberated by the Russians in 1944, Wedro was smuggled across various borders and eventually reached a displaced persons camp in Linz, Austria. She became a teacher in the camp and met and married her husband Leo (Leib) Wedro. In 1948, the couple immigrated to Canada and became successful business owners. Join the Museum for a program exploring Fania’s experiences during the Holocaust, and her efforts to bring attention to the massacre of Jewish villagers in Eastern Europe. She will be interviewed by the Museum’s Public Programs Coordinator Sydney Yaeger. $10

6:30PM

Fraunces Tavern Museum

In this lecture, Michael Harris will discuss the Battle of Germantown. Despite a complicated plan of attack, George Washington’s Continental Army seemed on the verge of victory at Germantown, until decisions at the highest levels of the army took that promised victory away. Free

Friday October 15

11AM-5PM

South Street Seaport Museum

The tall ship Wavertree, the lightship Ambrose, and the tug W.O. Decker are open to the public. Explore Wavertree and Ambrose while they are docked; cruise New York Harbor on W.O. Decker. Wavertree and Ambrose visits are free; Decker prices vary. Check website for times, prices and other details.

CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS

Swaps & Trades, Respectable Employment, Lost and Found

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9/11 Victim Compensation Fund Report

More Survivors than Responders Now are Submitting Claims

The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (VCF) has released its annual report for 2020, which documents some significant developments.

Over the course of its ten years of operation thus far, the VCF has awarded $7.76 billion to more than 34,400 individuals who have suffered death or personal injury as a result of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath. The vast majority of these injuries take the form of illness caused by exposure to toxic materials that were released by the destruction of the World Trade Center.

Lower Manhattan

Greenmarkets are open

Tribeca Greenmarket

Greenwich Street & Chambers Street

Every Wednesday & Saturday, 8am-3pm

Food Scrap Collection: Saturdays, 8am-1pm

Bowling Green Greenmarket

Broadway & Whitehall Street

Every Tuesday & Thursday, 8am-5pm

Food Scrap Collection: Tuesdays only, 8am-11am

Greenmarket at Oculus Plaza

Church & Fulton Streets

Tuesday

Farmers Attending:

Samascott Orchard Orchard fruit, strawberries from Columbia County, New York

Francesa’s Bakery Breads and baked goods from Middlesex County, New Jersey

Meredith’s Bakery Baked goods from Ulster County, New York

Riverine Ranch Water Buffalo meat and cheeses from Warren County, New Jersey

1857 Spirits Handcrafted potato vodka from Schoharie County, New York

SNAP/EBT/P-EBT, Debit/Credit, and Farmers Market Nutrition Program checks accepted

TODAY IN HISTORY

October 14

1947 – Captain Chuck Yeager of the United States Air Force flies a Bell X-1 rocket-powered experimental aircraft, the Glamorous Glennis, faster than the speed of sound at Mach 1.06 (700 miles per hour (1,100 km/h; 610 kn) over the high desert of Southern California and becomes the first pilot and the first airplane to do so in level flight.

1066 – Norman Conquest: Battle of Hastings: In England on Senlac Hill, seven miles from Hastings, the Norman forces of William the Conqueror defeat the English army and kill King Harold II of England.

1322 – Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeats King Edward II of England at Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scotland’s independence.

1656 – Massachusetts enacts the first punitive legislation against the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Bristoe Station: Confederate troops under the command of General Robert E. Lee fail to drive the Union Army completely out of Virginia.

1880 – Mexican soldiers kill Victorio, one of the greatest Apache military strategists.

1884 – The American inventor, George Eastman, receives a U.S. Government patent on his new paper-strip photographic film.

1910 – The English aviator Claude Grahame-White lands his Farman Aircraft biplane on Executive Avenue near the White House in Washington, D.C..

1912 – While campaigning in Milwaukee, the former President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, is shot and mildly wounded by John Schrank, a mentally-disturbed saloon keeper.

1926 – The children’s book Winnie-the-Pooh, by A. A. Milne, is first published.

1933 – Nazi Germany withdraws from the League of Nations and World Disarmament Conference.

1943 – Prisoners at the Nazi German Sobibór extermination camp in Poland revolt against the Germans, killing eleven SS guards, and wounding many more. About 300 of the Sobibor Camp’s 600 prisoners escape, and about 50 of these survive the end of the war.

1944 – Linked to a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is forced to commit suicide.

1947 – Captain Chuck Yeager of the United States Air Force flies a Bell X-1 rocket-powered experimental aircraft, the Glamorous Glennis, faster than the speed of sound at Mach 1.06 (700 miles per hour (1,100 km/h; 610 kn) over the high desert of Southern California and becomes the first pilot and the first airplane to do so in level flight.

1949 – Eleven leaders of the American Communist Party are convicted, after a nine-month trial in a Federal District Court, of conspiring to advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. Federal Government.

1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis begins: A U.S. Air Force U-2 reconnaissance plane and its pilot flies over the island of Cuba and takes photographs of Soviet SS-4 Sandal missiles being installed and erected in Cuba.

1964 – Martin Luther King, Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence.

1964 – Leonid Brezhnev becomes the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and thereby, along with his allies, such as Alexei Kosygin, the leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), ousting the former monolithic leader Nikita Khrushchev, and sending him into retirement as a nonperson in the USSR.

1967 – Vietnam War: The folk singer Joan Baez is arrested concerning a physical blockade of the U.S. Army’s induction center in Oakland, California.

1968 – Vietnam War: The Department of Defense announces that the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps will send about 24,000 soldiers and Marines back to Vietnam for involuntary second tours of duty in the combat zone there.

1968 – Apollo program: The first live TV broadcast by American astronauts in orbit performed by the Apollo 7 crew.

1968 – Jim Hines of the United States becomes the first man ever to break the so-called “ten-second barrier” in the 100-meter sprint in the Summer Olympic Games held in Mexico City with a time of 9.95 seconds.

1981 – Vice President Hosni Mubarak is elected as the President of Egypt one week after the assassination of the President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat.

1984 – “Baby Fae” receives a heart transplant from a baboon.

1994 – The Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, The Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin, and the Foreign Minister of Israel, Shimon Peres, receive the Nobel Peace Prize for their role in the establishment of the Oslo Accords and the framing of the future Palestinian Self Government.

1998 – Eric Rudolph is charged with six bombings including the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, Georgia.

Captain Chuck Yeager

Births

1641 – Joachim Tielke German instrument maker (d. 1719)

1644 – William Penn, English businessman, founded the Province of Pennsylvania (d. 1718)

1890 – Dwight D. Eisenhower, American general and politician, 34th President of the United States (d. 1969)

1894 – E. E. Cummings, American poet and playwright (d. 1962)

1906 – Hannah Arendt, German-American philosopher and theorist (d. 1975)

1916 – C. Everett Koop, American admiral and surgeon, 13th United States Surgeon General (d. 2013)

1939 – Ralph Lauren, American fashion designer, founded the Ralph Lauren Corporation

1954 – Robert Simko, publisher of The Broadsheet

Deaths

1066 – Harold Godwinson, English king (b. 1022)

1318 – Edward Bruce, Irish king (b. 1280)

1831 – Jean-Louis Pons, French astronomer and educator (b. 1761)

1977 – Bing Crosby, American singer-songwriter and actor (b. 1903)

1990 – Leonard Bernstein, American pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1918)

Edited from Wikipedia and other web sources

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