Downtown Districts Rank Among City’s Most Cacophonous
The Neighborhood Tabulations Areas (or NTAs) that comprise Lower Manhattan are among the City’s noisiest, according to the City’s Open Data platform, which tracks 311 complaints.
Lower Manhattan is home to a trio of the noisiest communities anywhere in the five boroughs of New York City, according to a recent analysis of the City’s Open Data platform researched by RentHop, an online listings database.
This analysis of complaints registered with the City’s 311 system breaks New York down into the districts that demographers call “Neighborhood Tabulation Areas (NTAs), of which there are 195 throughout the five boroughs.
Three of these are located in Lower Manhattan: MN-25 is comprised of Battery Park City, Greenwich South, the Financial District, and the South Street Seaport; while MN-24 covers Tribeca, SoHo, Little Italy, and the Civic Center; and MN-27 is coterminous with Chinatown.
Among these catchments, Chinatown is the most acoustically afflicted, ranking 29th among all communities in the five boroughs, with the equivalent of nearly 14 percent of all households submitting noise complaints thus far in 2021. This total (of 2,467 complaints) is more than double the neighborhood’s 2020 tally of 1,000 such filings.
The Tribeca-SoHo district (MN-24) places 42nd in the City, with the equivalent of slightly more than 10 percent of all households filing noise complaints in 2021, which also more than doubled from the corresponding total for the previous year (when the figure was 789 complaints).
And the Battery Park City/FiDi area (MN-25) rates 105th in New York City, with the equivalent of slightly more than five percent of all households filing official grievances about noise to date in 2021, a figure that increased by more than half over the previous year, jumping from 612 to 948.
(Editor’s Note: The percentage equivalencies cited above are based on the number of complaints per thousand households in each district, because the City’s Open Data figures do not differentiate between multiple complaints from individual households, versus separate complaints from separate households.)
Matthew Fenton
Will the Levee Keep Us Dry?
City Previews Plans for Augmented East River Shoreline as Bulwark Against Flooding
In online meetings hosted last Wednesday and Thursday by the City’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC), the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio shared preliminary ideas for its Financial District and Seaport Climate Resilience Master Plan, covering the mile-long stretch between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Staten Island Ferry Terminal.
The concepts reviewed at last week’s meetings include extending the shoreline of Manhattan between 60 and 200 feet into the East River, with a series of interlocking berms, platforms, and floodgates, all designed to hold back waters from climate change, sea-level rise, and extreme-weather events. To read more…
CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS
Swaps & Trades, Respectable Employment, Lost and Found
We can help you easily declutter and organize your overstuffed closets, jammed bookcases, bursting cabinets and drawers, and enormous stacks of paper to put your home in “company is coming” condition.
Providing Companion and Home Health Aide Care to clients with dementia.Help with grooming, dressing and wheelchair assistance. Able to escort client to parks and engage in conversations of desired topics and interests of client. Reliable & Honest
78 year old refined intellectual gentleman having a passion for cruises and travel seeking a male or female caregiver/companion in exchange for all expense paid venture on the ocean. Only requirement is relationship comfort between us and ability to help with physical care regarding the limitations and restrictions of COPD.
Reliable, trustworthy and caring Nanny looking for full time position preferably with newborns, infants and toddlers. I have experience in the Battery Park City area for 8 years. I will provide a loving, safe and nurturing environment for your child. Refs available upon request. Beverly 347 882 6612
HOUSEKEEPING/ NANNY/ BABYSITTER
Available for PT/FT. Wonderful person, who is a great worker.
Refs avail.
Worked in BPC. Call Tenzin
347-803-9523
SEEKING LIVE-IN ELDER CARE
12 years experience, refs avail. I am a loving caring hardworking certified home health aide
I’m one of the 11 thousand who left. Why?? I didn”t feel it was safe to live there any longer! DeBlasio letting addicts, homeless, EDP’s roam the streets untethered was the last straw for me!
Brian Bowen had a long career in the construction industries of England, Canada, and the United States. In a second career as a Professor of Practice in the College of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Bowen developed a course that became the basis of his new book, The American Construction Industry: Its Historical Evolution and Potential Future, where he “explains the combined effects of economics, the law, labor, and professional organization, among others, in realizing both grand monuments and everyday dwellings.” After this talk, Brian will be joined by Donald Friedman, author of Structure in Skyscrapers and Historical Building Construction in a conversation that brings together two preeminent experts in a field of key importance to the history of the built environment. Free.
A weekly bagpipe tribute honors those who died on 9/11 as well as those who are sick or who have died from exposure to toxins in the aftermath of 9/11. Free
Outward Mobility
Has Anybody Seen 11,000 Neighbors?
According to a new statistical analysis released by City Comptroller Scott Stringer, Lower Manhattan’s population declined during the COVID-19 pandemic by more than that of any other community in the five boroughs, due to residents moving away.
The report, titled “The Pandemic’s Impact on NYC Migration Patterns,” quantifies this outflow by focusing on the “public use microdata area” (PUMA) demographic model used by the U.S. Census, which defines the community as “Battery Park City/Greenwich Village/Soho”—the combined catchments of Community Boards 1 and 2, or roughly the area below the Brooklyn Bridge on the East Side and south of 14th Street on the West Side, with those two boundaries connected by a north-south line that traces Fourth Avenue, Bowery, and Pearl Streets.
Using change of address filings submitted to the U.S. Postal Service, Mr. Stringer documents that out of every 1,000 residents, 130.9 people moved out of the Lower Manhattan PUMA during the pandemic. This translates into slightly less than a 14 percent reduction in the local population.
These results are especially stark when broken out by the eight residential zip codes within Community Board 1:
City Moves Forward with Plan to Make Sidewalk Dining Permanent, Despite Objections from Downtown Leaders
On Monday, the City Planning Commission moved toward making permanent the temporary measures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed restaurants to take over sidewalk and street space for outdoor dining. The agency voted to enact a zoning text amendment (a change to the wording of the New York City Zoning Resolution) that will enable the Mayor and the City Council to formulate a program to perpetuate the expansion of restaurants into public space that was started, as a emergency stopgap, last year. This plan would have a particularly significant impact in Lower Manhattan (where narrow sidewalks and winding streets are the norm), which has sparked opposition among local elected officials. To read more…
Wagnerian Woes
Battery Park City Hotel Operator Implodes Amid Allegations of Fraud
Even by the standards of the distressed hotel industry, the spiraling adversity faced by the owners of the Wagner Hotel in Battery Park City is remarkable.
In October, lenders and investors filed suit against Los Angeles-based Urban Commons, the firm that bought the hotel in 2018 for $147 million, some $100 million of which was in the form of a loan from the seller, Westbrook Partners. The suit alleges that executives of the company accepted $1 million from an investor, which was intended to finance hotel acquisitions that never took place, and then refused to return the original funds. To read more…
Statue of Limitations
Local Leaders Want ‘Fearless Girl’ to Go Through Channels Before Becoming Permanent
An array of Lower Manhattan community leaders are mobilizing to lobby the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio to comply with legally required procedures before authorizing the continued presence on Broad Street of the “Fearless Girl” statue, a bronze likeness of a young female striking a jaunty, audacious pose.
A resolution enacted at October 26 monthly meeting of Community Board 1 (CB1) notes that the sculpture, “was originally placed at a nearby public site without authority in 2017.” To read more…
Fearless Boy
Prodigious Pilot Lands in the Battery
Lower Manhattan’s inventory of monumental public art pieces has increased by one, with the debut of The Great Debate, a 16-foot-tall statue by Afro-Futurist sculptor Hebru Brantley, who has created a painted fiberglass figure depicting a recurring character of his: Flyboy, an African-American teenage superhero, who doubles as both a pilot and a crimefighter.
Schedule Changes: Market closed 12/25 for Christmas Day and 1/1 for New Year’s Day.
The loyal community of neighborhood residents who shop at the Tribeca Greenmarket show up each Wednesday and Saturday year-round to get their fix of locally grown produce, sustainably raised meat, seafood, sheep’s milk cheese and yogurt, orchard fruit and berries, herbs, live plants and cut flowers. Cooking demonstrations, raffles, and educational activities make the market a hands-on experience for shoppers of all ages.
Farmers:
American Pride Seafood Wild-caught fish and shellfish from Suffolk County, NY
Dipaola Turkeys Turkey and turkey products from Mercer County, NJ
Francesca’s Bakery Breads and baked goods from Passaic County, NJ
Hudson Valley Duck Farm Heritage breed ducks and duck products from Sullivan County, NY
Jersey Farm Produce Vegetables, herbs, orchard and small fruit from Hunterdon County, NJ
Lani’s Farm Vegetables, eggs and prepared foods from Burlington County, NJ
Millport Dairy Eggs, cheddar cheese, beef, pork, pickles and baked goods from Lancaster County, PA
Prospect Hill Orchards Fruit, some certified organic, granola, and baked goods from Ulster County, NY
Tucker Farms Cut Flowers from Burlington & Monmouth County, NJ
Westmeadow Farm cow and goat milk cheeses and cows butter from Montgomery County, NY
Yellow Bell Farm Chicken and eggs from Dutchess County, NY
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.
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.
INDOOR FARMERS MARKET STORE:
91 South St., bet. Fulton & John Sts. Open Monday – Saturdays 11:30 AM – 5 PM
Indoor Market Hours: Monday – Saturday
11:30 AM to 5:00 PM, year round
SNAP/EBT/P-EBT, Debit/Credit, and Farmers Market Nutrition Program checks accepted at all farmers markets.
TODAY IN HISTORY
NOVEMBER 23
The Hubble Telescope
534 BC – Thespis of Icaria becomes the first recorded actor to portray a character on stage.
1644 – John Milton publishes Areopagitica, a pamphlet decrying censorship.
1876 – Corrupt Tammany Hall leader William Magear Tweed (better known as Boss Tweed) is delivered to authorities in New York City after being captured in Spain.
1890 – King William III of the Netherlands dies without a male heir and a special law is passed to allow his daughter Princess Wilhelmina to succeed him.
1924 – Edwin Hubble’s discovery, that the Andromeda “nebula” is actually another island galaxy far outside of our own Milky Way, is first published in The New York Times. Weighing in at 24,500 pounds, the Hubble Space Telescope is about the same size of a school bus. It’s been in space for over 30 years and has allowed a look into deep space that would not have been possible from earth. Its sucessor will be launched next month named the James Webb Telescope.
1981 – Iran–Contra affair: Ronald Reagan signs the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17 giving the Central Intelligence Agency the authority to recruit and support Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
Births
870 – Alexander, Byzantine emperor (d. 913)
1804 – Franklin Pierce, American general, lawyer, and politician, 14th President of the United States (d. 1869)
1888 – Harpo Marx, American comedian and musician (d. 1964)
Deaths
1503 – Margaret of York (b. 1446)
1814 – Elbridge Gerry, American merchant and politician, fifth Vice President of the U.S. (b. 1744)
1990 – Roald Dahl, British novelist, poet, and screenwriter (b. 1916)
2014 – Marion Barry, second Mayor of the District of Columbia (b. 1936)
Credit to Wikipedia and other internet and non-internet sources
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