The BroadsheetDAILY ~ 12/15/120 ~ Downtown Alliance Funds Lower Manhattan Non-Profits

Charity Begins at Home

Downtown Alliance Funds Lower Manhattan Non-Profits

Alliance president Jessica Lappin: “No economic recovery will be truly successful without finding a way to support the cultural growth we’ve witnessed take hold in our neighborhood over the past several years.”

The Downtown Alliance is donating $10,000 each to 11 local arts and cultural groups, as part of its ongoing effort to spearhead the recovery of Lower Manhattan from the pandemic coronavirus, and the economic downtown that it unleashed.

The recipients of these grants National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the 9/11 Tribute Museum, the Battery Dance Company, the China Institute, Fraunces Tavern Museum, Gibney Dance, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Poets House, the Skyscraper Museum, the South Street Seaport Museum, and the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation. The funding for these grants comes from Brookfield Properties, Silverstein Properties and the Howard Hughes Corporation.

This support comes on the heels of more than $600,000 in grants made to 60-plus small businesses by the Alliance earlier this year, along with urban design consulting services (underwritten by the Alliance) to help dozens of local shops modify their storefronts into COVID-compliant retail spaces.

“For centuries New York has been defined by our arts and culture,” Downtown Alliance president Jessica Lappin said. “No economic recovery will be truly successful without finding a way to support the cultural growth we’ve witnessed take hold in our neighborhood over the past several years.”

Captain Jonathan Boulware, President of the South Street Seaport Museum, said, “this grant will help to keep our virtual efforts moving forward in the near future, as we plan for the days when we can reopen again in person.”

When it’s not aiding cultural institutions during times of crisis, the mission of the Downtown Alliance is to enhance Lower Manhattan for businesses, residents and visitors. In furtherance of these goals, the Alliance operates the Business Improvement District that covers the area south of Chambers Street, and also provides local security and trash pickup. Among the services provided by the Alliance that Lower Manhattan residents especially prize is the Downtown Connection shuttle, which ferries passengers free of charge between more than 30 local stops that link residential areas with business and shopping districts, as part of a partnership with the Battery Park City Authority. The Alliance and its sister organization, the Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association, also produce research, information, and advocacy designed to brand Lower Manhattan as a global model of a 21st century central business district.

Matthew Fenton

A Different Kind of Test Scores

COVID Report Card for Lower Manhattan Schools

A review of data from the New York State Department of Health (DOH) indicate that the spread of the pandemic coronavirus among Lower Manhattan public schools is well contained, with a total of 14 cases at five schools. To read more…

The Not-So-Okay Corral

DOT Overrules Community Concerns about Delivery Bike Facility in Tribeca

The City’s Department of Transportation has ignored calls from Community Board 1 to address concerns of Tribeca residents before installing a cargo bike corral on Warren Street (between West and Greenwich Streets), to facilitate the use of powered bicycles when making grocery deliveries. To read more…

CALENDAR

December 15

6PM

Live Remote Meeting – https://live.mcb1.nyc

AGENDA

1) Battery Conservancy: Playscape, Dog Rules, Plantings, Budget and Future Goals for The Battery – Presentation by Warrie Price, President and Founder, The Battery Conservancy

2) Proposal for nearly 2-acre park in the Holland Tunnel Rotary – Presentation by Dasha Khapalova and Peter Ballman, Ballman Khapalova Architecture

3) Hudson River Park Advisory Council – Update by Andrew Zelter, Community Board 1 Member

9PM

China Institute

Online seminar. A Taste of China is an online program that pairs taste with place to explore China’s vast culinary landscape. Today, travel live with us to Fujian, the coastal province that serves as one of China’s most important tea-producing hubs. The province’s cuisine, famous for its fresh seafood dishes, is one of China’s eight great culinary traditions. Tea connects the billions of Chinese who consume it today in much the same way as they have for centuries. In recent years, ancient ceremonial traditions have been revived by Chinese seeking deeper connections with the past. And China’s nouveaux riches have found in tea a powerful status symbol. Some specialty teas have emerged as hot investments: a wealthy purchaser made headlines for paying 180,000 yuan – almost $28,000 – for just 20g of Fujian’s legendary Da Hong Pao tea. At over $10,000 for a pot, the tea is worth more 30 times its weight in gold! Free

Life and Death in the Hudson River

Over the past few days, downtowners have witnessed extremes of life and death in the Hudson River—a humpback whale exploring the waterway, surfacing, flipping its tail as if to wave at the Statue of Liberty; and many dead fish floating at the river’s edge and in North Cove, with more expiring around them, frantically gulping for air at the surface.

Are these sightings linked? We checked with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).

Santa’s Secret Helpers

Imagine what it’s like to be a kid who, for some reason, isn’t on Santa’s list. Now, just imagine what a huge impact you can make in the life of a child and their parents by being their secret Santa.

Stockings with Care, a charity based in Lower Manhattan, steps in to help when parents cannot provide Christmas gifts for their children, so no child is left out. But the organization, which has benefited over 40,000 children since 1992, needs your help. The parents give the gifts that donors (such as you) provide to the child, preserving their dignity and connection, while ensuring the gifts received are the ones the child wished for. Stockings with Care has created five easy ways to contribute.

For more information, please browse StockingsWithCare.org.

Build Your Dream House

The Church Street School for Music and Art will continue a decades-long Downtown tradition (albeit, in virtual form, as a concession to COVID-19) by offeringGingerbread House Decorating Kits (priced at $85), now through Christmas week.

Each take home kit includes one homemade gingerbread house, a variety of candy, freshly made icing, and one foiled round to set your house up on. In addition to offering great holiday fun, this program is one of the most important fundraisers for the highly regarded non-profit institution that has brought enrichment to the lives of generations of Lower Manhattan kids.

For more information, please browse: ChurchStreetSchool.org.

The Giving Tree

Trinity Church wants to help you make a stranger feel special this Christmas.

Purchase a Christmas gift to support children, adults, and seniors served by several of Trinity’s partner organizations throughout New York City.

Your gifts will go to fellow New Yorkers who have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, many of whom wouldn’t receive gifts this year without your help.

Browse: trinitywallstreet.org/givingtree by December 13 to select a gift, which cost about $30 each.

Super-Talls Cut Down to Size

Pair of FiDi Skyscraper Projects Suffer Setbacks

Two separate residential towers planned for the Financial District are suffering from the local real estate slowdown. In developments first reported by the online real estate journal, YIMBY, the building now under construction at 161 Maiden Lane has undergone removal of pieces of its facade in recent weeks (the only recent activity on the otherwise-stalled project), while construction equipment has been removed from 45 Broad Street, which is the site of a planned 1,115 foot residential tower.

CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS

Swaps & Trades, Respectable Employment, Lost and Found

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TODAY IN HISTORY

December 15

1025 – Constantine VIII becomes sole emperor of the Byzantine Empire, 63 years after being crowned co-emperor.

1791 – The United States Bill of Rights becomes law when ratified by the Virginia General Assembly.

1890 – Hunkpapa Lakota leader Sitting Bull is killed on Standing Rock Indian Reservation, leading to the Wounded Knee Massacre.

1933 – The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution officially becomes effective, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment that prohibited the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol..

1961 – Adolf Eichmann is sentenced to death after being found guilty by an Israeli court of 15 criminal charges, including charges of crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people, and membership of an outlawed organization.

1965 – Project Gemini: Gemini 6A, crewed by Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford, is launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida. Four orbits later, it achieves the first space rendezvous, with Gemini 7.

1970 – Soviet spacecraft Venera 7 successfully lands on Venus. It is the first successful soft landing on another planet.

1973 – John Paul Getty III, grandson of American billionaire J. Paul Getty, is found alive near Naples, Italy, after being kidnapped by an Italian gang on July 10.

1978 – President Jimmy Carter announces that the United States will recognize the People’s Republic of China and sever diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan).

2000 – The third reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is shut down.

2001 – The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after 11 years and $27,000,000 spent to stabilize it, without fixing its famous lean.

Births

AD 37 – Nero, Roman emperor (d. 68)

1832 – Gustave Eiffel, French architect and engineer, co-designed the Eiffel Tower (d. 1923)

1861 – Charles Duryea, American engineer and businessman, co-founded the Duryea Motor Wagon Company (d. 1938)

1892 – J. Paul Getty, American-English businessman and art collector, founded Getty Oil (d. 1976)

1919 – Max Yasgur, American dairy farmer and host of the Woodstock Music & Art Fair (d. 1973)

Deaths

1072 – Alp Arslan, Turkish sultan (b. 1029)

1673 – Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, English noblewoman (b. 1623)

1675 – Johannes Vermeer, Dutch painter and educator (b. 1632)

1943 – Fats Waller, American singer-songwriter and pianist (b. 1904)

1944 – Glenn Miller, American bandleader and composer (b. 1904)

1966 – Walt Disney, American animator, director, producer, and screenwriter, co-founded The Walt Disney Company (b. 1901)

2011 – Christopher Hitchens, English-American essayist, literary critic, and journalist (b. 1949)

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