The BroadsheetDAILY – 2/10/22 – Lights, Cameras, Violation: CB1 Pushes for Expansion in Use of Monitoring Devices

The Broadsheet – Lower Manhattan’s Local Newspaper

Lights, Cameras, Violation

CB1 Pushes for Expansion in Use of Monitoring Devices

A work crew installs a new traffic monitoring device at the corner of West and West Thames Streets in the summer of 2020.

Community Board 1 (CB1) is pushing for the expanded use of traffic enforcement cameras, the automated monitoring devices that can detect violations of the speed limit and other rules (such as stopping at red lights) on public roads.

The use of such equipment began in New York nearly a decade ago, when then-Governor Andrew Cuomo allowed New York City to launch a pilot program to deter speeding in 20 school zones. The success of that initial deployment in 2013 has expanded to 950 cameras in 750 school zones, where the devices logged more than four million violations in 2020, an increase of almost 100 percent from 2019.

Data from the City’s Department of Transportation document the difference that speed cameras make, with a 71.5 percent reduction in speeding and a 16.9 percent drop in injuries at times when and in locations where they are in use.

But there are some self-imposed limits to their effectiveness. Current law allows for speed cameras to operate only between 6:00 am and 10:00 pm on weekdays, and bans their installation anywhere outside a quarter-mile radius of the designated school zones.

Click to watch traffic on West Street.

In a resolution enacted at its December 21 meeting, CB1 calls upon State lawmakers to allow the City to operate speed cameras 24 hours per day, seven days per week, while also asking that local officials be permitted to install the equipment anywhere they believe it would be effective, rather than just near schools.

The measure notes that, “local governments having the authority to determine how to most effectively place and use cameras to improve road safety while reducing the reliance on law enforcement officers would make enforcement more equitable,” and “implores Governor Hochul and our State legislators to allow local control of traffic enforcement cameras in New York City.”

The fine for driving through a red light or exceeding the posted speed limit by more than ten miles per hour (a threshold below which speed cameras give drivers a pass) is $50. The automated system to which the traffic camera is connected creates a “notice of liability” and mails it to the owner of the vehicle that is photographed.

Within a month of the program’s expansion in the summer of 2019, the system was generating more than nine violations throughout the City for each minute that it was in operation, or more than half a million summonses per month. Assuming all (or nearly all) of these fines are collected, this totals to more than $600,000 in revenue each weekday.

Matthew Fenton

Virtual Reality Bytes

FiDi Couple Arrested on Charges of Laundering Billions

A married couple living in the Financial District were arrested by FBI agents on Tuesday morning, and charged with conspiracy to launder billions of dollars worth of stolen cryptocurrency. Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan, were arrested in their home, at 75 Wall Street, according to federal prosecutors.

Mr. Lichtenstein and Ms. Morgan are alleged to have been in possession, through various online accounts, of 94,000 bitcoin, the virtual currency, which had been stolen by hackers from a digital exchange, Bitfinex, in 2016. The current value of that quantity of bitcoin is more than $3.6 billion.

While the couple are not currently charged with having participated in the 2016 robbery, federal agents tracing the proceeds from the Bitfinex theft followed a digital trail that led to accounts controlled by Mr. Lichtenstein and Ms. Morgan.

Passive Egression

Three Among Every Hundred of Your Neighbors May Soon Be Gone

More than 600 Lower Manhattan households are facing the prospect of being forced from their homes, in the wake of New York State’s eviction moratorium expiring in mid-January.

This data comes from an analysis by the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD), an umbrella organization of 100 non-profit affordable housing and economic development groups that serve low- and moderate-income residents in all five boroughs of the City. ANHD’s report, “New York’s Pandemic Rent Crisis,” documents that eviction proceedings have been filed against 656 rental tenants in the eight residential zip codes that comprise Lower Manhattan.

‘A Weakened Voice for the People of Battery Park City’

Niou Votes Against Redistricting Plan That Will Exile Lower Manhattan to Staten Island

As controversy continues to swirl around a legislative redistricting plan that is widely perceived to disenfranchise Lower Manhattan by severing Battery Park City and the Financial District from the surrounding communities and instead grafting them onto Staten Island, one elected official has taken a stand against the proposal.

As the scheme came before the State Assembly on Thursday, Yuh-Line Niou (who represents Lower Manhattan in that house of the State Legislature) was one of a small handful of lawmakers who voted against the plan.

“Today, I voted to oppose the proposed redistricting maps put forward by the legislature,” Ms. Niou said afterward, “and it is important to me that my constituents understand why I felt it necessary to take this step.

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.

This Week’s Calendar

Thursday February 10

12NOON – 6PM

Blood Drive

6 River Terrace Community Room

Battery Park City Valentine Blood Drive

3PM

Curator’s Tour of SUPERTALL!

Skyscraper Museum

The Museum’s director, Carol Willis, will offer a gallery tour of SUPERTALL 2021 that surveys 58 supertalls worldwide and highlights a dozen recently completed towers that represent some of the most stunning new forms and innovative approaches to structural engineering around the world today. Free.

4PM

Today, cook at home and online with the Da Claudio Ristorante proprietor Claudio Marini and executive chef David Sandoval. Learn to make fusilli avellinesi with lamb ragu, saffron cream, micro greens, and fresh homemade pasta. Free.

6PM

AGENDA

1. 44 Walker Street, outstanding violations for restoration work done on the facade in 2003 – Discussion and possible resolution

2. 47 Vestry Street, application to replace the existing copper and glass cover with new to match – Resolution

7PM

Legacies: Abe Foxman

Museum of Jewish Heritage

Abraham H. Foxman is one of the nation’s preeminent voices against antisemitism and hate. Join the Museum for a conversation with Foxman about his personal background, his life’s work, and his outlook on antisemitism today. Born in Poland in 1940, Foxman survived the Holocaust when his parents entrusted him to their Catholic nursemaid, who baptized him and raised him as her own son. He went on to become a pioneering National Director of ADL from 1987 to 2015, elevating the organization’s national profile and forging connections far beyond the Jewish community. Free; suggested $10 donation.

Friday February 11

7PM

Golden Blossoms: Looking into China’s Exclusive Poetic Couplets

China Institute

Led by Ben Wang, CI’s Senior Lecturer in Language and Humanities, this free virtual workshop is designed for K-12 educators (though we welcome all to attend) to help advance a deeper understanding of the uniqueness of Chinese classical poetry. In addition, by sharing his personal collection of the rare original couplet in calligraphy, Mr. Wang will showcase how the calligraphic art form expresses meaning and personal style, while capturing the moments of a feeling. Free

CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS

Swaps & Trades, Respectable Employment, Lost and Found

To place a listing, contact editor@ebroadsheet.com

Albany to Lower Manhattan: Drop Dead

Redistricting Grafts Downtown Assembly District Onto Staten Island

In a move that has stupefied and outraged local leaders, the legislature in Albany has proposed to redraw lines for the State Assembly that will divide Lower Manhattan, and transfer its representation to a district on Staten Island.

The current boundaries are slated for change because the 2020 Census has the legal effect of automatically triggering a recalibration of all election district boundaries within the State. This task has fallen to the New York State Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR), which has operated largely in secret for several weeks. To read more…

‘Our Representative Won’t Give A Damn About Us’

CB1 Discusses Harm to Lower Manhattan from Gerrymandered Assembly District Lines

Wednesday evening’s meeting of the Battery Park City Committee of Community Board 1 became the forum for a vehement discussion of the proposed legislative redistricting that will uproot Battery Park City and the western Financial District from Lower Manhattan, and instead relegate representation of these communities in the State Assembly to Staten Island.

Committee member Jeff Galloway began by noting, “it is manifestly absurd to have an Assembly district shaped this way. The New York State Assembly is the legislative body that is meant to be most closely tied to the people it represents. That’s why there are many more Assembly members than State Senators, and why each Assembly seat represents a smaller district, with a smaller population,” than in the State Senate. To read more…

Get Rich or Get Out

Analysis By Housing Group Cites Declining Affordability in Lower Manhattan

A leading housing advocacy organization has completed an exhaustive look at threats to affordability in every community in the five boroughs, and has found that Lower Manhattan ranks among the ten most at-risk neighborhoods by one key metric, while also placing in the 20 most-endangered by another.

The Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD), an umbrella organization of 100 non-profit affordable housing and economic development groups that serve low- and moderate-income residents in all five boroughs of the City, has published the 2021 edition of its annual roundup, “How Is Affordable Housing Threatened In Your Neighborhood.” For this report, Lower Manhattan was defined as the catchment of Community Board 1, a collection of neighborhoods encompassing 1.5 square miles, bounded roughly by Canal, Baxter, and Pearl Streets, and the Brooklyn Bridge.

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

February 10

Arthur Miller, American actor, playwright, and author (1915 – 2005)

1258 – Mongol invasions: Baghdad falls to the Mongols, bringing the Islamic Golden Age to an end.

1306 – In front of the high altar of Greyfriars Church in Dumfries, Robert the Bruce murders John Comyn sparking the revolution in the Wars of Scottish Independence.

1840 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

1861 – Jefferson Davis is notified by telegraph that he has been chosen as provisional President of the Confederate States of America.

1906 – HMS Dreadnought, the first of a revolutionary new breed of battleships is christened and launched by King Edward VII.

1947 – The Paris Peace Treaties are signed by Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Finland and the Allies of World War II.

1954 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns against United States intervention in Vietnam.

1962 – Cold War: Captured American U2 spy-plane pilot Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.

1962 – Roy Lichtenstein’s first solo exhibition opened, and it included Look Mickey, which featured his first employment of Ben-Day dots, speech balloons and comic imagery sourcing, all of which he is now known for.

1996 – IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov in chess for the first time.

possible war with Iraq.

2007 – Then Illinois senator Barack Obama announces his candidacy for president in the 2008 elections.

2009 – The communications satellites Iridium 33 and Kosmos 2251 collide in orbit, destroying both

Births

1744 – William Cornwallis, English admiral and politician (d. 1819)

1890 – Boris Pasternak, Russian poet, novelist, and literary translator Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1960)

1893 – Jimmy Durante, American actor, singer, and pianist (d. 1980)

1894 – Harold Macmillan, English captain and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1986)

1898 – Bertolt Brecht, German director, playwright, and poet (d. 1956)

1905 – Chick Webb, American drummer and bandleader (d. 1939)

1950 – Mark Spitz, American swimmer

Deaths

1524 – Catherine of Saxony, Archduchess of Austria (b. 1468)

1992 – Alex Haley, American soldier, journalist, and author (b. 1921)

2001 – Abraham Beame, American academic and politician, 104th Mayor of New York City (b. 1906)

2003 – Ron Ziegler, American politician, 14th White House Press Secretary (b. 1939)

2005 – Arthur Miller, American actor, playwright, and author (b. 1915

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