You are here: Home/Uncategorized/ The BroadsheetDAILY – 2/7/22 – ‘A Weakened Voice for the People of Battery Park City’ Niou Votes Against Redistricting Plan That Will Exile Lower Manhattan to Staten Island
The BroadsheetDAILY – 2/7/22 – ‘A Weakened Voice for the People of Battery Park City’ Niou Votes Against Redistricting Plan That Will Exile Lower Manhattan to Staten Island
The Broadsheet – Lower Manhattan’s Local Newspaper
‘A Weakened Voice for the People of Battery Park City’
Niou Votes Against Redistricting Plan That Will Exile Lower Manhattan to Staten Island
State Assembly member Yuh-Line Niou: “The lines as proposed would isolate Battery Park City from its surrounding community. I think this decision is short sighted for the community.”
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. I have been in close communication with residents and community leaders in Battery Park City, a unique community I am privileged to represent in the Assembly, and I have heard their serious concerns about how this new legislative plan would jeopardize meaningful representation for my Battery Park City constituents. After much consideration, I cannot support a plan that would lead to a weakened voice for the people of Battery Park City.”
“Battery Park City is a unique community,” she explained. “The land it encompasses is owned and managed by the Battery Park City Authority, a public-benefit corporation created by New York State. As such, effective State representation carries a special weight for these residents. The community is also intimately tied to the Financial District and Lower Manhattan, with whom they share resources and community-support structures. The lines as proposed would isolate Battery Park City from its surrounding community. I think this decision is short sighted for the community, especially in light of the State-owned land situation it is in.”
“I understand that some lawmakers will be unhappy with my decision,” Ms. Niou continued, “but my primary commitment has always been and always will be to protect the representation and voices of my constituents. I will always put them first in every decision I make. This situation is no different, and I am proud to stand with the residents of my community to oppose this particular redistricting decision.”
Ms. Niou took the lead in alerting Lower Manhattan community leaders to the change, prior to the official announcement of the proposed redistricting on Tuesday. Reaction from local activists was intense and immediate.
The new boundaries for the State Assembly district representing Lower Manhattan excise Battery Park City and the western Financial District from Downtown, and banish these communities to Staten Island.
Dan Akkerman, a co-founder the Battery Alliance, said, “it is infuriating to see that the redistricting commission completely disregarded the needs of Lower Manhattan and Staten Island citizens in their clear attempt to gerrymander the district. No reasonable person would believe that the citizens of Lower Manhattan, who live in high rise apartments, in a district that includes Wall Street, should be grouped with a stretch of Staten Island. If the goal was to achieve the most gerrymandered district, the commission was a success.”
Pat Smith, president of the Battery Park City Homeowner’s Coalition, said, “this is politics run amok! The people of Battery Park City and the Financial District must object in the strongest terms.”
Jeff Galloway, a board member with the Gateway Plaza Tenants Association, observed, “the obvious point is that Assembly district is the smallest unit of State representation. As such, it should be tied as closely as feasible to the community being served by the district. And the reality is the Lower Manhattan and the Financial District have very little in common with communities on Staten Island. The issues that we face on a day-to-day basis are likely to be very different from issues faced by communities on Staten Island. For example, a densely populated community reliant on mass transit will have different needs from a low-density community that has very little mass transit. So whoever represents that combined district will be pulled asunder by very different seats of needs, which may even be in conflict with one another. It is just not possible to think of any good policy reason to tie Battery Park City and the Financial District to Staten Island.”
In the end, neither the opposition of Downtown leaders, nor Ms. Niou’s vote against the plan, was sufficient to thwart it. After the redistricting proposal was first disclosed on Tuesday, the Albany legislature moved to ratify it with unprecedented speed (and not a single hearing at which the public was allowed to comment), with both the Assembly and the Senate ratifying the proposal on Thursday. In the wake of these moves, Governor Kathy Hochul signed it into law on Friday.
This means that, barring a successful legal challenge, Battery Park City, along with the southern and western reaches of the Financial District, will be (for purposes of representation in the State Assembly) transplanted to the north shore of Staten Island for at least a decade.
Graphic novels have long been emerging as a way to tell difficult and often traumatic stories. Since the late 1970s, they have also been a medium for telling stories about the Holocaust. Recently, authors and illustrators have been turning to stories about teenagers during the Holocaust. Join the Museum for a program exploring the depiction of teenagers in Holocaust graphic novels. The program will consist of a conversation between David Polonsky, illustrator of Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation; Ken Krimstein, author of When I Grow Up: The Lost Autobiographies of Six Yiddish Teens, and R.J. Palacio, author of White Bird: A Wonder Story. The conversation will be moderated by AJ Frost, Newsletter Editor and Staff Writer for the Comics Beat. Free; suggested $10 donation,
In this installment of Tavern Tastings, Jeanne E. Abrams, author of Revolutionary Medicine: The Founding Fathers and Mothers in Sickness and in Health, will join Keeler Tavern Museum & History Center’s Catherine Prescott and Fraunces Tavern Museum’s Mary Tsaltas-Ottomanelli in exploring the history of public health in colonial North America and the role a handful of Founding Fathers and Mothers played in its evolution. Free; suggested donation of $10
Online Variety Show. Celebrate with music, drums, and a Year of the Tiger talk at China Institute’s free virtual variety show! Marvel at the sights and sounds of festival fireworks and the famed Refiner Drums, alongside Chinese dance and music performances and a conversation on Chinese New Year traditions and the meaning of the Year of the Tiger. Join China Institute for our immersive and colorful digital program to welcome Chinese New Year. Free
With the 2022 Winter Olympics coming up, China is very much in the global spotlight. What image does the rising power want to project to the world? In her compelling new book, The World According to China, Elizabeth Economy argues that Chinese President Xi Jinping has bold ambitions to transform the international system. Join us for a virtual conversation moderated by Professor Minxin Pei as she explains what that tells us about China—and what it means for the rest of the world.
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.
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.
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
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…
CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS
Swaps & Trades, Respectable Employment, Lost and Found
Ethical and respectable gentleman, an IT Wizard, seeks a living/work space in BPC. Can be a Computer help to you and your business, or will guarantee $1,500 for rental. Reciprocal would be great!
Please contact: 914-588-5284
AVAILABLE
NURSES’ AIDE
20+ years experience
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.
Folk dance group seeks empty space of 400+ sq feet for 2 hours of weekly evening dance practice.
Average attendance is 10 women. This is our hobby; can pay for use of the space.
Call 646 872-0863 or find us on Facebook. Ring O’Bells Morris.
NURSES AIDE
Kind loving and honest Nurse’s aide seeking full-time or part-time job experience with Alzheimer’s patient and others
Excellent references available please call Dian at 718-496-6232
HOUSEKEEPING/ NANNY/ BABYSITTER
Available for PT/FT. Wonderful person, who is a great worker.
Refs avail.
Worked in BPC.
Call Tenzin 347-803-9523
ORGANIZE WITH EASE FOR HOME AND LIFE
Is your home ready for guests?
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.
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.
The Battery Park City Authority kicked off its Annual Art Exhibition on Sunday, January 30, at the community space in Six River Terrace (next to the Bluestone Lane Cafe and across from the Irish Hunger Memorial).
All are welcome to view the paintings created by participants at Authority’s art programs. Admission is free, but proof of vaccination required.
Mixed Metrics
Lower Manhattan Rentals Increase in Price, While Condo Sales Drift
A new study from the online real estate database company, StreetEasy, shows that the cost for renting an apartment in three Lower Manhattan neighborhoods spiraled during the fourth quarter of 2021, while the fluctuation in purchase prices was more complicated.
For tenants, median asking rents jumped (relative to the same period one year earlier) by 38.7 percent in the Financial District (to $4,300), 20.8 percent in Tribeca (to $7,700) and 13.1 percent in Battery Park City (to $4,441) per month.
For those wishing to purchase a condominium or cooperative, the picture was more mixed. To read more…
Chain Reaction
Hundreds of Local Storefronts Remain Rented to Corporate Brands, While Small Businesses Struggle, and Landlords Warehouse Empty Space
A new report from the Center for an Urban Future (CUF), a public policy think tank that uses data-driven research to bring attention to overlooked issues, documents that the proliferation of chain stores in Lower Manhattan has decreased slightly during the past 12 months, while the same tally for the City as whole ticked upward.
For small businesses, the outlook appears to be bleaker. To read more…
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.
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.
SNAP/EBT/P-EBT, Debit/Credit, and Farmers Market Nutrition Program checks accepted at all farmers markets.
TODAY IN HISTORY
February 7
Charles Dickens 1812 – 1870
1497 – The Bonfire of the Vanities occurs, during which supporters of Girolamo Savonarola burn cosmetics, art, and books in Florence, Italy.
1795 – The 11th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.
The Eleventh Amendment prohibits federal courts from hearing certain lawsuits against states from individuals from another state or country.
1812 – The strongest in a series of earthquakes strikes New Madrid, Missouri.
John Bradbury, a Fellow of the Linnean Society, was on the Mississippi on the night of December 15, 1811, and describes the tremors in great detail in his Travels in the Interior of America in the Years 1809, 1810 and 1811, published in 1817.
After supper, we went to sleep as usual: about ten o’clock, and in the night “I was awakened by the most tremendous noise, accompanied by an agitation of the boat so violent, that it appeared in danger of upsetting … I could distinctly see the river as if agitated by a storm; and although the noise was inconceivably loud and terrific, I could distinctly hear the crash of falling trees, and the screaming of the wild fowl on the river, but found that the boat was still safe at her moorings.
By the time we could get to our fire, which was on a large flag in the stern of the boat, the shock had ceased; but immediately the perpendicular banks, both above and below us, began to fall into the river in such vast masses, as nearly to sink our boat by the swell they occasioned … At day-light we had counted twenty-seven shocks.”
Eliza Bryan in New Madrid, Territory of Missouri, wrote the following eyewitness account in March 1812.
On the 16th of December, 1811, about two o’clock, a.m., we were visited by a violent shock of an earthquake, accompanied by a very awful noise resembling loud but distant thunder, but more hoarse and vibrating, which was followed in a few minutes by the complete saturation of the atmosphere, with sulphurious vapor, causing total darkness. The screams of the affrighted inhabitants running to and fro, not knowing where to go, or what to do—the cries of the fowls and beasts of every species—the cracking of trees falling, and the roaring of the Mississippi— the current of which was retrograde for a few minutes, owing as is supposed, to an irruption in its bed— formed a scene truly horrible.
John Reynolds (February 26, 1788 – May 8, 1865) who was the fourth governor of Illinois, mentions the earthquake in his biography My Own Times: Embracing Also the History of My Life (1855):
On the night of 16th November, an earthquake occurred, that produced great consternation amongst the people. The centre of the violence was in New Madrid, Missouri, but the whole valley of the Mississippi was violently agitated. Our family all were sleeping in a log cabin, and my father leaped out of bed crying aloud “the Indians are on the house” … We laughed at the mistake of my father, but soon found out it was worse than the Indians. Not one in the family knew at the time that it was an earthquake. The next morning another shock made us acquainted with it, so we decided it was an earthquake. The cattle came running home bellowing with fear, and all animals were terribly alarmed on the occasion. Our house cracked and quivered, so we were fearful it would fall to the ground. In the American Bottom many chimneys were thrown down, and the church bell in Cahokia sounded by the agitation of the building. It is said the shock of an earthquake was felt in Kaskaskia in 1804, but I did not perceive it. The shocks continued for years in Illinois, and some have experienced it this year, 1855.
1904 – A fire in Baltimore, Maryland destroys over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours.
1962 – The United States bans all Cuban imports and exports.
1979 – Pluto moves inside Neptune’s orbit for the first time since either was discovered.
1984 – Space Shuttle program: STS-41-B Mission: Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered space walk using the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU).
1990 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party agrees to give up its monopoly on power.
1991 – Haiti’s first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is sworn in.
1995 – Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is arrested in Islamabad, Pakistan.
1997 – NeXT merges with Apple Computer, starting the path to Mac OS X.
2013 – The state of Mississippi officially certifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was formally ratified by Mississippi in 1995.
Births
1478 – Thomas More, English lawyer and politician, Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom (d. 1535)
1804 – John Deere, American blacksmith and businessman, founded Deere & Company (d. 1886)
1812 – Charles Dickens, English novelist and critic (d. 1870)
1885 – Sinclair Lewis, American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1951)
1906 – Puyi, Chinese emperor (d. 1967)
1932 – Gay Talese, American journalist and memoirist
1932 – Alfred Worden, American colonel, pilot, and astronaut
Deaths
1333 – Nikko, Japanese priest, founder of Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism (b. 1246)
