The BroadsheetDAILY ~ 3/10/21 ~ City and Seaport Developer Revamp Pavilion Plans, In Response to Community Input

They Listened

City and Seaport Developer Revamp Pavilion Plans,

In Response to Community Input

A rendering of the proposed outdoor dining pavilion planned for South and Fulton Streets, in front of the historic Tin Building. (The shaded area above indicates the obstructed view created by the FDR Drive viaduct.)

Community Board 1 (CB1) is endorsing a proposal by Howard Hughes Corporation, the real estate firm that is redeveloping the South Street Seaport, and the City’s Parks Department, to create a new outdoor restaurant underneath the FDR Drive.

The plan calls for an oak-framed pavilion that will be 11 feet tall and 76 feet long, situated between FDR Drive, at South and Fulton Streets, in front of the historic and newly refurbished Tin Building. Open patios will extend from the north and south ends of pavilion, where food and drink will be served year-round. Removable panels will provide shelter from the elements during cold-weather months.

This vision replaces a 2019 proposal that would have placed a much larger structure (also beneath the FDR Drive) at the intersection of South and John Streets, blocking the view corridor of the East River, and eclipsing the historic tall ships docked on the waterfront. CB1 strongly opposed that plan.

A resolution enacted at CB1’s February 23 meeting noted approvingly that, “the proposed structure is actually 1,000 square feet smaller than the John Street proposal;” that, “the current proposal’s location is much better than previously proposed,” and that, “the new design is also an improvement from those proposed in the past.” The resolution goes on to recommend that the City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (which has jurisdiction over the Historic District in which the site is located) approve the plan.

The Board has one remaining cavil about the current plan, however. The ten-year lease and concession that the Parks Department plans to grant to South Street Limited Partnership (the Howard Hughes subsidiary that will operate the restaurant) is expected to generate considerable revenue. The Parks Department plans to collect and absorb these funds into its own budget.

But CB1’s resolution notes that, “while the City is proposing that licensing fees… resulting from this concession go to the Parks Department and [CB1] recognizes their need for funds, we do feel that a much more urgent need at this time is operating revenue for the South Street Seaport Museum, so that this vital cultural institution at the Seaport can remain in existence and operation.” The same measure concludes that CB1, “recommends that the revenue received by the City from this concession be given to the South Street Seaport Museum for their operational needs.”

Matthew Fenton

A Decade of Development

Lower Manhattan Quietly Becomes Home to Equivalent of a New Neighborhood – Almost None of It Affordable

In the ten-year period that ended in 2020, Lower Manhattan absorbed the equivalent of an additional Battery Park City, through the number of new households created by real estate development, according to an analysis from the Department of City Planning.

Community District 1—a collection of neighborhoods encompassing 1.5 square miles, bounded roughly by Canal, Baxter, and Pearl Streets and the Brooklyn Bridge — saw the creation of 6,477 new housing units in the decade that begin in 2010. To read more…

They Plan to Unpave the Parking Lot, and Put Up a Paradise

The East Side Competes with the Hudson as Downtown’s Go-To Waterfront Destination

Although the Hudson River Park has emerged in recent years as a focus of Lower Manhattan community life, it may soon have a rival. Planning and development for an East River waterfront park are roughly a decade behind the political dialog and physical construction surrounding the West Side’s network of piers and esplanades, but are nonetheless gathering momentum. To read more…

Today’s Downtown Calendar

Wednesday March 10

6PM

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

6PM

In The Invention of Public Space: Designing for Inclusion in Lindsay’s New York, Mariana Mogilevich details a watershed moment when designers, government administrators, and residents sought to remake New York City in the image of a diverse, free, and democratic society. In this Skyscraper Museum webinar, Mogilevich brings together psychology, politics, and design to consider a broad array of projects in open spaces to affirm the value of city life in a moment of “urban crisis,” and reveals the emergence of a concept of public space that remains today a powerful, if unrealized, aspiration. Free.

7:30PM-8:30PM

Annual fundraiser for the Church Street School of Music and Art. This year, The Event takes place online, offering brilliant musical performances, special guest appearances, and auctions with live bidding. Attendees are invited to then cap the night off at a Zoom after-party. Tickets and sponsorships are available at multiple price points, including a discounted ticket for families currently enrolled at Church Street School and school alums. View auction items here; get ticket details here.

CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS

Swaps & Trades, Respectable Employment, Lost and Found

To place a listing, contact editor@ebroadsheet.com

A Guide To Lower Manhattan’s 2021 Light Installations

Winter is a little brighter in Lower Manhattan, where you can bask in a whole bunch of colorful light installations this season.

There are two Downtown Alliance-sponsored public art projects on loan from Amsterdam’s Light Art Collection at the public plaza adjacent to 85 Broad.

The sculpture “C/C,” designed by Singapore-based artist Angela Chong, is a bench for seating that transforms into a colorful LED light show at night.

“Talking Heads,” designed by Hungarian artist Viktor Vicsek, is made up of two massive heads dotted with 4,000 LED lights that change to reveal different facial expressions in conversation.

Another Alliance sponsored installation is Ziggy. At the public plaza at 200 Water Street, this interactive piece by design studio Hou de Sous uses cords tied to a steel structure illuminated by colorful lights to create exciting views of the surrounding landscape. You can enter the installation from all angles, and sit on the several “gateways” that serve as benches. At night, Ziggy’s lights add an inviting extra pop of brightness.

Head up Water Street to the Seaport and find “Electric Dandelions,” created by artist Abram Santa Cruz and LA-based art collective Liquid PXL and presented by The Howard Hughes Corporation. In daylight, the ten 28-foot steel-and-acrylic structures look like dandelion flowers; at night, LED lights turn the structures into colorful, rhythmic animations.

(sponsored content)

Downtown Depreciates

Reports Show That Lower Manhattan Properties Are Dwindling in Value

A range of reports indicates that the Downtown real estate market has imploded in the wake of the recession brought on by the pandemic coronavirus. The Downtown Alliance’s “2020 Lower Manhattan Real Estate Year in Review” documents that office leasing fell by almost 70 percent from 2019 levels, to deeper troughs than those that followed the 2008/2009 financial crisis, while local office vacancies spiked to 20-year highs.

Perhaps the most radical undoing, however, was on the residential front. “According to our research, an estimated 40 percent of the local population left amid the pandemic,” To read more…

A Satiety of Cenotaphs

Attempting to Prevent a Monumental Mistake

Community Board 1 is trying to preclude the possibility that the inevitable monument to New Yorkers who have perished as a result of the pandemic coronavirus might be situated in Battery Park City.

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.

TODAY IN HISTORY

March 10

1913 – Harriet Tubman, abolitionist, conductor on Underground RR,

dies in New York in 1913 at the age of 93

241 BC – First Punic War: Battle of the Aegates Islands – The Romans sink the Carthaginian fleet bringing the First Punic War to an end.

1681 – In 1681, King Charles II handed over a large piece of his American land holdings to William Penn to satisfy a debt the king owed to Penn’s father. This land included present-day Pennsylvania and Delaware. Penn immediately sailed to America and his first step on American soil took place in New Castle in 1682.

1801 – First census in Great Britain

1849 – After working on a boat as a young man, Abraham Lincoln thought of and devised and eventually applied for a patent that would be able to lift boats over shoals and obstructions in a river. It is the only United States patent ever registered to a President. Documentation of this patent was discovered in 1997.

1862 – US issues first paper money ($5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500 & $1000)

1876 – First telephone call made (Alexander Graham Bell to Thomas Watson)

Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, when he made the first call on March 10, 1876, to his assistant, Thomas Watson: “Mr. Watson—come here—I want to see you.”

1906 – Coal dust explosion kills 1,060 at Courrieres France

1945 – The Army Air Force firebombs Tokyo, and the resulting firestorm kills more than 100,000 people, mostly civilians.

1951 – FBI director J. Edgar Hoover declines post of baseball commissioner

1952 – Military coup led by General Fulgencio Batista in Cuba

1969 – James Earl Ray pleads guilty to murder of Martin Luther King Jr

1975 – Dog spectacles patented in England

2013 – Aung San Suu Kyi is re-elected leader of the Burmese National League for Democracy

Births

1928 – James Earl Ray, assassin (Martin Luther King Jr)

1935 – Gary Owens, announcer (Laugh-in)

1957 – Osama bin Laden, Riyadh Saudi Arabia, Islamic militant and founder of al-Qaeda

Deaths

1913 – Harriet Tubman, abolitionist, conductor on Underground RR, dies in NY at about 93

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