The BroadsheetDAILY ~ 3/4/21 ~ ‘Please Resign’

‘Please Resign’

Niou Calls Upon Cuomo to Step Down

Above: Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is embattled by accusations of sexual harassment, personal bullying, and an alleged coverup of deaths among elderly residents of nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic. Below: State Assembly member Yuh-Line Niou: “Our Governor is a manipulative, controlling, abusive, power-obsessed predator. We must never go along with corrupt or abusive behavior. No matter who it is.”

State Assembly member Yuh-Line Niou, who represents Lower Manhattan in the Albany legislature, has a request for Governor Andrew Cuomo, amid a growing chorus of accusations related to alleged sexual harassment, an alleged cover-up of nursing home deaths resulting from the pandemic coronavirus, and alleged verbal abuse by the Governor of staff members and other elected officials: “Please resign.”

“Our Governor is a manipulative, controlling, abusive, power-obsessed predator,” she says. “We must never go along with corrupt or abusive behavior. No matter who it is.” In a reference to statements of support for the Governor from members of his staff and political allies, she adds, “the arguments of ‘well, it didn’t happen to me,’ and ‘I have never seen it myself,’ don’t mean it didn’t happen to someone else. It’s erasure. Harassers don’t harass everyone. Predators don’t prey on everyone. Abusers don’t abuse everyone. That is how it works. Don’t help them.”

Ms. Niou characterized Mr. Cuomo’s muted apology for multiple recent allegations of sexual harassment as “gas-lighting,” in a story first reported by the Associated Press, asking rhetorically, “when is it a joke to say ‘do you have sex with older men?’” in a reference to one of the alleged verbal exchanges with female subordinates that the Governor has been accused of. She continued, “I felt like it was very much gas-lighting instead of an apology, and I think a lot of women read it that way.”

Ms. Niou’s personal history gives her a forceful credibility on this issue. In January, 2019, while speaking in the State Assembly in favor of a bill to relax the statute of limitations on crimes against children (and thus give abuse victims more time to report), she acknowledged some painful personal history.

“I was 13 years old, and it was a teacher,” she began. “And I can still smell him. I can still smell what he smells like. It’s not something I like to bring up, because it’s so shameful and so horrible and so traumatic an experience to me, and for many of the other victims. It’s really hard to bring up. It’s really hard to talk about it for many, many reasons.”

“I hope that people realize that this is not an attack on any institution,” she continued. “This is not an attack on anybody else. This is to protect victims. This is to protect children. And it’s also to help make somebody feel a little bit more whole again.”

“Because, in reality, the only reason I spoke up about this,” she added, “is because I found out that the person who preyed on me took advantage of another girl. That is why we want to make sure that people can speak up. Because a lot of times, people don’t realize that it matters, it matters that there’s a list of names, that we’re not alone, that it’s not something that the law doesn’t care about, that our government doesn’t care about, that our friends and colleagues don’t care about.”

“We need to make sure that we’re listening to all of the voices who are crying out, to make sure that we’re protected. There’s not a single day that this doesn’t affect me. There’s not a single time that I’ve dated somebody and it’s been normal. There’s not a single time where my relationships with people are not affected.” Before leaving the Assembly chamber podium, she added, “I literally can’t stop shaking.”

Before Ms. Niou was elected to the Albany legislature, she worked as the chief of staff for Assembly member Ron Kim. It was an exchange with Mr. Kim that ignited the current round of controversy that has engulfed Mr. Cuomo, when the Governor called the Assembly member at home, late at night in mid-February, to demand his public support after an aide to Mr. Cuomo admitted that the State government had withheld data about deaths of elderly patients in nursing homes, in order to thwart a possible federal investigation. When Mr. Kim declined to promise such support, he alleges, the Governor, “said I hadn’t seen his wrath and that he can destroy me.” This revelation was followed, days later, by three female aides accusing the Governor of sexually harassing them.

Mr. Kim, who has also called for the Governor to resign, says Mr. Cuomo, “is a coward who has abused his powers. His pattern of abuse and harassment toward his aides, journalists, lawmakers, and critics is despicable. As a lawmaker, I have the duty to hold him accountable. I will not stand down.”

Matthew Fenton

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…

Make more music! Make more art!

Make more music! Make more art! For 30 years, the Church Street School for Music and Art has been helping downtowners do just that.

A week from tonight, on March 10, from 7:30pm to 8:30pm, the Church Street School is hosting The Event, Virtual, its annual fundraiser.

Last year’s partygoers fondly remember the 2020 Event as the last social function many attended before pandemic reality hit. 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.

Above, in a photograph taken before the pandemic, Lisa Ecklund-Flores, executive director of the Church Street School, stands at the school’s White Street front door and welcomes families inside.

CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS

Swaps & Trades, Respectable Employment, Lost and Found

To place a listing, contact editor@ebroadsheet.com

Today’s Downtown Calendar

Thursday March 4

Seaport District

Fitness classes via Instagram released every Tuesday and Thursday, featuring Trooper Fitness, Pure Barre and Lyons Den Power Yoga. Free

2PM

Museum of Jewish Heritage

Circuses were a popular form of entertainment in Nazi Germany and across Europe in the decades leading up to World War II. Jewish circus artists helped shape the industry in the late 19th century, and some—including a Jewish acrobat named Irene Danner—were saved by circuses during the Holocaust.

Join the Museum for a program exploring the lives and legacies of Jewish circus artists between 1860 and 1945 with Stav Meishar, a multidisciplinary performance maker, stage artist, academic researcher, and educator who has created and performed The Escape Act, a one-woman show based on Danner’s story which also incorporates her personal experiences as the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors; and Dr. Marline Otte, Associate Professor of History at Tulane University and author of Jewish Identities in German Popular Entertainment, 1890–1933. $10

7PM

China Institute

China and the U.S. are the two greatest emitters of carbon, so their environmental and economic policies have the power to either save or destroy the planet. Join us as two of the world’s leading climate thinkers—Jeffrey Sachs, an economist who runs Columbia University’s Center for Sustainable Development, and Ma Jun, founder of the Institute of Environmental Policy and Affairs in Beijing—share insights on what the two nations can do to ensure we get to zero net greenhouse emissions. Free

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)

Great Scott

Comptroller Renews Calls for BPCA to Commit Funds to NYCHA Upgrades

New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Scott Stringer is proposing to divert more than $400 million in excess revenue from the Battery Park City Authority to the cash-strapped New York City Housing Authority.

In a 27-point policy outline, “Housing Is a Right, Not a Privilege,” released on Thursday, Mr. Stringer proposes to, “reroute hundreds of millions from the Battery Park City Authority to NYCHA,” arguing that, “NYCHA’s needs are enormous, and it will take sustained commitment at every level of government to address them. To read more…

Beyond The Fringe

Two Extremists Face Charges for Online Threats

A pair of men for whom Lower Manhattan holds a troubling allure have been separately charged with making threats to assassinate public officials.

Rickey Johnson (who refers to himself as “Nigel Dawn Defarren” in online postings) was arrested February 11 on federal charges of using interstate communications to make threats, and an additional count of threating United States officials. To read more…

Wall Street’s Secret Santa:

“It was love right away”

Rest in Peace, Arturo Di Modica

Charging Bull, the monumental bronze sculpture secretly fabricated by artist Arturo Di Modica with $360,000 of his own money, and then plunked down on Broad Street in front of the New York Stock Exchange in the middle of the night.

Arturo Di Modica’s Charging Bull stands poised at the foot of Broadway, seemingly sizing up the Canyon of Heroes as a potential urban Pamplona. He feels so perfectly sited, it’s surprising to learn that he began his New York life somewhere else. The Bull holds a few other surprises too.

   On December 15, 1989, downtown New York woke up to find an 18-foot, 7,000-pound present below the 60-foot Christmas tree in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Unwrapped and without a card, no one knew who sent it—or how it got there. To read more

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.

Breakfast time for the Blue Jay  (Cyanocitta cristata)

Letter

Dear Editor,

Thank you for your thorough coverage of this story

(BroadsheetDAILY, Feb. 18

‘Such’ Nonsense

Appeals Court Focuses on Meaning of Four-Letter Word to Block Suit Against Two Bridges Development Plan). We would like to add some additional and important context.

One group mentioned in your article was Lower East Side Organized Neighbors (LESON); however, you neglected to mention that the other group was Tenants United Fighting For Lower East Side (TUFF-LES). I am writing to you on behalf of TUFF-LES (a centric grassroots group comprised of residential leaders along the impacted Two Bridges waterfront areas). Our efforts are to expose how the developers and the City are NOT abiding by the covenants upon which our community was based. We have been working to push forward a community-led zoning that would implement durable protections against such out of context developments. They neglect to mention that the 675 “affordable” units come at the expense of 2,100 luxury units; more than 3 to 1 ratio of luxury units would somehow slow gentrification. This would nearly double the number of units on a two-block area of which 75% will be luxury units. We DO NOT have a luxury housing shortage.

Over the last five years TUFF-LES has been heavily involved within our community and has worked with other CBO’s like GOLES, CAAAV, and Take Root Justice to come up with other suitable alternatives. A decade ago, there was a community-based planning initiative known as the Chinatown Working Group (CWG) that produced a comprehensive community-based plan with zoning recommendations. Unfortunately, City Planning preemptively rejected the CWG Plan in its unofficial preview process, indicating that the plan was too large and complex. The City has implemented much larger and more complex zonings.

The Two Bridges Community Plan is not only an extrapolation of elements from the CWG Plan, but it’s responsive back to City Planning’s claim that the CWG Plan was too complex. It includes such requirements as deeply affordable housing, height limits and requirements for open spaces and public access.This approach is strategic, manageable and seeks to implement protections where our broader community is the most vulnerable.

TUFF-LES, et al already has an application in process with City Planning but there are constant requested revisions. Our short-term goal is to have the Two Bridges Community Plan in place so we can protect the immediate threat of luxury over development in our low to moderate income, culturally diverse, working family neighborhood. This would be the beginning to kick-start a part of the CWG plan, but certainly the long-term objective is to support and push for the rezoning of the other neighborhoods so that a broader area receives protection as well.

Marc Richardson

TUFF-LES

Eyes to the Sky

February 22 – March 7, 2021

Sun’s return north, Lion springs tonight

It seems that we are born knowing that we can tell the time of day by the position of the Sun in the sky. The time of year is evident when we observe the changing location of the rising and setting Sun along the horizon, the trajectory of the Sun’s arc on the sky dome, and the length of day. In the illustration, February is represented by the third line. The whole image reflects our experience of the Sun’s northerly movement on the horizon from winter to summer solstice. We observe our star, the Sun, climb higher in the sky each day. On the vernal equinox, March 20, the sunrise point is due east on the skyline. To read more…

TODAY IN HISTORY

March 4

1890: The longest bridge in Great Britain, the Forth Bridge in Scotland

AD 51 – Nero, later to become Roman emperor, is given the title princeps iuventutis (head of the youth).

1461 – Wars of the Roses in England: Lancastrian King Henry VI is deposed by his House of York cousin, who then becomes King Edward IV.

1493 – Explorer Christopher Columbus arrives back in Lisbon, Portugal, aboard his ship Niña from his voyage to what are now The Bahamas and other islands in the Caribbean.

1519 – Hernán Cortés arrives in Mexico in search of the Aztec civilization and its wealth.

1675 – John Flamsteed is appointed the first Astronomer Royal of England.

1789 – In New York City, the first Congress of the United States meets at Federal Hall, putting the United States Constitution into effect. The United States Bill of Rights is written and proposed to Congress.

1790 – France is divided into 83 départements, cutting across the former provinces in an attempt to dislodge regional loyalties based on ownership of land by the nobility.

1861 – The first national flag of the Confederate States of America (the “Stars and Bars”) is adopted.

1890 – The longest bridge in Great Britain, the Forth Bridge in Scotland, measuring 1,710 feet (520 m) long, is opened by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII.

1957 – The S&P 500 stock market index is introduced, replacing the S&P 90.

1986 – The Soviet Vega 1 begins returning images of Halley’s Comet and the first images of its nucleus.

2018 – Former MI6 spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter are poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury, England, causing a diplomatic uproar that results in mass-expulsions of diplomats from all countries involved.

Births

1394 – Henry the Navigator, Portuguese explorer (d. 1460)

1678 – Antonio Vivaldi, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1741)

1745 – Casimir Pulaski, Polish-American general (d. 1779)

1856 – Alfred William Rich, English painter, author, and educator (d. 1921)

1906 – Avery Fisher, American violinist and engineer, founded Fisher Electronics (d. 1994)

1932 – Ed Roth, American illustrator (d. 2001)

1936 – Jim Clark, Scottish race car driver (d. 1968)

Deaths

1172 – Stephen III, king of Hungary (b. 1147)

1853 – Christian Leopold von Buch, German geologist and paleontologist (b. 1774)

1963 – William Carlos Williams, American poet, short story writer, and essayist (b. 1883)

1974 – Adolph Gottlieb, American painter and sculptor (b. 1903)

2007 – Thomas Eagleton, 38th Lieutenant Governor of Missouri (b. 1929)

2019 – Luke Perry, American actor (b. 1966)[14]

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