The BroadsheetDAILY 6/2/20 ~ COVID Compensation

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Lower Manhattan’s Local News

COVID Compensation

CB1 Endorses Push to Expand VCF Coverage to Pandemic Illness

A community leader has proposed that federal programs aiding September 11 first responders and survivors be expanded to cover the pandemic coronavirus.

Community Board 1 (CB1) has signed on to a campaign that aims to expand the eligibility criteria of the September 11 Victims Compensation Fund (VCF) to include illnesses related to the outbreak of the pandemic coronavirus.

In a resolution enacted at the Board’s April 28 meeting, CB1 notes that survivors of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, “may be more likely to have compromised health, the conditions of which may well be further aggravated by this international pandemic.” The same measure “calls upon the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund to recognize the fact that certain 9/11-related physical health conditions put survivors and responders at greater risk for infection, lasting health impacts, or death from COVID-19 and provide just compensation.”

This resolution also anticipates, “the absence of federal recognition of likely COVID-19 deaths to be defined as such” and asks that the VCF administrators amend the Fund’s eligibility criteria so that, “9/11 survivors or their families… should be able to submit evidence of past COVID-19 recovery in a variety of ways, including but not limited to COVID-19 test results antibody screening results.”

Matthew Fenton

Letter

This is the construction site for the new hotel destined to rise at 112 Liberty Street. See yesterday’s Broadsheet story. Ho-Yip restaurant was located on the Cedar Street side of the site.

To the editor:

Hidrock Properties spent $38 million to remove Ho-Yip, a fabulous little Chinese restaurant serving the area for over two decades.

Hopefully there will be very little ROI for their investment, as the neighborhood really has no use for them.

Michael Dortheimer

Community Board 1 Virtual Meetings This Week

The physical Manhattan Community Board 1 office is closed until further notice. Please use man01@cb.nyc.gov as the principal means of communication with Community Board 1 staff who are working remotely to every extent possible. Live remote meetings are at https://live.mcb1.nyc and are open to all.

AGENDAS

Tuesday June 2, 6PM

Transportation & Street Activity Permits Committee

1) Bicycle Lanes – Updates & Possible Resolution

2) Open Streets in CB 1 – Updates & Possible Resolution

3) Street Seats and Social Distancing Space for Small Businesses – Discussion & Possible Resolution

4) Traffic-Related Issues for Large Venues – Discussion

5) Emergency Bus Lanes- Discussion & Resolution

Wednesday June 3, 6PM

Battery Park City Committee

1) BPCA Role with Open Streets – Discussion – Nicholas Sbordone, Vice President of Communications & Public Affairs, Battery Park City Authority

2) Reopening Public Facilities in BPCA Parks and Dog Runs – Discussion & Possible Resolution

3) Reopening Passive or Active Recreation Space of the BPC Ballfields – Discussion

4) BPCA Report – Nicholas Sbordone, Vice President of Communications & Public Affairs, Battery Park City Authority

5) BPC Security Update – Patrick Murphy, Director of Security, Allied Universal

June 2: Today in History

P. T. Barnum

1763 – Pontiac’s Rebellion: At what is now Mackinaw City, Michigan, Chippewas capture Fort Michilimackinac by diverting the garrison’s attention with a game of lacrosse, then chasing a ball into the fort.

1835 – P. T. Barnum & his circus begin 1st tour of US

1851 – 1st US alcohol prohibition law enacted (Maine)

1873 – Construction begins on Clay St (SF) for world’s 1st cable railroad

1875 – Alexander Graham Bell makes first sound transmission

1886 – Grover Cleveland is first to wed during presidency (Frances Folsom)

1901 – Benjamin Adams arrested for playing golf on Sunday (NY)

1925 – NY Yankee Lou Gehrig begins his 2,130 consecutive game streak

1935 – Babe Ruth, 40, announces his retirement as a player

1966 – US Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum; 1st lunar soft-landing

1975 – First record of snowfall in London in June

1975 – VP Rockefeller finds no pattern of illegal activities at CIA

1986 – NYC transit system issues a new brass with steel bullseye token

1997 – Timothy McVeigh found guilty of 1995 Oklahoma City bombing

2004 – Ken Jennings begins his 74-game winning streak on the syndicated game show Jeopardy!

Birthdays

1732 – Martha Washington, 1st first lady (1789-97)

1740 – Marquis de Sade

1840 – Thomas Hardy, England, poet/novelist (Far From the Madding Crowd)

1904 – Johnny Weissmuller, actor (Tarzan)/100m swimmer (Oly-5 gold-1924, 28)

1941 – Charlie Watts, drummer (Rolling Stones-Brown Sugar)

1944 – Marvin Hamlisch, NYC, composer/pianist (Sting, Chorus Line), (d. 2012)

1955 – Dana Carvey, Missoula MT, comedian (SNL, Garth-Wayne’s World)

Anniversaries

1919 – Theoretical Physicist Albert Einstein weds his cousin Elsa Lowenthal

Deaths

1927 – Lizzie Borden, American, acquitted of murder, dies at 68

1941 – Lou Gehrig, 1st baseman (NY Yankee), dies of ALS in Riverdale NY at 37

1970 – Bruce McLaren, New Zealand car racer, designer, and founder of eponymous race team (b. 1937), dies

1990 – Robert Noyce, co-inventor (semi-conductor)/founder (Intel), dies

The Inn Crowd Gets More Crowded

Crashes in Tourism and Business Travel May Signal Trouble for Downtown Hotel Sector

A hotel developer seeking to repeat a 2017 coup may face headwinds that could work against such a reprise. Last December, Hidrock Properties, a Manhattan-based builder of hotels and office properties, completed demolition of two small buildings at 110 and 112 Liberty Street, between Greenwich Street and Trinity Place, which it bought for $38 million in 2018. (Local residents may remember them as the home of the Ho-Yip and Essex World restaurants.)

Read the rest of the story.

A Quantum of Solace

Three More Lower Manhattan Residents Die from Pandemic, But Local Trend Lines Continue to be Favorable

The death toll among Lower Manhattan residents from the pandemic coronavirus has grown by three additional lost lives, to a total of 67. This represents a 4.6 percent increase from the Broadsheet’s last update, on May 22. Statistics released by the City’s Department of Health (DOH), which quantify mortality and infection metrics, indexed by zip code, continue to show that only two zip codes (among 178 residential districts) throughout the five boroughs have registered no deaths at all from COVID-19 (the disease caused by the pandemic coronavirus), and both are located Downtown: 10280 (southern Battery Park City) and 10006 (the Greenwich South neighborhood).

To read more…

Refugees Don’t Produce Refuse

Less Trash and Fewer People May Explain Why Downtown Avoided the Worst

Two statistical indicators are pointing toward a demographic shift that may help explain why Lower Manhattan has been largely spared the brunt of pandemic coronavirus, which has exacted a much heavier toll in other communities throughout the five boroughs of New York City.

The first of these is 2.89 million fewer pounds of household garbage being produced during the month of April, compared to the same period a year earlier. In an analysis researched and reported by The City (an online, independent, nonprofit news outlet), Community District 1 — a collection of neighborhoods encompassing 1.5 square miles, bounded roughly by Canal, Baxter, and Pearl Streets and the Brooklyn Bridge — produced 1,445 tons of household trash for pickup by the City’s Department of Sanitation in April. This amounted to a 28.6 percent drop from April 2019, when the same catchment area produced 2,025 tons.

To read more…

Hungry?

Click here to view a list of Downtown restaurants compiled by the Downtown Alliance that are open and serving takeout and delivery.

Check Your Screen to Get Screened

State Launches Online Map Showing Local Testing Facilities

On Sunday afternoon, the State Department of Health launched on online map specifying the locations of more than 700 facilities throughout New York where testing for exposure to the pandemic coronavirus is available. These testing sites can process up to 40,000 patients per day, and are currently operating well below their capacity.

To read more…

Matthew Fenton