Lower Manhattan Halloween Celebrations Offer Treats and Tricks
In Battery Park City, the 19th Annual Dogs Halloween Puppy Parade will take place on Sunday, October 31, on the Esplanade, starting at noon. The event will begin at the South Cove wooden arbor, and proceed north along the Esplanade to the volleyball court, near North Cove Marina. Prizes will be awarded for Best Costume/Large Breed, Best Costume/Small Breed, Best Owner & Dog Combo; Best Dog Team Costume.
On Saturday, the Battery Park City Authority will present “Campfire Stories & Songs” from 2:00 to 4:00 pm in Teardrop Park. Kids and parents are invited to cozy up beside a campfire for stories and sing-alongs, while enjoying snacks and art projects.
In the South Street Seaport, there will be Halloween observances on Saturday and Sunday. Tomorrow, from noon to 5:00 pm, the Trick or Treating at the Seaport festival invites costumed kids to stop by various stores on Fulton Street (between Water and South Streets). This event is participating in the Teal Pumpkin Project, which makes it possible for children with food allergies to enjoy trick or treating by receiving trinkets and toys, rather than candy.
From noon through 2:00 pm, McNally Jackson Books (Four Fulton Street) will host Haunted Halloween Books, an outdoor arts and crafts event that helps children create their own tome of spooky memories.
And from noon to 4:00 pm, the South Street Seaport Museum will present Pumpkin Painting with the South Street Seaport Museum on Pier 16 (at South Street, between Fulton and John Streets). Kids are invited to paint and decorate pumpkins delivered from the Hudson Valley by schooner, while also taking part in the Black Cat Scavenger Hunt, aboard the Seaport Museum’s tall ship, Wavertree.
On Sunday, the Halloween Block Party (from noon to 5:00 pm) on Fulton Street will also offer live music and face painting from 1:00 to 3:00 pm, while reprising the Trick or Treating event from Saturday. Sunday will also offer a reprise of the Pumpkin Painting and Black Cat Scavenger Hunt events.
Matthew Fenton
Letter
The First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All the Leaf Blowers
To the Editor:
I am writing to express concern with the excessive use of gas powered leaf blowers in the park areas of BPC.
It occurs almost daily, goes on for a long time (more than is necessary in my opinion, adding to the inefficiency and pollution), is aggravating given the loud ongoing noise but also the operators’ habits of pulsing the machine (think, “vroom…vroom… vroom…vroom…” for an extended period), and spews out exhaust that enters my apartment window. Yes, literally. That gas pollution is not what I want us to be breathing at all, but especially not INDOORS!
Furthermore, the environmental impact is serious. Read the article in a recent New York Times edition.
Plus, this is very counter to the goals outlined on the BPC Parks website: “We have been continuously searching for the next “green” solution….BPCPC believes that developing an environmental consciousness is an important public mission….We ask staff and the public to think environmentally before they act….”
Many thanks,
Michelle Eliseo
Gasoline-Powered Leaf Blowers are Harmful to People and the Environment
To the Editor:
Please, Battery Park City Authority, stop using leaf blowers. They’re exceptionally loud, spew fumes, and are generally destructive to the environment. For an organization that touts its sustainability and resiliency plans, leaf blowers blow away the BPCA’s environmental credibility with a smelly roar.
Virginia Rogers
What’s Up, Dock?
Planning Moves Ahead for Elevating Battery Waterfront
With the ongoing design process for the Battery Wharf resiliency project now 50 percent complete (and construction slated to begin in late 2022), Community Board 1 (CB1) is weighing in with concerns and ideas about how to refine the vision for raising the level of the waterfront esplanade in the Battery to protect the historic park against future sea-level rise and extreme-weather events.
The project to safeguard the one-third mile stretch of shoreline between Pier A (to the north) and the Staten Island Ferry Terminal (in the south) has three primary aims: to raise the waterfront walkway five feet above its present elevation; to link up with other, similar projects nearby (as part of the broader Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency plan); and to improve drainage. The overall budget is $129 million, and the initiative is being managed by the City’s Economic Development Corporation, along with the Department of Parks and Recreation.
The tall ship Wavertree, the lightship Ambrose, and the tug W.O. Decker are open to the public. Explore Wavertree and Ambrose while they are docked; cruise New York Harbor on W.O. Decker. Wavertree and Ambrose visits are free; Decker prices vary. Check website for times, prices and other details.
Wigwam for Wee Ones
The Battery Park City Authority will present “Campfire Stories & Songs” on Saturday, October 30 (from 2:00pm to 4:00pm) in Teardrop Park. Kids and parents are invited to cozy up beside a campfire for stories and sing-alongs, while enjoying snacks and art projects.
This event is free to attend. No reservation required.
Propping Up Mom and Pop Shops
Alliance Aims to Encourage Storefront Startups in Lower Manhattan
The Downtown Alliance is offering a package of free incentives and support services, valued at $10,000, to help new retailers and restaurants seeking to open in Lower Manhattan. The Jump Start program is designed to give small businesses a better chance at success in both the physical and online marketplace, by offering up to 20 eligible applicants a customized strategic launch plan, along with four interactive consultation sessions. Services will include advice on everything from driving foot traffic to creating a successful e-commerce platform.
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.
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
Reliable, trustworthy and caring Nanny looking for full time position preferably with newborns, infants and toddlers. I have experience in the Battery Park City area for 8 years. I will provide a loving, safe and nurturing environment for your child. Refs available upon request. Beverly 347 882 6612
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Samascott Orchard Orchard fruit, strawberries from Columbia County, New York
Francesa’s Bakery Breads and baked goods from Middlesex County, New Jersey
Meredith’s Bakery Baked goods from Ulster County, New York
Riverine Ranch Water Buffalo meat and cheeses from Warren County, New Jersey
1857 Spirits Handcrafted potato vodka from Schoharie County, New York
SNAP/EBT/P-EBT, Debit/Credit, and Farmers Market Nutrition Program checks accepted
‘No!’
Exhibit at Museum of Jewish Heritage Showcases Work of Holocaust Survivor Inspired by Trauma
“I would have liked to make pretty pictures, but something always stopped me,” artist Boris Lurie once reflected on his work, a searing collection of which is now on display at the Museum of Jewish Heritage on Battery Place. The exhibit, “Nothing to Do But Try,” brings together Lurie’s “War Series,” which recalls his experiences in a succession of Nazi ghettoes and concentration camps. His self portrait is at right.
The “Nothing to Do But Try” exhibit is now open at the Museum of Jewish Heritage (36 Battery Place, near First Place) and will run through April 29. Tickets are priced at $18 for adults; $12 for seniors, students, veterans, and handicapped visitors; and admission is free to children under 12 years of age and New York City public school students. For more information, please call 646-437-4202, or browse mjhnyc.org/. To read more…
That’s Entrée-tainment
Cineastes Rejoice as FiDi Date-Night Destination Debuts at 28 Liberty
Alamo Drafthouse has debuted its long-awaited 37,000-square foot cinema at 28 Liberty Street. The national chain, which aims to make movies fun again by providing fine food and beverages during movies (brought by waiters to cabaret-style tables positioned alongside luxury recliner seats), has created a 14-screen multiplex with seating for 500-plus guests, beneath 20-foot ceilings. The facility also boasts a 4K Sony digital projection equipment, and a 7.1 Dolby Surround Sound audio system.
To celebrate the opening, Alamo Drafthouse is staging a limited series of films drawn from every decade of the past century of movies about (or filmed in) New York, including King Kong, On The Town, Barefoot In The Park, Ghostbusters, and Inside Man. To read more…
Recalling Five Points
Epicenter of a Notorious Slum Memorialized
The City has decided to dignify a district that was once a source of shame and that it later sought to erase, both from memory and the Lower Manhattan streetscape. In 1831, the City government considered a petition that warned, “that the place known as ‘Five Points’ has long been notorious… as being the nursery where every species of vice is conceived and matured; that it is infested by a class of the most abandoned and desperate character.”
1929 – The New York Stock Exchange crashes in what will be called the Crash of ’29 or “Black Tuesday”, ending the Great Bull Market of the 1920s and beginning the Great Depression.
539 BC – Cyrus the Great (founder of Persian Empire) entered the capital of Babylon and allowed the Jews to return to their land.
312 – Constantine the Great enters Rome after his victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, stages a grand adventus in the city, and is met with popular jubilation. Maxentius’ body is fished out of the Tiber and beheaded.
1390 – First trial for witchcraft in Paris leading to the death of three people.
1675 – Leibniz makes the first use of the long s (∫) as a symbol of the integral in calculus.
1787 – Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni receives its first performance in Prague.
1901 – Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of President William McKinley, is executed by electrocution.
1929 – The New York Stock Exchange crashes in what will be called the Crash of ’29 or “Black Tuesday”, ending the Great Bull Market of the 1920s and beginning the Great Depression.
1960 – In Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay (who later takes the name Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight.
1969 – The first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.
1998 – Space Shuttle Discovery blasted off on STS-95 with 77-year-old John Glennon board, making him the oldest person to go into space, until of course, William Shatner made his recent trip.
1998 – While en route from Adana to Ankara, a Turkish Airlines flight with a crew of six and 33 passengers is hijacked by a Kurdish militant who orders the pilot to fly to Switzerland. The plane instead lands in Ankara after the pilot tricked the hijacker into thinking that he is landing in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia to refuel.
2012 – Hurricane Sandy hits the east coast of the United States, killing 148 directly and 138 indirectly, while leaving nearly $70 billion in damages and causing major power outages.
2015 – China announces the end of One-child policy after 35 years.
2018 – Lion Air Flight 610 of a Boeing 737 MAX crashes after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia killing 189 people on board.
Births
1690 – Martin Folkes, English mathematician and astronomer (d. 1754)
1925 – Zoot Sims, American saxophonist and composer (d. 1985)
Deaths
1618 – Walter Raleigh, English admiral, explorer, and politician, Lieutenant Governor of Jersey (b. 1554)
1911 – Joseph Pulitzer, Hungarian-American publisher, lawyer, and politician, founded Pulitzer, Inc. (b. 1847)
1949 – George Gurdjieff, Armenian-French monk, psychologist, and philosopher (b. 1872)
1971 – Duane Allman, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1946)
