The BroadsheetDAILY ~ News of Lower Manhattan ~ 10/24/19

Lawsuit Over Similarity Between One World Trade and Architecture Student’s Design Moves Ahead

Jeehoon Park’s 1999 design for a skyscraper with eight sides that taper between a square base and a square roof.

One thing is reasonably certain: In 1999, Jeehoon Park, then a student at the Illinois Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture, created a design for a very tall building with a large square base tapering to a smaller square top. In Mr. Park’s vision, the square formed by the roof was rotated 45 degrees relative to the one at the ground level, so that the center-points on each side of the quadrilateral below corresponded to the corners of the one above, and vice versa. And instead of four vertical walls, the structure’s facade consisted of eight elongated triangles, sloping inward toward the building’s summit.

That structure was never built. Or was it?

Mr. Park claims that the design he named “Cityfront ’99” actually began rising seven years after he finished his plan, and was completed in 2014. Today, it is known as One World Trade Center. Far from being proud of this accomplishment, however, Mr. Park is angry, because he was never credited with the design, or paid for it. Instead, he claims, the renowned architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill copied his design, claimed it for themselves, and then basked in the lucrative glory of leading redevelopment in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Skidmore disagrees, arguing that the simple, elegant geometry of the building’s design invokes universal forms, such as pyramids, which belong to no single architect.

Three years after One World Trade Center opened, Mr. Park sued Skidmore, along with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (owner of the World Trade Center complex), and multiple other defendants, alleging copyright infringement. Skidmore and the other parties being sued by Mr. Park have repeatedly argued that his 2017 suit should be dismissed.

But Mr. Park won a small victory in September, when a federal judge ruled that his lawsuit can proceed, at least in part. The court dismissed eight of the 11 counts alleged in Mr. Park’s complaint, but allowed three others (relating to the commercial use of images of the building’s design) to move forward.

This taste of victory may be short-lived, however. In recent years, federal courts hearing suits about architectural designs have increasingly turned away from the “substantially similar” standard that applies elsewhere in copyright law, and imposed the much stricter rule that a design must be “virtually identical” to the one it is alleged to have copied, before legal protection is granted.

Driver Alleged to Have Run Over Tribeca Pedestrian in May Indicted for Separate Manhattan Traffic Death

	Reckless driving has become a chronic safety menace in Lower Manhattan in recent years.

The New York County District Attorney’s Office has indicted Jessenia Fajardo, a resident of the upstate town of Walden in two separate incidents involving reckless driving that caused injury to pedestrians. The more serious of these took place on July 19, when Ms. Fajardo is accused of having run a red light on the Upper West Side and then slamming into an elderly couple in a crosswalk. One of these pedestrians, 62-year-old Alfred Pocari, was killed, while the second (whose name has not been released) was seriously injured.

When police took Ms. Fajardo into custody at the scene of the July incident, they discovered that she was also involved in a similar (albeit less gravely serious) incident two months earlier.   To read more…

1PM

Ridership Survey Indicates That Ferry Coming Soon to Battery Park City Primarily Serves Affluent Riders

An analysis of who uses the NYC Ferry service, which the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to expand to Battery Park City next year, shows that riders are primarily white passengers who earn more money than average New Yorkers.

Volleyball Players Rescued from Hudson, After Jumping Into River to Retrieve Ball

Two young men were pulled from the waters of the Hudson River on Saturday morning, after jumping from the Battery Park City Esplanade to retrieve a volleyball that went over the railing, near North Cove Marina.

The men, whose names have not been released, were playing volleyball on the court that overlooks that yacht basin at approximately 11:40 am, when a wild serve sent their ball into the Hudson. Impulsively, they both leaped in after it.

Preserving the Rector Street Bridge

To the editor,

I would like to take this opportunity to report progress on saving the Rector Street Bridge.We now have over 1,800 petition signatures and a letter from Margaret Chin calling for community engagement; the steps of the bridge are re-painted and the elevator is running consistently.

Condo Boards Question Need for South End Avenue Redesign After Installation of Traffic Signal

	A rendering of the BPCA’s plan for changes to the South End Avenue

At the October 2 meeting of the Battery Park City Committee of Community Board 1, Battery Park City Authority president B.J. Jones was apprised by the leader of a coalition of condominiums along South End Avenue of that group’s ongoing reservations about the Authority’s plan to revamp the thoroughfare.

Pat Smith, the board president of the Battery Pointe condominium (at South End Avenue and Rector Place) told Mr. Jones, “before you go too far on South End Avenue, please remember that six condo boards, representing more than 1,000 households along South End Avenue, from Albany down to West Thames, don’t want you to do this.”    To read more…

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Many ships pass Lower Manhattan on their way to and from the Midtown Passenger Ship Terminal.  Others may be seen on their way to or from piers in Brooklyn and Bayonne.  Stated times, when appropriate, are for passing the Colgate clock in Jersey City, New Jersey, and are based on sighting histories, published schedules and intuition. They are also subject to tides, fog, winds, freak waves, hurricanes and the whims of upper management.

Margrethe ll, Queen of Denmark. As a girl growing up in Copenhagen, Ms. Reumert performed with the Saint Anne Girls Choir as a soprano and a soloist.

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OLD WATCHES SOUGHT, PREFER NON-WORKING

Mechanical pocket and wristwatches sought and sometimes repaired

Click to watch monarch butterflies feeding on milkweed planted by the Battery Park City Authority to help them on their annual fall migration from Canada to the mountains of Mexico.  To read more…

Thank you, kind-hearted gardeners. We must all do whatever little bit we can to hold back the wave of extinctions that is a hair’s breadth from taking the last of our monarchs.

Residents Riled about Tribeca Tavern

	Does this look like a dance club?

More than a dozen concerned Tribeca residents turned out for the September meeting the Licensing and Permits Committee, which weighs in on the granting or renewal of liquor licenses.

They showed up to voice concerns about MI-5, a bar located at 52 Walker Street, which has been a source of local complaints as far back 2007.

Neighbors of the bar allege that it operates as a dance club (in violation of its current license, which is now up for renewal), and that loud music penetrates the upper floors of the residential building located above the bar as late as 4:00 am. To read more…

City Agency Leaves Cash-Strapped Local Museum Off Roster of Cultural Institutions

The City’s Department of Cultural Affairs has omitted from its list of dozens of New York-based cultural institutions that receive public support the museum that chronicles the oldest community anywhere in the five boroughs.

BPCA Puts the Brakes on Conversions of Rental Buildings within Community

Costs to Rent or Own in Lower Manhattan Are Matched by Lofty Local Earnings

A slew of recent reports documents what everyone who lives or works in Lower Manhattan already sensed in their bones: This is a mind-numbingly expensive place to call home.

In September, RENTCafé issued a new analysis of the most expensive neighborhoods for renters in the United States that finds northern Battery Park City (zip code 10282) is the priciest enclave in America, with an average rent of $6,211 per month.  Coming in at second place is zip code 10013, which covers western Tribeca, along with part of Soho.  To read more…

New Arts Center on Governors Island Will Provide Studio Space and Cultural Programming

	The historic building at Soissons Landing at  Governors Island.

Lower Manhattan has a new cultural hub. The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the Trust for Governors Island have partnered to create the LMCC Arts Center at Governors Island, a 40,000-square foot studio space and education facility, housed within a restored 1870s ammunition warehouse — a relic from the days when the island was a military outpost.

CB1 Makes Exception to New Policy; Okays Naming Street for Former NYPD Commissioner

	Baxter Street

A public figure from the 1980s may soon be honored by having a street co-named in his memory, if Community Board 1 gets its way. The panel recommended that Benjamin Ward, New York’s first African-American police commissioner, be commemorated by rechristening one block of Baxter Street as Benjamin Ward Way.

This comes on the heels of a controversial decision by CB1 in 2018 to decline such a request on behalf of James D. McNaughton, who, on August 2, 2005, at age 27, became the first New York City Police officer to be killed in action while serving in “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

	In an instant, both wagon and horse were vaporized, and the closest automobile was tossed twenty feet in the air. Incredibly, the iconic bronze of George Washington surveys the devastation from the steps of the Sub-Treasury without so much as a scratch.

As the noon hour approached on a fall Thursday morning in 1920, a horse-drawn wagon slowly made its way west down Wall Street toward “the Corner,” the high-powered intersection of Wall and Broad. Its driver came to a gentle stop in front of the Assay Office, where stockpiles of gold and silver were stored and tested for purity. But theft was not his motive.