Lower Manhattan Health Resources for Residents with Concerns
The CityMD urgent care facility in Tribeca, at 87 Chambers Street, is one of five non-emergency clinics that remain open in Lower Manhattan.
Government officials are asking that people with non-urgent health problems avoid showing up at hospital emergency rooms, which are already overburdened.
Instead, they ask that patients who have concerns consult with their personal physicians. Those in need of non-emergency medical help can also call (or walk into) one of the five Lower Manhattan urgent care clinics that remain open. As of Thursday afternoon, these are:
• CityMD Financial District (24 Broad Street). No appointment necessary. 646-647-1259.
• CityMD Fulton (138 Fulton Street). No appointment necessary. 212-271-4896.
• CityMD Tribeca (87 Chambers Street). No appointment necessary. 347-745-8321.
• NYU Langone at Trinity (111 Broadway). Appointment required. 212-263-9700.
• Mount Sinai Doctors (225 Greenwich Street, fifth floor). No appointment necessary. 212-298-2720.
That noted, anyone experiencing dangerous symptoms (such as trouble breathing or dangerous spikes in body temperature) is encouraged to go to a hospital emergency room.
Two Lower Manhattan healthcare providers are also offering Virtual Visits, in which patients can consult over the phone or video link with a physician or nurse practitioner.
To schedule such a session with NYU Langone, please browse: NYULangone.org, and click on Virtual Urgent Care.
To make an appointment with New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital, please browse NYP.org, and click on Virtual Urgent Care.
Patients enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program are advised not to cancel or reschedule existing appointments. Clinic staff will be contacting you to make arrangements to convert these sessions into a tele-visits.
All program participants with prescriptions for their certified WTC-related conditions are strongly encouraged to sign up for Optum Home Delivery which allows for 90-day prescription fills and delivers directly to members by mail.
For more information, please call Optum at 855-640–0005, Option 2. For members who prefer to pick up prescriptions at retail pharmacies, the program is waiving early medication refill limits on 30-day prescription maintenance medications. Please call Optum at 855-640–0005, Option 3 for more information.
The World Trade Center Health Program is also covering limited COVID-19 testing for members with certain certified World Trade Center-related conditions that may put them at higher risk of illness from COVID-19. In addition to testing, treatment for COVID-19 is also covered, contingent on certain criteria being met, including that the member was eligible for COVID-19 testing, the treatment is authorized by the program, and the treatment is not experimental. Coverage of COVID-19 treatment costs requires approval by the program’s administrator, on a case-by-case basis.
Matthew Fenton
NEWS FROM PREVIOUS EDITIONS
OF THE BROADSHEETDAILY
Desperate Times for Street Food Vendors
Council Member and Advocacy Group Petition for Funds and to Suspend Most Enforcement Actions Toward Food Carts
Street vendors, who are mostly ineligible for benefits like unemployment or health insurance, have recently suffered losses of more than 80 percent of their usual revenue.
As the pandemic coronavirus continues to grip New York, one cohort of the Downtown community is experiencing a heightened level of distress, according to City Council member Margaret Chin and a non-profit advocacy group based in Lower Manhattan. To read more…
Comfort and Mercy
Navy Hospital Ships Dispatched to New York and Los Angeles
The hospital ship USNS Comfort passes the Statue of Liberty on her previous operational deployment to New York, in the days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Two military vessels that carry not a single weapon or round of ammunition have been ordered to New York and Los Angeles to help deal with the growing headcount of patients needing hospitalization as a result of the pandemic coronavirus. To read more…
Matthew Fenton
The Niou Deal
Assembly Member Proposes Finance Reform as Funding Mechanism for Affordable Housing
State Assembly member Yuh-Line Niou: “When you go shopping in New York City, how much extra do you pay for sales tax? This transfer tax of one-half of one percent is less than one-sixteenth of what you pay. But it would raise billions for public housing.”
Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday that planning must begin immediately for how to rebuild the wreckage of the economy, once the health crisis brought on by the pandemic cononavirus has abated.
“We have to start to plan the pivot back to economic functionality,” he said during a press conference at the Jacob Javits Convention Center on Manhattan’s west side, where he announced the start of construction on a temporary hospital. “You can’t stop the economy forever.” To read more…
Matthew Fenton
Going to the Mattresses
Lower Manhattan Hunkers Down, as Coronavirus Crisis Grinds On
Multiple residents of Lower Manhattan have now tested positive for the pandemic coronavirus, including one tenant at Gateway Plaza in Battery Park City, who has been hospitalized and is breathing with the assistance of a mechanical ventilator, according to a range of sources with direct knowledge of the circumstances.
In a separate development, a resident of Battery Park City died on Saturday after plunging from the 16th floor of his building at 400 Chambers Street, in an apparent suicide.
On a more encouraging note, a teacher at P.S./I.S. 276 (also located in Battery Park City), who exhibited symptoms that warranted a test for coronavirus, has been confirmed to be free of the disease.
Battery Park City’s parks are open for passive use
and solitary recreation only.
Governor Cuomo is urging all New Yorkers to stay home
as much as possible.
Beginning Monday, March 23, for the safety of all parks users and help to stop the spread of COVID-19, the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) is implementing the following measures:
BPC’s park lawns will begin opening on a rolling basis. When outdoors please be sure to practice good social distancing, keeping at least 6 feet apart from others. If you arrive at a park and crowds are forming, please return another time.
To reduce density, BPC’s athletic courts, sporting fields, playgrounds, dog runs, and public restrooms are closed until further notice
BPCA Programs are canceled until further notice
The Community Center at Stuyvesant High School remains closed until further notice
Click here for additional guidance on how to protect yourself when enjoying the outdoors BPC Parks.
We appreciate your support and patience as we navigate this public health crisis together. Learn more about COVID-19 athttps://coronavirus.health.ny.gov or by calling (888) 364-3065.
Necessity Is the Mother of Intervention
Repurposing of Rivington House Might Help Meet Need for Clinical Capacity Arising from Pandemic
Rivington House on the Lower East Side
A Lower Manhattan building steeped in controversy may become a lifeline for people infected by the pandemic COVID-19 virus. In a story first reported by Crain’s New York, Rivington House is being considered as a possible treatment site.
The Lower East Side building served for decades as an HIV/AIDS care facility. But in 2014, the structure was acquired by real estate speculators, who paid a fraction of its market value, because a deed restriction that committed the building to use as a clinic. To read more…
Meditations in an Emergency
Our Hometown and the Myth of Eternal Return
You tell yourself that you’ve seen this story before, and more than once: edifices falling; waters rising. And you reflect that the worst situations are not those that can’t get any worse. The worst situations are the ones that are going to get worse before they get better. So you hunker down.
You recall the Old Man deciding, a lifetime ago, that since you were too old for fairy tales, you were perhaps old enough for true confessions. To read more…
A Lifeline for Mom-and-Pop Shops
Amid Coron-Apocalypse, City Offers Loans and Grants for Struggling Small Businesses
The administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio has inaugurated a program to aid small businesses that have experienced financial hardship because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Firms with fewer than 100 employees, which have undergone sales decreases of 25 percent or more will be eligible for zero interest loans of up to $75,000 to help mitigate losses in profit. The City’s Department of Small Business Services is also offering small businesses with fewer than five employees a grant to cover 40 percent of payroll costs for two months, to help retain employees.
Schools south of Chambers Street are distribution centers for grab-and-go breakfasts and lunches. Currently pickups for breakfast and lunch are from 7:30a to 1:30pm
The Community Center at Stuyvesant High School is closed until further notice.
All Battery Park City parks and BPCA offices remain otherwise open for business. (Parks lawns, currently closed for winter, are scheduled to re-open next month.)
The decision has been made to close Church Street School’s in-person programs at both onsite and offsite locations through the end of March, when we will reassess the situation. We are planning to initiate our online program offerings beginning Monday March 23rd, and you will hear more about that in the coming days.
Lisa Ecklund-Flores, PHD Executive Director, Founder
Church Street School for Music and Art
Manhattan Youth
As news has developed, our leadership team has determined that the best course of action for the immediate future is the following:
Our community center is closed and all our offices are closed!
All our programs are closed until we figure this out.
Bob Townley, Founder and Executive Director
Manhattan Youth
Fraunces Taven Museum
The Museum will be closed through March 30.
New York Public Library
After carefully considering a multitude of factors and the rapidly changing situation in New York City around novel coronavirus (COVID-19),all New York Public Library locations will be closed to the public through, at least Tuesday, March 31.
All late fees will be suspended and due dates extended during the closure period.
The Library is working to expand access to e-books and increase awareness of our vast array of online resources. All branches will be sanitized before they reopen.
Anthony W. Marx
President, The New York Public Library
Poets House
Poets House is postponing all public programs scheduled throughout the rest of March. The library will be closed until further notice.
China Institute
The decision was made to suspend March programs. We are setting up live-streaming options for programs moving forward and we already have online learning options for adult language and literature classes for our spring semester starting on April 6. Kids classes will follow.
South Street Seaport Museum
South Street Seaport Museum will close to the public for at least two weeks.
National Museum of the American Indian
The National Museum of the American Indian will close to the public starting Saturday, March 14. We appreciate your understanding at this time. The museum staff and I look forward to welcoming you back when we reopen.
Thank you,
Kevin Gover (Pawnee) Director
Staten Island’s Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden
The majority of our public programming, including the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art’s gallery hours,is posgtponed until March 31.
Child’s Play at the Battery
Local kids help break ground for the Battery Playscape
Joined by elected officials, Lower Manhattan leaders, and a couple of excited Downtown kids, the Battery Conservancy broke ground on March 12 for the Battery Playscape, an unusual playground for children of all ages and abilities. To read more…
Church Street School Celebrates 30 Years
Art and Music School Honors Local Family
Church Street School of Music and Art could not have made it to its 30th birthday without the support of families like the Kleimans of Battery Park City. This year, in celebration of 30 years of music and art making, the school honored the Kleiman family on March 10 at its annual fundraiser, The Event.
Due to the COVID19 Pandemic, the cruise ship industry has cancelled cruises through the middle of April and possibly longer.
The Staten Island Advance reported that a 2-year-old tested positive for the virus while aboard the Norwegian BLISS, above. The vessel left New York on Tuesday and will linger off Bermuda for the time being.
Today In History March 27
Albert Einstein and Charles Chaplin
196 BC – Ptolemy V ascends to the throne of Egypt
1513 – Spaniard Juan Ponce de Leon discovers Florida
1625 – Charles I, King Of England, Scotland and Ireland, ascends English throne
1668 – English king Charles II gives Bombay to East India Company
1790 – The modern shoestring (string and shoe holes) invented in England. An aglet (the Latin word for “needle.”) is the small plastic or fiber tube that binds the end of a shoelace (or similar cord) to prevent fraying and to allow the lace to be passed through an eyelet or other opening. Before shoestrings, shoes were commonly fastened with buckles.
1794 – US Government establishes a permanent navy and authorizes the building of six frigates.
1841 – First US steam fire engine tested in New York City
1855 – Abraham Gesner patents kerosene
1860 – M L Byrn patents “covered gimlet screw with a ‘T’ handle” aka corkscrew
1863 – President Davis calls for this to be a day of fasting and prayer
1912 – First Japanese cherry blossom trees planted in Washington DC
1931 – Charlie Chaplin receives France’s distinguished Legion of Honor
1933 – Japan leaves League of Nations
1945 – Iwo Jima occupied, after 22,000 Japanese and 6,000 US killed
1952 – Failed assassination attempt of German Chancellor Adenauer
1958 – Havana Hilton opens
1958 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes Soviet Premier and First Secretary of the Communist Party
1964 – Earthquake strikes Alaska, 8.4 on Richter scale, 118 die
1966 – Anti Vietnam war demonstrations in US, Europe and Australia
1973 – 45th Academy Awards – “Godfather”, Marlon Brando turns down Oscar for best actor in support of American Indians
1977 – 583 die in aviation’s worst disaster KLM-Pan Am 747 crash on the Canary Islands
Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space
Birthdays
972 – King Robert II of France (d. 1031)
1712 – Claude Bourgelat, French veterinary surgeon (d. 1779) Born in Lyon, he left the bar to devote his efforts to find a remedy of a plague that was affecting France’s cattle herds in the late 1700s. He was the founder of a veterinary school in Lyon around 1761. It was cattle plague, known by its German name, Rinderpest.
1809 – Georges Eugene Haussmann, Paris France. Chosen by Napolean III he was responsible for creating the new boulevards, parks and public works in Paris
