News and events in Lower Manhattan
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Volume 6, No. 52, Jan. 5, 2022 |
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CONTENTS:
Letter from the Editor: The Philadelphia Story
250 Water St. Victory for the Howard Hughes Corp.? Not so fast
Bits & Bytes: Crumbling public art; Manhattan gets some new hotels
Bulletin Board: Connection bus is back in service; Poets House rebuilds
Letter to the Editor: Managing Covid
Calendar: The Garden of the Finzi-Continis at the Museum of Jewish Heritage
COVID-19 CASES IN NEW YORK CITY: As of Jan. 5, 2022 at 6:11 p.m.
1,733,109 confirmed cases * 35,604 deaths * 6,838,547 vaccinated in NYC
Go to www.DowntownPostNYC.com for breaking news and for updated information on facility closures related to COVID-19
MASTHEAD PHOTO: Christmas cookies. (Photo: ©Terese Loeb Kreuzer 2021)
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: THE PHILADELPHIA STORY |
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It was just a year ago that the Moynihan Train Hall opened in what had formerly been the James A. Farley Post Office on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. A few days before Christmas, I went there for the first time to catch a train to Philadelphia, where I was born and brought up.
The Moynihan Train Hall is very nice. It has an impressive skylight and is big, bright and bold. It's a real New York City artifact. It was discussed for around three decades before Gov. Andrew Cuomo took the project in hand and after three years of work, brought it in on time and on budget. But the Moynihan Train Hall wouldn't have been needed if it weren't for the sad fact that the original Penn Station, which opened in 1910 and was one of the great feats of Beaux Arts architecture — was torn down starting in October 1963.
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It took awhile to demolish something that large and that grand. Some people who cared about architecture and about history tried to save it but to no avail. And that's a real New York City story, too. In New York City, if you go away for a few weeks, you're likely to come home to find that someone's been messing with the landscape. Developers see dollar signs everywhere and seem to operate on the principle that it's exhilarating to tear things down and that history doesn't matter. |
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Since I'm from Philadelphia where communal history is cherished, I don't operate on that principle. And so when I got off the train at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, I greeted the sight like an old friend. I had been there many times before, although not recently. It was still just as I remembered it with a vast, marble-clad waiting room, Art Deco lighting fixtures, windows and signage and a coffered ceiling. |
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Philly's 30th Street Station is on the National Register of Historic Places. Construction on the station started in 1927 and was completed in 1933. Only a few stations as grand as 30th Street still remain. If you want to get some sense of what New York's destroyed Penn Station looked like, go to Philadelphia.
I can also recommend Philadelphia if you have any interest in 18th and 19th century history. Not far from Independence Hall where, as you probably remember, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were debated and signed, you will find street after street of brick houses that would have been there when George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and the other Founding Fathers were in town.
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The blocks near Rittenhouse Square are also lined with beautifully maintained houses, most of them built in the early to mid-19th century. The sidewalks in this part of Philadelphia are made of brick. The streets are paved with cobblestones. On a cool, dank day in December, the smell of smoke from wood-burning fireplaces lingers in the air. |
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All of this is particularly poignant for me when I think about what's lost when places that embody history are irreparably altered or carelessly destroyed. That goes on in New York City all the time. It's going on right now in the South Street Seaport, where ships from all over the world once docked and where the commercial life of what became New York City took root. In the South Street Seaport, an area of one square mile, the city's maritime and commercial history is still apparent though under constant threat. An isolated landmark is one thing. A cohesive neighborhood of historic buildings is even more rare and more precious. It's up to us to protect it.
— Terese Loeb Kreuzer
Editor, Downtown Post NYC
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Downtown Post NYC's website (www.DowntownPostNYC.com) is updated daily. That's the place to check for urgent messages, breaking news and reminders of interesting events in and around Lower Manhattan. So be sure to look at the website every day, especially if you want to know about breaking news.
HOW TO SUPPORT DOWNTOWN POST NYC: I made Downtown Post NYC free to subscribers so that no one who was interested in reading it would be excluded because of cost. Downtown Post NYC is largely supported by advertising revenue. In addition, some people have made contributions, which are much appreciated. For more information about how to contribute or advertise, email editor@downtownpostnyc.com.
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HOWARD HUGHES CORP. DECLARES A VICTORY FOR ITS 250 WATER STREET PLANS AS THE SEAPORT COALITION FILES A ZONING CHALLENGE |
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(Above) Parents and children protesting the Howard Hughes Corporation's plans for the development of a one-acre site at 250 Water St. in the South Street Seaport. (Below) A student at one of the three schools near the 250 Water St. site. (Photos: © Barbara Mensch)
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On the last days of 2021, the Howard Hughes Corporation (HHC) proclaimed that it had won a decades-long battle over the fate of a one-acre parking lot in the South Street Seaport Historic District. HHC had been granted what the press trumpeted as a "final approval" for HHC's $850 million project at 250 Water St., which would entail erecting a 324-foot-tall residential tower over a five-story podium that would include offices, retail and community space.
The apartment tower was described as containing around 270 units of which 70 would be "affordable," meaning that rents would be offered to families earning an average of 40 percent of the area's median income — around $45,000 for a family of four. HHC estimated that the project would create more than 3,300 permanent positions plus construction jobs. And it was supposed to generate $50 million as an endowment for the financially beleaguered South Street Seaport Museum.
News reports said that ground for project would probably be broken in 2022.
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There were many members of the South Street Seaport community who were not overjoyed to hear this. The South Street Seaport Historic District consists largely of four- and five-story buildings that date from the 19th century. The parking lot at 250 Water St. was zoned for a 12-story building, not for one of 26 stories that would dominate and cast shadows over the low-rise neighborhood. In addition, the parking lot had once been used for industrial purposes whose residue might poison the air when boring for the building's foundation commenced. Two schools flank the parking lot — the Peck Slip School and the Blue School — whose parent bodies were up in arms at the prospect of pollution plus years of noisy construction and debris that a building project of this size would entail. |
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However, the Howard Hughes Corporation was in a hurry to get its plans for 250 Water St. approved before Dec. 31, 2021. It got them in just under the wire. The problem for HHC was that the term of City Council Member Margaret Chin, who represented Manhattan District 1, was about to expire. On Dec. 28, 2021, Christopher Marte was sworn in. Chin was an advocate for the HHC plan because it provided what she described as "high-quality, mixed-income housing and a critical lifeline to one of my district's — and our city's — most treasured cultural institutions, the South Street Seaport Museum." Marte opposed the plan. |
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On Nov. 16, 2021, more than 200 parents, teachers and children from the Peck Slip Elementary School, the Blue School and the Pre-K Center marched between their schools and 250 Water St. in the South Street Seaport where the Howard Hughes Corporation plans to build a luxury high-rise building on the site of a 19th century thermometer factory. Christopher Marte (in the blue mask), newly elected to City Council replacing Margaret Chin, who is term limited, marched with the protesters. Nov. 16, 2021 (Photo: © Michael Kramer) |
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On May 17, 2021 when he was running for the City Council seat that he later won, Marte said that from the beginning, he had been working with the community against the development at 250 Water St. "The Howard Hughes Corporation had a clear plan for this site, and no amount of environmental hazards, neighborhood opposition, or zoning restriction seem to discourage HHC, or the City of New York, from reconsidering their plans," he said. |
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When Marte made that remark, the Landmarks Preservation Commission was considering HHC's application for an outsized tower or towers on the site. HHC dangled its financial support for the South Street Seaport Museum as a reason to pass the application.
"It’s not up to the Landmarks Preservation Commission to take anything other than landmark preservation into consideration," Marte said at the time. "HHC is trying to make a profit off of the South Street Seaport’s unique history, while at the same time working to undermine it. Using cultural institutions as bargaining chips for development deals is a corrupt practice that the City should not tolerate."
Marte's opinion fell on deaf ears at the Landmarks Preservation Commission. HHC got a green light for its project, which also had to be reviewed by Manhattan Community Board 1 (which opposed the plan), the Manhattan Borough President, the New York City Planning Commission and New York City Council.
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At Community Board 1's full board meeting on July 27, 2021, a scale model of 250 Water St. with the tower proposed for the site by the Howard Hughes Corporation showed that the tower would be out of scale and overwhelm everything else in the surrounding Seaport Historic District. The model was commissioned by the Seaport Coalition, which is opposed to the development as proposed.
(Photo: © Terese Loeb Kreuzer)
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Through all of this, a group of community activists has been unswerving in its opposition to the HHC plan. People from the Seaport Coalition, Save Our Seaport, Children First and Southbridge Towers have marched, picketed, testified, and gone to court to stop Howard Hughes. |
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On Dec.31, 2021, the Seaport Coalition filed a Zoning Challenge with the New York City Department of Buildings to halt work on the proposed tower and perhaps to stop it completely. The legalities behind the Seaport Coalition's Zoning Challenge are intricate but they include what Howard Hughes is doing in its attempt to transfer air rights from Pier 17 to the 250 Water St. site. Howard Hughes wants to use demapped city streets, created for pedestrian use within the Seaport Historic District, and to declare that these streets could be a legal conduit between Pier 17's air rights and those needed to build the 250 Water St. tower.
"Streets are normally not included in zoning because they're streets and not development sites," said Conor Allerton, Christopher Marte's director of land use. "But what Howard Hughes is doing is considering what are functionally public streets to be part of a zoning lot for the sake of making this development happen. And they're also using a portion of a tax law which in previous cases has been deemed not allowed. When you're considering a zoning lot, you can't just take a piece of a tax lot. That zoning lot has to incorporate one or more whole tax lots, not just fragments."
These are just two of the many issues raised in the Seaport Coalition's Zoning Challenge to the HHC plan for 250 Water St. "The Department of Buildings has to resolve any Zoning Challenge issues before Howard Hughes can move forward," Allerton said.
He also said that while the issues raised in this particular Zoning Challenge are specific to the 250 Water St. site, what's happening in the Seaport will have repercussions in other parts of the city. "Allowing Howard Hughes to build such a big building in a historic district is setting a precedent for the entire city that developers will reference in trying to do that elsewhere," he said.
— Terese Loeb Kreuzer
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Charlie, a student at the Peck Slip School, standing in front of photographs of a model depicting the Howard Hughes Corporation's plans to build a high-rise tower at 250 Water St. across from the school. Sept. 14, 2021 (Photo: © Terese Loeb Kreuzer) |
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Gifts from Té Company
include
tea, cookies, tea pots and tea brewing sets
The tea room is open for takeout from Friday to Sunday, noon to 6 p.m.
163 West 10th St.
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Bits & Bytes
CRUMBLING PUBLIC ART; MANHATTAN GETS SOME NEW HOTELS
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Battery Park City's public art collection, valued at more than $63 million, includes pylons by Martin Puryear that were installed in 1995. (Photo: © Terese Loeb Kreuzer 2021) |
"As the Mayor Promised Millions for New Monuments, Old Ones Crumbled," New York Times, 12/29/2021. "Without dedicated funding for conservation, many of New York City’s public memorials and artworks are decaying from neglect," according to The New York Times. "Early into his second term, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a $10 million initiative, led by his wife, Chirlane McCray, that would break the bronze ceiling by introducing seven new statues of historical women to New York City’s commemorative landscape of mostly men. It was to be one of Mr. de Blasio’s signature marks on the landscape. Days from the end of his administration, with only $1 million dedicated, none of those sculptures has yet materialized. Instead, Mr. de Blasio’s bigger legacy, set within marble and metal, is likely to be one of disrepair, as many of the city’s aging public monuments crumble from longtime neglect, just as they did under many of his predecessors." The article specifically mentions monuments in Battery Park City including a 1995 art installation by the sculptor Martin Puryear where cracks are appearing in the grout. "The lack of communication around public monument initiatives has caused friction in the relationship between state officials and residents of Battery Park City, where maintenance costs are expected to rise on memorials and artworks built on the Esplanade by the state, a public sculpture collection that is now valued at more than $63 million. But artworks have suffered from the Hudson River’s brackish waters and superstorms like Hurricane Sandy. A 2019 appraisal by the Art Dealers Association of America, commissioned by the Battery Park City Authority, found construction, maintenance and repair costs estimated in the millions of dollars." For the complete article, click here
"NYC is getting a bevy of new hotels despite COVID spike," New York Post, 12/30/2021. "The city’s hotel biz took a gut punch this year — we lost icons like the Gramercy Park hotel and the ultra-trendy NoMad Hotel," says the New York Post — "but according to Joel Rosen, president of New York-based GFI Hospitality, a real estate development and investment company, it was no knockout blow."
The article continues, "We’re already seeing a burst of new hotels opening their doors, including the new-build luxury Pendry Manhattan West, the Moore Hotel in Chelsea, Civilian NYC in New York’s Theater District, the reimagined Park Lane New York on Central Park South, the new construction Ritz-Carlton New York in Nomad opening February 2022 at 1185 Broadway and 28th Street and the Fifth Avenue Hotel, a six-story, turn-of-the-century building with an added 24-story new-built tower, at West 28th Street and Fifth Avenue, also due early in 2022." In Lower Manhattan, there's a French hotel brand, Group Barrière, that "will unveil its first US hotel, Hôtel Barrière Le Fouquet’s New York, right in Tribeca at 456 Greenwich St. This eight-story hotel will consist of 96 guest rooms and suites, several restaurants, a 1,500-square-foot interior courtyard, a spa, a swimming pool and a state-of-the-art screening room — a perfect addition, what with the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival on its doorstep." For the complete article, click here. |
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Bulletin Board
POETS HOUSE REBUILDS; CONNECTION BUS IS BACK IN SERVICE
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Connection bus back in service: As of Jan. 3, 2022, the Connection bus run by the Downtown Alliance is again back in service, making 36 stops between the South Street Seaport and Broadway adjacent to City Hall Park. The Downtown Connection is New York City’s only free bus service traveling a daily, circular path. The Connection bus service starts at 10 a.m. and ends with a final run at 7:30 p.m. The buses arrive on average at 10-minute intervals on weekdays and at 15-minute intervals on weekends (traffic permitting. All of the buses are ADA accessible. To accommodate Covid safety protocols, updated air-filtration systems and plastic partitions between seats had been installed in the buses. Seats were reconfigured to be forward facing for additional passenger protection. The reason that the service was temporarily discontinued has to do with safety. It resulted from "a dispute with the operator of the buses over their safe operation," said Andrew Breslau, the Downtown Alliance's Senior Vice President of Communications and Marketing. A new operating company has been hired. (Photo: © Terese Loeb Kreuzer)
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Poets House rebuilds: Poets House at 10 River Terrace in Battery Park City suffered a two-punch blow in the last few years — first from Covid-19, which forced it to close in December 2020 and then in August 2021, from a devastating flood that damaged much of the building. Fortunately, the Poets House collection of 70,000 books was spared. When Poets House closed, Lee Briccetti, who had been executive director of Poets House for more than 30 years, retired as did managing director, Jane Preston. But now Poets House is getting back on its feet under Cornelius Eady, its interim director. Jane Preston is back temporarily to oversee the everyday duties of the organization through its transitional period. The process of repairing the flood damage has begun. Eady, co-founder of Cave Canem, which represents and encourages the work of African-American poets, is a member of the MFA faculty at the University of Tennessee/Knoxville. He will serve as the interim director of Poets House while it conducts a nationwide search for a permanent executive director. Poets House has a blog on its website (www.PoetsHouse.org) where it introduces Eady and offers a video of the water damage. In addition, it has posted (so far) one video of a poetry reading. It hopes that its physical space will once again be ready to receive the public in mid- to late-2022.
Travel with the Museum of Jewish Heritage: The Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park City is offering six live-streamed walking tours of cities that currently have or have had significant Jewish communities. The tours, which will be led by knowledgeable guides, will include Marrakesh, Paris, Venice, Seville, Istanbul, and Krakow. Each tour will be a one-time event and will not be available for subsequent playback. The first tour will be of Marrakesh and will take place on Wednesday, Jan. 19 at 11 a.m. Cost: $18 for museum members; $36 for non-members. A six-tour bundle costs $96 for members; $198 for non-members. (The promotion expires Dec. 31, 2021). For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.
Lower Manhattan Jump Start program: The Alliance for Downtown New York in partnership with the consultancy Streetsense has created a free program to help new retailers and restaurants get started in Lower Manhattan. Businesses accepted into the program will receive four interactive sessions with Streetsense tailored to the needs of each business but broadly dealing with physical operations, digital marketing, public relations and e-commerce. The package of consultancy services has an estimated value of $10,000 per award. To be eligible for the program a business must have a signed lease or letter of intent dated on or after July 1, 2021 for a storefront commercial lease in Lower Manhattan. The lease must be for at least one year. The location can't be open at the time of application and must be an independent business with no more than five locations in New York City, including the new one. For more information about the program and to apply, click here.
Governors Island ferry access: Access to Governors Island is by ferry, with timed ticket reservations required. Ferries run daily from the Battery Maritime Building at 10 South St. in Lower Manhattan. The ferries are always free for kids 12 and under, for seniors 65 and up, for residents of NYCHA housing, for military servicemembers, Governors Island members, and for everyone on weekends before noon. Starting later this year, NYC Ferry will serve Governors Island daily via the South Brooklyn route. A launch date for this expanded service will be announced soon. NYC Ferry's shuttle from Wall Street/Pier 11 to Yankee Pier on Governors Island will continue on weekends until the launch of 7-day/week service along the South Brooklyn route. NYC Ferry riders on any line that makes stops at Wall Street/Pier 11 may transfer to a shuttle service to Governors Island on Saturdays and Sundays. Governors Island weekend ferry service from Brooklyn (Pier 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park and Atlantic Basin in Red Hook) is currently not in service and will return in Spring, 2022. The first ferry to Governors Island from 10 South St. leaves at 7 a.m. The last ferry from Governors Island leaves at 6 p.m. Learn more about Governors Island ferries and book tickets by clicking here.
Lower Manhattan Greenmarkets: There are Lower Manhattan Greenmarkets in Tribeca (at Chambers and Greenwich Streets) and at Bowling Green, City Hall, the Oculus and the Staten Island ferry. GrowNYC asks that shoppers wear a face covering inside the market space and maintain a six-foot distance between themselves, Greenmarket staff, farm stand employees and other customers. Dogs and bicycles should be left at home.
Click here for a list of the fruits and vegetables now in season.
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Many of the Downtown Post NYC bulletin board listings are now on the Downtown Post NYC website. To see the bulletin board listings, click here.
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Letter to the editor
MANAGING COVID
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People lined up at Lenox Health in Greenwich Village for their Covid-19 vaccination.
March 20, 2021. (Photo: © Terese Loeb Kreuzer)
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To the editor:
Great Letter From the Editor in the last issue of Downtown Post NYC! ( DPNYC, Dec. 23, 2021) Our national self-image is one of resiliency, grit and being tough as a boiled owl. We have a long way to go, but, if we're smart, Covid can be managed. Perhaps we all will get it in mild form eventually. What I find astounding is the rapid pace of developing treatments.
Anyway, I enjoyed your comments.
Charles Deroko
From the editor:
We welcome letters to the editor. Send them to editor@downtownpostnyc.com. We reserve the right to edit them for clarity and length. |
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To see the events and activities on the Battery Park City Authority's falllendar, click here. Most events are free. For some, reservations are required. |
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CALENDAR
Spotlight: The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
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The singers who will be bringing the new opera, "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" to the Museum of Jewish Heritage for eight performances from Jan. 19 to Jan. 30, 2022. |
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The Garden of the Finzi-Continis at the Museum of Jewish Heritage
"The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" started out as a book by Giorgio Bassani, published in 1962. Then it became an Academy Award-winning movie directed by Vittorio de Sica, released in 1970. Now it is about to make its debut as an opera at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park City.
The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene and New York City Opera are presenting the world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon's version of the story of an aristocratic Italian-Jewish family — the Finzi-Continis — who believe that they will not be affected by fascism, anti-Semitism and the repercussions of Italy's alliance with Germany. Sadly they discover that they are wrong.
The opera will be performed eight times between Jan. 19 and Jan. 30. Tickets range in price between $50 and $125. For more information and to purchase tickets, click here or call (855) 449-4658.
Proof of Covid-19 vaccination will be required to enter the theater.
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Downtown Post NYC is emailed to subscribers once a week.
Editor: Terese Loeb Kreuzer
All articles and photographs in Downtown Post NYC are copyrighted and
may not be reprinted or republished without written permission.
© 2022
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