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| Downtown Rail Links on Track-But
Which Tracks? |
Direct rail service from Lower Manhattan
to JFK Airport and Long Island is on the fast track to development,
provided officials can figure out how to get the trains from there
to here.
Posted February 8
CB1
Applauds PATH Terminal Architect |
| WTC Site: What Should Be Preserved? |
A nondescript wall of broken concrete,
with ruins of a stairway and escalator that once led to the World
Trade Center Plaza, still stands on Vesey Street near West Broadway.
Should this homely piece of history be preserved? And what of other
remnants-the slurry walls, the remains of the parking garage, the
embedded beams at bedrock that form ghostlike outlines of the towers?
Last month, representatives of 65 consulting parties met to begin
defining what features are important and make the site worthy of consideration
for the National Register of Historic Places.
Posted February 03
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| Study Reveals WTC Rebuilding Impacts |
The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has unveiled
plans for a memorial, a new PATH terminal, and the tallest building
in the world. Last month, to considerably less fanfare, they issued
a 2,000-page report on the impact all of the rebuilding will have
on surrounding neighborhoods.
Downtown residents will need a generous supply of earplugs and patience.
Posted February 3 |
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Gristedes Owner Is Store's Critic,
Too
It's no secret how Battery
Park City residents feel about their local grocery chain,
which is a frequent target of customer complaints, health
inspections and even flaming online message board critiques.
"Nobody likes them," said Mary Beth Lawlor, a member of
the Battery Park City Neighbors and Parents' Association.
"I don't know one person who enjoys our grocery stores."
Disgruntled shoppers can now count Gristedes owner John
Catsimatidis among them.
Posted February 3
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| A Fight for Basics in 'Luxury'
High-Rise |
Fresh out of college and enticed
by a host of luxury amenities that included an outdoor driving
range and putting green, Jared Ullman signed a lease last June
for a $1,950-a month, 500-square-foot studio on the 25th floor
of 90 Washington Street. But when he and other tenants moved
into the building in the fall, they found themselves fighting
to get the basics.
Elevators didn't work, phone and Internet service was out and
some units were missing kitchen countertops and had broken fixtures
Posted February 03
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| IPN Tenants and Owner in Negotiations |
The owner and tenant leadership of the
Independence Plaza North apartment complex met for three
negotiating sessions last month, hoping to avoid a long
court fight over the development's planned exit from a
government housing program.
Participants would not discuss details, but there was
one hint that the talks, which began in December, might
be bogging down.
Posted February 3 |
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| In Suit, Milstein Fights Seaport Rezoning
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After a 20-year battle, Downtown community leaders
declared victory last spring when the city changed zoning rules
in the historic South Street Seaport area, blocking powerful
Milstein Properties from erecting a large-scale development
at 250 Water Street. But the fight is not over. Milstein is
seeking to overturn the rezoning in a lawsuit filed in State
Supreme Court.
Posted February 3 |
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| Can 9/11 Icon Come Home? |
For almost 20 years, he sat on
a bench in Liberty Plaza, across the street from the World Trade
Center, perpetually staring into the open briefcase on his lap.
The sculpture symbolized the mundane, the routine-the Everyman
going about his business, easily lost among crowds of people
much like him. But on Sept. 11, 2001, the sculpture took on
new meaning. It survived the terrorist attack intact and upright,
though covered in ash and surrounded by trade center debris.
Will the bronze man with the briefcase find his way home?
Posted February 03
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Plan Is Unveiled For Redesign of Liberty
Plaza
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Today Liberty Plaza is a bleak space, with cracked and sagging
pavement, drab benches and some sad-looking shrubs in planters.
But by the end of the year, the plaza, on the west side of
Broadway between Liberty and Cedar streets, will be transformed.
Brookfield Properties, owner of the plaza and the building,
One Liberty Plaza, which towers above it, unveiled the new
design to a Community Board 1 Committee last month.
Posted Month Year
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At Bazzini, Tears Are Shed Over a Well-Loved
Worker
Maybe it was the peanut fudge milk
shakes he made for her daughter, or his ready smiles. Or maybe
it was because wonderful things so often go unnoticed until
they're gone. In any case, Susan Schreiber broke down and cried
when she learned that Peter Hornbeck, who had worked in Bazzini,
the Greenwich Street food store, died Jan. 10, the victim of
a hit-and-run driver. Schreiber's feelings were shared by dozens
of other morning customers who heard the news and shed tears
over their coffee.
Posted February 3
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Tribeca Partnership Seeks to Remedy Budget
Shortfall
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No doubt you've seen them. The men and women in coveralls,
bagging trash on corners, sweeping sidewalks and snagging
the errant newspaper blown to the curb. They are with the
Tribeca Partnership, a nonprofit group that provides a bootstrap
for those pulling themselves up from a life of homelessness
or drugs. Each day they bag some 4,000 pounds of trash. They
also receive a wide range of counseling. While the neighborhood
is cleaner and many of those workers have graduated to real
jobs since the program began in 1997, support for the Partnership
is lagging, according to its director Lynn Faria.
Posted Month Year
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| City Panel Mulls Building Variance in Tribeca
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More than a dozen Tribeca residents told the city's
Board of Standards and Appeals at a hearing last month that a nine-story
structure proposed for 408 Greenwich Street would block light and
air in their apartments and would alter the character of the neighborhood.
Posted February 3 |
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| What Is Future of Local Landmark? |
A steady stream of customers arrived
at Teddy's for happy hour on Friday evening, Jan. 9. Having
heard from news reports that the restaurant was closing the
next night, they were coming for one last margarita. But the
City Marshall had gotten there first and Teddy's, the iconic
Tribeca locale made famous by its rooftop Statue of Liberty
crown and funky facade, was closed for good. Teddy's is closed,
but the fate of the building and its crown remain uncertain.
Posted February 03
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Artists by the River
It has neither the renown of Soho
nor the cachet of Tribeca, but the South Street Seaport has
long drawn artists to its own cobblestone streets and raw, 19th
century lofts. There could be no better testament to that creative
spirit than "By the Gladness of the River," an exhibition of
superb portraits organized by Harold Reed and mounted on the
fourth floor of the South Street Seaport Museum¹s new Schermerhorn
Row galleries.
Posted Month Year
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| The Flea Brings a Kids Festival
to Its Stage |
The Flea Theater, long a hotbed
of experimental theater, is turning its attention to future
generations of avant gardistes.
Posted February 03
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