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Shooting at City Hall
The City Hall area was turned into
an armed camp Wednesday, July 23 following the shooting of Councilman
James Davis in the City Council chambers. Police cars lined
Broadway, Chambers Street and Park Row around City Hall, as
hundred of officers stood on the sidewalks, and heavily armed
police in riot gear roamed the building’s perimeter.
Posted July 24
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| IPN Tenants
See Hope in New Council Bill |
A bill that would make it harder
for landlords, including the new owner of Independence Plaza
North, to "buy out" of the Mitchell-Lama rent subsidy
program is expected to be introduced this month at the City
Council. At a press conference on the steps of City Hall on
July 21, the bill’s sponsors, Council Speaker Gifford Miller,
Councilman Alan Gerson and Councilwoman Christine Quinn told
a cheering crowd of some 200 Mitchell-Lama tenants that the
legislation could help keep their rents affordable.
Posted July 30
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IPN Owner Starts Buyout Process |
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| Two Architects Demonstrate Detente |
Differences over who will design
the iconic tower at the World Trade Center site were resolved
in meetings lasting into the morning of July 15. A day later,
proof that the agreement was an amicable one was made graphically
clear at a photo setup that featured the two competing architects,
David Childs and Daniel Libeskind, posing arm in arm. With them
were the site leaseholder Larry Silverstein, who is hiring Childs
to design the building, and Kevin Rampe, president of the Lower
Manhattan Development Corp.
In the agreement, the LMDC gives Silverstein the right to use
his own architect to design his building, slated to be the first
office tower on the site. |
In a statement, the LMDC said that
Childs would be the “design architect and project manager”
while Libeskind, who was designated as master planner for the
site, would be a “collaborating architect.”
Libeskind, who has never built a skyscraper, envisioned his
“Freedom Tower” to be 1776 feet tall, featuring a
spire that rises from the side of a 70-foot-high office building.
Childs and Silverstein reportedly favor moving the spire off
the side and centering it on top of the building.
Childs, a partner in the firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill,
is the architect of Silverstein’s new 7 World Trade Center,
now under construction.
Posted July 18 |
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| P.S.
234 Faces an Overcrowded Future |
P.S. 234, the school
often touted as one of Tribeca’s jewels, is falling
victim to its own success and Downtown’s soaring
population. The school is expected to enroll more
than 700 students this fall, a jump from 645 children
in 2002–03, and some classes will grow to 35 students.
With the creation of thousands of new apartments
in Lower Manhattan promising to bring waves of new
students, the PTA wants an addition to the building
and the community is calling for a new school.
Posted July 4
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| CB1 Gives
Counterproposals for Site 5C |
Community Board 1 last month
presented three building proposals that it said would
be more appropriate for Site 5C, behind P.S. 234, than
the 35-story residential tower that the city wants to
see built there. The tallest of the community’s proposals
would be for a 25-story building along West Street, between
Chambers and Warren streets, with four-story wings extending
along the side streets toward P.S. 234.
Posted July 4
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| Two
Buildings, Still the Ruins of 9/11 |
| Post
Office at Least a Year from Reopening |
Downtown’s sorely missed
post office at 90 Church Street, which was severely
damaged when the World Trade Center’s fiery wreckage
crashed through its windows, will remain closed
for cleanup and repair for nearly another year,
U.S. Postal Service representatives said last month.
Retail services are expected to resume in late spring,
and the building’s upper floors will probably be
ready for occupation by late summer.
Posted July 4
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| Future of
BMCC’s Fiterman Hall still uncertain |
When 7 World
Trade Center collapsed on the afternoon of
Sept. 11, 2001, it took with it an entire
corner of Borough of Manhattan Community College’s
Fiterman Hall. Twenty one months later, as
a new 7 World Trade steadily rises, Fiterman
Hall, just across Vesey Street, is still a
devastated, shrouded hulk, untouched by demolition
or repair crews. The building’s future remains
in limbo, while the college is desperate for
classroom space.
Posted Month Year
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| Park
Peeing Has Got to Go, Says Board |
Too often in Washington Market Park,
when nature calls, nature gets peed on. The park's board of
directors has launched a campaign to get children to stop urininating
and defecating in the bushes, with signs reminding caregivers
to take kids to the bathroom in BMCC and warning of fines if
the rule is ignored.
Posted July 4
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| Partying at Hudson St. Lounge
Angers Neighbors |
Hudson Street residents say that rowdy
patrons from 99 Hudson Street lounge, formerly the Sporting
Club, are bringing late-night havoc and fear to the surrounding
neighborhood. The lounge's neighbors say that shouts of
drunken club-goers, along with vandalism, fights and,
in at least one instance, public sex, are making weekend
nights unbearable.
Posted July 4 |
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| Buildings Chief
Is Mum on Fuel Storage |
About 50 Tribeca residents, worried
about thousands of gallons of diesel fuel stored at 60 Hudson
Street, gathered on June 23 for a long-awaited meeting with
a city official who they hoped could address their concerns.
But they quickly realized that they were not going to get the
answers they were looking for.
Posted July 4
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| Millennium
H.S. Principal Details Plans |
Robert Rhodes, the principal of
the fledgling Millennium High School, addressed a crowd of incoming
students and their parents last month, giving them a preview
of the school’s new downtown home that was just three months
away from opening, at least on paper.
Posted July 4
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| State
Officials Present West Street Plans |
At a recent Community Board 1 meeting,
Downtown residents closely scrutinized the state's two proposed
options for West Street near the World Trade Center site, one
with a tunnel and one without. Some residents raised concerns
about the potential neighborhood impacts of the tunnel, which
is favored by Governor Pataki.
Posted June 13
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| At Vesey Street,
a new Pedestrian Bridge Is Coming |
Pedestrians crossing West Street
and negotiating their way along the north side of the World
Trade Center site should find their wanderings easier by the
end of this year. A new Vesey Street pedestrian bridge and an
upgraded path connecting the bridge to Church Street is expected
to be ready when the temporary PATH opens around the end of
November.
Posted June 16
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IN BRIEF
Volunteers
Needed For Aug. 3 Bike Race
Tennis Courts and Ice Rink
Coming
Free Sailing Program for
Downtown Teens
BPC Association Events
Crab Crunch
Energy for Businesses
Yankee Tours
WTC Redevelopment
| Reading, Writing
and Rumba! |
During a remarkable 10-week journey,
23 fifth-graders from P.S. 150 stepped into the world of graceful
swirls, sexy hip action and hot competition—otherwise known
as ballroom dancing.
Posted July 4
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| Rites
of Passage |
Four local schools, each in its
own way, said so long to the children who are moving on.
Posted July 4
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| This Mother/Volunteer Is Ready for
Recess |
Bake sales, book sales, wrapping- paper sales,
reading time, baking time, art-appreciation time, the silent
auction, Writing Celebration, 100 Days of School Celebration,
Snail Celebration, Word Wall, Winter Fair, Taste of Tribeca,
Lady Bug Day. Welcome to the life of a Kindergarten parent.
The school year is over, and I admit that I wasn’t sure I was
going to make it.
Posted July 4 |
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| ‘Getting Into
Heaven’ Needs Divine Help |
The great thing about New York theater
is that, no matter how convinced you are that you have seen
the world’s worst play, given sufficient time you will eventually
see one that tops it. Consider Polly Draper’s “Getting Into
Heaven,” now at the Flea Theater on White Street.
Posted July 4
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