Why was River Project not allowed to compete for Pier 26 Estuarium?
To the Editor:
We are writing in regard to the proposed development of the estuarium on Pier 26 by the Hudson River Park Trust as reported in the November Trib.
Tribeca Organization has long supported the redevelopment of Hudson River Park. However, we have also strongly supported maintaining the strong community presence and involvement that made the Tribeca piers so important to our neighborhood.
As such, it came as a most unpleasant surprise to learn that representatives of the Hudson River Park Trust recently informed Community Board 1 that it had not only chosen an outside group to operate the estuarium, it had done so without public participation.
The estuarium was conceived of, founded, and run by Tribeca’s The River Project, and has been an important scientific and educational institution and part of our community for many years. It is completely counter to any concept of community engagement to award this project to another group without any opportunity for The River Project to even compete for it not to mention any community input.
Sadly, but fortunately, the Hudson River Park Trust has violated its own by-laws in the awarding of the estuarium as it did.
By its own rules, Article 752.5 (www.hudsonriverpark.org/pdf/policies/lease2.pdf), the Hudson River Park Trust is required to award all projects of the size and scope of the estuarium through an open bid process, considering the views of the relevant community board(s), the city planning commission, elected officials and other interested parties.
The Hudson River Park Trust board has a responsibility to ensure that it operates within its established rules and regulations.
Richard Corman
Chair
Tribeca Organization
Who will sift the soil as developers rebuild Tribeca's surface?
To the Editor:
With building construction going on all over Tribeca, either by digging up parking lots or tearing down nineteenth-century buildings, I wonder if any thought has been given toward urban archeology?
I would hope that city or private institutions, such as the Museum of the City of New York or the New-York Historical Society, could use this opportunity to access layers of soil that have not been touched for 100 years or more.
I would imagine that countless artifacts exist from the past 200 years, and are now being destroyed and/or buried for another 200 years, or longer.
It is a shame that more time and attention can not be turned to this issue.
Robert A. Ripps
Tribeca's oldest advertising sign is also its most 'painterly'
To the Editor:
I was very interested in your story about the “old style” advertisement on 155 Duane Street (November Trib).
In the center of the large photo of Patty Cazoria and Alexis Duque you can see what is undeniably Tribeca’s best preserved, largest and most painterly of the original 1920’s outdoor advertisements.
Between the three rows of windows on 111 West Broadway are two three story panels. The one on the left says “Brush Up Business with Paint, Paste, Paper and Push.” The panel on the right is a very “Michelangelo style” hand holding a brush.
On a gray day all the subtle colors of this original sign light up, and lavenders and Napels yellow are evident.
I lived in 110 Reade Street in the 1970’s. Somewhere in the dim past this building had been joined to 108 Reade Street through some connecting doorways (which were probably sealed up in the 1940’s). When my wife and I opened one of these massive iron doors we found an old paint closet filled with wooden buckets of “Dutch Boy” paint and square tins of dried-out turpentine.
With 111 West Broadway under construction by its owner, I fear for this beautiful example of the early art of outdoor advertisement. Maybe it’s time for the Trib to do a story on this sign.
Jody Intermont
Even in the park, good fences make good neighbors
To the Editor:
There I was, walking down the stairs from Borough of Manhattan Community College, when I saw the Washington Market Park staff doing all sorts of renovations. One of them: Taking down the the fence along the northern edge of the lawn. Wide open spaces! Quite a pleasant surprise.
Or, so it seemed.
I was chatting recently with other park users when one of them observed that active children and wildly kicked balls have not infrequently come spinning into her and her aged mother as they sat on benches along the unfenced lawn perimeter.
A day or two later, I was in the garden area with my wife and other gardeners who have plots along the northern end of the park. Zip! A baseball passed a few feet away at a height of about three feet. A daddy came dashing along after it.
This is a community park. Through the years it was built, re-built, then made over once again to serve a wide range of residents.
Perhaps taking the fence down was not such a clever idea after all.
Donald Jenner
Doctor responds to kids' health post-9/11 story
To the Editor:
I was very surprised to read the headline of the article in which I was quoted. In my discussion with Ms. Etta Sanders, I thought I had made it clear that I strongly believe that there will surely be health repurcussions for children in the downtown area secondary to the dust and debris created by the 9/11 tragedy. I am not as comfortable as Dr. Michael Cohen in stating that since we have not seen a dramatic increase in asthma or respitory illness that there will not be in the near future. It is unfortunate that the message given out by your newspaper's article, "Doc's: Kids' Post 9/11 Health is Good" was mostly aimed at inappropriately placating parental fears. This is really upsetting. Until studies are done, we do not know about the health issues we will ave to address.
Lisa Kaufman, M.D.
Etta Sanders, the writer, replies: The article did include the concerns of Dr. Kaufman and others about potential future health problems in Downtown children, as well as reporting that the doctors interviewed had yet to see negative effects they would attribute to World Trade Center exposures.
