Month: March 2017

Home Rule, But By Whom?

The Battery Park City Committee of Community Board 1 (CB1) has passed a resolution giving a qualified endorsement to a law proposed by State Senator Daniel Squadron, which (if enacted) would require that Lower Manhattan residents be appointed to the board of the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA), while also rigorously questioning the Senator’s representative...
Ninfa Segarra, chair of CB1's Battery Park City Committee: "Senator Squadron has again introduced a bill that regards the composition of the Battery Park City Authority board and the issue about residents being put on the board."

Today in History March 16

597 BC – Babylonians capture Jerusalem, and replace Jeconiah with Zedekiah as king. 1621 – Samoset, a Mohegan, visited the settlers of Plymouth Colony and greets them, “Welcome, Englishmen! My name is Samoset.” 1792 – King Gustav III of Sweden is shot; he dies on March 29. 1815 – Prince Willem proclaims himself King of...
1968 General Motor's produces its 100 millionth automobile. Here is a 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado

Impacted Wisdom Truth

RE: BroadsheetDAILY March13, 2017 Impacted Wisdom Truth To the editor: Question: Would it not make more sense to have such a tax go into a special infrastructure fund dedicated to serve a district rather than just earmarked for schools? It is obvious that not only schools are impacted by residential development: Fire; transportation, sanitation, water,...

The Art of the Matter

The social commentator Cleveland Amory once posited a corollary to Gresham’s Law (the economics axiom that debased coinage drives sound money out of circulation, because folks horde the latter while continuing to offer the funny money for payment), but his version was about fashionable addresses. It went something like this: artists come first, setting up...
Natalya Nesterova's painting on view at Hall Bromm Gallery, one the oldest galleries in Tribeca

Today in History March 15

44 BC – Julius Caesar, Dictator of the Roman Republic, is stabbed to death by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, Decimus Junius Brutus, and several other Roman senators on the Ides of March. 493 – Odoacer, the first barbarian King of Italy after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, is slain by Theoderic...
Washington's Headquarters at Newburgh, New York, George Gunther Hartwick, c. 1850

Exploring Downtown’s Lost Neighborhood

Did you know that the Lower West Side used to be one of New York’s most diverse immigrant neighborhoods? In 1917, a news article noted the presence of 27 nationalities in this small compact area. From the 1840s to the 1960s, waves of Irish, German, Middle Eastern, and various Slavic immigrants settled north of the...
Lower Washington Street tenement