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Lower Manhattan’s Local News
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The Taste of Tribeca celebrates 25 years
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The Broadsheet Inc. | 212-912-1106 | editor@ebroadsheet.com| ebroadsheet.com
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Shelter from the Storm
City Plans Temporary Flood Protection Measures for Downtown
The administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio is formulating short-term strategies to protect the South Street Seaport and the Financial District from sea-level rise and future extreme-weather events.
These “interim flood protection measures” (or IFPMs) are intended to serve as placeholders, while City Hall embarks on the decade-long process of planning to extend the Lower Manhattan shoreline by several hundred feet into the East River, in order to create a permanent barrier that will hold back the deluge from disasters related to global warming.
These interim measures were the topic of discussion at the April 26 meting of Community Board 1 (CB1), in which Alice Blank (who chairs that panel’s Environmental Protection Committee) explained, “one of the strategies being used by the Mayor’s Office of Resiliency to address resiliency concerns Downtown is Hesco barriers.” These are a combination of heavy duty fabric liners with collapsible wire mesh containers, which are filled with sand, soil or gravel. They can be installed relatively quickly, stacked or placed side by side, and left in place for years at a time. “These are four-by-four foot concrete barriers that would stay in place for about five years,” Ms. Blank observed.
Also being considered, Ms. Blank noted, “are tiger dams” — cylindrical rubber bladders that are inflated with water, forming an immobile barrier that can contain flooding. “The City held a deployment exercise last June for tiger dams,” she recounted. “This showed that it takes about an hour to put up 50 feet of barriers. And people have to be trained to do it. So it’s an expensive proposition. But it’s doable.”
Finally, she noted, a third set of anti-flood devices being considered by the Office of Resiliency is flood panels, which are rigid barriers placed in front of especially critical facilities, like government offices.
Ms. Blank added that the City’s Office of Emergency Management is also considering a beautification initiative, “to decorate these structures and make them more palatable.”
She also acknowledged that, “the unpleasant look of Hesco barriers and cost and time needed for tiger dams has led the City to look at another strategy: aqua fences.” These are foldable, interlocking panels that flip upward as a torrent approaches, using the weight of the oncoming water to hold back the flood. This system has been tested at several Lower Manhattan buildings, such as One World Trade Center, 17 State Street, 80 Pine Street, and Two Water Street.
While any of these measures could theoretically provide at least partial protection against a future surge of water from the East River, a briefing book prepared by the Mayor’s Office of Resiliency warns that IFPMs do not protect against severe storms like 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, offer any relief from flooding caused by rainfall, or provide security against Nor’Easter storms, “due to current limitations in forecasting timelines and confidence.”
Matthew Fenton
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Dine Around Today
Food Fest at 28 Liberty
Today, an annual bite-sized bacchanal will take place when the 18th annual Dine Around Downtown festival returns to Fosun Plaza, the 1.5 acre, open-air deck at 28 Liberty Street (the building formerly known as One Chase Plaza), from 11:00 am, to 3:00 pm.
More than 35 of Lower Manhattan’s most popular eateries (including Adrienne’s Pizza Bar, Bobby Van’s Steakhouse, Capital Grille, Delmonico’s, Eataly, Mad Dog & Beans, Manhatta, and Temple Court) will be serving up their best, priced from $3 to $7 per sample. While you eat, enjoy free musical entertainment from the the National Jazz Museum in Harlem All Stars. Dine Around Downtown is also a zero-waste event, and is presented by Fosun and the Downtown Alliance, as part of their observance of the International Day of Families.
Mr. Bo Wei of Fosun International New Yorksaid, “Sharing great food and joyful art experience among all communities globally is our dream. Both Dine Around Downtown Festival and Sing for Hope piano exhibition have shown Fosun’s commitments to New York City’s families. Working with other influential organizations have made more happiness products and experience available to residents and global tourists in downtown Manhattan. This year, we are also thrilled to provide a permanent home for Sing for Hope at Fosun Plaza of 28 Liberty Building“
For more information, please browse: www.downtownny.com/dinearound
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Battery Park City Residents, Partners & Friends:
The Battery Park City Authority has engaged 100 Resilient Cities, a program supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, to create the Authority’s first-ever strategic plan.
Using resilience as a lens, BPCA and 100 Resilient Cities will use our most recent Parks User Count and Study, community input from public meetings, and many other inputs to develop an action plan designed to ensure we’re addressing Battery Park City’s needs comprehensively and strategically.
As part of this ongoing outreach, we are also soliciting public input through the following brief survey, which will be available until May 26.
We invite you to please take a few minutes to complete it.
Thank you in advance for your input. We look forward to hearing from you!
Sincerely-
Nicholas T. Sbordone
Vice President of Communications & Public Affairs
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Anthem of the Seas Spins About
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The Taste of Tribeca Celebrates 25 Years
The weather was perfect for lunch al fresco after a week of chilly rain.
On May 18, thousands of hungry festival-goers noshed their way around Duane Park Triangle to sample the best of Tribeca’s culinary star power; scores of volunteers punched tickets, directed recycling, and served VIPs; and dozens of chefs recreated their finest efforts and arranged perfect little tastes on paper plates.
It was the Taste of Tribeca’s 25th anniversary, benefiting P.S 150’s and P.S. 234’s arts and enrichment programs for more than 800 children.
We caught up with David Waltuck, director of culinary affairs at the Institute of Culinary Education (7 World Trade Center), as he offered a Chinese pulled pork taco. Of the 18 or so restaurants that took part in the first Taste of Tribeca 25 years ago, he noted, only a few remain. His restaurant, the elegant Chanterelle, closed in 2009. Still, he was happy to return for the 25th anniversary of this popular event. “It’s nice to be here,” he said.
Robert Simko
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Today’s Calendar
May 21
10:30AM
Zumba Jumpstart
Battery Park City Parks
Join a fitness dance party with upbeat Latin music of salsa, merengue, hip-hop, and more! Enthusiastic instruction creates a fun community of dancers who learn new steps each week. Bring your friends and share in this fit and fun dancing community. 6 River Terrace. FREE
12:30PM
Blitz Chess
Battery Park City Parks
A lunch time program for passersby on their lunch break to play chess. Actually, not just chess…Blitz chess! Blitz chess is a form of speed chess played on a clock where each opponent gets five minutes. It is fast, furious and fun. Rockefeller Park House. FREE
6PM
Community Board 1 Waterfront, Parks & Cultural Committee
CB1 Conference Room 1 Centre Street, Room 2202A-North
AGENDA
1) 9/11 Memorial Glade – Update by Anthony Gardner, Senior Vice President, Government and Community Affairs, 9/11 Memorial Museum
2) City Hall Park Temporary public art – Presentation by Elizabeth Masella, Public Art Coordinator, NYC Department of Parks & Recreation 3) Barnett Newman Triangle – Resolution
6:30PM
“The Heart of the City Creating Vibrant Downtowns for a New Century”
Skyscraper Museum
Downtowns are more than economic engines: they are repositories of knowledge and culture and generators of new ideas, technology, and ventures. If we are to have healthy downtowns, noted urban planner Alexander Garvin argues, we need to understand how and why some American downtowns never stopped thriving, some are in decline, while still others, including Lower Manhattan, are resurging. In The Heart of the City, Garvin proffers how to plan for a mix of housing, businesses, and attractions; improve mobility; manage services; and enhance the public realm to ensure urban vitality. 39 Battery Place. FREE
7:00PM
Eataly Downtown
Stretch dough and top your own creation to enjoy at the end of class with a glass of wine. Learn the history of Pizza alla Pala. Take home pizza dough to prepare at home. World Trade Center. $65
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This Sand Is Your Sand, This Sand Is Our Sand…
Although Not Yet a Shore Thing, Proposal for Brooklyn Bridge Beach Takes a Step Forward
After multiple rounds of funding since 2013, the proposed Brooklyn Bridge Beach — a project supported by elected officials, community leaders, and the public — may be inching closer to reality.
The plan, backed by all of these constituencies, aims to create a crescent-shaped wedge of sand along the East River waterfront, just north of the South Street Seaport, where park-goers could wade knee deep in tide. If built, it would become the sole access point at which Lower Manhattan residents could step into the water that surrounds them, rather than merely looking at it.
Matthew Fenton
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Nude Descending a Staircase No. 3
The 280-foot-long digital billboard in the Westfield World Trade Center shopping complex is displaying the latest work by Marco Brambilla, the highly regarded video collage and installation artist, whose “Nude Descending a Staircase No. 3” reimagines the 1912 Cubist masterpiece by Marcel Duchamp. Using full-motion animation, Mr. Brambilla warp times and deconstructs the original painting, with three-dimensional figures constantly reforming and replicating themselves as they cascade down an unseen stairway. On display daily, now through May 31, from 10:00 am through 8:00 pm.
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Poor Quay?
Hudson River Park Trust Seeks Development on Pier 40
The Hudson River Park Trust (HRPT), in collaboration with local elected officials, is seeking to revise its enabling legislation to allow for commercial development at Pier 40.
“The major issue is that there need to be changes to the legislation that created the Hudson River Park, because Pier 40 is sinking,” explained Anthony Notaro, chair of Community Board 1 (CB1) at an April 26 meeting.
Matthew Fenton
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Tragedy Compounded by Delay
Renewed Concerns about Emergency Response Time in Lower Manhattan
“When I got the 911 operator on the phone, she transferred me to another operator, who asked for the location of the accident. I explained that we were in front of 325 South End Avenue, in Manhattan. But this operator kept repeating that help was on the way to 32 South Street in Brooklyn. I kept telling her this was incorrect, but she kept repeating ‘South Street in Brooklyn.’ Then she said they would call me back.”
A new study documents that response times for 911 calls are slower in the First Precinct, which covers Lower Manhattan, than in any other district south of Midtown (an area that comprises seven NYPD commands) and the third-slowest overall in Manhattan.
Matthew Fenton
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Farewell to a Friend
On May 22, the Battery Park City Seniors group will host a memorial service for Arlene Kalfus, who died tragically on April 4, when she was struck by a bus on South End Avenue. Ms. Kalfus, a long-time resident of Gateway Plaza, was a longtime contributor to Battery Park City Seniors, whose loss is acutely felt, both because of her many volunteer activities and her dry sense of humor. The 2pm service will be held in the Battery Park City Authority’s community room, located within 200 Rector Place. (Please use the entrance on the west side of the building, facing West Thames Park.) Anyone planning to attend is asked to R.S.V.P. to Philomena Pinto at JPinto8925@aol.com. |
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Today in History
May 21
878 – Syracuse is captured by the Muslim sultan of Sicily.
1260 – Kublai Khan of the Mongol Empire sends his envoy Hao Jing and two other advisors to the Song Dynasty court of Emperor Lizong of Song; while attempting to negotiate with the Song in order to resolve their conflict, Hao Jing and his fellow emissaries are imprisoned by order of the high Chancellor of China, Jia Sidao.
1602 – Martha’s Vineyard first sighted by Captain Bartholomew Gosnold
1758 – 10 year old Mary Campbell was abducted from her home in Pennsylvania by Lenape Indians during the French and Indian War.
While captive, she lived among the family of Chief Netawatwees in the Ohio Valley and was freed six years later in a famous release of captives
orchestrated by Colonel Henry Bouquet at the conclusion of Pontiac’s War. Pontiac’s War was a united Indian effort to push the settlers back to
the Atlantic but failed miserably.
1819 – First bicycles (swift walkers) in US introduced in New York City
The first bicycle in America was seen in New York City. They were called various names, “velocipedes,” “swift walkers,” “hobby horses” or “dandy horses”. They had been imported from London. Today’s pedal and chain bikes of today came Pierre Lallement of Nancy, France, who saw one in a park and was inspired to add a transmission to it. After a brief stint manufacturing in France, Lallement moved to the U.S. Financially backed by James Carroll of New Haven, Connecticut, he filed the earliest U.S. patent for a pedal bicycle.
1846 – First steamship arrives in Hawaii
1881 – American Red Cross founded by Clara Barton
1894 – 22-year-old French anarchist Émile Henry is executed by guillotine
1906 – Louis Perlman patents a demountable tire-carrying rim for cars
1927 – Lindburgh lands in Paris after first solo air crossing of Atlantic
1929 – Automatic electric stock quotation board installed in NewYork City
1932 – First transatlantic solo flight by a woman (Amelia Earhart) lands in Ireland
1936 – Sada Abe is arrested after wandering the streets of Tokyo for days with her dead lover’s severed genitals in her hand. Her story soon becomes one of
Japan’s most notorious scandals. But for another time!
1951 – The opening of the Ninth Street Show, otherwise known as the 9th Street Art Exhibition – a gathering of a number of notable artists, and the stepping-out of the post war New York avant-garde, collectively know as the New York School.
1968 – Nuclear-powered sub USS Scorpion, with 99 men, reported missing and later found at the bottom of the Atlantic off the Azores.
1969 – Robert Kennedy’s murderer Sirhan Sirhan sentenced to death: later commuted to life imprisonment.
1970 – National Guard mobilizes to quell disturbances at Ohio State U
1972 – Michelangelo’s Pietà in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome is damaged by a vandal.
2004 – Sherpa Pemba Dorjie climbs Mount Everest in 8 hours 10 minutes, breaking his rival Sherpa Lakpa Gelu’s record from the previous year.
Birthdays
1471 – Albrecht Durer, Nornberg Germany, Renaissance painter/print maker
1688 – Alexander Pope, London, English poet (Rape of the Lock, translation of Homer) (d.1744)
1780 – Elizabeth Fry, Quaker minister/prison reformer/nurse
1898 – Armand Hammer, NYC, industrialist (Occidental Petroleum)
1904 – Fats Waller, [Thomas Wright], jazz singer/composer (Ain’t Misbehavin’)
1921 – Andrei Sakharov, Moscow, physicist, human rights worker (Nobel ’75)
1951 – Al Franken, comedian/writer/actor and US senator at one time
Deaths
1542 – Hernando de Soto, dies while searching for gold, near Mississippi River
1935 – Jane Addams, a founder of ACLU (Nobel 1973), dies at 65
1992 – Mrithi, gorilla (Gorilla in the Mist), dies at 24
2000 – Sir John Gielgud, British actor (b. 1904)
2003 – Alejandro de Tomaso, Argentine-Italian racing driver and car manufacturer (b. 1928)
This information was culled from various internet sources, including Wikipedia, the New York Times and other special interest sites.
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RiverWatch
ARRIVALS & DEPARTURES
Cruise Ships in the Harbor
May 23
Anthem of the Seas
6:30 am Bayonne 4:00 pm Bermuda/Eastern Caribbean
Carnival Sunrise
6:15 am 4:30 pm Bermuda
May 24
Queen Mary 2
6:00 am Brooklyn 5:00 pm Transatlantic
Many ships pass Lower Manhattan on their way to and from the midtown Passenger Ship Terminal. Others may be seen on their way to or from docks in Brooklyn and Bayonne.
Stated times, when appropriate, are for passing the Colgate Clock and are based on sighting histories, published schedules and intuition. They are also subject to tides, fog, winds, freak waves, hurricanes and the whims of upper management.
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CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS
Swaps & Trades Respectable Employment
Lost and Found 212-912-1106
PART TIME SALES POSITION
High commission. B to B sales
We sell donor signage to non-profits,
extremely nice clientele.
Our office is located in FIDI.
Call me at 646-729-7142. Barry Silverberg, Principal
Situation Wanted:
Experienced Elder Care (12 years)
Able to prepare nutritious meals and light housekeeping
Excellent references 347 898 5804 Hope
NOTARY PUBLIC IN BPC
$2 per notarized signature
Text Paula at 917-836-8802
CLEANING SERVICES
Dishes, windows, floors, laundry, bathrooms.
You name it – I will clean it.
Call Elle at 929-600-4520
IT AND SECURITY SUPPORT
Experienced IT technician. Expertise in 1-on-1 tutoring for all ages.Computer upgrading & troubleshooting.
Knowledgeable in all software programs. James Kierstead james.f.kierstead@gmail.com 347-933-1362. Refs available
ELDER COMPANION
Experienced with BPC residents. Available nights, days, and weekends. Will cook, clean and administer medicine on time. Speaks French and English. Can start immediately. Please call or text 929-600-4520.
OLD WATCHES SOUGHT
PREFER NON-WORKING
Mechanical pocket and wristwatches sought and
sometimes repaired
212-912-1106
If you would like to place a listing, please contact editor@ebroadsheet.com
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Cass Gilbert and the Evolution of the New York Skyscraper
by John Simko
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The Broadsheet Inc. | 212-912-1106 | editor@ebroadsheet.com| ebroadsheet.com
No part of this document may be reproduced without the written approval of the publisher
© 2019
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