The BroadsheetDAILY ~ News of Lower Manhattan ~ 3/9/20

The Hurricane Maria Memorial, which is slated for completion early next year, will be located near the corner of Chambers Street and River Terrace.

The administration of Governor Andrew Cuomo has chosen a design for the planned Hurricane Maria Memorial, which is slated to be built at the Chambers Street Overlook (near the intersection with River Terrace) in Battery Park City’s northern section, next year.

“With this memorial on the shore of the Hudson River, New York State will honor our Puerto Rican brothers and sisters who were tragically lost during the devastation from Hurricane Maria,” Mr. Cuomo said. “New York stands with Puerto Rico today, tomorrow and always — and we are proud to celebrate and further strengthen the connection between the Empire State and Puerto Rico.”

The design, by Puerto Rico-based architect Segundo Cardona and artist Antonio Martorell, consists of an ascending glass spiral, meant to evoke both the form of a hurricane and the shape of a nautilus shell, which serves as a symbol of protection against a hostile environment. The spiral will be crowned by a rotating star, reminiscent of the one that adorns the Puerto Rican flag. The glass panels that make up the spiral will be painted by Mr. Matrorell, and emblazoned with words from  the poem, “Farewell from Welfare Island,” by Julia de Burgos, one of Puerto Rico’s most revered poets. The text, which gives lyric voice to the resiliency of the Puerto Rican people, was composed by Ms. de Burgos in February 1953, a few months before her death in New York. It is believed to be one of the only poems she ever wrote in English.

This design was chosen from among 120 proposals and recommended to Mr. Cuomo by the Hurricane Maria Memorial Commission, a ten-member panel that included only one resident of Battery Park City, and never held a single public meeting. Neither did the Commission ever consult with or invite participation from Community Board 1 (CB1)

These developments follow a pointed discussion last December at the Battery Park City Committee of CB1, in which chair Tammy Meltzer asked Nick Sbordone, vice president of communications and public affairs for the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA), whether an upcoming meeting of that agency’s board, “will be confirming final details for the Hurricane Maria memorial?” She also asked, “does the community get to have any kind of say in this conversation, or the chance to weigh in”?

“Always,” Mr. Sbordone replied, in a reference to the BPCA’s concerted effort in recent years to increase transparency, consult with residents on major decisions, and include community leaders in planning. Whether this commitment is shared by the Cuomo administration, however, remains an open question.

The design for the Memorial features an ascending spiral of glass painted panels, crowned by a rotating star, reminiscent of the one that adorns the Puerto Rican flag.

“But we did a resolution saying we didn’t want it in Battery Park City,” Ms. Meltzer noted. This measure, enacted in December, 2018, observed that, “all public land within Battery Park City has already been designated for uses on which the community relies;” that, “Battery Park City has more memorials per square foot than any other neighborhood in New York City;” and that, “there are numerous locations within the State that could be better suited to locate the Hurricane Maria Memorial than Battery Park City.”

The same resolution called upon Mr. Cuomo to set up, “a process [of] communication and transparency with the community prior to the placement of any new memorials in Battery Park City — or anywhere else in Lower Manhattan.”

Mr. Sbordone answered, “that resolution asked for representation on the commission and that the BPCA not pay for it.” (The Cuomo administration does not plan to tap BPCA funds to cover the projected $700,000 cost of the project, and, as noted above, one member of ten members of Hurricane Maria Memorial Commission was a Battery Park City resident.)

	Tammy Meltzer

Ms. Meltzer rejoined that, “the representation on the commission has never bothered to come to a CB1 meeting and is someone who does business with both the City and the State.” This was a reference to the fact that the lone member of the Commission who lives in the community, Elizabeth Velez, is a trusted confidante of the Governor’s, who served on the board of the Committee to Save New York, a controversial and secretive organization started by Mr. Cuomo in 2010, which was comprised mainly of real estate developers, bankers and lobbyists. The group was the State’s top lobbying spender in 2011 and 2012, but Mr. Cuomo shut it down the following year, after critics pointed to close ties between donors and State government. Ms. Velez also operates a construction contracting company that does business with both City Hall and Albany. According the multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation, Mr. Cuomo promised Ms. Velez a seat on the board of the BPCA in 2016, but her appointment did not go through, for reasons that never became public.

Ms. Meltzer continued, “they never actually bothered to come to a BPCA or CB1 meeting to get any type of community input. So, from our perspective, there has been little to no engagement.”

Nick Sbordone

“We’re looking at this from a community perspective,” she added. “Can you tell me where in Battery Park City there is a memorial to anybody who lived in Battery Park City and was lost on September 11, 2001? There is nothing here that represents the residents who were here on September 11. And yet, there’s a hurricane memorial coming. It could be beautiful, and I’m sure it will be very interesting. But it would be nice if the community got to have some input on the final selections.”

Justine Cuccia, who serves as co-chair of CB1’s Battery Park City Committee, noted that Esplanade Plaza (along with the Chambers Street overlook, one of two locations that were proposed for the Hurricane Maria Memorial), “is the location of a volleyball court that the community uses, and is also used for dances and events.”

Mr. Sbordone responded that, “one of the benefits of having BPCA staff involved is that we are constantly reminding folks that this is a residential community.”

Ms. Meltzer pressed, “adding another thing at that location is not ideal. We haven’t seen what it looks like, or the scope and size, and there could be infrastructure changes. The concerns about usage and location are very real. And we’re out of that decision-making loop, or even conversations.”

Battery Park City activists and leaders have a record of opposing plans for additional memorials that they believed conflicted with the interests of the community. These include successfully derailing proposals to locate two relics of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 within the neighborhood: the so-called “Survivors Staircase” (a flight of 38 steps that once led from Vesey Street to the World Trade Center plaza above) and the Sphere (a metal globe sculpture originally located on plaza between the Twin Towers, and heavily damaged when they collapsed). Both were initially slated for relocation to sites within Battery Park City. But each was instead incorporated into plans for the new World Trade Center complex when the community objected to these proposals.

The Irish Hunger Memorial

But State officials have an equally long record of vetoing these concerns and locating within the community monuments that often seem calculated to curry favor with politically significant constituencies. One illustrative case in point is the Irish Hunger Memorial, which was dedicated in 2002, at the corner of North End Avenue and Vesey Street, in spite of the fact that Battery Park City has little discernible connection to the history of New York’s Irish-American community.

The same template may apply to the planned memorials for Hurricane Maria and Mother Cabrini, in that Battery Park City has scant significance in the narratives of Puerto Rican or Italian-American immigrants to New York. As Ninfa Segarra, a Battery Park City resident who once served as Deputy Mayor, and more recently chaired CB1’s Battery Park City Committee, noted, “as one of the few Puerto Ricans who live in Battery Park City, I think placing a Memorial here is ridiculous. The Governor should identify who in the Puerto Rican community asked that it be placed here.”Mr. Cuomo appears to have settled on Battery Park City for his recent spurt of memorial building (which includes not only the Hurricane Maria Memorial, but also the monument to Mother Cabrini, and a recently announced plan to expand the Museum of Jewish Heritage), at least in part, because it is one of the few areas of New York City that, as chief executive of the State government, he controls directly. The Lower Manhattan locations also effectively guarantee significant media coverage and public visibility for all three projects.

Church Street School for Music & Art

Celebrates 30 Years

Today’s Calendar

March 9

Battery Park City’s Annual Art Exhibit

People visiting should check in with our security desk on the ground floor, where they will be directed to the elevators to the 4th floor. The receptionist will direct them to the show.

City Plans to Raise Esplanade in the Battery to 11 Feet Above Waterline

Among the myriad of resiliency projects that are now in the planning stages for various parts of Lower Manhattan, the City is planning to raise the level of the waterfront Esplanade in the Battery to an elevation 11 feet above the current waterline. To read more…

Wonderful person, who is a great worker. Reference Available
Working in BPC. Call Tenzin  347-803-9523

Excellent references 12yrs experienced   347-898-5804

Call Hope   anasirp@gmail.com

If you would like to place a listing, please contact editor@ebroadsheet.com