Lower Manhattan’s Local News
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Weir and When
Thursday Online Meeting Will Review Resiliency Plans for Northern Battery Park City
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One design concept under consideration for the Esplanade on Battery Park City’s northern edge would extend the walkway more than 20 feet into the water, creating space for new anti-flooding infrastructure, as well as new amenities.
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Tomorrow (Thursday, July 23) evening, the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) and Community Board 1 (CB1) will co-host an online public meeting focused on the North Battery Park City Resiliency Project. All interested members of the public are welcome to attend and participate (starting at 6:00 pm), via this link: https://live.mcb1.nyc/Tomorrow’s meeting is a follow-on to a public discussion held last February, at which preliminary options and design concepts were reviewed by the BPCA, along with the team of engineers and architects who will be conceiving the measures intended to make the northern edge of the community resistant to sea-level rise, climate change, and future extreme-weather events.
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The three “alignment options” under consideration, by which flood protection measures in northern Battery Park City would reach into Tribeca.
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Among the options under consideration for the stretch of the Esplanade behind Stuyvesant High School is one vision that would cut the width of the pedestrian walkway in half, but create a second path, at a higher elevation. A competing scheme would instead extend the northern edge of Battery Park City by more than 20 feet into the water—space that would be used for flood-protection infrastructure, as well as new amenities.
At an earlier session, Garrett Avery, the project manager from engineering firm Aecom, said that, “we are entering an age when community assets that we rely on for protection, recreation, and for environmental and economic benefit are now at risk. The trend is headed toward storms much larger than Hurricane Sandy. And it doesn’t always take a hurricane. Sometimes high tide combined with heavy rain will be enough to cause flooding.”
“Our first goal is to manage long-term risk,” he added, noting that another priority, “is independent utility—a project that can stand alone, even though it’s part of a larger system.”
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Aecom’s Garrett Avery: “We are entering an age when community assets that we rely on for protection, recreation, and for environmental and economic benefit are now at risk. The trend is headed toward storms much larger than Hurricane Sandy.”
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He continued that, “one of our strategies is to use elements in the landscape that, for the majority of their lives, actually function positively as other objects: benches, planters, and walls. These can be designed in a way that doubles or triples their use, so that for every dollar spent building them, you get several, additional dollars in return, while also attenuating wave action and reducing forces against the flood wall.”
Mr. Avery went on to explain that the Aecom design team is considering three “alignment options” for the eastern end of the new flood barrier, each of which would extend outside of Battery Park City, and into Tribeca. The need for such an accommodation
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BPCA’s Gwen Dawson: “We hope to begin construction in 2021 and end by 2023. And our initial, rough cost estimate is $85 million.”
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“The first is the northern edge of Esplanade, and then along the southern edge of Chambers Street, most likely a block to a block and a half east into the City, reaching beyond Greenwich Street,” he said. “The second would turn left on West Street, instead of continuing along Chambers, proceed north along West Street to Harrison Street, and then reach inland. And the third follows a similar path, but extends to North Moore Street.”
BPCA president B.J. Jones observed that, “these options are designed with Battery Park City in mind, even when we go outside the neighborhood, because we’re trying to get from high point to high point.”
When asked about the timeline and the cost for the project, Gwen Dawson, the BPCA’s vice president for real property, replied, “we hope to begin construction in 2021 and end by 2023. And our initial, rough cost estimate is $85 million.”
This is one of four separate (but related) resiliency plans the BPCA is in various stages of implementing. The others cover the community’s southern border (around Wagner Park and Pier A), its western waterfront (the length of the Esplanade, from Wagner Park, to Rockefeller Park), and the Battery Park City ball fields (along with the adjacent Asphalt Green community center).
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The elevations to which flood barriers will have to rise at various points in northern Battery Park City, and along the Tribeca waterfront.
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When asked about the timeline and the cost for the project, Gwen Dawson, the BPCA’s vice president for real property, replied, “we hope to begin construction in 2021 and end by 2023. And our initial, rough cost estimate is $85 million.”
This is one of four separate (but related) resiliency plans the BPCA is in various stages of implementing. The others cover the community’s southern border (around Wagner Park and Pier A), its western waterfront (the length of the Esplanade, from Wagner Park, to Rockefeller Park), and the Battery Park City ball fields (along with the adjacent Asphalt Green community center).
Matthew Fenton
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Get Out on the Water from North Cove
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Need a safe and breezy break from your apartment? Several cruise operators have reopened in North Cove and are offering opportunities to get out on the water, including Tribeca Sailing and Classic Harbor Line. All cruise operators are adhering to social distancing guidelines; check individual websites for details.
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‘I Can’t Rule Out Sleeping in the Streets If I’m Forced Out of Here’
Group of Elderly Battery Park City Residents Face Eviction, Homelessness as Affordability Protections Sunset
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The residential building at 225 Rector, where 17 elderly residents are facing the threat of eviction.
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More than dozen elderly residents of Battery Park City are facing imminent eviction—and in some cases, the possibility of being made homeless—as longstanding affordability protections lapse on their apartments, triggering rent hikes of thousands of dollars per month.
These tenants (a racially diverse group, two of whom are disabled, and several more of whom suffer from September 11-related illnesses) reside at 225 Rector Place, in a cluster of 17 apartments, which are all that remain of more than 60 units once set aside as low- and middle-income dwellings, when the building (originally known as Parc Place) opened as a 305-unit rental tower in 1986. The original developer, the Related Companies, accepted substantial government subsidies in exchange for participation in the so-called “80/20” program, which called for one-fifth of the apartments in a building to be reserved for people of limited means, while four-fifths were allowed to be rented at unrestricted, market rates.
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Quasi-Rent Stabilization Ends at Gateway Plaza
Affordability Protections Replaced by Ten-Year Cap on Rent Increases
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The Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) announced on Wednesday an agreement with the LeFrak Organization (operator of Gateway Plaza, the community’s largest residential complex) that will roll back affordability guarantees for the dwindling cohort of tenants who have been protected for decades by caps on rent increases.
According to a statement by the Gateway Plaza Tenants Association (GPTA), the deal will limit rent hikes to 2.5 percent per year (for one-year lease renewals) and 3.78 percent (for two-year renewals) through 2030 for the roughly 600 households that were previously covered by a program known as “quasi-rent stabilization” (QRS). That plan mandated that rents for Gateway residents who were protected could not be raised by more than the increase allowed for rent-stabilized apartments elsewhere in the five boroughs by the City’s Rent Guidelines Board (RGB).
This arrangement is likely to disappoint Gateway residents and affordable housing advocates for several reasons. Chief among them is that if the QRS agreement had been extended, covered residents of Gateway Plaza would likely be facing significantly smaller rent hikes.
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CLASSIFIEDS &PERSONALS
Swaps & Trades
Respectable Employment
Lost and Found
———————————————————–
Personal assistant needed
for filing, packaging/mailing items, and computer work including spreadsheets.
Handyman skills helpful.
SHSAT TUTORING
Stuyvesant HS graduate
available for SHSAT tutoring. $40/hr. Zoom or in-person.
NOTARY PUBLIC IN BPC
$2.00 per notarized signature.
Text Paula @ 917-836-8802
Nurse’s Aide
Caring, experienced Nurse’s Aide seeks PT/FT position.
Excellent references.
ELDERCARE:
Available for PT/FT Exp’d. Refs.
Experienced Elder Care
Able to prepare nutritious meals and light housekeeping.
Excellent references.
HOUSEKEEPING/ NANNY/ BABYSITTER
Available for PT/FT. Wonderful person, who is a great worker. Refs avail.
Worked in BPC. Call Tenzin
347-803-9523
Seeking Full-Time Live-In Elder Care
12 years experience, refs avail.
I am a loving caring hardworking certified home health aide
Marcia 347 737 5037
IT AND SECURITY SUPPORT
Expertise in 1-on-1 tutoring for all ages. Computer upgrading & troubleshooting. Knowledgeable in all software programs.
347-933-1362. Refs available
If you would like to place a listing, please contact
Photograph by Dorothy Lipsky.
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Who Got What: Battery Park City
Federal Loan Program Bails Out Local Small (and Not-So-Small) Businesses
(Editor’s Note: This is the first in an occasional series of stories detailing the impact of federal bailout funds on Lower Manhattan businesses.)
The federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) has disbursed more than $600 billion in roughly 4.9 million loans to business around the nation, in response to the economic slowdown triggered by the pandemic coronavirus. In Battery Park City’s three zip codes, 285 businesses and non-profit organizations received loans totaling more than $10 million, based on the possibility of saving more than 2,900 jobs, according to data recently released by the federal government’s Small Business Administration (SBA).
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Higher, Wider, Handsomer
Finalists Announced in Design Competition to Improve Pedestrian Access to Brooklyn Bridge
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On some weekends, as many as 15,000 pedestrians and 3,600 cyclists compete with each other and souvenir vendors for as little as 10 feet of width on the deck of the Brooklyn Bridge, creating an unpleasant and potentially unsafe bottleneck.
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The City Council and the Van Alen Institute (a New York nonprofit architectural organization, dedicated to improving design in the public realm) have named the shortlist of contenders in a contest that aims incubate fresh ideas for better pedestrian access to the Brooklyn Bridge.
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Lights, Camera, Violation
Local Traffic Monitoring Device is Part of City-Wide Expansion
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A work crew installs a new traffic monitoring device at the corner of West and West Thames Streets.
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Lower Manhattan residents may soon be slightly safer, if lighter in the pocket, thanks to a new traffic monitoring device that has been installed at the corner of West Street and West Thames Street. The camera and radar unit, mounted on a silver pole, combines red light monitoring with speed enforcement for vehicles proceeding south along Route 9A (West Street).
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We are going to start seeing patients on July 6th.
We are starting to make appointments now.
We are answering phones between 12pm and 5pm weekdays
until July 2nd.
1-212-945-6789
Battery Park Vision Associates
101 Battery Pl, New York, NY 10280
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Tribeca Community On Display
All of Us Thank All of You
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Fine artist and long time Downtown resident Adele H. Rahte has spent the stay-at-home period designing and creating these fabric collages representing the people in our community as a special form of thank you to the essential workers of our community and city for keeping us safe.
On display during the month of July at the Tribeca Community Window Gallery located at 160 West Broadway.
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Honorable WilliamWall Is Open for Business
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The Honorable William Wall is open.
Click for more information.
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John A. Roebling, German-American engineer, designed the Brooklyn Bridge
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1209 – Massacre at Béziers: The first major military action of the Albigensian Crusade.
1587 – Roanoke Colony: A second group of English settlers arrives on Roanoke Island off North Carolina to re-establish the deserted colony.
1598 – William Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice, is entered on the Stationers’ Register. By decree of Queen Elizabeth, the Stationers’ Register licensed printed works, giving the Crown tight control over all published material.
1793 – Alexander Mackenzie reaches the Pacific Ocean becoming the first recorded human to complete a transcontinental crossing of North America.
1937 – New Deal: The United States Senate votes down President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court of the United States.
1942 – The US government begins compulsory civilian gasoline rationing due to the wartime demands.
1946 – King David Hotel bombing: A Zionist underground organisation, the Irgun, bombs the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, site of the civil administration and military headquarters for Mandatory Palestine, resulting in 91 deaths.
2003 – Members of 101st Airborne, aided by Special Forces, attack a compound in Iraq, killing Saddam Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay, along with Mustapha Hussein, Qusay’s 14-year-old son, and a bodyguard.
2011 – Norway attacks: First a bomb blast which targeted government buildings in central Oslo, followed by a massacre at a youth camp on the island of Utøya.
Births
1784 – Friedrich Bessel, German mathematician and astronomer (d. 1846)
1849 – Emma Lazarus, American poet and educator (d. 1887)
1882 – Edward Hopper, American painter and etcher (d. 1967)
1940 – Alex Trebek, Canadian-American game show host and producer
1955 – Willem Dafoe, American actor
Deaths
1826 – Giuseppe Piazzi, Italian mathematician and astronomer (b. 1746)
1869 – John A. Roebling, German-American engineer, designed the Brooklyn Bridge (b. 1806)
1967 – Carl Sandburg, American poet and historian (b. 1878)
1969 – Judy Garland, American actress, singer, dancer, and vaudevillian (b. 1922
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395 South End Avenue,
New York, NY 10280
212-912-1106
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No part of this document may be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher © 2020
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