The BroadsheetDAILY ~ 11/4/20 ~ Votes Aren’t All That’s Still Being Counted… Lower Manhattan Contributed Almost $20 Million to Political Campaigns

Votes Aren’t All That’s Still Being Counted…

Lower Manhattan Contributed Almost $20 Million to Political Campaigns

Individuals, businesses, and organizations domiciled in nine zip codes spread across Lower Manhattan contributed $18.7 million to various political campaigns this election cycle, data from the Federal Election Commission shows. A breakdown by zip code follows:

• 10280/Battery Park City South (below Brookfield Place): $415,499 in total contributions; 87 percent for Democratic Party candidates and organizations; 13 percent for Republican Party candidates and organizations

• 10281/Battery Park City (Brookfield Place only): $157,756 in total contributions; 22 percent for Democratic Party candidates and organizations; 78 percent for Republican Party candidates and organizations

• 10282/Battery Park City North (above Brookfield Place): $788,019 in total contributions; 64 percent for Democratic Party candidates and organizations; 36 percent for Republican Party candidates and organizations

• 10007/Southern Tribeca (West Street to Broadway, north of Vesey Street and south of Chambers Street): $2,174,275 in total contributions; 89 percent for Democratic Party candidates and organizations; 11 percent for Republican Party candidates and organizations

• 10013/Northern Tribeca (north of Chambers Street and south of Canal Street):

$9,228,915 in total contributions; 92 percent for Democratic Party candidates and organizations; 8 percent for Republican Party candidates and organizations

• 10006/Greenwich South (Broadway to West Street, south of Vesey Street and north of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel): $648,150 in total contributions; 95 percent for Democratic Party candidates and organizations; 5 percent for Republican Party candidates and organizations

• 10004/Southern FiDi (West Street to the East River, south of Beaver Street):

$1,499,641 in total contributions; 62 percent for Democratic Party candidates and organizations; 38 percent for Republican Party candidates and organizations

• 10005/Eastern FiDi (Broadway to the East River, south of Maiden Lane, north of Beaver Street): $1,349,988 in total contributions; 74 percent for Democratic Party candidates and organizations; 26 percent for Republican Party candidates and organizations

• 10038/the Civic Center and Seaport (Broadway to the East River, north of Maiden Lane and stretching a few blocks beyond the Brooklyn Bridge): $2,474,465 in total contributions; 83 percent for Democratic Party candidates and organizations; 17 percent for Republican Party candidates and organizations

For Lower Manhattan as a whole, 85 percent of contributions (or $15,980,473) went to Democratic Party candidates and organizations, while 15 percent (or $2,756,235) went to Republican Party candidates and organizations.

Matthew Fenton

The Weighing

Share to the Utmost, or Admit That You Have No Business Here at All

Fear not, dear reader. You are in no danger of being asked to peruse a Broadsheet endorsement—a prospect that would amuse many, but persuade few. Instead, we will ask you to consider a contrarian, even heretical question: Why bother voting at all?

Students of history like to showcase their erudition (in this case, really disguised cynicism) with the weary observation that, “voters in the presidential election of 1800 got to choose between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. But these are choices we get?” To read more…

Norman Rockwell (1894-1978), “Freedom of Speech,” 1943. Illustration for “The Saturday Evening Post”, February 20, 1943. From the collection of Norman Rockwell Museum.

Downtown Dowager Gets Her Due

First Lady of Lower Manhattan Recognized, Half a Century On

If you live in Lower Manhattan, and are even remotely fond of the community, you owe a debt of gratitude to the woman who saved it from slum clearance and multiple highway schemes. The late Jane Jacobs (she died in 2006) was recognized last week with a plaque outside her longtime home at 555 Hudson Street, in the West Village. To read more…

Letters

To the editor:

re: Howard Hughes Corporation Proposes Scaled-Back Towers for Seaport Site

The BroadsheetDAILY (10/27/20)

Advocates and residents of the Historic Seaport District have no problem with developing the 250 Water Street parking lot if the development is within the context of the current zoning requirements of 120’.

We further have no problem with affordable housing as long as it is within the current zoning requirements. There are many super tall residential buildings that have and are going up in the FIDI area.

The museum has always been the number one priority of the residents of the seaport area and have proposed a plan to use the sale of the air rights outside the historic district to fund the museum, which, by the way, will give the museum greater financial stability than what HHC is offering.

I find it interesting that supporters of HHC have no interest in finding a better solution to the 250 Water Street development than just build a super tall structure, that is completely out of context with the rest of the Historic District.

Linda Roché

—————————————————————————-

To the editor:

Your recent story about the Howard Hughes (HHC) plan to build two new 47 story towers in the South Street Seaport relied a bit too heavily on the very slanted press release put out by HHC with the assistance of their high paid PR consultants.

Not until the 8th paragraph did you report the key element making these buildings so controversial and inappropriate… that they are proposed to be built within the 10 block South Street Seaport Historic District. Nor did you mention that prior eight or nine proposals to build far smaller buildings in this special district characterized by 4 and 5 story buildings were all denied by the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) because they would “dominate and overwhelm the neighboring buildings in this low scale district by virtue of its size” and “cause an abrupt change in scale within the district which would be disruptive of the district’s homogeneous quality.”

The 12 story height limit agreed to in 2003 which would allow for a building at 250 Water St that would be properly scaled for this historic district, was supported by entities ranging from CB1, local elected officials, the Downtown Alliance, EDC, the City Planning Commission, and the South Street Seaport Museum.

If two 47 story buildings were proposed elsewhere in Lower Manhattan, no one would object just like no one objects to far larger supertowers going up a block or two outside the Seaport Historic District.

You also failed to mention that the Seaport Historic District has a special mechanism that allows for the transfer of unused development rights (aka air rights) to sites outside the Historic District that could easily generate far more affordable housing and funding for the Seaport Museum and for other needed local improvements than the HHC plan. That is a far better plan to assure the future of the Seaport Museum and Historic District.

Paul Goldstein

—————————————————————————-

To the editor:

As we told them three times at three different “stakeholder” meetings, this plan is a “Non-Starter”. The Seaport Coalition has a better plan to save the museum AND the historic district. www.seaportcoalition.com

Michael Kramer

—————————————————————————-

To the editor:

The fate of the museum has always been paramount for CB#1 and our community. 250 Water Street will be developed by this plan or by “as of right”, resulting in a 14-16 story blockhouse on the site.

One way or the other the parking lot will be developed. One way, we weigh in as to what goes there and save the museum for years to come. The other way is a death nell for our museum.

In my many years fighting for our community we stopped many developments and supported some. We have 7 schools with another in the process by allowing development. There is only one South Street Seaport Museum.

Let’s save the lynchpin of our historic district.

Paul Hovitz

—————————————————————————-

To the editor:

Re: Sovereign Impunity

(BroadsheetDAILY October 26)

Children need to go to school where they live.

Adults need to work where they live.

Everything else is about power.

Real estate policies and politics throughout the United States must change.

New York City as a prime example, it does not work.

This country no longer works at all.

Sirje Helder Gold

Eyes to the Sky

November 2 – 15, 2020

Big sky, long night

Night is fast overtaking day. During the course of November, day length will shrink from 10 hours 26 minutes to 9 hours 30 minutes, when there will be only 15 minutes left to lose in December. Earth-centered celebrations of the harvest and fellowship in November quickly lead into preparations for winter solstice holidays, when light is foremost in our cultural festivals.

For our ancestors, oil lamps, candles and open fires lit the darkness. To make light was a triumph. Natural materials, gathered from the wild and farmed, were the hard-earned fuel for creating light. Living by the radiance of the Sun, moon and stars was optimized, both physically and spiritually. To read more…

Happy Parrot

Needs New Home

Contact

The Tale of the Ticker Tape, or How Adversity and Spontaneity Hatched a New York Tradition

What was Planned as a Grand Affair became a Comedy of Errors

New York’s first ticker-tape parade erupted spontaneously from bad weather

and an over-zealous stockbroker.

While the festivities in New York Harbor didn’t go as scripted that afternoon, the spontaneous gesture it generated from the brokerage houses lining Broadway famously lives on more than a century later.

   On October 28, 1886, Liberty Enlightening the World was to be unveiled to New York City and the world as it stood atop its tall base on Bedloe’s Island. But the morning mist had turned to afternoon fog, blurring the view of the statue from revelers on the Manhattan shore and the long parade of three hundred ships on the Hudson River.

   What was planned as a grand affair-with President Grover Cleveland as the main speaker-became a comedy of errors. The fog prevented efficient communication between the dignitaries on the island and the ships awaiting orders to fire their salutes and blast their horns at the given signal.

   Even the dramatic unveiling moment itself went awry. To read more…

John Simko

TODAY IN HISTORY

November 4

Andy Rooney photo: Robert Simko

1333 – Flood of the Arno River, causing massive damage in Florence as recorded by the Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani.

1841 – First wagon train arrives in California

1879 – James Ritty patents first cash register, to combat stealing by bartenders in his Dayton, Ohio saloon

1908 – Brooklyn Academy of Music, opens in NYC

1922 – Howard Carter discovers tomb of Tutankhamen in Egypt

1939 – First air-conditioned automobile, the Packard exhibited in Chicago, Ill.

1966 – Flooding of Arno River destroys countless art works, kills 113

1970 – Russian nuclear physicist Sacharov forms Human Rights Committee

1979 – 63 Americans taken hostage at US Embassy in Teheran, Iran

1980 – Ronald Reagan defeats President Jimmy Carter by a landslide

2003 – The most powerful solar flare as observed by satellite instrumentation is recorded

2008 – Barack Obama becomes the first African-American to be elected President of the United States

Births

1649 – Samuel Carpenter, Deputy Governor of colonial Pennsylvania (d. 1714)

1879 – Will Rogers, American actor and screenwriter (d. 1935)

1912 – Vadim Salmanov, Russian pianist and composer (d. 1978)

1916 – Walter Cronkite, American journalist, voice actor, and producer (d. 2009)

1918 – Art Carney, American actor (d. 2003)

1946 – Laura Bush, American educator and librarian, 45th FLOTUS

1946 – Robert Mapplethorpe, American photographer (d. 1989)

Deaths

1428 – Sophia of Bavaria, Queen of Bohemia (b. 1376)

1847 – Felix Mendelssohn, German pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1809)

1847 – Thiệu Trị, Vietnamese emperor (b. 1807)

1856 – Paul Delaroche, French painter and educator (b. 1797)

1955 – Cy Young, American baseball player and manager (b. 1867)

1995 – Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli general and politician, 5th Prime Minister of Israel, Nobel Peace Prize laureate (b. 1922)

2011 – Andy Rooney, author, critic, journalist, and TV personality (b. 1919)

Not-So-Super Tall

Howard Hughes Corporation Proposes Scaled-Back Towers for Seaport Site, Along with Package of Amenities

The Howard Hughes Corporation (HHC) has unveiled its plans for 250 Water Street (a 1.1-acre parking lot in the Seaport District), including high-rise towers, more than 100 units of affordable housing, and a plan to build a new headquarters for the South Street Seaport Museum. This announcement has inspired both enthusiastic support and fierce criticism.

The full-block site, bounded by Beekman, Pearl, and Water Streets, as well as Peck Slip, has been the focus of debate and speculation ever since HHC purchased it from the Milstein family of real estate developers, for $180 million in 2018. Planning for the parcel was complicated the following year, when HHC disclosed after purchasing the site that environmental tests indicated contamination with mercury, lead, and other toxins—remnants from its historical use as the location for a thermometer factory in the 1800s. This led to the parcel becoming part of the State’s Brownfield Cleanup Program. The cleanup’s primary investigation phase wrapped up in early September.

Validating the Vision

CB1 Offers Qualified Endorsement to Plans for Brooklyn Bridge Revamp

The August designation of two winners in the Reimagining Brooklyn Bridge design competition has spurred Community Board 1 (CB1) to weigh in about the pragmatic implications of the vision contained in the proposals.

The competition, sponsored by the City Council and the Van Alen Institute (a New York nonprofit architectural organization, dedicated to improving design in the public realm) was announced in February. The contest was sparked by the fact that, after 13 decades, the Brooklyn Bridge is in need of some surgical enhancement.

Today’s Downtown Calendar

Wednesday November 4

6PM

Battery Park City Committee

Live Remote Meetings – https://live.mcb1.nyc

AGENDA

1) BPCA Report – Nicholas Sbordone, Vice President of Communications & Public Affairs, Battery Park City Authority

2) Senior Life in Battery Park City During the Pandemic – Discussion with Maryanne Braverman, Battery Park City Seniors

3) BPC Security Update – Patrick Murphy, Director of Security, Allied Universal

4) Gateway Plaza Tenant Association Class Action Settlement – Update & Discussion

5) State of 421(a) and 421(g) Affordability in Battery Park City – Discussion

————————————————————————

Thursday 11/5

6PM

Transportation & Street Activity Permits Committee

Live Remote Meetings – https://live.mcb1.nyc

AGENDA

1) Warren Street Commercial Cargo Bike Corral – Possible Resolution

2) Citibike Infill – Presentation by Jennifer Leung, Community Liaison, Manhattan Borough Office, NYC Department of Transportation

3) Edgar Street-Trinity School Update- Jennifer Leung, Community Liaison, Manhattan Borough Office, NYC Department of Transportation*

4) Access-A-Ride – Follow-up Discussion and Possible Resolution

5) Revel Mopeds – (Postponed until December)

6) Street Use Priorities – Discussion

CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS

Swaps & Trades, Respectable Employment, Lost and Found

To place a listing, contact editor@ebroadsheet.com

Contract One, Station One

The Jewel in

the Crown

Just below the surface of City Hall Park sits one of New York’s architectural gems. Built during the City Beautiful movement, its design sought to uplift the spirits of New Yorkers on their daily commute.

City Hall Loop station—Contract One, Station One—was the flagship of New York’s first subway and the focus of the international press on October 27, 1904, when Mayor George McClellan connected the Tiffany-designed motorman’s handle to propel the first train north to its endpoint on 145th Street and Broadway.

The design of the other twenty-seven stations it stopped at that afternoon was dictated by the practical needs of subway efficiency—the architect’s only role was to choose the tile work that would cover the structural columns and walls. But the station below City Hall Park is different. Here, design and structure are one in the same.

John Simko

City Hall subway station, was designed to be the showpiece of the new subway system with its elegant platform and mezzanine featured Guastavino tile, skylights, colored glass tilework and brass chandeliers.

The Broadsheet Inc. eBroadsheet.com editor @ ebroadsheet.com ©2020 All Rights Reserved

No part of this document may be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher © 2020