The BroadsheetDAILY ~ Lower Manhattan’s Local Newspaper ~ 7/22/21 ~ Construction Milestones and Hiring Mark Progress Toward Planned Arts Venue at World Trade Center

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Construction Milestones and Hiring Mark Progress Toward Planned Arts Venue at World Trade Center

Above: The Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center, at the World Trade Center under construction. Below: As it will appear by day.

Lower Manhattan is two steps closer to the 2023 debut of its next great amenity. The Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center, at the World Trade Center, topped off the 138-foot structure in June, and the organization has hired a Director of Civic Alliances, who will cultivate relationships with community-based organizations, public housing residents, community boards, immigrant groups, cultural institutions and elected officials.

In a related development (first reported by the online real estate journal, YIMBY) a slew of new renderings of the 129,000-square-foot facility, containing three flexible theater spaces (plus a rehearsal studio that doubles as a fourth venue) that can be combined to provide multiple seating configurations for up to 1,200 people, has been released.

These images highlight the grand staircase that will open onto the World Trade Center Memorial, as well as the visually stunning facade that will consist of a translucent marble cube — appearing as a windowless, white geometric solid by day, transformed at night into a glowing alabaster hexahedron, suspended above the World Trade Center Plaza. This effect will be achieved with the use of white marble, shaved so thin that light from the outside will penetrate the building’s facade during the day, while light from the inside will radiate outward through the structure’s skin during the evening, giving it a milky iridescence. Joshus Ramus, the principal architect at Brooklyn-based REX (the firm designing the Performing Arts Center), hopes to harvest this marble in Portugal and fabricate in France and Germany.

Above: A rendering of the same structure at night, when interior light will suffuse through the translucent marble walls. Below: A rooftop terrace cafe is among the amenities planned for the Performing Arts Center.

Within these walls, the multiple performance spaces will be separated by moveable, acoustic guillotine walls that allow for eleven different arrangements of space, and will host original, multidisciplinary performances in theater, dance, music, and film, as well as chamber music and new opera from emerging and renowned artists.

In a separate development, the Performing Arts Center announced on July 6 the appointment of Jenna Chrisphonte as Director of Civic Alliances. Born in Haiti and educated in New York City’s public schools, Ms. Chrisphonte is a government affairs and public policy professional who most recently served as the director of community engagement at the Dramatists Guild of America. She will be responsible for inviting civic and community organizations from all five boroughs of New York City to attend and contribute to collaborative projects produced by the Performing Arts Center.

Ms. Chrisphonte, who joins a team that includes Artistic Director Bill Rauch and Barbra Streisand (chair of the Perelman Center’s board of directors), noted that, “helping New York foster new relationships and opportunities to come together in peace and art is a privilege that I am excited to share with everyone.”

These turning points come on the heels of other recent milestones. In 2018, the Performing Arts Center signed a lease with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (which owns the World Trade Center complex), authorizing the facility to remain there for 99 years, at a nominal rent of one dollar per year. (The same lease contains provisions for an optional extension of an additional 99 years, as well as the option for the Performing Arts Center to purchase the space it occupies, also for one dollar.) Around the same time, Performing Arts Center officials announced that they had raised more than 80 percent of the building’s estimated construction budget of $360 million.

Matthew Fenton

Lower Manhattan’s Guardian Angel Gets His Wings

West Thames Pedestrian Bridge Dedicated in Honor of Downtown’s Civic Champion, at Urging of Battery Park City’s Founder

A years-long campaign by Charles J. Urstadt, the founder of Battery Park City, to name the new pedestrian bridge recently constructed over West Street in the memory of Downtown leader Robert Douglass, came to a successful conclusion on June 11, when the structure was officially dedicated.

At the ceremony, Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) president B.J. Jones remarked, “we’re here today to name this magnificent bridge in honor of Robert R. Douglass, who for more than three decades was a champion of Lower Manhattan. To read more…

Homage to a Hero

Landmarks Agency Confers Protection on Chinatown Monument

The City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) has granted legally protected status on the Kimlau War Memorial, a granite ceremonial arch located in Chinatown, at the convergence of Chatham Square, Oliver Street, and East Broadway. This designation, made official at the LPC’s June 22 meeting, marks New York’s first individual landmark to commemorate the role of Chinese-Americans in the City’s history.

The arch, which is designed to serve as a gateway to Chinatown, is named for Benjamin Ralph Kimlau, who grew up in Lower Manhattan and graduated from what is now known as the U.S. Army War College in 1937. He signed up for pilot training after the United States entered World War Two four years later.

Lower Manhattan Greenmarkets are open

Tribeca Greenmarket

Greenwich St & Chambers St

Every Wednesday & Saturday, 8am-3pm

Food Scrap Collection: Saturdays, 8am-1pm

Bowling Green Greenmarket

Broadway & Whitehall St

Every Tuesday & Thursday, 8am-5pm

Food Scrap Collection: Tuesdays only, 8am-11am

The Greenmarket at Oculus Plaza, City Hall Greenmarket,

and Staten Island Ferry Greenmarket are temporarily closed.

CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS

Swaps & Trades, Respectable Employment, Lost and Found

To place a listing, contact editor@ebroadsheet.com

Don’t Pay the Ferryman

Lower Manhattan residents once again have access to the ever-popular weekend summer ferry to Red Hook.

Provided by NY Waterway, the free service is nominally about providing access to Ikea, but also offers the bonus of a slew of waterfront restaurants and parks within walking distance of the furniture store.

The service departs from two Downtown locations (Pier 11/Wall Street and the Battery Park City ferry terminal) starting at 11:00 am.

For more information, please browse: www.NYWaterway.com.

Today’s Calendar

Thursday July 22

4:30PM

Museum of Jewish Heritage

Flamboyant and full of life, Jewish prisoner Helena Citron found herself the subject of an unlikely affection at Auschwitz: Franz Wunsch, a high-ranking SS officer who fell in love with Helena and her magnetic singing voice. Their forbidden relationship lasted until her miraculous liberation. Thirty years later, a letter arrived from Wunsch’s wife begging Helena to testify on Wunsch’s behalf in an Austrian court. She was faced with an impossible decision: should she help the man who brutalized so many lives, but saved hers, along with some of the people closest to her? Follow her journey in Love It Was Not (86 minutes, Hebrew with English subtitles), an award-winning new documentary from Israeli director Maya Sarfaty and Austrian-Israeli producing team Nir Sa’ar and Kurt Langbein. $10

6PM

Wagner Park

Grammy Award™ winning South Carolina-based quintet celebrates Gullah culture from the southeastern Sea Islands, blending West African rhythms with jazz, gospel, and funk. Free Battery Park City Authority

Cry Me a River

The Battery Park City Authority’s highly regarded summer music festival, River & Blues, which has presented blues, folk, and roots music in Wagner Park for 20 years is returning with the Grammy Award-winning South Carolina-based quintet, Ranky Tanky (July 22), and Rev Sekou and the Freedom Fighters (July 29), who will perform their Delta Blues-infused anthems for social justice.

Each Thursday evening show begins at 6:00 pm, with DJ Susan Z. Anthony spinning an eclectic mix that sets the stage for the performance that follows. Admission is free.

The Battery Park City Authority asks that the public not interact with or feed the urban wildlife in the neighborhood’s parks and green spaces, and at the waterfront.

Hostile to Hostels

CB1 Endorses Plan to Limit Hotel Development

Community Board 1 (CB1) is getting behind a proposal by the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio to limit future hotel development. Although this proposal, if adopted, would affect communities throughout the five boroughs, it would have a particularly strong impact in Lower Manhattan, where hotel development has been rampant in recent years.

From 2007 to 2020, the City as a whole added more than 54,000 new hotel rooms — an increase 73 percent increase over the previously existing inventory. A disproportionate share of this growth took place in the square mile below Chambers Street.

9/11 Victim Compensation Fund Report

More Survivors than Responders Now are Submitting Claims

The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (VCF) has released its annual report for 2020, which documents some significant developments.

Over the course of its ten years of operation thus far, the VCF has awarded $7.76 billion to more than 34,400 individuals who have suffered death or personal injury as a result of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath. The vast majority of these injuries take the form of illness caused by exposure to toxic materials that were released by the destruction of the World Trade Center.

Tribeca Sailing offers two-hour private sailing charters of the Harbor, setting sail five times each day, seven days a week. Captain David Caporale, the owner and captain of Tribeca Sailing and a Lower Manhattan resident, also offers private sailing charters for a maximum of six passengers, for those having a staycation, or celebrating birthdays, anniversaries and other special occasions. His sailboat, Tara, is a 1964 custom Hinckley Pilot 35. Hinckleys are noted as a Rolls Royce of sailboats, based on their solid construction, the artistry of the wood trim, and other design features. For more information or to book a sail, contact David Caporale 917-593-2281 or David@Tribecasailing.com

TODAY IN HISTORY

July 22

John A. Roebling, German-American engineer, designed the Brooklyn Bridge (1806-1869 )

1099 – First Crusade: Godfrey of Bouillon is elected the first Defender of the Holy Sepulchre of The Kingdom of Jerusalem.

1342 – St. Mary Magdalene’s flood is the worst such event on record for central Europe.

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.

1686 – Albany, New York is formally chartered as a municipality by Governor Thomas Dongan.

1706 – The Acts of Union 1707 are agreed upon by commissioners from the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland, which, when passed by each countries’ Parliaments, led to the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1893 – Katharine Lee Bates writes “America the Beautiful” after admiring the view from the top of Pikes Peak near Colorado Springs, Colorado.

1894 – The first ever motor race is held in France between the cities of Paris and Rouen. The fastest finisher was the Comte Jules-Albert de Dion, but the ‘official’ victory was awarded to Albert Lemaоtre driving his three-horsepower petrol engined Peugeot.

1933 – Aviator Wiley Post returns to Floyd Bennett Field in New York City, completing the first solo flight around the world in seven days, 18 hours and 49 minutes.

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 of the United States, 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.

2005 – Jean Charles de Menezes is killed by police as the hunt begins for the London Bombers responsible for the 7 July 2005 London bombings and the 21 July 2005 London bombings.

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 Utшya.

1894 – The first ever motor race is held in France between the cities of Paris and Rouen. The fastest finisher was the Comte Jules-Albert de Dion, but the ‘official’ victory was awarded to Albert Lemaоtre driving his three-horsepower petrol engined Peugeot.

Births

1755 – Gaspard de Prony, French mathematician and engineer (d. 1839)

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 (d. 2020)

Deaths

1376 – Simon Langham, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1310)

1726 – Hugh Drysdale, English-American politician, Colonial Governor of Virginia

1832 – Napoleon II, French emperor (b. 1811)

1869 – John A. Roebling, German-American engineer, designed the Brooklyn Bridge (b. 1806)

courtesy historyorb.com, Wikipedia and NYTimes.com and other internet sources

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