The BroadsheetDAILY – 1/18/22 – City Hall Finalizes Seaport Resiliency Plan Days Before Administrations Change

The Broadsheet: Lower Manhattan’s Local Newspaper

Weir Waiting

City Hall Finalizes Seaport Resiliency Plan Days Before Administrations Change

An aerial view (looking south from a point near the Brooklyn Bridge) illustrates the interlocking network of “passive” flood protection measures that City planners hope to build into a new East River waterfront in Lower Manhattan.

In one of its last acts in office, the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio released the finalized version of its Financial District and Seaport Climate Resilience Master Plan, which aims to protect the nearly mile-long stretch of East River waterfront between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Staten Island Ferry Terminal.

Projected to cost between $5 and $7 billion, and to take a minimum of 15 years to construct, the plan focuses on “passive” flood defense, which translates into refashioning the landscape and elevating the riverbank, thus creating a physical barrier that will stop flood waters. The documents released by City Hall in December envision building a network of decks, berms, and breakwaters that will extend into the East River between 90 and 200 feet. The outermost edge of this complex would rise to an elevation between three and five feet above the waterline, while its landward side would reach as high as 15 feet.

This rendering shows what a new inlet (provisionally called “Pine Street Cove”) would look like, incorporating landscape features engineered to hold back both rising sea levels and storm surges.

Such permanent (rather than temporary or deployable) measures are deemed necessary because Lower Manhattan is expected to face regular flooding in the years to come, and it is impractical to raise and lower floodgates, for example, on a daily basis. Current projections call for the East River to overtop its banks routinely in the 2040s, with such floods becoming a monthly event in the 2050s, and a daily occurrence in the 2080s. By the turn of the next century, daily high tides are expected to penetrate up to three blocks inland (to Pearl Street), with severe storms bringing as much as 15 feet of water as far as William Street (five blocks from the shoreline).

This plan took nearly a decade to develop, with its first iteration being pushed by then-Mayor Bloomberg in 2013, who advocated creating a mirror image of Battery Park City on East River. That proposal lay dormant until 2019, when Mr. de Blasio revived it. In the intervening two years, it evolved into a resiliency-only project, stripped of the landfill and development features that were a prominent part of the original version.

Even this halting progress, however, may come to seem like a streamlined process compared with what comes next. First will be a complicated series of overlapping environmental reviews, involving not only City regulators, but also officials in Albany and Washington. That process is slated to move ahead in tandem with more detailed design and engineering studies. But all of these assume that billions of dollars in budget allocations will be forthcoming from every level of government. As the City’s summary notes, “no one funding source will cover the entire cost; therefore, a variety of local, state, and federal sources—both existing and new—will need to be considered.”

Matthew Fenton

Sending Love to Janet Lovell

Last summer, Janet Lovell—“Ms. Janet” to her many young charges—retired after 35 years at the Battery Park City Day Nursery. As she stood outside the nursery school on her last day, kids of all ages and their parents came by to reminisce and wish her well. As planned, Janet soon retired to her native Belize.

In October, her sister Denise visited Janet and her husband in Belize. On their way to a resort to celebrate, they were in a car accident. Denise was killed and Janet sustained a devastating spinal cord injury.

Ms. Janet is back in New York for surgery and to recover. If you would like to send good wishes to this wonderful woman who has meant so much to many of our children, the nursery school will collect notes, cards, letters and artwork and forward them to her. Please mail (or drop off) your messages to Janet Lovell c/o the Battery Park City Day Nursery, 215 South End Ave, New York, NY 10280, and administrative director Judy Sklover will forward them to her. If you have any questions, please email the nursery at info@bpcdaynursery.com and address your messages to Judy Sklover.

Beside the Pointe

At 41 River Terrace, Affordability Provisions Extended for Low-Income Residents But Not for Middle-Income Renters

The Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) announced Tuesday that it had reached an agreement to preserve 70 affordable rental apartments in the Tribeca Pointe building through the year 2069. The deal will require that the building owner, Rockrose, continue to offer deeply discounted rents to residents of 70 apartments within the 340-unit structure. These households are set aside for residents earning below either 40 or 50 percent of the “area median income” (AMI). This income bracket currently ranges from $33,440 to $41,800 (for a household consisting of one person), and goes as high as $47,720 to $59,650 (for a household of four).

When Tribeca Pointe opened in 1999, these requirements translated into $343 or $429 per month in a studio (for those earning up to 40 or 50 percent of AMI, respectively), $368 or $459 for a one-bedroom apartment, and $441 or $451 for a two-bedroom unit. Today, the same formulas (which cap rent at 30 percent of the two income thresholds) restrict rent on a studio apartment, inhabited by one person, to $836 (for a tenant earning below 40 percent of AMI) or $1045 (for a renter earning below 50 percent of AMI).

Letters

To the editor:

Below is a quote from today’s Broadsheet. So, the subsidy for tenants in total was $228,000,000 ($380,000 x 600 units). LeFrak gave $8,000,000 more than they got. But did they, really?

The 600 units were those whose tenants had lived there the longest. These are the people who are the oldest and who will be leaving this earth sooner than later and who might die earlier than average due to WTC exposure. When the original tenant leaves, does the apartment revert to market level rates? If so, LeFrak played the odds that they will do better in the long term, and the odds are greatly in their favor! Only if these units remain below-market is this deal a success for affordable housing.

“In July, 2020, the Authority agreed to revise the ground lease for Gateway Plaza, Battery Park City’s oldest and largest residential complex, to extend a rent protection agreement for approximately 600 households. In exchange for terms that require these tenants to pay more during the coming ten years (but save them from unrestricted market rents), the LeFrak Organization (the owner of Gateway Plaza) received reductions in future ground rent increases worth more than $220 million dollars. This translates into a subsidy of more than $380,000 for each of the 600 households that benefited from this deal. Such a windfall, if given directly to tenants, rather than to their landlord, would have enabled every household in Gateway Plaza to live rent-free for almost five years, or could have paid the entire rent of those 600 households for decades into the future.”

Thank you,

Maryanne Braverman

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To the editor:

All Gateway Plaza residents in units subject to the July 2020 agreement will have rent-protection through June 30, 2030. The protection is tied to the tenant, not the unit. Units in Gateway Plaza began going to market-rate rents whenever tenants vacated their units after 2009, as per the agreement established at that time. Faced with the certainty of all units going to market rate once the 2009 deal expired, what the Battery Park City Authority achieved with the most recent extension was to continue rent protections for hundreds of longtime Battery Park City residents for another decade. As part of that agreement Gateway Plaza will also be increasing its ground rent payments to BPCA over the next two decades.

From Gateway Plaza to Tribeca Pointe and beyond, we’re continuing our efforts to preserve affordable apartments and address concerns about housing costs for Battery Park City residents.

Nick Sbordone

BPCA

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To the editor:

In response to BroadsheetDAILY January 12 article about 41 River Terrace:

The extension of affordability provisions at 41 River Terrace (as reported in the Broadsheet’s informative recent article) is undoubtedly good news for at least some of the tenants in that building, who will be able to remain in their apartments.

However, there are thousands of other BPC residents who have been displaced from our amazing neighborhood over the past few years, as the tax breaks and accompanying Rent Stabilization protections have expired in various buildings in the community—for example, at 70 Battery Place (Riverwatch). Tenants have seen rent renewals at much higher rates than the typical Rent Stabilized increase of 2-4%—and many did not receive a renewal lease at all, erasing another critical protection of Rent Stabilization, particularly during these times when housing inventory (everywhere) is in short supply.

Many longtime residents have been unable to afford these increases, and are being effectively forced-out of the community they have called home for many years. Unless BPCA and others can provide an incentive for landlords to do business differently, this displacement in BPC will continue, until only the 1% remain.

A BPC neighbor

De Gustibus

Annual Food Fest Puts Lavish Meals within Reach of Thrifty Epicures

New York’s annual food celebration, Restaurant Week, starts today, Tuesday, and continues for five weeks, until Saturday (February 13).

For those disinclined to venture above Canal Street, the goods news is that of all the 481 establishments participating throughout the City this year, more than five percent are located in Lower Manhattan.

This Week’s Calendar

TUESDAY JANUARY 18

5PM

Museum of Jewish Heritage

Screening and Discussion. For decades, the Chinese Communist Party has sought to forcibly assimilate the Uyghur Muslim community in Xinjiang (East Turkistan), an autonomous territory in northwest China. The CCP’s campaign has involved forced sterilization, sexual violence, enslavement, torture, and the establishment of vast concentration camps that call to mind Nazi camps a generation earlier. Join the Museum for a program exploring the modern-day genocide occurring in northwest China shortly before China is set to host the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

The program will feature an exclusive, private screening of In Search of My Sister (2021, 80 minutes, English), a new film that tells the story of American Uyghur activist Rushan Abbas. Following the film, the program will feature a panel discussion with Rushan Abbas; Jawad Mir, the film’s director; and Ruth Messinger, Global Ambassador and former President of American Jewish World Service. Free; suggested $10 donation

6PM

Skyscraper Museum

The Skyscraper Museum returns to its WORLD VIEW lecture series with a coda on the construction of the Merdeka 118 Tower in Kuala Lumpur. In December 2021, Merdeka 118 lifted its symbolic spire into place and topped out at its full height of 2,227 ft. or 679 meters to surpass the 632-meter Shanghai Tower and become the second-tallest building in the world. Ahmad Abdelrazaq, who led the Samsung C & T team as the tower’s contractor, will present an overview of the structural engineering, planning, and construction innovations of the supertall and the key challenges in its design and construction. He will describe the structural system optimization; the construction planning and sequencing; the application and delivery of high-performance concrete; and the application of real-time structural health monitoring, among other issues. Free

6PM CANCELLED

Community Board 1 Waterfront, Parks & Cultural Committee

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 19

11AM

Museum of Jewish Heritage

Virtual walking tour of the Mellah, the Jewish Quarter of Marrakesh, Morocco. The Mellah was offered by the Sultan of Morocco to Jews fleeing Spain in 1558. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the walled Mellah was one of the city’s main commercial hubs, with its gates closed at night. Our tour guide, Omar, will lead us as we explore the neighborhood’s alleyways and discover wooden doors still embellished with six-pointed Jewish stars and menorahs in wrought metal. We’ll visit the Miaara Jewish cemetery, which is one of the largest in Morocco; the Badii Palace, built adjacent to the Mellah; and the Slat Al Azama Synagogue, which still functions as a house of worship for the Jews of Marrakesh $36

12NOON

Museum of American Financial History

Wednesday Webinar. Eight-part series on retirement planning. These programs are designed to introduce you to the many possible sources of retirement income and resources, including social security, medicare, pension options including 401(k)s, individual retirement accounts and annuities, as well as the complex issues faced when planning for loved ones with wills and/or trusts. Today: The Importance of Retirement Planning. Gerri Walsh reviews the importance of compound interest and the many tax-deferred opportunities that help individuals plan for a comfortable and stress-free retirement. Free

6PM

Community Board 1 Quality of Life & Service Delivery Committee

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

1. Agenda to be determined

THURSDAY JANUARY 20

9AM

Brookfield Place

DAYBREAKER is a morning dance movement and wellness community of 500K+ members in 28 cities around the world that inspires humans to start their day unlike any other — by waking up and dancing with reckless abandon, sober, first thing in the morning. DAYBREAKER began as a social experiment, meeting at the crossroads of wellness and nightlife, centered around creating a community that inspires connection, belonging and self expression on a judgement-free, intergenerational, mischief-packed dance floor. Free

2PM

Museum of Jewish Heritage

In 1936, the German-American Bund, a pro-Nazi group, was formed in the United States to advocate for policies beneficial to Germany. The Bund was very active throughout the latter half of the 1930s, organizing rallies and marches, including a rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939. One of the Bund’s most notable activities was running summer camps across the nation that were similar to Hitler Youth Camps. Camp Siegfried was located in Yaphank, New York and attracted numerous visitors. The camp even had its own train on the Long Island Railroad, the “Siegfried Special.” Join the Museum for a program exploring Camp Siegfried and Nazis in the United States. The program will feature a panel discussion between Bess Wohl, playwright of Camp Siegfried; Bradley W. Hart, author of Hitler’s American Friends: The Third Reich’s Supporters in the United States; and Arnie Bernstein, author of Swastika Nation: Fritz Kuhn & the Rise and Fall of the German-American Bund. The conversation will be moderated by Randi F. Marshall, Editorial Writer at Newsday. Free; suggested $10 donation.

6PM

Community Board 1 Executive Committee

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

AGENDA

1. Committee Highlights

FRIDAY JANUARY 21

6-9PM

Silent Disco Dance Party

Light up your best “après-ski” look and strut your stuff at our cold weather family-friendly silent dance party. Three live DJs from QuietEvents will illuminate the night as they pump beats through illuminated headphones to get you moving. Headphones are free, ID required, RSVP highly recommended. Free. Battery Park City Authority

CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS

Swaps & Trades, Respectable Employment, Lost and Found

To place a listing, contact editor@ebroadsheet.com

What Never Went Up in the First Place, Still Comes Down…

Lower Manhattan Site Purchased for $390 Million Being Shopped for Half-Off

In a story first reported by the Real Deal, the financial distress plaguing property investment firm China Oceanwide Holdings (itself part of the wider contagion surrounding Shenzhen-based real estate firm, Evergrande) has led to a fire-sale price for a trophy Lower Manhattan parcel.

The company purchased 80 South Street (located between John Street and Maiden Lane) from the Howard Hughes Corporation in 2016 for $390 million. This transaction included a companion site, at 163 Front Street, that shares a mid-block border with 80 South Street. The combined parcel, plus air rights from nearby lots purchased and assembled by Howard Hughes, gave China Oceanwide the right to build a tower with a height of more than 1,400 feet, enclosing more than one million square feet of interior space. To read more…

A New Aerie at the Former Home of Area

A Onetime Haunt of Ponies, Plutocrats, and Club Rats Will Get a Room with a View

Tribeca will soon have a new (albeit invisible) penthouse apartment, if the City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission is guided by the advice of Community Board 1. At its November meeting, the Board recommended that the LPC give its okay to a proposal to add a rooftop structure to 157 Hudson Street, located between Laight and Hubert Streets, opposite the Holland Tunnel rotary.

The T-shaped building has a storied history. Erected in 1867, it was originally designed to serve as a multi-story stable for the hundreds of draft horses kept at the ready by the newly founded American Express Company. This was an era when the firm was primarily engaged in the secure shipment of valuable cargo, almost a century before the invention of credit cards. To read more…

Lower Manhattan Greenmarkets

Tribeca Greenmarket

Greenwich Street & Chambers Street

Every Wednesday & Saturday, 8am-3pm

Food Scrap Collection: Saturdays, 8am-1pm

Open Saturdays and Wednesdays year round

Bowling Green Greenmarket

Green Greenmarket at Bowling Green

Broadway & Whitehall St

Open Tuesday and Thursdays, year-round

Market Hours: 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Compost Program: 8 a.m. – 11 a.m.

The Bowling Green Greenmarket brings fresh offerings from local farms to Lower Manhattan’s historic Bowling Green plaza. Twice a week year-round stop by to load up on the season’s freshest fruit, crisp vegetables, beautiful plants, and freshly baked loaves of bread, quiches, and pot pies.

Greenmarket at the Oculus

Oculus Plaza, Fulton St and Church St

CLOSED FOR THE SEASON

The Outdoor Fulton Stall Market

91 South St., bet. Fulton & John Sts.

212-349-1380 info@fultonstallmarket.org

Fulton Street cobblestones between South and Front Sts. across from McNally Jackson Bookstore.

Locally grown produce from Rogowski Farm, Breezy Hill Orchard, and other farmers and small-batch specialty food products, sold directly by their producers. Producers vary from week to week.

SNAP/EBT/P-EBT, Debit/Credit, and Farmers Market Nutrition Program checks accepted at all farmers markets.

TODAY IN HISTORY

January 18

Seth Low, the 92nd Mayor of New York City

474 – Seven-year-old Leo II succeeds his maternal grandfather Leo I as Byzantine emperor. He dies ten months later.

1591 – King Naresuan of Siam kills Crown Prince Mingyi Swa of Burma in single combat, for which this date is now observed as Royal Thai Armed Forces day.

1778 – James Cook is the first known European to discover the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the “Sandwich Islands”.

1788 – The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from Great Britain to Australia arrive at Botany Bay.

1911 – Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania anchored in San Francisco Bay, the first time an aircraft landed on a ship.

1967 – Albert DeSalvo, the “Boston Strangler”, is convicted of numerous crimes and is sentenced to life imprisonment.

1977 – Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires’ disease.

1981 – Phil Smith and Phil Mayfield parachute off a Houston skyscraper,becoming the first two people to BASE jump from objects in all four categories: buildings, antennae, spans (bridges), and earth (cliffs).

1990 – Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry is arrested for drug possession in an FBI sting.

2005 – The Airbus A380, the world’s largest commercial jet, is unveiled at a ceremony in Toulouse, France

Births

1779 – Peter Mark Roget, English physician, lexicographer, and theologian (d. 1869)

1782 – Daniel Webster, American lawyer and politician, 14th United States Secretary of State (d. 1852)

1850 – Seth Low, American academic and politician, 92nd Mayor of New York City (d. 1916)

1950 – Gilles Villeneuve, Canadian race car driver (d. 1982)

Deaths

474 – Leo I, Byzantine emperor (b. 401)

1253 – King Henry I of Cyprus (b. 1217)

1367 – Peter I of Portugal (b. 1320)

1936 – Rudyard Kipling, English author and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1865)

1940 – Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, Polish author, poet, and playwright (b. 1865)

1980 – Cecil Beaton, English fashion designer and photographer (b. 1904)

2011 – Sargent Shriver, American politician and diplomat, 21st United States Ambassador to France (b. 1915)

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