The BroadsheetDAILY ~ 1/22/21 ~ HRPT President Madelyn Wils, Who Oversaw Build-Out of Waterfront Park to Step Down

Doyenne of the Estuary Departs

HRPT President Who Oversaw Build-Out of Waterfront Park to Step Down

Above: Music lovers relax at Pier 45 in Hudson River Park, as Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra musicians perform. Below: Outgoing Hudson River Park Trust president Madelyn Wils.

Madelyn Wils, president and chief executive officer of the Hudson River Park Trust (HRPT) for the past decade, will step down February 5. In a January 19 letter to the Trust’s board of directors, she noted, “we are well on our way towards accomplishing our shared goals of completing the Park’s construction while ensuring it is also on solid financial footing.” She also cited a broad range of achievements in the ongoing build-out of the Park, including the September opening of Pier 26, in Tribeca, the beginning of reconstruction of Pier 40 (near Houston Street), progress on the development of Little Island and a plan for the Gansevoort Peninsula (both near West 14th Street).

Ms. Wils additionally pointed with pride to putting HPRT, “on solid financial footing,” largely through the sale of unused air rights (from several of the piers located within the Park) to developers of adjacent properties along West Street.

“I am immeasurably proud of the work we have done together to make Hudson River Park one of the most beloved assets in New York. I believe with all my heart that together, we have made Hudson River Park into one of the highest quality Park landscapes and Park experiences not only in New York State, but in the world,” she wrote.

Before joining HRPT in June, 2011, Ms. Wils worked as a senior executive for the City’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC), where she oversaw numerous waterfront redevelopment projects, the East River Esplanade, Coney Island, and Willets Point (in Queens).

Prior to joining EDC, she was the president of the Tribeca Film Institute, where she shepherded that organization from its beginnings as a ten-day annual festival into a year-round roster of cultural programming. From 2001 to 2005, she served as chair of Community Board 1 (CB1), from which post she was the Lower Manhattan community’s de facto voice as the rebuilding process began after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

A Tribeca resident for decades, Ms. Wils was also one of the early advocates for turning a four-mile stretch of fenced-off waterfront and decrepit, abandoned piers into a new linear park. “It has been my profound privilege to work with the public on this beloved Park in my own backyard,” she wrote in her letter of resignation.

Matthew Fenton

Letter

To the editor,

Thanks so much for your coverage of a very important issue regarding bird collisions in BPC.

It is of much concern to me especially since this past fall alone there were so many collisions at Brookfield Place. In one week alone I picked up 6 injured birds within a 5 day period and several did not survive (see photo of warbler – found at the overpass on Liberty and South End Ave.).

I hope that the management at Brookfield Place will make a concerted effort to mitigate this issue so that we don’t see this happening in the future. Spring will be here very soon and the birds will be passing through on their Northbound trek. Time is of the essence. I appeal to Brookfield Place to do the right thing.

Thank you.

Esther Regelson

For the Birds

New Law Aims to Play Fair with Fowl

The New York City Council recently enacted new legislation that will protect birds, who are killed by the thousands each year in collisions with the reflective glass on the facades of skyscrapers, including those in Battery Park City.

“There may be as many as one billion birds killed by window and glass collisions every single year in the United States,” explains Battery Park City resident Michelle Ashkin, who is licensed by New York State as a Wildlife Rehabilitator, and also serves as the co-director of education for the Wild Bird Fund. “In New York City alone, we estimate that there are anywhere between 90,000 to 230,000 bird collisions every year, so this legislation is a major step in the right direction, especially since there are so many bird-safe glass options.”

National Thoughts

Amid These Truths, Clarity and Complexity and Better Things to Do

More than 10,000 marchers gathered in Battery Park just days after Donald Trump’s 2017 inauguration, to protest policies they viewed as reprehensible. Nobody present was able to foresee that 400,000 Americans would be dead before Mr. Trump’s term drew to a close.

Your political education began the last time a leader of the land exited office one step ahead of a pair of handcuffs. Allowed to stay up late to observe an historic moment, you sat in front of the television set, surrounded by a scrum of extended, adult family, who were feeling both vindicated and lubricated. “I have never been a quitter,” you heard the leader of the free world say, to announce that he was quitting. “Good for that bastard,” an uncle cheered, raising a glass, which was answered by a chorus of ice cubes clinking in tumblers. Not long after, the quitter’s successor assured the Republic that, “our long national nightmare is over,” to announce that the guy who gave him the job would be getting away with all that he had done.

In the days that followed, having glimpsed the sympathies of your parents, you tried to echo their party line, bidding for approval. As was always the case whenever you veered dangerously close to certainty, the Old Man would caution you with the words, “not so fast…”

Inn-plosion

Downtown Hotelpocalypse Continues as Two Hostelries Go to Auction After Loan Default

A pair of Lower Manhattan hotels will be auctioned off to the highest bidder on Thursday, after the holding company that owns the properties was unable to keep current on $385 million in debt. To read more…

Happy Trails

Newly Completed 750-Mile Bikeway Begins in Battery Park City

Lower Manhattan latest landmark—the southern terminus of the longest multi-use state trail anywhere in the United States, marked by a new kiosk along the bikeway that runs parallel to West Street, near Battery Place—was unveiled on New Year’s Eve.

This is the starting-point of the Empire State Trail, an initiative announced by the administration of Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2017, the final missing link for which—a 23-mile section between Brewster and Poughkeepsie, in the Hudson Valley—was opened to the public in December.

Community Gathers at the Museum of Jewish Heritage to Condemn Racism

On January 14, community members and elected officials joined with students, parents, and teachers from the Battery Park City School (PS/IS 276) in front of the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust to forcefully condemn the Confederate flag that was found tied to the museum’s doors last week.

“When our neighbors experience an act of hate, we stand with our neighbors,” said PS/IS 276 teacher Mary Valentine. To read more…

Four Walls for a Few Months Longer

State Extends, Expands Eviction and Foreclosure Bans Credited with Saving Thousands of Lives

The State legislature has enacted, and Governor Andrew Cuomo has signed, a measure designed to provide relief for rental tenants and homeowners experiencing financial hardship as a result of ongoing pandemic coronavirus.

At a special session on December 28, the State Senate’s Democratic majority opened a special session to ratify the the COVID-19 Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act. The measure, which had been passed earlier by the State Assembly, was signed into law on the same day by Mr. Cuomo.

Lower Manhattan Unchained

Questions about What’s In Store for Local Retail Point to Glum Answer: Not Much

Small businesses aren’t the only ones hurting in Lower Manhattan. Large national retailers are also shuttering their local stores in record numbers, according to a new report from the Center for an Urban Future (CUF), a public policy think tank that uses data-driven research to bring attention to overlooked issues. The analysis documents that the number of chain stores in Lower Manhattan decreased dramatically during the past 12 months, with a total of 63 national retailers shutting their doors permanently.

CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS

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TODAY IN HISTORY

January 22

1957 – The New York City “Mad Bomber”, George P. Metesky, is arrested in Waterbury, Connecticut and charged with planting more than 30 bombs.

13 – Eight-month-old Constantine is crowned as co-emperor (Caesar) by his father Heraclius at Constantinople.

1506 – The first contingent of 150 Swiss Guards arrives at the Vatican.

1901 – Edward VII is proclaimed King after the death of his mother, Queen Victoria.

1905 – Bloody Sunday in Saint Petersburg, beginning of the 1905 revolution.

1946 – Creation of the Central Intelligence Group, forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency.

1957 – The New York City “Mad Bomber”, George P. Metesky, is arrested in Waterbury, Connecticut and charged with planting more than 30 bombs.

1968 – Apollo 5 lifts off carrying the first Lunar module into space.

1970 – The Boeing 747, the world’s first “jumbo jet”, enters commercial service for launch customer Pan American Airways with its maiden voyage from John F. Kennedy International Airport to London Heathrow Airport.

1973 – The crew of Apollo 17 addresses a joint session of Congress after the completion of the final Apollo moon landing mission.

1984 – The Apple Macintosh, the first consumer computer to popularize the computer mouse and the graphical user interface, is introduced during a Super Bowl XVIII television commercial.

Births

1552 – Walter Raleigh, English poet, soldier, courtier, and explorer (d. 1618)

573 – John Donne, English poet and cleric in the Church of England, wrote the Holy Sonnets. (d. 1631)

1788 – Lord Byron, English poet and playwright (d. 1824)

1875 – D. W. Griffith, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1948)

1879 – Francis Picabia, French painter and poet (d. 1953)

1898 – Sergei Eisenstein, Russian director and screenwriter (d. 1948)

1909 – U Thant, Burmese diplomat, 3rd UN Secretary-General (d. 1974)

Deaths

1901 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom (b. 1819)

1959 – Mike Hawthorn, English race car driver (b. 1929)

1973 – Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th President of the United States (b. 1908)

2012 – Joe Paterno, American football player and coach (b. 1926)

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