The BroadsheetDAILY – 3/4/22 – Hometown School Makes Good Community College in Tribeca Honored as Top School for Hispanics

The Broadsheet – Lower Manhattan’s Local Newspaper

Hometown School Makes Good

Community College in Tribeca Honored as Top School for Hispanics

 Borough of Manhattan Community College, located in Tribeca, has been designated as one of the nation’s leading Hispanic-serving institutions.

The Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) has been named one of the nation’s top ten two-year schools (by region) for Hispanic students, in rankings compiled by Hispanic Outlook on Education Magazine. Separately, BMCC (which is located on Chambers Street) has also been designated as the top-ranking City University of New York (CUNY) college in terms of awarding the highest number of degrees—a total of 2,062—to Hispanic students, and the highest-ranked college in the northeastern United States as measured by the same metric.

The U.S. Department of Education defines any college with 25 percent or more Hispanic students as an “Hispanic-serving institution,” or HSI. In the fall of 2020, approximately 40 percent of BMCC’s student body were Hispanic.

“BMCC is proud to be recognized as a leading Hispanic-serving institution,” said BMCC president Dr. Anthony Munroe. “Our evidence-based, equity-centered efforts to raise academic success and degree retention greatly benefit the Latinx students who represent just over 37 percent of our student population.”

He added that STEM support, industry certification programs, and collaborations with corporate partners (such as Google and Amazon), “enable our Latinx students to build paths to further degrees and high-demand careers, eventually raising their socioeconomic mobility and lifting entire families out of poverty. We never lose sight of that end goal. It drives everything we do.”

An example of BMCC’s partnership with corporate sponsors includes the college’s participation in the Grow with Google HSI Career Readiness Program, which helps Latinx students prepare for the workforce through digital skills and career workshops, which was announced in January. BMCC was one of four CUNY community colleges selected to join the program and one of just 20 colleges nationwide.

BMCC also announced that it will partner Amazon on a program that enables the company’s hourly employees to attend college to further their career opportunities. Starting in January 2022, through Amazon’s Career Choice program, the company will provide an annual benefit covering tuition and select fees for all qualifying employees accepted into BMCC.

Matthew Fenton

Bridge to Know Eire

Local Leader Proposes An Eponym for the Overpass

As St. Patrick’s Day approaches, a Lower Manhattan community leader is proposing to rename a piece of local infrastructure for an unsung Irish hero.

Arthur Piccolo, president of the Bowling Green Association, wants to christen the Morris Street pedestrian bridge (which traverses the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel plaza, connecting Greenwich and Washington Streets) in honor of Hercules Mulligan, a patriot spy during the American Revolution, who twice saved George Washington’s life. Read more here.

Letter

To the Editor:

In $eparate and Unequal: Neighborhood Association Provides Analysis of Community’s Future (BroadsheetDAILY February 25), there are several assertions in need of correction or clarification.

The claim that scheduled ground rent increases will add $1.50 per sq. ft./year in costs for condo owners is incorrect. The 12 buildings that negotiated significant ground rent reductions with BPCA in 2011-2012 pay $6 per sq. ft. today on average, which will increase by 2.7% per year, on average, through 2038 – that’s an average increase of just $0.20 per sq. ft./year. And to the extent that ground rent may reduce sales prices for condo owners, this discount also applied when those owners first bought their units.

As a result, Battery Park City owners pay lower mortgage costs than they would for comparable condos in Tribeca or elsewhere. Meanwhile, buildings with more imminent resets are paying even lower ground rent, which is why their leases contain provisions to bring them into alignment with fair market value.

The pricing of rental apartments, by comparison, is a function of location, building and unit amenities, and many other factors—and landlords charge the rent that the market will bear. If ground rent increases (or decreases), landlords still charge what the market will bear, rather than pass increases or decreases on to their tenants. The exception is for the affordable apartments that BPCA has sought to preserve and expand if possible, as reflected in our recent agreement with Tribeca Pointe to preserve 70 affordable units for the next half century.

As noted in the piece, BPC residents benefit uniquely among New York City residents overall because BPCA uses its resources to fund maintenance and operations (beautiful parks, free year-round programming, industry-leading resiliency projects, and more) in the neighborhood before any funding is provided to the City of New York, as required, to fund essential services and affordable housing. It is this high quality of life that makes Battery Park City such an appealing place to live. We are committed to preserving this high standard of living, meeting our fiscal responsibility to the rest of city, and developing solutions to help protect lower-income BPC homeowners from ground rent increases they cannot afford.

Nick Sbordone

Vice President of Communications & Public Affairs

Battery Park City Authority

‘If You Don’t Like It, You Can Have Nothing’

In Wake of Broken Promises about Gyms in Public Schools, CB1 Aims to Build Athletic Facilities Elsewhere

Community leaders and education advocates are fuming over an about-face by the City’s Department of Education (DOE), which has backed away from a 2016 promise about the design of the new public elementary school on Trinity Place, in the Financial District (slated to open this September).

As Tricia Joyce, chair of the Youth and Education Committee of Community Board 1 (CB1) explained at the Board’s February 22 meeting, “they have backpedaled on the gym for the new school, which is no longer regulation-size, after they told us in September 2016 that it would be.”

The Week’s Calendar

Friday March 4

8PM

Gibney, 53A Chambers Street

Dance performance. $15-$20.

Saturday March 5

10:30AM

Skyscraper Museum

How do you get around your neighborhood? Young learners will be introduced to the many different modes of transportation available in large cities today, including trains, buses, ferries, and bikes. Through a read-aloud of Christopher Niemann’s picture book Subway, kids will learn about one special form of New York City transit, the subway! Afterwards, we will talk about our favorite way to get around the city and make drawings of subway art. All ages. RSVP required. This indoor program meets at the Skyscraper Museum, 39 Battery Place. Masks are required. For those who prefer the online option for this in-person program, email programs@skyscraper.org for the Zoom link. Free.

11AM

Today: HIIT the Deck.

Reservations are released at 10AM every Monday the week before class. Free.

11AM- 5PM

South Street Seaport Museum

On Saturdays and Sundays, visit the exhibitions and the ships of the South Street Seaport Museum for free. At 12 Fulton Street, see “South Street and the Rise of New York” and “Millions: Migrants and Millionaires aboard the Great Liners, 1900-1914,” and at Pier 16, explore the tall ship Wavertree and lightship Ambrose.

Win a Staycation

The Downtown Alliance is raffling off a couple’s getaway in Lower Manhattan, which includes a two-night stay at the Beekman Hotel, dinner for two at the Michelin-starred Crown Shy restaurant, tickets to the One World Trade Center observation deck, and a $500 voucher for qualifying travel-related expenses.

To be entered in the contest automatically, download and use the Alliance’s new augmented reality Instagram filter (while tagging @downtownnyc), which allows users to superimpose three-dimensional renderings of the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, Fearless Girl, the Oculus and One World Trade Center on any landscape they choose. For more information, please browse: downtownny.com

Safe Space for Teens

Starting Monday, March 14, Trinity Church’s Youth Afterschool program will offer everything from basketball and mindfulness to test prep and use of a teaching kitchen.

All activities, which are free and open to students in grades six through 12, will be hosted in the teens-only space on the fifth floor of Trinity Commons (the new community building behind Trinity Church), located at 76 Trinity Place.

Trinity Youth strives to practice “radical welcome” by including not only parishioners and students from Trinity’s school partnerships, but youth from across New York City, and the inclusion all people regardless of background, beliefs, or experience. (Proof of vaccination against COVID-19 is required.) For more information, or to enroll, please browse: trinitywallstreet.org/youth

$eparate and Unequal

Neighborhood Association Provides Analysis of Community’s Future

A February 6 meeting of the Battery Park City Neighborhood Association (BPCNA) included a sobering analysis of the financial outlook for people who own homes in the community, as well as for those who rent.

The presentation was led by Pamit Surana, one of the leaders of the 501(c)(3) association, which formed last summer (under the social media banner of #PauseTheSaws) after successfully protesting to block a plan by then-Governor Andrew Cuomo to locate a monument to Essential Workers in Rockefeller Park.

‘He Drove Me Away Like A Dog’

Black History Month: Lower Manhattan Taken for a Ride on Monument It Actually Needs

While the saga of Rosa Parks and the 1956 Montgomery bus boycott has become a canonical American parable, New York played out its own version of the same drama, more than a century earlier. In July, 1854, Lower Manhattan resident Elizabeth Jennings Graham was on her way to church, and boarded a horse-drawn street car at Chatham and Pearl Streets.

Like much else in mid-19th century New York, street car service was segregated, with most coaches reserved for white riders, but some bearing signs that read, “Negro Persons Allowed in This Car.”

CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS

Swaps & Trades, Respectable Employment, Lost and Found

To place a listing, contact editor@ebroadsheet.com

Get Crafty

Seaport Kids will partner with Private Picassos to present Pipe Cleaner Craft for kids of all ages on Wednesday, March 9, from 4:00 to 5:00 pm at the Corner (25 Fulton Street).

Professional arts instructors will guide children in the use of wood blocks, colorful wire, pipe cleaners, beads and foam stickers to create their own free-standing sculptures. Admission is free. For more information, please browse: theseaport.nyc/events/

Get Rich or Get Out

Analysis By Housing Group Cites Declining Affordability in Lower Manhattan

A leading housing advocacy organization has completed an exhaustive look at threats to affordability in every community in the five boroughs, and has found that Lower Manhattan ranks among the ten most at-risk neighborhoods by one key metric, while also placing in the 20 most-endangered by another.

EYES TO THE SKY

February 22 – March 7, 2022

Leading the Sun at dawn: eye-popping Venus, our solar system’s hottest planet

Planet Venus, an orb of white fire gleaming in darkness, rises above the southeastern horizon in early dawn. Venus is the third brightest object in Earth’s sky, next to the Sun and moon. Similar in size to Earth and our closest planetary neighbor, its brilliance is not to be attributed to its proximity. As described by scientists at EarthSky.org, “Venus is bright … because it’s blanketed by highly reflective clouds. The clouds in the atmosphere of Venus contain droplets of sulfuric acid, as well as acidic crystals suspended in a mixture of gases. Light bounces easily off the smooth surfaces of these spheres and crystals. Sunlight bouncing from these clouds is a big part of the reason that Venus is so bright.”

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

March 4

1493 – Explorer Christopher Columbus arrives back in Lisbon, Portugal, aboard his ship Niña from his voyage to what are now The Bahamas and other islands in the Caribbean. Several replicas of the Niña can be seen around the world. One was docked in Corpus Christi, Texas, but it sank during Hurricane Harvey on April 23, 2017.

AD 51 – Nero, later to become Roman emperor, is given the title princeps iuventutis (head of the youth).

1461 – Wars of the Roses in England: Lancastrian King Henry VI is deposed by his House of York cousin, who then becomes King Edward IV.

1493 – Explorer Christopher Columbus arrives back in Lisbon, Portugal, aboard his ship Niña from his voyage to what are now The Bahamas and other islands in the Caribbean. Several replicas of the Niña can be seen around the world. One was docked in Corpus Christi, Texas, but it sank during Hurricane Harvey on April 23, 2017.

1519 – Hernán Cortés arrives in Mexico in search of the Aztec civilization and its wealth.

1675 – John Flamsteed is appointed the first Astronomer Royal of England.

1789 – In New York City, the first Congress of the United States meets, putting the United States Constitution into effect. The United States Bill of Rights is written and proposed to Congress.

1790 – France is divided into 83 départements, cutting across the former provinces in an attempt to dislodge regional loyalties based on ownership of land by the nobility.

1861 – The first national flag of the Confederate States of America (the “Stars and Bars”) is adopted.

1890 – The longest bridge in Great Britain, the Forth Bridge in Scotland, measuring 1,710 feet (520 m) long, is opened by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII.

1957 – The S&P 500 stock market index is introduced, replacing the S&P 90.

1986 – The Soviet Vega 1 begins returning images of Halley’s Comet and the first images of its nucleus.

2018 – Former MI6 spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter are poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury, England, causing a diplomatic uproar that results in mass-expulsions of diplomats from all countries involved.

Births

1394 – Henry the Navigator, Portuguese explorer (d. 1460)

1678 – Antonio Vivaldi, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1741)

1745 – Casimir Pulaski, Polish-American general (d. 1779)

1856 – Alfred William Rich, English painter, author, and educator (d. 1921)

1906 – Avery Fisher, American violinist and engineer, founded Fisher Electronics (d. 1994)

1932 – Ed Roth, American illustrator (d. 2001)

1936 – Jim Clark, Scottish race car driver (d. 1968)

1986 – Mike Krieger, computer programmer and businessman, co-founded Instagram

Deaths

1172 – Stephen III, king of Hungary (b. 1147)

1853 – Christian Leopold von Buch, German geologist and paleontologist (b. 1774)

1963 – William Carlos Williams, American poet, short story writer, and essayist (b. 1883)

1974 – Adolph Gottlieb, American painter and sculptor (b. 1903)

2007 – Thomas Eagleton, American lawyer and politician, 38th Lieutenant Governor of Missouri (b. 1929)

2019 – Luke Perry, American actor (b. 1966)

Credit: Wikipedia and other internet and non-internet sources

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