The BroadsheetDAILY – 6/2/22 – Entry for the Gentry; Heave-Ho for the Hoi Polloi

The Broadsheet – Lower Manhattan’s Local Newspaper

Entry for the Gentry; Heave-Ho for the Hoi Polloi

Analysis By Housing Group Cites Threats to Affordability in Lower Manhattan

Gateway Plaza in Battery Park City

A leading housing advocacy organization has conducted an exhaustive look at threats to affordability in every community in the five boroughs, and has found that Lower Manhattan ranks among the top ten most at-risk neighborhoods by three pivotal metrics.

The Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD), an umbrella organization of 100 non-profit affordable housing and economic development groups that serve low- and moderate-income residents in all five boroughs of the City, has published the 2022 edition of its annual roundup, “How Is Affordable Housing Threatened In Your Neighborhood?” For this report, Lower Manhattan was defined as the catchment of Community Board 1, a collection of neighborhoods encompassing 1.5 square miles, bounded roughly by Canal, Baxter, and Pearl Streets, and the Brooklyn Bridge.

ANHD’s analysis finds that Lower Manhattan housing affordability is threatened in several key respects. The first is the number of apartments where rents are regulated by the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program (which offers developers a dollar-for-dollar tax credit on affordable housing), but where such protections are slated to lapse in the next five years. The total for Lower Manhattan is 440 such units, which is the seventh-highest tally for any community throughout the five boroughs. Moreover, this transition appears to be gathering momentum. The ANHD’s corresponding report for 2017 noted that just 251 apartments in Lower Manhattan were, at that time, facing such an expiration in the five-year period that ends in 2022.

The second metric is the number of newly built non-affordable dwellings built in the previous calendar year. The total for this indicator is 2,898 apartments. Also placing in the top ten category of most alarming indicators is that 16.9 households among every 1,000 dwellings were the subject of a foreclosure filing by lenders in the previous calendar year.

Independence Plaza in Tribeca

Elsewhere, the same report finds that 36.2 percent of Lower Manhattan households are “rent burdened,” meaning that they spend more than one-third of their gross monthly income on rent. (This metric has risen from 33.9 percent a year earlier.)

ANHD’s previous annual report (for 2021) documented that there are still 8,897 rent-stabilized apartments in Lower Manhattan (an indicator not tracked this year), although that number appears likely to decline rapidly between now and 2030, as tax abatements for buildings erected in the late 1990s and early 2000s lapse, thus extinguishing the rent protections that they required.

A separate analysis from the same organization, issued earlier this year, “New York’s Pandemic Rent Crisis,” found that almost three percent of Lower Manhattan households are facing the prospect of being forced from their homes, in the wake of New York State’s eviction moratorium expiring in mid-January. That ANHD report indicated that eviction proceedings had been filed against 656 rental tenants in the eight residential zip codes that comprise Lower Manhattan.

For Lower Manhattan, the spike in eviction proceedings appears to be most pronounced in four zip codes. In 10280 (Battery Park City South, below Brookfield Place) there have been 101 such filings, which translates to 3.21 percent of all rental homes. In the Greenwich South neighborhood (zip code 10006, or Broadway to West Street, south of Vesey Street and north of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel), landlords have commenced 40 eviction proceedings, or the equivalent 3.01 percent of all tenants. In the southern section of the Financial District (zip 10004, bounded by West Street and the East River, south of Beaver Street), 41 eviction actions are in progress. This affects 3.71 percent of all rental residences. And the eastern section of the Financial District (zip 10005, or Broadway to the East River, south of Maiden Lane, north of Beaver Street) has seen 110 actions by landlords to remove tenants, which equates to 3.19 percent of all leased homes.

For all of Lower Manhattan’s eight residential zip codes, the average rate of eviction is 2.46 percent of all rental households. Because a typical Lower Manhattan dwelling is home to several people, the 600-plus households facing eviction likely translate to significantly more than 1,000 local residents who may soon be forced to leave the community.

Matthew Fenton

Ex Utero

Last Type of Cancer Excluded from World Trade Center Health Program and Compensation Fund May Be Covered

The World Trade Center Health Program is considering expanding its list of covered conditions to include cancers of the uterus. The recommendation is now in the midst of a legally required 45-day public review and comment period, but the change could become official as soon as this month. To read more…

Wagnerian Vigilance

Public Comment Period for BPCA’s Plans to Build Flood Walls and Elevated Landscaping Concludes Friday

For several years, the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) has been working on a plan to rebuild and elevate Wagner Park and the areas to its north and south, from First Place and the Museum of Jewish Heritage to Pier A Plaza. This is the South Battery Park City Resiliency Project, currently in its Draft Environmental Impact Statement(DEIS) phase. Now through June 3, the public may submit comments on the design.

Where’s Their Memorial?

Unsettled Thoughts About Unsettled Debts

This is the weekend when we are called to reflect upon the incalculable debt owed to courageous men and women who gave their lives defending this country. True, like many other once-solemn occasions, this one has devolved somewhat into an excuse for revelry and consumption, but more than a bit of the original spirit endures.

One of the bitter ironies of war is that it disproportionately claims the young—people with decades of life in front of them. But what of those so young that uniforms aren’t made to fit them, and those so small that they are unable to take up arms?

Letters

To the editor,

Now that the NY State Senate passed our Battery Park City fair representation bill, we need NY State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie’s office to give permission for it to be “brought to floor for a vote.”

Please take 2 minutes and call Carl Heastie’s office, at 518.455.3791.

Message suggestion:

* Express support for A10371, a bill to appoint BPC residents on the Battery Park City Authority Board.

* Request Speaker Heastie brings bill to floor for a vote.

* They may ask for your name, home zip code, email, etc. Your choice on whether to leave it.

Kelly McGowan

Board member, BPC Neighbors Association

They strut, they kiss, they preen, they love. Click on the image to see the Pigeon Dance.

Downtown Boathouse Sees Half Millionth Kayaker

On Saturday, May 28, the 500,000th person to sign a waiver at the Downtown Boathouse did so, donned a life vest, and went kayaking. There she is above, with her friend, both of them in town from Buffalo, NY. “If one counts repeats visits, many more than half a million people have gone kayaking for free at the Downtown Boathouse,” noted Graeme Birchall, boathouse president. He acknowledged the people who make free kayaking possible at the Downtown Boathouse. “First and foremost, it is the hundreds of awesome volunteers who have enabled so many people to go kayaking safely,” he said. “The residents of Lower Manhattan have also been very supportive, as has the Hudson River Park Trust, and many elected officials.”

Waves of Woe

Jet Ski Accident Claims One Life, Injures Second Passenger, in Waters Off Battery Park City

A waterborne outing on the first summer-like weekend of the season ended in tragedy on Saturday evening in Battery Park City.

CALENDAR

Thursday, June 2

1PM

The Battery Conservancy

Tour of the urban vegetable farm and perennial forest farm, led by park staff. RSVP is required for this event. Please note that this tour is intended for ages 13 and up. Free,

3PM

Skyscraper Museum 39 Battery Place

The Museum’s director, Carol Willis, will offer a gallery tour of SUPERTALL 2021 that surveys 58 supertalls worldwide and highlights a dozen recently completed towers that represent some of the most stunning new forms and innovative approaches to structural engineering around the world today. Reservations required. Free

3PM

The Battery Conservancy

Take a kid-friendly tour of The Battery Urban Farm to learn about how we grow produce in the heart of downtown New York City. Free

Friday June 3

7PM – 8:30PM

Battery Park City Authority

Singer/songwriter Terre Roche leads this weekly singing program with the beautiful backdrop of the setting sun in NY Harbor. Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned crooner, the singing circle is perfect for mellow melodies and healthy harmonizing. Free

CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS

Swaps & Trades, Respectable Employment, Lost and Found

To place a listing, contact editor@ebroadsheet.com

Lower Manhattan Greenmarkets

Tribeca Greenmarket

Greenwich Street & Chambers Street

Wednesdays and Saturdays, 8am-3pm (compost program: Saturdays, 8am-1pm)

Bowling Green Greenmarket

Broadway & Whitehall St

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 8am-5pm (compost program: 8am-11am)

The Outdoor Fulton Stall Market

91 South Street, between Fulton & John Streets

Indoor market: Monday through Saturday,11:30am-5pm

CSA pick-up: Thursday, 4pm-6pm; Friday, 11:30-5pm

Outdoor market: Saturday 11:30am-5pm, May through Thanksgiving

Today in History June 2

Martha Washington in a 19th-century portrait by Gilbert Stuart

1763 – Pontiac’s Rebellion: At what is now Mackinaw City, Michigan, Chippewas capture Fort Michilimackinac by diverting the garrison’s attention with a game of lacrosse, then chasing a ball into the fort.

1835 – P T Barnum & his circus begin first tour of US

1851 – First US alcohol prohibition law enacted in Maine

1875 – Alexander Graham Bell makes first sound transmission

1886 – Grover Cleveland is first to wed during presidency (Frances Folsom)

1901 – Benjamin Adams arrested for playing golf on Sunday

Around the turn of the century there was great passion to preserve and honor the Sabbath by preventing any form of commerce and recreational activity. It was a Day of Rest.

In 1901 Mr. Benjamin Adams of the Saeggkill Golf Club was arrested (and acquitted) for playing golf on Sunday. The arrest was instigated by the Rev. J.E.Price, paster of the First Methodist Church in Yonkers. A few years later the American Sabbath Union, the Rev. Dr. George Lorimer of the Tremont Temple Baptist Church of Boston put forth these words, (something to consider in our 24/7 world):”The desecration of the Lord’s Days has become a national sin, and is rapidly becoming a national peril as well. We need rest as a nation just as surely we do as individuals. The strenuous life may become too strenuous. And if rest was ever necessary, it is now. If the seventh day was needed as a day of rest by a peasant nation, or by our Puritan forefathers, it is certainly now, when the Stock Exchange and the corn pit are but exaggerations of the ordinary life of the times. As to theaters and concert halls, where most unsacred entertainments are given as ‘sacred concerts.’ I will say that such performances never did and never can give rest. I object to Sunday entertainments because they deprive those who take part in them from having heir rest.”

The Rev. Sanford a Methodist minister from Brooklyn wrote in the New York Tribune ( June 7 1901) ” The attitude of our church – as the leading branch of Methodism in the United States, and numbering a membership of nearly three million – is one of unchanging opposition to the invasion of the Lord’s day by secular sports of any sort, as well as by traffic and business…” (wikipedia)

1925 – NY Yankee Lou Gehrig begins his 2,130 consecutive game streak

1935 – Babe Ruth, 40, announces his retirement as a player

1966 – US Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum; First lunar soft-landing

1975 – VP Rockefeller finds no pattern of illegal activities at CIA

1986 – NYC transit system issues a new brass with steel bullseye token

1997 – Timothy McVeigh found guilty of 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, killing 168

2004 – Ken Jennings begins his 74-game winning streak on the syndicated game show Jeopardy!

Births

1732 – Martha Washington, First 1st lady (1789-97)

1740 – Marquis de Sade, First known sadist/writer

1840 – Thomas Hardy, England, poet/novelist (Far from the Madding Crowd)

1904 – Johnny Weissmuller, actor (Tarzan)/100m swimmer (Oly-5 gold-1924, 28)

1941 – Charlie Watts, drummer

1944 – Marvin Hamlisch, NYC, composer/pianist (Sting, Chorus Line), (d. 2012)

1955 – Dana Carvey, Missoula MT, comedian (SNL, Garth-Wayne’s World)

Anniversaries

1886 – 22nd and 24th US President Grover Cleveland (49) weds Frances Folsom (21) in the Blue Room at the White House

1919 – Theoretical Physicist Albert Einstein (40) weds his cousin Elsa Lowenthal (43)

Deaths

1927 – Lizzie Borden, American, acquitted of murder, dies at 68

Lizzie Andrew Borden was an American woman who was tried and acquitted in the 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts. The case was a cause célèbre throughout the United States. The case was memorialized in a popular skipping-rope rhyme:

Lizzie Borden took an axe

And gave her mother forty whacks.

When she saw what she had done,

She gave her father forty-one.

Folklore says that the rhyme was made up by an anonymous writer as a tune to sell newspapers. Others attribute it to the ubiquitous, but anonymous, “Mother Goose”. In reality, Lizzie’s stepmother suffered 18 or 19 blows; her father suffered 11 blows.

1941 – Lou Gehrig, 1st baseman (NY Yankee), dies of ALS in Riverdale NY at 37

1970 – Bruce McLaren, New Zealand car racer, designer, and founder of eponymous race team (b. 1937)

1990 – Robert Noyce, co-inventor (semi-conductor)/founder (Intel), dies

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