Lower Manhattan’s Local News
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What’s Next for the Store of the Future?
As Century 21 Shutdown Looms, Opportunity Arises to Ponder New Uses for a Storied Temple of Commerce
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With local shoppers still mourning the impending demise of Century 21, the renowned fashion discounter, the family that owns the soon-to-be-defunct retailer may be crying all the way to the bank.
Century 21 was founded in 1961, by Al Gindi and his cousin, Samuel (“Sonny”) Gindi, who set up shop in the palatial former home of the East River Savings Bank at the corner and Church and Cortlandt Streets, and took their new venture’s name from the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, which styled itself the “Century 21 Exposition.” That event focused on the theme of how Americans would live come the millennium, but its predictions did not include an epochal pandemic, or the death of retail driven by online shopping.
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Then: The East River Savings Bank building at Church and Cortlandt Streets in the 1950s
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And Now: The facade of the same building, shown in modern times, converted to use as Century 21’s flagship location
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In the years that followed, the Gindi’s (who called their emporium “the store of the future” and eventually adopted the slogan, “New York’s Best Kept Secret”) used their newfound wealth to acquire a vast portfolio of Lower Manhattan property. The second and third generation of the family began liquidating these Downtown holdings almost a decade ago. In 2012, they sold a portfolio of more than a dozen buildings scattered throughout Lower Manhattan (including 20 John Street, Eight & Ten Liberty Street, 20 Beaver Street, 53 Nassau Street and 122 Nassau Street) for $164 million, and in 2013 they sold 287 Broadway for $8 million. The following year, the family unloaded three more buildings on Nassau Street for an additional $46 million. Much of the proceeds from these sales went to building a portfolio of 2.5 million square feet of retail, office and industrial space throughout the New York tri-state area, along with purchasing and developing properties around the United States (in California, Texas, Nevada, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, and Pennsylvania).
In 2017, two members of the Gindi family tried to sell a palatial penthouse at 380 Rector Place for $8.95 million, but ended up parting with the property for just $10, by transferring it to a partnership of trust funds in the names of their children.
That same year, Raymond Gindi sold a pair of adjoining lots at 140 and 142 Nassau Street, after buying 173 Broadway (in 2017) for $38.6 million, adding this parcel to properties he already owned at 175-177 Broadway. In 2016, the Gindi family purchased a retail condominium at One Coenties Slip for $19 million.
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The interior banking hall became a galleria at which generations of Lower Manhattan residents built their wardrobes
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But the center of the local Gindi empire remains the Century 21 store building, at 25 Church Street—a 43,000-square-foot structure, that connects to five other adjacent buildings, forming a 250,000-square-feet complex of retail space and offices.
In this context, the most relevant precedent may be the fate of another Lower Manhattan fashion discounter, Syms, which opened in 1958 and shut down in 2011. After declaring bankruptcy (as Century 21 recently did), the insolvent Syms transformed itself into a real estate concern, Trinity Place Holdings, which is now finishing a 42-story condominium tower at 77 Greenwich Street, in the Financial District.
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Whether the former East River Savings Bank building at 25 Church Street (which is not landmarked) will be demolished and redeveloped, or a new use can be found for the space in its current form, remains an open question. But community leaders may wish to begin consideration soon of what goals they would like to see harnessed to the future of a structure that has, for generations, been woven into the fabric of the community.
Matthew Fenton
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A Basket of Inexorables
Trump Supporters, Critics Make Their Cases in Battery Park City
In a gesture that was apparently intended to provoke and offend residents of Lower Manhattan, an armada of yachts and powerboats festooned with signs proclaiming support for the reelection of Donald Trump converged on North Cove Marina in Battery Park City on Friday, coinciding with the 19th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. One vessel carried the name “Team Deplorable,” while another, called “Frivolous,” hosted a professional Donald Trump imitator, who began lip synching as recorded speeches by the President were played over an amplifier. When the passengers disembarked, they unfurled a banner that read, “Trump 2020: Fuck Your Feelings.”
When Justine Cuccia, a co-founder of Democracy for Battery Park City, walked along the Esplanade and displayed a sign emblazoned with the words, “Trump Is Not America,” to the occupants of one of these boats, she was answered with raised middle fingers and calls of, “fuck you, entitled liberal bitch!” The irony of hurling accusations of “entitlement” from the deck of a yacht was apparently unintentional.
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Letter
To the Editor,
Thanks to Matthew Fenton for an eloquent and insightful editorial on a somber anniversary.
I was there on 9/11/01. Still bear the emotional scars of what I saw—and felt—on that day. Matthew mentions “the arc of forgetfulness.” None of us who were there on that day will ever forget what we saw. But I choose to interpret Matthew’s headline as an analogy of “A Learning Curve.”
None of us who were there on that day will ever forget. But we can move on. Which I interpret as Matthew’s point.
Matthew writes, “So we fight to recall, while longing to forget.” My approach is different. Cannot ever forget, but fighting not to recall.
Ro Sheffe
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The Forgetting Curve
Navigating the Waters of the River Lethe
In the recent controversy over whether the National September 11 Memorial & Museum ought to carry on this year with the annual traditions of reading the names of people who died during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the Tribute in Light, both sides were certain in their assumptions. Those who favored cancelling the events felt it was an urgent matter of public safety, in the wake of the greatest heath crisis in a century. Critics were sure that those who resolved to call off the observances were trying to save cash, while cynically hiding behind lofty pronouncements about the common good.
But what if both sides are wrong? What if this was, instead, a half-conscious, instinctive attempt at gently, incrementally stepping away from horror and sadness? What if the decision was a form of forgetting on the installment plan?
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DOWNTOWN CALENDAR
Tuesday September 15
6PM
Waterfront, Parks & Cultural Committee
AGENDA
1) Lower Manhattan Parks – Update by Terese Flores, Regional Manager, NYC Department of Parks & Recreation
2) Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Governors Island Residency Initiative – Update by Diego S. Segalini, Executive Director, Finance & Administration, LMCC
3) Capital and Expense Budget Items for FY 2022 – Discussion
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Let There Be Light
On-Again, Off-Again Decision about Tribute in Light Revives Calls for National Parks to Manage September 11 Memorial
The recent controversy over the planned cancellation of the Tribute in Light (the twin beams of illumination that rise skyward from Lower Manhattan on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001) has led to renewed calls by community leaders for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum to be taken over by the federal government, and operated by the National Park Service (NPS).
The most recent dispute arose in August, when the Memorial announced that it was cancelling both the Tribute in Light and the annual reading of names that commemorates each life lost during the attacks. Both of these moves were characterized as public-safety measures, in the response to the ongoing pandemic coronavirus. To read more…
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Recently Reopened Businesses Downtown
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Get Out on the Water
from North Cove
Need a safe and breezy break from your apartment? Several cruise operators have reopened in North Cove and are offering opportunities to get out on the water, including Tribeca Sailing, Ventura, and Classic Harbor Line. All cruise operators are adhering to social distancing guidelines; check individual websites for details.
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Flat Tire? Rusted Chain? Bent Rims?
GothamFix
A mobile bicycle shop offering service and parts
Open Tuesday through Sunday • 646-322-9557
Corner of Greenwich and Chambers Street.
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TODAY IN HISTORY
SEPTEMBER 15
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Alberto Ascari was a two time Formula One Champion. He competed in motorcycle racing before switching to four wheels. He won two consecutive world titles in 1952 and 1953 for Ferrari.
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668 – Eastern Roman Emperor Constans II is assassinated in his bath at Syracuse, Italy.
1776 – American Revolutionary War: British forces land at Kips Bay during the New York Campaign.
1812 – The Grande Army under Napoleon reaches the Kremlin in Moscow.
1830 – The Liverpool to Manchester railway line opens; British MP William Huskisson becomes the first widely reported railway passenger fatality when he is struck and killed by the locomotive Rocket.
1835 – HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, reaches the Galбpagos Islands. The ship lands at Chatham or San Cristobal, the easternmost of the archipelago.
1862 – American Civil War: Confederate forces capture Harpers Ferry, Virginia (present-day Harpers Ferry, West Virginia).
1916 – World War I: Tanks are used for the first time in battle, at the Battle of the Somme.
1940 – World War II: The climax of the Battle of Britain, when the Luftwaffe launches its largest and most concentrated attack of the entire campaign.
1942 – World War II: U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Wasp is sunk by Japanese torpedoes at Guadalcanal.
1958 – A Central Railroad of New Jersey commuter train runs through an open drawbridge at the Newark Bay, killing 48.
1959 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the United States.
1962 – The Soviet ship Poltava heads toward Cuba, one of the events that sets into motion the Cuban Missile Crisis.
1963 – Baptist Church bombing: Four children killed in the bombing of an African-American church in Birmingham, Alabama, United States.
1967 – President Lyndon B. Johnson, responding to a sniper attack at the University of Texas at Austin, writes a letter to Congress urging the enactment of gun control legislation.
1981 – The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approves Sandra Day O’Connor to become the first female justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
1981 – The John Bull becomes the oldest operable steam locomotive when the Smithsonian Institution operates it under its own power outside Washington, D.C.
2008 – Lehman Brothers files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history.
Births
1736 – Jean Sylvain Bailly, French astronomer, mathematician, and politician, 1st Mayor of Paris (d. 1793)
1789 – James Fenimore Cooper, American novelist, short story writer, and historian (d. 1851)
1857 – William Howard Taft, American lawyer, jurist, and politician, 27th President of the United States (d. 1930)
1881 – Ettore Bugatti, Italian-French businessman, founded Bugatti (d. 1947)
1888 – Antonio Ascari, Italian race car driver (d. 1925)
1889 – Robert Benchley, humorist, newspaper columnist, and actor (d. 1945)
1890 – Agatha Christie, crime novelist, short story writer, and playwright (d. 1976)
1894 – Jean Renoir, French actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1979)
1907 – Fay Wray, Canadian-American actress (d. 2004)
1924 – Bobby Short, American singer and pianist (d. 2005)
1945 – Jessye Norman, American soprano
Deaths
668 – Constans II, Byzantine emperor (b. 630)
1750 – Charles Theodore Pachelbel, German organist and composer (b. 1690)
1938 – Thomas Wolfe, American novelist (b. 1900)
1978 – Willy Messerschmitt, German engineer and academic, designed the Messerschmitt Bf 109 (b. 1898)
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395 South End Avenue,
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212-912-1106
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No part of this document may be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher © 2020
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