The BroadsheetDAILY ~ August 1 News of Lower Manhattan

CB1 Joins Elected Officials in Calling for Renewed Stabilization at Gateway

Community Board 1 (CB1) has endorsed the call by the Gateway Plaza Tenants’ Association (GPTA) to renew the rent stabilization program at Battery Park City’s largest residential complex.

At the CB1’S July 30 meeting, GPTA board member Jeff Galloway explained that, “Gateway Plaza is uniquely situated in that it is governed by a private agreement that provides rent stabilization benefits to its residents.”

This circumstance arises from that fact that, “Gateway Plaza was financed with taxpayer subsidies,” when it was built in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he recounted. This financing, in turn, required that the landlord offer affordability protections to residents. “The tenants sued to enforce those protections in the 1980s,” he recalled, which led to the first in a series of legal agreements that limits rent increases at Gateway.

“But those agreements had sunset clauses,” Mr. Galloway continued, “and this one ends in June, 2020. We have support from all of our local elected officials for extending it to at least 2040, and expanding it to all residents.”

“If the current agreement expires next June,” he predicted, “roughly one-third of residents will have to leave within a year. Many of them have lived there for decades. And having stabilization in Gateway Plaza affects the character of the entire neighborhood. It contributes to the community as a whole, over time. But if you have massive turnover, that hurts the community.”

Mr. Galloway, along with more than a dozen Gateway residents who rose to speak with him, then called upon CB1 to enact a resolution adding its voice to that coalition.

Later at the July 30 meeting, CB1 voted to ratify a resolution that urges the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA), “to set a high priority on preserving the affordability status of Gateway Plaza for a period coextensive with the benefits that [the landlord] may obtain in modification of its ground lease, and in any event ending no sooner than June 30, 2040 (the current end date of the Gateway ground lease) and returning the scope of the Stabilization Agreement to its original coverage of all tenants of Gateway.”

This language was a reference to the fact that Gateway’s landlord is itself a tenant of the BPCA, paying annual ground rent for the leased land occupied by the buildings. The landlord is expected to derive lucrative concessions on these payments in exchange for extending or expanding affordability protections to tenants.

The same passage, along with Mr. Galloway’s mention of one-third of residents facing the prospect of losing their homes, additionally refers to the fact that previous affordability agreements at Gateway protected all residents, but the most recent version benefits only those who lived in the complex on the day it went into effect, in 2009. In the years since, turnover and attrition have resulted in roughly two-thirds being deprived of any affordability protections whatsoever.

Two Veteran Committee Chairs Seek CB1’s Number Two Spot

Thinking Outside the Box: Tammy Meltzer and Paul Goldstein playfully engage in some pantomime sparring as they debate their respective visions for the role of Community Board 1’s vice chair.

Community Board 1 (CB1) has a new vice chair. Tammy Meltzer, who currently serves as CB1’s Secretary, as well as the chair of the Battery Park City Committee, was elected at the Board’s monthly meeting on Tuesday evening.

Also vying for the post was Paul Goldstein, who serves as the chairman of CB1’s Waterfront, Parks & Cultural Committee.

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HRPT Plans Beach and Historic Sculpture for Gansevoort Peninsula

	An overview rending of the Hudson River Park Trust’s plan for the Gansevoort Peninsula

The Hudson River Park Trust has unveiled plans to create Manhattan’s first-ever public beach on the Gansevoort Peninsula, a five-acre-plus chersonese that juts out from the West Side waterfront, between Horatio and West 13th Streets.

The beach will be more for viewing the water than public bathing, owing to concerns about hygiene and safety — although a kayak launch is also planned for the site, for parks users who want to come into contact with the Hudson. But the sandy riverfront portion of the park will feature a playground and an area for sunbathing.

BPCA and CB1 to Host Discussion of Ball Fields Resiliency Plans Tonight

	The Battery Park City ball fields

Tonight (Thursday, July 25), the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) and Community Board 1 (CB1) will co-host a public meeting to review resiliency plans for the ball fields in Battery Park City’s northern section. To read more…

City Council Overrules CB1 on Naming Tribeca Intersection for NYPD Officer Killed in Iraq

	NYPD Officer and U.S. Army Staff Sergeant James McNaughton

The City Council on Tuesday overturned a preliminary determination made by Community Board 1 last October, by deciding to approve a proposal to co-name the Tribeca intersection of West Broadway and Lispenard Street in honor of James D. McNaughton, who, on August 2, 2005, at age 27, became the first New York City Police officer to be killed in action while serving in “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

In a vigorous debate, CB1 members voiced competing priorities.

Bumptious Bumpkins Make for Bus Bumpy Ride for Locals

Lower Manhattan community leaders are grappling with concerns about crowding, safety, and possible criminal activity surrounding the Connection shuttle bus, operated by the Downtown Alliance, which ferries riders around Lower Manhattan, free of charge.

For several years, apprehension about spurious ticket sellers hawking fake boarding passes to boats that purport to bring tourists to the State of Liberty have overlapped with concerns about the Connection bus.

Stalled Tower at 125 Greenwich Street May Be Headed to Foreclosure

	The 88-story building, where construction work has stalled due to financial setbacks

The troubled residential tower at 125 Greenwich Street may be facing foreclosure by lenders who say the development team has defaulted on the terms of several mortgages.

In May, work stopped on the building when multiple construction contractors filed liens against the developers for some $40 million in unpaid fees. This prompted several creditors — most prominently, the United Overseas Bank — to file notice with New York courts that they are owed $199 million in mortgage payments. The bank’s overall loan to the developers of 125 Greenwich is more than $450 million, and it is only one of half a dozen creditors.

Former Governors Island Overseer Takes Helm at World Trade Center Performance Venue

	Leslie Koch

The Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center, now under construction at the World Trade Center, has a new president — Leslie Koch. Ms. Koch will be most familiar to Lower Manhattan residents as the guiding hand behind the Trust for Governors Island.

Her decade-long tenure there, which saw seasonal visitation rise from 8,000 per season to more than 600,000, ended in 2016.   To read more…

Herman Melville was born 200 years ago today in lower Manhattan. “A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.”

Many ships pass Lower Manhattan on their way to and from the Midtown Passenger Ship Terminal.  Others may be seen on their way to or from piers in Brooklyn and Bayonne.  Stated times, when appropriate, are for passing the Colgate clock in Jersey City, New Jersey, and are based on sighting histories, published schedules and intuition. They are also subject to tides, fog, winds, freak waves, hurricanes and the whims of upper management.

The Tale of the Ticker Tape,

or How Adversity and Spontaneity

Hatched a New York Tradition

What was Planned as a Grand Affair became a Comedy of Errors

	New York’s first ticker-tape parade erupted spontaneously from bad weather and an over-zealous stockbroker.

While the festivities in New York Harbor didn’t go as scripted that afternoon, the spontaneous gesture it generated from the brokerage houses lining Broadway famously lives on more than a century later.

     On October 28, 1886, Liberty Enlightening the World was to be unveiled to New York City and the world as it stood atop its tall base on Bedloe’s Island. But the morning mist had turned to afternoon fog, blurring the view of the statue from revelers on the Manhattan shore and the long parade of three hundred ships on the Hudson River.

State Lawmakers Bark ‘Belay That’ to Water-Borne Marketing Messages

	The advertising barges operated by Ballyhoo Media

The ubiquitous advertising barges that have become anathema for Lower Manhattan residents over the past year have attracted hostile attention from members of the State Senate and Assembly.

Bills were enacted in the closing days of the legislative session that would ban the 60-foot catamaran — bearing an electronic sign capable of rendering high-definition, full-motion video, similar to the “jumbo-tron” panels that adorn multiple buildings in Times Square — from continuing to conduct its business in New York’s waters.

Federal Report Foresees More Frequent Flooding for Lower Manhattan

	Superstorm Sandy floods West Street

A new report from the

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal scientific agency responsible for study of oceans, major waterways, and the atmosphere, predicts that Lower Manhattan will, in the next 12 months, experience between double and triple the number of flooding days that it did in 2000.