The BroadsheetDAILY ~ July 23 NEWS OF LOWER MANHATTAN

Bumptious Bumpkins Make for Bus Bumpy Ride for Locals

The free Downtown Connection shuttle has been skipping stops around Battery Park in the wake of concerns that it is being used by fraudulent ticket hawkers, as a prop in swindling tourists to purchase fake passes to the Statue of Liberty.

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. The boats usually turn out to be ferries that pass within visual distance of Liberty Island, but do not stop there — such as the Staten Island Ferry, which is free, or the NY Waterway’s fleet of vessels that ply the Hudson, which charge a fare. More recently, these swindlers have begun using the Connection bus as a prop in their scheme, by directing victims who have paid inflated prices for worthless tickets to board the bus, which the sellers claim will take them to a pier for embarkation.

	Maryanne Braverman

At the April 23 meeting of the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) board, longtime resident Maryanne Braverman rose during the public comment session to observe, “ticket hawkers try to snag tourists before they get in the Park to buy a legitimate ticket, so they’re selling them in some cases $40 tickets,” which are effectively valueless. “The people who are selling the tickets are desperate people. And I think it was two summers ago there was actually a shooting, because one vendor got on the turf of another vendor.” This was a reference to an April, 2017 incident in which a dispute between rival ticket sellers erupted into gunfire on Battery Place, which resulted in two people being shot — one of them a party to the dispute, while another was an innocent bystander.

Ms. Braverman continued, “the police go chasing after them, and they’re not allowed to sell in Battery Park, so they sell on other streets and then they load up the buses. Last year, the solution that the Alliance took was to eliminate stops. Five stops were removed from the route, which causes some problems for [residents] as well, to just have stops taken out.”

In May, the Downtown Alliance announced that the Connection Shuttle would once again bypass five stops near Battery Park (three when headed toward Battery Park City and two when headed toward the South Street Seaport) through the end of the summer. These are the stops at State and Bridge Streets, Battery Place at Washington Street, and Battery Place at West Street when moving toward Battery Park City, as well as those at Battery Place at West Street and Battery Place at Greenwich Street when driving toward the South Street Seaport.

“Unfortunately, the behavior of the aggressive ticket sellers near the Battery is leading us to make this seasonal service change,” said Downtown Alliance President Jessica Lappin. “The Alliance will continue to work with our local leaders in government to ban and further restrict these sellers. Until that time, we will take steps like this one to mitigate their impact on residents, workers and tourists in Lower Manhattan and hope this will help improve summer service for our regular local riders.”

Ms. Braverman, who serves on the Steering Committee of the Battery Park City Seniors group, noted that, “there are seniors with heart and lung conditions who simply cannot walk distances. There are people with neurological or other situations [who] can’t walk. And anybody can break a leg or an ankle and suddenly need to rely on that kind of transport to get around and do their everyday business.”

She continued, “what I had hoped for when I brought this up last year was that there could be some comprehensive effort to pull together all the parties who are involved. I would just so appreciate it if it were possible for somebody with more authority, and more context than I have, to get the Alliance together, Consumer Affairs, and Margaret Chin’s office, if it’s a legislative issue.”

BPCA chairman George Tsunis reflected that, “it’s absolutely a legislative issue. We can’t enforce things that are A, not on our property, and B, it’s not like we have an enforcement mechanism. I feel horrible here, but clearly I think some people are taking advantage of a service that wasn’t meant for them.”

“Last summer,” Ms. Braverman recalled, “there was a problem with tourists crowding the buses making it impossible for seniors to get onboard, and also, once they were on board, they were extremely disruptive, pushing, shoving. It became a hazardous situation for ordinary residents to ride those buses.” And this year, she added, “they’re jamming up the bus and making it unsafe inside the bus.”

Eric Munson, the BPCA’s chief operating officer, noted that, “the Downtown Connection is a free service. It’s open to the general public. And so we can’t restrict ridership in any way. At the same time, what we can do is continue to work with the Downtown Alliance, and we’ve been in close partnership with them as a collaborator to ensure that the operator of the bus provides high-level customer service, and ensure that folks like the elderly and those with mobility impairments are offered seats.”

He added, “we’ve been reaching out to Council member Margaret Chin’s office about local legislation to change the penalty schedule, and we’ll keep Battery Park Seniors and the rest of you apprised of our efforts to change the regulatory framework.”

	Martha Gallo

BPCA board member Martha Gallo then asked, “whether we can, in fact, limit the ridership to employees of the companies that pay the budget of the Downtown Alliance, and people with Downtown residences. And, in fact, not have it be a tourist service. I go back to first principles here and say, ‘hey, we’ve had such an explosion of businesses and residents, that’s all we can handle.’ And I know that the Downtown Alliance is all about the retail businesses doing well, but I don’t know why we wouldn’t just eliminate the tourists in some way.”

She continued, “I take that bus periodically and it seems as if between the parents trying to shuttle their kids all over the place, people who need it from a disability point of view and the employees trying to run to catch different buses and ferries, it’s pretty busy. So I would look at eliminating it as an option all together for [tourists].”

These concerns were echoed a few weeks later by Maria Smith, a public member of Community Board 1, who recalled a recent ride during which, “I got on at the South Street Seaport, and the bus was fine until we got to South Ferry. At that point, ticket vendors in red jackets steered more than dozen people onto bus at a single stop.”

“There were 25 people waiting at Seton Church,” near the corner of Water and State Streets, she remembered. “By the time we got to the Jewish Museum, there was no room for anybody else, because these people are heading to the Port Authority ferry terminal,” at Vesey Street and the Hudson River. “They had been scammed into believing they are getting on a ferry to Statue of Liberty.”

“These ‘vendors’ have caught on to the fact that Connection shuttles are skipping stops, so now they are steering their victims to stops that are still being served, like the one in front of Seton Church,” she said. “This is not just unpleasant, but unsafe. Inconvenience is one thing, but I draw the line at safety. There are too many people on those buses. They are rated for six people standing, but more than a dozen people were packed in and standing.”

Ms. Smith also echoed Ms. Gallo’s proposal to restrict the service to local residents and employees, by saying, “tourists should have to pay some kind of admission. I think Martha’s idea about passes for residents or workers makes a lot of sense. People who live or work here are suffering. And tourists are suffering, because they don’t know where they are going, and so are preyed upon by thieves.”

She added that, “even if this were not being used to commit a crime and victimize people, it was never meant for tourists. They were always a bonus, but there are now too many of them.”

Ms. Smith concluded by observing that, “I can’t believe the City’s Department of Consumer Affairs can’t do something about this. You could balance the City’s budget by writing tickets to these people.”

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.

New Artist Work Space in World Trade Center Part of Creative Surge in Lower Manhattan

	A rendering of the artist work space now being readied

Silver Art Projects, a public service project supported by Silverstein Properties(operator of the World Trade Center complex) is kicking off a new artist residency program at Three World Trade Center.

Under this initiative, dozens of artists (working across a broad range of media and disciplines) will be invited to share more than 40,000 square feet of free studio space on the tower’s 50th floor, which will be given over in its entirety to this program.

July 22 – August 4, 2019

	Aldrin Gazes at Tranquility Base

It was a three-day journey from Earth to the Moon for the three Apollo 11 astronauts aboard the spaceship, or command module, Columbia, headed for the first landing of humans on the moon. Columbia – named for the historical epithet for the Americas – lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the morning of July 16, 1969. Soon after launch, Columbia docked with the lunar module, the Eagle, a vehicle designed to land two of the astronauts on the Moon while the third stayed with Columbia until the moonwalk was completed.

To Broadsheet Editor;

re: BroadsheetDAILY “The BPCA Gets a Credit Limit Increase” July 16, 2019

It is interesting to see that the Battery Park City Authority will be getting half a billion dollars to protect the community from climate change, which it will mostly spend on building flood barriers that will exacerbate climate change. Relatively little will be spent on actually stopping climate change.

If this were only happening in Battery Park City, it might not be a major issue. But this is not the case. The same is occurring in the Financial District, in the Lower East Side, elsewhere in the city, and nationwide. Almost all of the hundreds of billions of dollars of public funding that is being allocated to address climate change in the US is being used to buy a lot of concrete and steel, which will emit a lot of greenhouse gases, and provide short-term protection at best.

Arguably, this is what happens when one tries to address a global problem at the local level. Everybody has an incentive to protect their little patch, and not to worry about the larger whole. But if we were to instead spend the same many billions of dollars on actually stopping climate change, we could probably do it.

It is a bit like going to the moon. All it takes is some people in power with a vision and a will. The money is there, and if given the chance the American people can solve almost any technical problem.

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…

Albany Legislature Okays Half a Billion in New Bond Debt for BPCA

The State legislature has enacted a measure that will allow the Battery Park City Authority to take on up to half a billion dollars in new bond debt, in order to fund resiliency measures throughout the community, as well as to underwrite other capital projects.

The bill, sponsored in the Assembly by Yuh-Line Niou (who represents Battery Park City south of Vesey Street) and in the Senate by Brian Kavanagh (who represents all of Battery Park City), grants permission to the Authority… 

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.

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.

Borough President Expresses Concerns about Jail Plan, But Gives Okay

	Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer: “There is an overwhelming sentiment that we must remember: Rikers Island must close.”

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer has given her approval to a plan by the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio to construct a 1.27 million-square-foot prison complex Downtown.

In a determination issued on Friday, Ms. Brewer wrote that, “there is an overwhelming sentiment that we must remember: Rikers Island must close.”

CB1 Calls for Delay in New Staten Island Ferry Route That Will Use Local Terminal

Community Board 1 (CB1) is pushing back against a plan by the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio to launch in 2020 a new ferry service from Staten Island that will bring to the Battery Park City ferry terminal more than 60 new vessels each day, carrying as many as 2,500 passengers.

At the June 25 meeting of CB1, Tammy Meltzer, who chairs the Board’s Battery Park City Committee, explained, “the City’s Economic Development Corporation [EDC] had never spoken to the Battery Park City Committee, the Waterfront Committee, or anybody at CB1. They never came and did a presentation for CB1 about new routes they want to do, before they proposed putting boats at Brookfield ferry terminal from 6:00 am to midnight.”

Paul Hovitz Concludes 27 Years of Service on Community Board 1

	Fledgling Firebrands: Mr. Hovitz (right), Mr. Townley (center), and Mr. Goldstein (left) at a meeting of Community Board 1 in the early 1990s

After nearly three decades of building schools, fighting for affordable housing, championing cultural institutions, and generally making Lower Manhattan a better place to live, Paul Hovitz has stepped down from Community Board 1 (CB1), where he has served as vice chairman for three years, and previously presided as chair of the Youth & Education Committee.

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.

Governors Island Passengers Are Going in Style with Launch of New Vessel

	Governors1

Visitors to Governors Islandembarking from Lower Manhattan now have a new way to get to the beloved greensward that has become Downtown’s equivalent of Central Park.

The new vessel, Governors 1, a 132-foot-long, 40-foot-wide ferry was built over the last two years at a cost of $9.2 million in the Warren, Rhode Island shipyard of Blount Boats, from a design by Seattle-based Elliott Bay Design Group.

Concerns about Crowding and Noise Surround City Hall Plan for New Staten Island Route to Battery Park City

The administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio is planning to launch in 2020 a new ferry service from Staten Island that will bring to the Battery Park City ferry terminal more than 60 new vessels each day, carrying as many as 2,500 passengers.

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