The BroadsheetDAILY ~ 2/17/21 ~ Lower Manhattan Lags Five-Borough Averages for COVID Vaccination

A Shot in the Arm

Downtown Lags Five-Borough Averages for COVID Vaccination

Lower Manhattan residents are being vaccinated against the pandemic coronavirus at a slower rater than other New Yorkers, according to data from the City’s Health Department.

Lower Manhattan is lagging behind the City-wide averages for rates of vaccination against COVID-19 among adults, according to data released by public health officials on Tuesday. (No data was made available for vaccination rates among children.)

While roughly 10 percent of New York’s overall adult population have been received at least one dose of the various two-jab regimens currently available, only one Downtown community approaches this benchmark: Southern FiDi, in the zip code 10004, with a nine-percent rate of partial vaccination. Elsewhere, many Lower Manhattan neighborhoods have partial rates as low as four percent, in Eastern FiDi (10005) and Greenwich South (10006).

In only one Downtown community—Northern Battery Park City (10282) does the rate of full vaccination (seven percent) surpass the rate of partial vaccination (five percent).

For Lower Manhattan’s eight zip codes, with a adult total population 76,575, partial vaccines have been administered to 5,320 residents (or 6.9 percent), and full vaccination has been recorded for 3,302 people (or 4.3 percent).

According to City Department of Health data, the local infection vaccination rates (outlined out by zip code) break down as follows:

• 10282/Battery Park City North (above Brookfield Place): Overall adult population of 4,396, with 240 partial vaccinations (five percent) and 305 full vaccinations (seven percent)

• 10280/Battery Park City South (below Brookfield Place): Overall adult population of 7,517, with 463 partial vaccinations (six percent) and 329 full vaccinations (four percent)

• 10007/Southern Tribeca (West Street to Broadway, north of Vesey Street and south of Chambers Street): Overall adult population of 5,573, with 443 partial vaccinations (eight percent) and 315 full vaccinations (six percent)

• 10013/Northern Tribeca (north of Chambers Street and south of Canal Street): Overall adult population of 24,656, with 1,970 partial vaccinations (eight percent) and 1,011 full vaccinations (four percent)

• 10006/Greenwich South (Broadway to West Street, south of Vesey Street and north of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel): Overall adult population of 3,156, with 141 partial vaccinations (four percent) and 112 full vaccinations (four percent)

• 10004/Southern FiDi (West Street to the East River, south of Beaver Street): Overall adult population of 2,685, with 232 partial vaccinations (nine percent) and 130 full vaccinations (five percent)

• 10005/Eastern FiDi Overall adult population of 8,170, with 306 partial vaccinations (four percent) and 329 full vaccinations (four percent)

• 10038/the Civic Center and Seaport (Broadway to the East River, north of Maiden Lane and stretching a few blocks beyond the Brooklyn Bridge): Overall adult population of 20,422, with 1,525 partial vaccinations (seven percent) and 771 full vaccinations (four percent)

Matthew Fenton

Letter

To the editor:

I’m writing in response to a recent letter in your publication that decried the idea of a dedicated bike lane over the Brooklyn Bridge as, essentially, woke craziness.

As a bicycle commuter from Battery Park City for more than 20 years, let me give an alternative view.

I’m a member of the Park Slope Food Coop, and bike over the bridge frequently to get there. At least pre-Covid, this was a nightmare. The bridge is -always- overrun with tourists, who do not notice the (not very prominent) signs asking pedestrians to stay on one side, and cyclists on the other. Consequently, there are always pedestrians straying ignorantly into the cyclist side, and getting across the bridge on your bike is a matter of ringing your bell constantly, moving slowly, and sometimes coming to a complete halt so someone can take a selfie.

Cyclists avoid the bridge for this reason, but in my case, the alternative (the Manhattan bridge) would add two miles to my journey, which on 60-something legs, is not desirable. And if the Brooklyn Bridge were more easily navigable by bike, I’m sure the number of cyclists using it would soar.

I’ll note that only a minority of lower Manhattan dwellers own cars; and, at least judging by the number of bikes locked in racks in Gateway Plaza, more own bikes than cars. A Brooklyn bridge bike path would benefit thousands of people a day, reduce risks to pedestrians on the bridge, and get us one inch closer to making New York a world class city for cyclists — and one inch closer to our necessary carbon-free future.

The letter to which I am responding decries already high traffic on the bridge (by which they mean car traffic, because cyclists and pedestrians evidently don’t matter). To which I can only say: Then get out of your ecologically catastrophic death machine, and take the subway like a normal person.

Regards,

Greg Costikyan

For two days, passers-by enjoyed beautiful ice sculptures by New York City-based art collective Okamoto Studio on the outdoor plaza at Brookfield Place.

Happy Year of the Ox!

The Larceny of the Commons

City Planning Commission to Consider Endorsing Privatization of Public Space in Tribeca

On Tuesday, February 16, the City Planning Commission considered a request by the owner of large bank building in Tribeca, seeking to privatize in perpetuity a space it originally created as a public amenity. Community Board 1 (CB1) has strongly denounced this move.

Developer Named for Five World Trade Center

Nine-Hundred Foot Tower Will Include 300-Plus Affordable Units

The boards of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) have both approved the proposal by a development partnership that wants to erect a 900-foot-plus tower at Five World Trade Center, a now-vacant lot that occupies the three-quarter-acre square block bounded by Liberty, Greenwich, Albany, and Washington Streets.

The joint venture consists of four partners: Silverstein Properties (which leases the rest of the World Trade Center site from the Port Authority), Brookfield Properties (which operates the Brookfield Place office and retail complex in Battery Park City, across the street from the World Trade Center), Omni New York (a developer, owner, and manager of affordable housing nationwide), and Dabar Development (a minority-and-women-owned real estate firm). To read more…

Letter

To Broadsheet editor;

I was very disappointed to hear that Silverstein Properties won the bid with very little competition for other proposals, and was disheartened to learn that CB1 so actively supports it.

Those of us who have lived in this neighborhood for years and tried to weigh in on what should be built on the site after 9/11 were never listened to when we expressed our needs and concerns. The commercialization of this area, embodied by the poor tourist-centric aspects of the Occulus for example, are yet another failed result of development run amok at the expense of the local inhabitants. This building should be truly affordable and low-income. Now Silverstein offers a hollow claim of “affordable housing”, but affordable to whom? Middle class professionals can afford to live there but certainly not the working class increasingly forced into longer commutes to work in a city that will not house them. As a resident of this neighborhood for over 30 years I have watched as the city continues to accommodate the rich and the transient. We don’t need more hotels and luxury housing. That is a shallow and inhospitable environment for the rest of us.

And how sad and disappointing is it when the wishes of the family of deceased firefighter, Joseph Graffagnino, are not even heeded? As Todd Fine points out so tellingly, particularly in this age of Covid, Five WTC is destined to go the way of the failing Hudson Yards, because the property owners are so unwilling to envision an open-minded ideal of true affordable living and quality of life for all of its residents and workers. We could have had a new vision for redevelopment on this site, but continue with a cold cynical perspective of business as usual.

The Deutchebank fire on August 17, 2007 was a tragic circumstance that many community leaders had warned about when they tried to get LMDC to separate the toxic abatement from the demolition instead of doing it all at once. They didn’t heed us then and are not heeding us now. For those who weren’t there I am attaching a photo of the fire at the former Deutchebank, the site where firefighters Joeph P. Graffagnino, and Robert Beddia tragically lost their lives on that day. This was the horrific view from my roof. I hope that at least some form of tribute will be paid to these men on the site where they paid such a heavy price.

—Esther Regelson

Today’s Calendar

Wednesday, Feb. 17

6PM

CB1 Executive Committee

Live Remote Meeting – https://live.mcb1.nyc

AGENDA

1) Composting in Lower Manhattan – Discussion with Marisa DeDominicis, Executive Director, Earth Matter NY Inc.

2) Budget Cuts for Community Boards FY 2022 – Discussion and Resolution

3) 2021 Municipal Elections and Polling Site Taskforce – Discussion & Possible Resolution

4) COVID-19 Pandemic Memorial – Discussion & Possible Resolution

5) Committee Reports

A Shore Thing

HRPT Moves Ahead with Plans for ‘Beach,’ Park and Historic Sculpture for Gansevoort Peninsula

The Hudson River Park Trust (HRPT) has released a package of three requests for proposals (RFPs) intended to kickstart the process of transforming the Gansevoort Peninsula—a five-acre-plus chersonese that juts out from the West Side waterfront, between Gansevoort and West 13th Streets—into a new public amenity.

Plans call for a scenic beach (more for viewing the water than public bathing, owing to concerns about hygiene and safety), along with a 56,000-square-foot ballfield for use by local youth leagues, a playground, an outdoor “river gym” (consisting of rust-proof calisthenics equipment), a dog run, and public restrooms.

Murder Arrest

Suspect in Chambers Street Subway Stabbing Taken Into Custody

A suspect in the October murder of a man at the Chambers Street subway station of the J and Z trains (located beneath the Municipal Building and across the street from City Hall) has been taken into custody.

On Wednesday, officers from the NYPD’s Warrant Squad arrested 29-year-old Amado Garzon Morales, a resident of New Brunswick, New Jersey, who was tracked down in the Richmond Hill section of Queens.

Fulton Felonies

Transit Hub Becomes Venue for Multiple Violent Crime

The Fulton Center subway and retail complex (at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Street) has been the scene of several violent assaults in recent days. On Friday, January 29, shortly after 11:00 pm, a gang of six young people (four male and two female) quietly entered the Dunkin Donuts location within the facility, and crept up behind a man who was placing an order at the counter. To read more…

CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS

Swaps & Trades, Respectable Employment, Lost and Found

To place a listing, contact editor@ebroadsheet.com

Quit Your New Year’s Resolutions Early

And Indulge In Restaurant Week

No judgment for those of you who will want to drop those new year’s resolutions (or whatever other health kicks you’ve got going on) after reading this PSA:

NYC Restaurant Week launched this week, as hundreds of hot spots citywide have been lining up special delivery deals through February 28.

Promotions include lunch or dinner with a side for $20.21, two-course brunches and lunches ($26) and three-course dinners ($42), mostly Monday through Friday. (Some participating restaurants are honoring those prices on weekends.)

Dozens of restaurants south of Chambers Street plan to take part in NYC Restaurant Week, including Brooklyn Chop House, The Fulton, Crown Shy, Stone Street Tavern, The Dead Rabbit and more.

The Restaurant Week website lists several more tempting options to treat yourself — even if it means playing it a little fast and loose with your commitments to fitness. (We won’t tell.)

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TODAY IN HISTORY

February 17

Thelonious Sphere Monk

1600 – On his way to be burned at the stake for heresy, at Campo de’ Fiori in Rome, the philosopher Giordano Bruno has a wooden vise put on his tongue to prevent him continuing to speak.

1621 – Myles Standish is appointed as first military commander of the English Plymouth Colony in North America.

1801 – An electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr, Vice President by the United States House of Representatives.

1864 – American Civil War: The H. L. Hunley becomes the first submarine to engage and sink a warship, the USS Housatonic.

1865 – American Civil War: Columbia, South Carolina, is burned as Confederate forces flee from advancing Union forces.

1867 – The first ship passes through the Suez Canal.

1913 – The Armory Show opens in New York City, displaying works of artists who are to become some of the most influential painters of the early 20th century.

1959 – Project Vanguard: Vanguard 2: The first weather satellite is launched to measure cloud-cover distribution.

1965 – Project Ranger: The Ranger 8 probe launches on its mission to photograph the Mare Tranquillitatis region of the Moon in preparation for the manned Apollo missions. Mare Tranquillitatis or the “Sea of Tranquility” would become the site chosen for the Apollo 11 lunar landing.

1972 – Cumulative sales of the Volkswagen Beetle exceed those of the Ford Model T.

1974 – Robert K. Preston, a disgruntled U.S. Army private, buzzes the White House in a stolen helicopter.

1996 – In Philadelphia, world champion Garry Kasparov beats the Deep Blue supercomputer in a chess match.

2011 – Arab Spring: Libyan protests against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime begin. In Bahrain, security forces launched a deadly pre-dawn raid on protesters in Pearl Roundabout in Manama, the day is locally known as Bloody Thursday.

Births

1758 – John Pinkerton, Scottish antiquarian, cartographer, author, numismatist and historian (d. 1826)

1874 – Thomas J. Watson, American businessman (d. 1956)

1942 – Huey P. Newton, American activist, co-founded the Black Panther Party (d. 1989)

Deaths

364 – Jovian, Roman emperor (b. 331)

1854 – John Martin, English painter, engraver, and illustrator (b. 1789)

1909 – Geronimo, American tribal leader (b. 1829)

1982 – Thelonious Monk, American pianist and composer (b. 1917)

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