The BroadsheetDAILY ~ Lower Manhattan’s Local Newspaper ~ 7/30/21 ~ Project Will Bring Pedestrian Plazas and Amenities to Water Street

The Broadsheet

Lower Manhattan’s Local Newspaper

Avenue Enhancements

Project Will Bring Pedestrian Plazas and Amenities to Water Street

A rendering of the pedestrian plaza that the Water Street Improvement project will bring to the intersection of Whitehall and Water Streets.

A plan spearheaded by the Downtown Alliance for more than a decade (in partnership with the City’s Economic Development Corporation) broke ground recently in the Seaport neighborhood. The Water Street Corridor Streetscape Improvement Project aims to create a archipelago of inviting public spaces amid what is now a forlorn canyon of office towers on Water Street, between Whitehall and Fulton Streets. The City hopes these upgrades will spur private investment in the area, while also improving pedestrian and vehicular safety (chiefly by widening sidewalks, and narrowing Water Street).

The improvements will focus on a pair of new pedestrian plazas—one connecting Water and Pearl Streets at Coenties Slip, and the other on Water Street, between Whitehall and Broad Streets. These amenities will be accompanied by new curb alignments, pedestrian sidewalks, street lighting, and site furnishings.

After the City has built out the plazas, the Downtown Alliance plans to maintain them, by adding large planters, additional landscaping, and concession kiosks, along with movable tables, chairs, and benches.

The Alliance hopes that these changes will transform Water Street into an iconic boulevard, while also strengthening the artery’s connections to the nearby waterfront, and enhancing street life by extending the hours of public activity along Water Street.

The project is slated to cost approximately $24 million, and is projected to be complete in 2023.

Matthew Fenton

‘This Was, And Will Always Be, Our Home’

A Pillar of the Community Considers His Next Chapter

Behind the glittering facades of a neighborhood like Battery Park City lies a mass of invisible soft tissue—the web of relationships and personalities that comprises the beating heart of a thriving community.

For decades, one essential part of that collective flesh and blood has been Gus Ouranitsas, who has served as the superintendent of the Liberty Court condominium building, on Rector Place, since it finished construction in June, 1987.

“Once or twice, in the mid-1980s, I had come to visit friends who were living in Gateway Plaza,” Mr. Ouranitsas recalls, “and I was amazed by what I saw in Battery Park City. It was mostly open fields at the time, but Gateway was finished, along with part of South End Avenue. Some of the roads in the south had been laid out, like Albany Street and Rector Place, but not yet paved, and no buildings had been constructed there yet. What used to be called the World Financial Center,” the office and retail complex now known as Brookfield Place, “was still a construction site.” To read more…

Home Rule

BPCA Announces New Advisory Commission to Consult on Location and Design of Monument

The Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) announced Wednesday the formation of a Battery Park City Essential Workers Monument Advisory Committee, which will formulate recommendations on the design and location of a new memorial in Battery Park City.

This move comes in the wake of a month of controversy, which began on June 24, when Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that he planned to create a monument located in Rockefeller Park to honor the service and sacrifice of New York’s essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. To read more…

What’s Up, PAC?

Construction Milestones and Hiring Mark Progress Toward Planned Arts Venue at World Trade Center

Lower Manhattan is two steps closer to the 2023 debut of its next great amenity. The Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center, at the World Trade Center, topped off the 138-foot structure in June, and the organization has hired a Director of Civic Alliances, who will cultivate relationships with community-based organizations, public housing residents, community boards, immigrant groups, cultural institutions and elected officials.

Lower Manhattan Greenmarkets are open

Tribeca Greenmarket

Greenwich St & Chambers St

Every Wednesday & Saturday, 8am-3pm

Food Scrap Collection: Saturdays, 8am-1pm

Bowling Green Greenmarket

Broadway & Whitehall St

Every Tuesday & Thursday, 8am-5pm

Food Scrap Collection: Tuesdays only, 8am-11am

CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS

Swaps & Trades, Respectable Employment, Lost and Found

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Don’t Pay the Ferryman

Lower Manhattan residents once again have access to the ever-popular weekend summer ferry to Red Hook.

Provided by NY Waterway, the free service is nominally about providing access to Ikea, but also offers the bonus of a slew of waterfront restaurants and parks within walking distance of the furniture store.

The service departs from two Downtown locations (Pier 11/Wall Street and the Battery Park City ferry terminal) starting at 11:00 am.

For more information, please browse: www.NYWaterway.com.

The Battery Park City Authority asks that the public not interact with or feed the urban wildlife in the neighborhood’s parks and green spaces, and at the waterfront.

9/11 Victim Compensation Fund Report

More Survivors than Responders Now are Submitting Claims

The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (VCF) has released its annual report for 2020, which documents some significant developments.

Over the course of its ten years of operation thus far, the VCF has awarded $7.76 billion to more than 34,400 individuals who have suffered death or personal injury as a result of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath. The vast majority of these injuries take the form of illness caused by exposure to toxic materials that were released by the destruction of the World Trade Center.

Tribeca Sailing offers two-hour private sailing charters of the Harbor, setting sail five times each day, seven days a week. Captain David Caporale, the owner and captain of Tribeca Sailing and a Lower Manhattan resident, also offers private sailing charters for a maximum of six passengers, for those having a staycation, or celebrating birthdays, anniversaries and other special occasions. His sailboat, Tara, is a 1964 custom Hinckley Pilot 35. Hinckleys are noted as a Rolls Royce of sailboats, based on their solid construction, the artistry of the wood trim, and other design features. For more information or to book a sail, contact David Caporale 917-593-2281 or David@Tribecasailing.com

TODAY IN HISTORY

July 30

Above: 1863 – Henry Ford, American engineer and businessman, founded the Ford Motor Company (d. 1947) Below: 2003 – In Mexico, the last ‘old style’ Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line.

762 – Baghdad is founded.

1609 – Beaver Wars: At Ticonderoga (now Crown Point, New York), Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs on behalf of his native allies.

1811 – Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, leader of the Mexican insurgency, is executedby the Spanish in Chihuahua City, Mexico.

1863 – American Indian Wars: Representatives of the United States and tribal leaders including Chief Pocatello (of the Shoshone) sign the Treaty of Box Elder.

1871 – The Staten Island Ferry Westfield’s boiler explodes, killing over 85 people.

1945 – World War II: Japanese submarine I-58 sinks the USS Indianapolis, killing 883 seamen. Most die during the following four days, until an aircraft notices the survivors.

1956 – A joint resolution of the U.S. Congress is signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorizing In God We Trust as the U.S. national motto.

1965 – Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid.

1971 – Apollo program: On Apollo 15, David Scott and James Irwin on the Apollo Lunar Module Falcon land on the Moon with the first Lunar Rover.

1974 – Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard Nixon releases subpoenaed White House recordings after being ordered to do so by the Supreme Court of the United States.

1975 – Jimmy Hoffa disappears from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He is never seen or heard from again.

2003 – In Mexico, the last ‘old style’ Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line.

Births

1511 – Giorgio Vasari, Italian painter, historian, and architect (d. 1574)

1549 – Ferdinando I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1609)

1863 – Henry Ford, American engineer and businessman, founded the Ford Motor Company (d. 1947)

1890 – Casey Stengel, American baseball player and manager (d. 1975)

1939 – Peter Bogdanovich, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter

1947 – Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austrian-American bodybuilder, actor, and politician, 38th Governor of California

Deaths

1718 – William Penn, English businessman and philosopher, founded the Province of Pennsylvania (b. 1644)

1898 – Otto von Bismarck, German lawyer and politician, 1st Chancellor of Germany (b. 1815)

1918 – Joyce Kilmer, American soldier, journalist, and poet (b. 1886)

2007 – Ingmar Bergman, Swedish director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1918)

2020 – Herman Cain, American businessman and political activist (b. 1945)

courtesy historyorb.com, Wikipedia and NYTimes.com and other internet sources

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