The BroadsheetDAILY ~ Lower Manhattan’s Local Newspaper ~ 7/6/21 ~ Vandals Emblazon Downtown Buildings with Symbols of Hate

The Broadsheet

Lower Manhattan’s Local Newspaper

Malignant Motif

Vandals Emblazon Downtown Buildings with Symbols of Hate

Video surveillance footage depicts three suspects wanted for questioning by the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Unit, shown here as they approach the Goldman Sachs building at 200 West Street, before affixing anti-semitic decals to its facade.

Three suspects caught on surveillance video are being sought by the NYPD for affixing to a pair of Lower Manhattan buildings decals that resemble the Israeli flag, but with the Star of David replaced by a swastika.

On the evening of June 24, shortly after 10:30 pm, security cameras took footage of three persons, one male and two female, approaching the Goldman Sachs building at 200 West Street, and affixing the decals to the building’s glass facade. A few minutes later, the same trio were observed by a different set of video monitors approaching the Verizon building, 140 West Street, and pasting identical stickers on windows there.

The incident, which is being investigated by the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Unit, is the latest in a rash of similar recent offenses in Lower Manhattan. On May 16, the window outside an art exhibit honoring the military service of African-American soldiers was defaced with graffiti containing racial epithets. The exhibit is housed in the Shirley Fiterman Art Center (SFAC) of Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC), located at the corner of Barclay Street and West Broadway, where an unknown person (or persons) scrawled on a window, in black magic marker, “more n—-r lovin’ bullshit,” according to a source familiar with the ongoing New York Police Department investigation of this incident, as a possible bias crime.

According to NYPD data, Lower Manhattan’s First Precinct has been the site of dozens of hate crimes (defined as offenses motivated in whole or substantial part by a person’s, a group’s or a place’s identification with a particular race, religion, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, ancestry, national origin or sexual orientation) thus far in 2021, including three felony assaults, three misdemeanor assaults, and multiple related, lesser offenses. Among these are a recent spate of violent attacks targeting Asian-Americans, and a March 31 assault in which a Hasidic Jewish couple and their 13-month-old baby were all slashed by a razor-wielding man on Battery Place.

These incidents followed the tying of a Confederate States of America battle flag (widely understood as a symbol endorsing race hatred) to the Museum of Jewish Heritage, in Battery Park City, in January.

In a separate development, from February, multiple reports indicated that trans-phobic militants have been sporadically posting small pink stickers around Lower Manhattan, emblazoned with the words, “Trans Women Are Men, and Most Have a Penis.”

Matthew Fenton

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

The Greenmarket at Oculus Plaza, City Hall Greenmarket,

and Staten Island Ferry Greenmarket are temporarily closed.

‘This Site Is Off the Table’

BPCA Promises to Change Location of Controversial Memorial

On Thursday morning, Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) chair George Tsunis took the unusual step of coming to Rockefeller Park to meet the local residents who had been encamped there for 24 hours per day since Monday, determined to prevent the destruction of a lawn and a glade of trees for Andrew Cuomo’s planned Essential Workers Monument.

“This site is going to change,” Mr. Tsunis said of the project’s location. “It’s going to be a new site. This site is off the table.” The assembled group, who have rallied since last week under the social media banner of Pause the Saws, broke into applause.

Mr. Tsunis continued, “we really did not understand the proximity and how many parents and children used this area. One mom explained, ‘I take out a picnic blanket and play with my kids here.’ That resonates. I’m a father.”

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

‘Each of These Days Is a Victory’

Protestors Continue to Block Destruction of Rockefeller Park, as BPCA Announces Pause

Beneath a pelting rain on Wednesday evening, local residents huddled in tents and camped out in Rockefeller Park for the third consecutive night, to protest plans to cut down trees and pave over a large section of the beloved green space, so that Governor Andrew Cuomo can create a monument to essential workers who served during the pandemic.

Late in the afternoon, Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) chairman George Tsunis issued a statement, To read more…

‘This Project Will Forever Be a Symbol of Failure’

Community Leaders React to Cuomo Plan for Yet Another Monument in Battery Park City

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Wednesday that he plans to erect in Battery Park City an Essential Workers Monument to those who served during the COVID-19 pandemic. “In the beginning of the pandemic, when people were told to stay home, essential workers went into work day after day, making sure their fellow New Yorkers were safe, fed and cared for,” Mr. Cuomo said.

The Governor attributed the decision to locate this monument in Battery Park City to his Essential Workers Monument Advisory Committee, which was announced in April. This panel consisted of 23 union presidents, and not a single resident of Battery Park City. There is no record of this Committee having held any public meetings, or having solicited any advice or feedback from the community. To read more…

Letters

To the editor:

Governor Cuomo was so on pitch during the early days of the pandemic.

A sane sound voice both here in NYC, and to hear my faraway friends, throughout the country. This plan to “usurp” land in our community is the second (after writing the book and not donating the proceeds to our State) where he’s gotten it wrong; hit a bad note. I thought he wanted to be Governor again.

And more importantly what is his mother going to say?

 Ethel Fusaro

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To the editor:

Yes, monumental. Nice play on words, but not a playful situation. Not seeking community input is further eroding my opinion of the Governor for whom I once had great respect.

John Roberts

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Statement from Lindsey Boylan, a career urban planner, former Deputy Secretary of Economic Development and Housing for the State of New York, and Manhattan Borough President candidate.

From Governors Island to East River Park to Battery Park, New York City’s green space is under attack. Masters of the universe like Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo have no concept between the lack of respect for our environment and the climate crisis. They do not understand that parks are for the people, especially in urban centers like New York City where access to green space is a matter of environmental justice.

Now the governor is forcing yet another monument to his precious ego under the guise of honoring our essential workers. But the governor does not care about our essential workers any more than he cares about the families of the nursing home residents whose deaths he covered up. If the governor truly cared about the heroes of the pandemic, he would work with city leaders and local residents to build a community-driven monument, rather than simply showing up with earth-moving equipment.

The governor keeps putting monuments in Battery Park City to exert unilateral control with empty gestures. His only objectives are to stay in power and to line his pockets at the expense of COVID victims. I stand with the Battery Park community and urge the next borough president to find the courage to stand up to Albany and City Hall in order to protect our communities’ beloved green space.

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To the editor:

I wish to thank and applaud Ms. Meltzer and Ms. Cuccia for their profound conveyance of the sentiments of the Lower Manhattan community and to add that placement of such a monument in BPC, a largely affluent, majority White neighborhood, at least by comparison to those most greatly impacted by COVID, is not only the wrong thing to do in terms of location for many reasons, but is also racially and socially unjust and harmful, a real slap in the face to the many essential workers who traveled here and elsewhere, in the midst of disaster, putting their lives at risk, sometimes for minimum wage jobs, from the outer boroughs… the same people many of whom were on a hunger strike mere months ago fighting for their share in COVID relief…and to the disproportionate number of people of color and/or low incomes who fell ill or died from the virus.

This monument belongs in the Bronx or Queens and could serve to bring those communities desperately needed tourism in addition to the respect and honor they deserve for supporting NY through this tragedy.

The governor did the right thing in signing the NY Heroes Act and allocating $2.1B of the State’s budget to the Excluded Worker Fund. It makes no sense for him to now, just two months later, tell the recipients to go fly a kite.

Mariama James

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To the editor:

The BPC community is up in arms about Governor Cuomo’s planned Essential Worker Memorial to be placed in the valued Rockefeller Park. Petition circulating, support needed. As an essential worker (social worker at NYU Langone) I can say that green space and parks are the best way to maintain mental health and cope with the stress of the pandemic. Save our park. Click here to sign the petition.

Spread the word.

Cara Macari

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To the editor:

Please move the Essential Worker Monument to another location in the state and stop taking away our children’s open play areas.

Battery Park City has been through much turmoil over the years and the littering of monuments across once green space in our residential neighborhood brings daily reminders of sadness to us and to our children who are already struggling emotionally. From the attacks on the World Trade Center, to the East Coast Memorial, to the Irish Hunger, to the Hurricane in Puerto Rico, and the American Merchant Mariners, among countless others, we already have too many reminders.

PLEASE move this monument to another location in the state. Let us continue to enjoy running free in the grass of Rockefeller Park, and please let us keep this park as green and beautiful as it was intended and without the constant reminders of sadness and hard times.

All of us, regardless of our age, want to run free in the vast field of Rockefeller Park green, amongst the trees, bushes and beautiful gardens. We want to continue to enjoy the migrating birds, play soccer, baseball, picnic, fly kites, sunbathe, build snow forts and snow people.

The park is constantly very crowded with friends sharing the beautiful escape. Each of us wants to find solitude as we create our own escape in the current world we live in. We want to provide freedoms to our children, without having to worry about the risk of an eternal flame burning them.

Just stop by and you will see the bustling enjoyment each person feels as they take in the beauty of the grass and the open space and now the heart breaking sorrow and anger as they see the trucks and workers preparing to break ground.

Jennifer Stahmer

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To the editor:

I read the paper almost every day and wonder how these people get elected. I have been expecting a backlash with each election but it doesn’t seem to happen. But it will.

Stephen Pope

Today’s Calendar

Tuesday July 6

10:30AM

Irish Hunger Memorial

Exercise in disguise! Join in on the fun featuring easy-to-follow Latin dance choreography while working on your balance, coordination and range of motion. Come prepared for enthusiastic instruction, a little strength training, and a lot of fun. Participants are expected to bring their own equipment: weights, water bottle, hand towel, etc. Masks required. Participants must maintain six feet of physical distance between households. All programs will be held in accordance with New York State reopening guidance. Free

12:30 – 1:30PM

A lunch time program for passersby to play a quick game of chess. Actually, not just chess…Blitz chess! Blitz chess is a form of speed chess played on a clock where each opponent gets 5 minutes. It is fast, furious and fun. Rockefeller Park River Terrace at Murray Street. Free

Battery Park City Authority

6PM

Wagner Park, on the lawn behind the Museum of Jewish Heritage

Prince Hamlet is thrust into turmoil after losing his father. Will he obey the dictates of the dead hand of the past to appease the ghost of his father, or will he forge a new future through wit, wisdom, theater and the mask of madness? Kern McFadden directs a company of advanced-level conservatory students from Stella Adler Studio of Acting, in one of Shakespeare’s classic tragedies. (36 Battery Place) Free

CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS

Swaps & Trades, Respectable Employment, Lost and Found

To place a listing, contact editor@ebroadsheet.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.

News Analysis & Opinion

Housing Costs and Predictability in Battery Park City: A Statement from Benjamin Jones, President and CEO of the Battery Park City Authority

At the Battery Park City Authority, we make it a point to regularly communicate with our community’s residents—renters and owners alike—about our role in managing, maintaining, and improving this world-class neighborhood.

We do so at Community Board meetings and public events, during public board meetings, in our regular community newsletters, and via our Strategic Plan—and even as we encounter each other during our daily routines (as we hope to be doing more of soon).

In this letter, I’d like to talk to you about our role in addressing a concern we hear frequently—housing costs and predictability—and what we’re doing about it.

Homeowner’s Rebuttal

Welfare of Residents Should by BPCA’s Top Priority, Says Homeowner’s Coalition President

(Editor’s Note: The author, Pat Smith, is the president of the Battery Park City Homeowner’s Coalition, and the president of the Battery Pointe condominium board. He writes here in reply to a recent opinion piece by Battery Park City Authority president and chief executive officer B.J. Jones, which was published in the BroadsheetDAILY on June 23, and can be found HERE.)

Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) president Benjamin Jones lays out an articulate explanation of the ground rent situation in this community. There is one area, however, on which we might have disagreement. In discussing how the BPCA is addressing the issue of increasing ground rents, Mr. Jones writes: To read more…

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.

TODAY IN HISTORY

July 6

The history of the rigid airship should include the evolution of the equipment and techniques used to manage them on the ground. From the earliest hangars built on the water to the massive tower masts built in the British Empire, this video contains rare images and footage of this often overlooked but vital aspect of the airship experience.

(wikipedia)

640 – Battle of Heliopolis: The Muslim Arab army under ‘Amr ibn al-‘As defeat the Byzantine forces near Heliopolis (Egypt).

1348 – Pope Clement VI issues a papal bull protecting the Jews accused of having caused the Black Death.

1415 – Jan Hus is condemned as a heretic and then burned at the stake.

1535 – Sir Thomas More is executed for treason against King Henry VIII of England.

1557 – King Philip II of Spain, consort of Queen Mary I of England, sets out from Dover to war with France, which eventually resulted in the loss of the City of Calais, the last English possession on the continent, and Mary I never seeing her husband again.

1777 – American Revolutionary War: Siege of Fort Ticonderoga: After a bombardment by British artillery under General John Burgoyne, American forces retreat from Fort Ticonderoga, New York.

1865 – The first issue of The Nation magazine is published.

1885 – Louis Pasteur successfully tests his vaccine against rabies on Joseph Meister, a boy who was bitten by a rabid dog.

1892 – Three thousand eight hundred striking steelworkers engage in a day-long battle with Pinkerton agents during the Homestead Strike, leaving ten dead and dozens wounded.

1919 – The British dirigible R34 lands in New York, completing the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by an airship.

1944 – The Hartford circus fire, one of America’s worst fire disasters, kills approximately 168 people and injures over 700 in Hartford, Connecticut.

1957 – John Lennon and Paul McCartney meet for the first time, as teenagers at Woolton Fete, three years before forming the Beatles.

1988 – The Piper Alpha drilling platform in the North Sea is destroyed by explosions and fires. One hundred sixty-seven oil workers are killed, making it the world’s worst offshore oil disaster in terms of direct loss of life.

2013 – A 73-car oil train derails in the town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec and explodes into flames, killing at least 47 people and destroying more than 30 buildings in the town’s central area.

Births

1832 – Maximilian I of Mexico (d. 1867)

1865 – Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, Swiss composer and educator (d. 1950)

1921 – Nancy Reagan, American actress and activist, 42nd First Lady of the United States (d. 2016)

1925 – Merv Griffin, American actor, singer, and producer, created Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! (d. 2007)

1925 – Bill Haley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Bill Haley & His Comets) (d. 1981)

1930 – Ian Burgess, English racing driver (d. 2012)

1937 – Vladimir Ashkenazy, Russian-Icelandic pianist and conductor

1946 – Jamie Wyeth, American painter

1975 – 50 Cent, American rapper, producer, and actor (G-Unit)

Deaths

1189 – Henry II of England (b. 1133)

1249 – Alexander II of Scotland (b. 1198)

1553 – Edward VI of England (b. 1537)

1835 – John Marshall, American captain and politician, 4th United States Secretary of State (b. 1755)

1946 – Horace Pippin, American painter (b. 1888)

1962 – William Faulkner, American author and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1897)

1971 – Louis Armstrong, American singer and trumpet player (b. 1901)

2009 – Robert McNamara, American businessman and politician, 8th United States Secretary of Defense (b. 1916)

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

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