The BroadsheetDAILY ~ News of Lower Manhattan 10/7/19

BPCA Puts the Brakes on Conversions of Rental Buildings within Community

“Where conversions would require our consent because of ground-lease requirements or law, we will not support any such moves in that regard,” he continued. “And although some buildings have done initial filings, there haven’t been any buildings that have stopped being a rental in that time.” This was a reference to a package of New York State housing law reforms that went into effect in June, which include provisions that erect new barriers to condominium conversions, including a requirement that 51 percent of a building’s tenants agree to buy their apartments before the process can move forward. (Conversion of rental apartments to cooperatives is still technically easier, but there have very few of these in Lower Manhattan in recent years.)

This appears to have been a reference to multiple buildings in the community, such as RiverWatch (70 Battery Place), the Solaire (20 River Terrace), and Tribeca Pointe (41 River Terrace), where landlords have in recent years take some of the preliminary steps required to convert a rental building to owner-occupied apartments.

Mr. Jones added that, “the law is such that buildings can’t convert to condo if there’s less than 50 years on the ground lease, and we passed that hurdle in June.” This was a reference to exotic nature of property ownership in Battery Park City, where homeowners, landlords, and developers do not own outright the land they occupy, but instead lease the space (through June, 2069), in exchange for yearly payments of ground rent, as well as so-called “payments in lieu of taxes.” Concerns about this arrangement have grown acute in recent years, as more residents have come to realize that, under the current terms of the ground lease, their homes may disappear in 50 years, as ownership of all the real estate in Battery Park City reverts to the Authority. Unless the terms of this lease are modified or extended, for condominium owners, it may mean that their property is effectively confiscated, while renters might face the prospect of eviction. Both owners and tenants could be rendered homeless under this scenario. Neither of these outcomes is a foregone conclusion, but would be subject to the BPCA’s decision about how to move forward.

“So we have made some headway there,” Mr. Jones noted. While a commitment by the BPCA to oppose condo conversions in the name of protecting affordability appears to signal a bellwether shift in policy, and is likely to offer some assurance to current residents, the move follows more than 20 years of such schemes by developers, which forced hundreds of the community’s one-time residents from their homes. Three buildings, in particular — 225 Rector Place, 333 Rector Place, and 212 Warren Street (formerly known as 22 River Terrace) — were the focus of widespread fury on the part of displaced residents. In each case, developers claimed they were converting the buildings under so-called “non-eviction” plans, but ended up forcing all (or in the case of 225 Rector Place, nearly all) of the legacy rental tenants out before selling their apartments to new owners. All of those homes would have been saved if the new law that came into force in June had been on the books when these buildings were converted.

This policy change comes as Battery Park City is poised at a demographic turning point. In recent years, it has shifted to a nearly even split between rental and condominium apartments. As 2013 drew to a close, there was still a substantial majority for rented units, which totaled 4,773 apartments (or 56 percent of households), as opposed to 3,707 condo units (about 44 percent of the total).

Gateway Plaza

But that margin was nearly halved when the rental building at 22 River Terrace (now known as 212 Warren Street) was converted into condominiums by its new owner. This tower has 324 units, which represented about four percent of the apartment inventory in Battery Park City, meaning that once the conversion was completed, the balance shifted to approximately 48 percent for condos and roughly 52 percent for rental units.

This is a striking about-face for a community that was once composed exclusively of rental buildings. Gateway Plaza, with more than 1700 apartments was the first development to open in Battery Park City, and remained the only place to live in the neighborhood for more than a decade. Even today, the giant complex encompasses more than 20 percent of all households in Battery Park City.

But it also represents a shift of another kind. Battery Park City was originally — asmuch by default as by design — an affordable place to live. Decades before Lower Manhattan had established itself as a fashionable residential enclave, developers needed to create an incentive for people to move to what was then perceived as a frontier. That incentive took the form of lower costs: For many years, a square foot of living space in this neighborhood cost less than equivalent footage in other Manhattan neighborhoods with access to the waterfront and plentiful park space. For middle class families, this became a place to live that was both desirable and economical.

But communities that are comprised of more owners than renters are different. They are less welcoming to people with limited financial resources. They tilt more to upper-, rather than middle-class residents. And for better or worse, they necessarily have fewer of the striving young families whose improvised campaigns of community-building helped build the district where so many more affluent people now wish to live.

Lower Manhattan’s Old Syrian Quarter to Be Recalled in Sunday Walking Tour

This map from 1899 highlights  “Little Syria”

Today, the stretch of Greenwich and Washington Streets between Battery Place and Albany Street — bisected by the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel entrance — is known by the forgettable name, “Greenwich South.”

By all appearances it is an orphan of a neighborhood that never quite coalesced. But nothing could be further from the truth. A century ago, before the World Trade Center or the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel (the two giant public works projects that decimated this once-thriving quarter), it was an ethnic enclave as vibrant as Little Italy or Chinatown. To read more…

Click to watch monarch butterflies feeding on milkweed planted by the Battery Park City Authority to help them on their annual fall migration from Canada to the mountains of Mexico.  To read more…

Services will be in English (and Hebrew) blended with contemporary messages throughout the service and simultaneously

have an exciting children’s service.

* Fun Kids Program

* Lively, Meaningful and Enjoyable Services

* Warm and welcoming environment

* Rosh Hashanah Dinner at the Wall St Grill – FiDi’s newest Kosher Steakhouse

Location: Andaz Wall Street at 75 Wall Street in the Financial District

CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS

Swaps & Trades  ~  Respectable Employment ~ Lost & Found

212-912-1106   editor@ebroadsheet.com

DO YOU NEED A PERSONAL ASSISTANT?

CHINESE AIDE/CAREGIVER FOR ELDERLY

Cantonese/Mandarin-speaking and Excellent Cook for Battery Park City.

SEEKING FREE-LANCE PUBLIC RELATIONS PROFESSIONAL OR SMALL PR FIRM

Work with well-reviewed author of five E-books, developing and implementing outreach strategies.

HOUSEKEEPING/NANNY/BABYSITTER

Available starting September for PT/FT.

ELDERCARE

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DITCH THE DIETS & LOSE WEIGHT FOR GOOD

Call Janine to find out how with hypnosis.

EXPERIENCED ELDER CARE

Able to prepare nutritious meals and light housekeeping

NOTARY PUBLIC IN BPC

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CLEANING SERVICES

Dishes, windows, floors, laundry, bathrooms.

IT AND SECURITY SUPPORT

Experienced IT technician.  Expertise in 1-on-1 tutoring for all ages.Computer upgrading & troubleshooting.  Knowledgeable in all software programs.

ELDER COMPANION

Experienced with BPC residents. Available nights, days, and weekends. Will cook, clean and administer medicine on time. Speaks French and English. Can start immediately. Please call or text 929-600-4520.

OLD WATCHES SOUGHT, PREFER NON-WORKING

Mechanical pocket and wristwatches sought and sometimes repaired

Local Leaders Urge Preservation of Justice Complex

	The New Deal-era Criminal Courts Building at 100 Centre Street is widely regarded as a historic treasure, but does not enjoy any legal protection that would prevent it from being sold, demolished, and replaced by a skyscraper.

The case of 100 Centre Street takes on special urgency in this context, because, as the CB1 resolution notes, “the Manhattan Criminal Court building shares the same underlying City lot with the south tower of the Manhattan Detention Complex. This appears to mean that if City Hall needed extra space for the proposed new jail, it would face no legal obstacle in demolishing all or part of the historic building.

Costs to Rent or Own in Lower Manhattan Are Matched by Lofty Local Earnings

A slew of recent reports documents what everyone who lives or works in Lower Manhattan already sensed in their bones: This is a mind-numbingly expensive place to call home.

In September, RENTCafé issued a new analysis of the most expensive neighborhoods for renters in the United States that finds northern Battery Park City (zip code 10282) is the priciest enclave in America, with an average rent of $6,211 per month.  Coming in at second place is zip code 10013, which covers western Tribeca, along with part of Soho.  To read more…

GRRR | Brad Greenwood

“GRRR is the noise of the street, the buzz-saw of the news cycle, the constant low growl in the throat. What is it like to try to live peacefully, contentedly, lovingly while the animals roar? Can there be quiet in the midst of these troubling noises?  ~  Brad Greenwood

New Arts Center on Governors Island Will Provide Studio Space and Cultural Programming

	The historic building at Soissons Landing at  Governors Island.

Lower Manhattan has a new cultural hub. The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the Trust for Governors Island have partnered to create the LMCC Arts Center at Governors Island, a 40,000-square foot studio space and education facility, housed within a restored 1870s ammunition warehouse — a relic from the days when the island was a military outpost.

CB1 Makes Exception to New Policy; Okays Naming Street for Former NYPD Commissioner

	Baxter Street

A public figure from the 1980s may soon be honored by having a street co-named in his memory, if Community Board 1 gets its way. The panel recommended that Benjamin Ward, New York’s first African-American police commissioner, be commemorated by rechristening one block of Baxter Street as Benjamin Ward Way.

This comes on the heels of a controversial decision by CB1 in 2018 to decline such a request on behalf 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.”

National Lighthouse Museum

 200 The Promenade at Lighthouse Point, Staten Island

Battery Park City Resident Charged with Two Home Invasions, and Sexual Abuse

Onetime Non-Profit Nursing Facility Sold to Anonymous Buyer for Five Times Original Price

	Rivington House

If there is an Exhibit A in the case of fevered speculation in Lower Manhattan real estate, it must be Rivington House

After purchasing the block-long, 150,000-square-foot structure (located at 45 Rivington Street, near the Williamsburg Bridge), the developer, the Allure Group, paid the City an additional $16 million to remove the deed restriction that limited the property to its legacy use of non-profit, residential healthcare. To read more…

Composting Catches on in Battery Park City

	Jake Jacevicius and Joshua DeVoto of BPCA parks operations dump out a binful of fruit and vegetable scraps where the neighborhood’s composting process takes place.

You’re probably heard of the farm-to-table movement. Thanks to the Battery Park City Authority’s compost initiative, there’s a burgeoning table-to-earth movement in this Lower Manhattan community.

	In an instant, both wagon and horse were vaporized, and the closest automobile was tossed twenty feel in the air. Incredibly, the iconic bronze of George Washington surveys the devastation from the steps of the Sub-Treasury without so much as a scratch.

As the noon hour approached on a fall Thursday morning in 1920, a horse-drawn wagon slowly made its way west down Wall Street toward “the Corner,” the high-powered intersection of Wall and Broad. Its driver came to a gentle stop in front of the Assay Office, where stockpiles of gold and silver were stored and tested for purity. But theft was not his motive.

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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.

City Transportation Study Finds That Lower Manhattan Bus Service Is Among Most Sluggish in Five Boroughs

	Bus speeds in Lower Manhattan average below eight miles per hour

The annual New York City Mobility Report, produced by the City’s Department of Transportation, contains two data points that will come as no surprise residents of Lower Manhattan. The first of these is that the median speed for Downtown bus service ranks among the slowest of any community in the five boroughs. And the second is that this creeping pace is, if anything, getting creepier. To read more…