Lower Manhattan’s Local News
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Pandemic Statistics
City Releases Data about Local Rates of Infection
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Lower Manhattan’s eight zip codes are the site of 309 confirmed cases
of coronavirus.
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A total of 309 residents of Lower Manhattan (among 724 who have been tested) are confirmed to have been infected by the pandemic coronavirus, according to statistics released by the City’s Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday. Given the current local mortality rate for COVID-19 (the disease caused by coronavirus) of approximately 2.9 percent, nine of these patients may die.
According to the DOH data, the local infection rates (outlined out by zip code) break down as follows:
• 10280/Battery Park City South (below Brookfield Place): 17 confirmed cases, out of 50 tests
• 10282/Battery Park City North (above Brookfield Place): 21 confirmed cases, out of 42 tests
• 10007/Southern Tribeca (West Street to Broadway, north of Vesey Street and south of Chambers Street): 26 confirmed cases, out of 67 tests
• 10013/Northern Tribeca (north of Chambers Street and south of Canal Street): 122 confirmed cases, out of 255 tests
• 10006/Greenwich South (Broadway to West Street, south of Vesey Street and north of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel): 6 confirmed cases, out of 24 tests
• 10004/Southern FiDi (West Street to the East River, south of Beaver Street): 16 confirmed cases, out of 38 tests
• 10005/Eastern FiDi (Broadway to the East River, south of Maiden Lane, north of Beaver Street): 25 confirmed cases, out of 81 tests
• 10038/the Civic Center and Seaport (Broadway to the East River, north of Maiden Lane and stretching a few blocks beyond the Brooklyn Bridge): 76 confirmed cases, out of 167 tests
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A map circulated by the City’s Department of Health indicates that the eight zip codes of Lower Manhattan all fall into the two lowest categories for overall numbers of coronavirus infections.
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These statistics indicate that, of the total of 724 Downtown residents who have been tested for coronavirus, 42 percent have been confirmed to be infected.
The total population of these eight zip codes is approximately 81,000 residents. The total of 309 confirmed cases translates into an overall rate of infection of roughly three-tenths of one percent for Lower Manhattan residents.
One counterintuitively encouraging note is that the actual rates of infection (if they were knowable) would likely be much higher, because a large percentage of people carrying the coronavirus are believed to experience few, if any symptoms. If this is correct, then the subset of patients who are likely to die, would (in percentage terms) be correspondingly lower.
But that positive indicator is also tempered by a somber caveat: People who do not know they are infected and who are presenting no symptoms may be the most likely to ignore directives about quarantining and social distancing, and thus represent a higher risk for everybody with whom they came into contact.
Matthew Fenton
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Virtual Events Available to All
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Developing Stories: Native Photographers in the Field
Photo essay
National Museum of the American Indian
Virgil and Isabel Trujillo in their family apple orchard.
Virgil Trujillo manages part of Abiquiú’s centuries-old acequias, or communal irrigation system. It combines Spanish and Indigenous practices to direct water into fields. “Our identity is tied to the land,” he says. “Ranching and farming are the source of our life and freedom. Everything is tied to the land; everything starts as a natural resource.”
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Developing Stories: Native Photographers in the Field
National Museum of the American Indian
Developing Stories: Native Photographers in the Field is a pair of sequential photo essays created by Native photojournalists Russel Albert Daniels and Tailyr Irvine in collaboration with the National Museum of the American Indian. The work of both photographers springs from the same desires—to break down stereotypes of Native peoples and to portray stories that show the diversity and complexity of their contemporary lives.
While the installation of the first photo essay by Daniels — The Genízaro People of Abiquiú — is postponed due to coronavirus, the photo essay is online.
Youth Art Contest
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Celebrate Endangered Species Day (May 15) and the 50th anniversary of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) by participating in the Greater Atlantic Region’s Marine Endangered Species Art Contest.
Endangered and threatened species need our help. Students’ artwork will showcase their knowledge and commitment to protecting these animals. Throughout 2020, NOAA is celebrating 50 years of science, service, and stewardship. NOAA is a world-class forecasting and resource management agency with a reach that goes from the surface of the sun to the depths of the ocean floor. In the next 50 years, NOAA will advance innovative research and technology, answer tough scientific questions, explored the unexplored, inspire new approaches to conservation, and power the U.S. economy. Through April 24
Today through April 30
Mission to Remember
9/11 Memorial and Museum
This documentary series explores the shared commitment to the mission behind the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. From showing how we create new traditions of tribute, to demonstrating our unique conservation techniques, the short films go beyond the surface to immerse viewers in untold stories of honor and remembrance. Click here to view the series.Today through April 30
The Stories They Tell
9/11 Memorial and Museum
Family members, survivors, first responders and recovery workers discuss the 9/11 history they are helping to preserve through the material they have shared with the 9/11 Memorial Museum. Click here.
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Today through April 30
Battery Dance TV
Battery Dance
Offerings include morning warmup/stretching/conditioning exercises, mid-day classes in contemporary dance with afro, ballet and jazz fusion elements, evening classes in varied ballroom styles, plus a daily short video at 4pm by dancers performing in their living rooms.
Today through April 30
Tourist in Your Own Town Videos
The New York Landmarks Conservancy
Now that most of us are staying home, you can take virtual tours of New York City.Visit Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, Alexander Hamilton’s home in Upper Manhattan, the Woolworth Building in Lower Manhattan, the site of the Battle of Brooklyn, the home of one of America’s first female photographers on Staten Island, and Louis Armstrong’s home in Queens. There are 61 sites in all. You’ll be amazed at the discoveries you will make. Today through April 4
1PM
Puppet-Making Class
Central Park Tutors
Today through April 4
A Shofar Blown In Auschwitz: Artifact Presentation Ceremony
Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
On September 23, 2019, a shofar blown in Auschwitz was added to the “Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away.” exhibition. Some members of the exhibition curatorial team spoke, as well as Professor Judith Baumel-Schwartz (the shofar owner). Rabbi Eli Babich of the Fifth Avenue Syngagogue blew the shofar, and Cantor Joseph Malovany of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue recited the Memorial Prayer for the Holocaust. See a video of the event.
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NEWS FROM PREVIOUS EDITIONS
OF THE BROADSHEETDAILY
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Role Reversal
Downtown Food Festival Supports Local Restaurants by Feeding Healthcare Workers
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The ever-popular Taste of Tribeca food festival has been cancelled for this year, but the organizers are rallying support to help the now-struggling restaurants that have contributed food for decades, by purchasing meals to donate to hospital workers.
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Starting today, up to 100 free meals will be arriving daily at local healthcare facilities, prepared by half a dozen Lower Manhattan restaurants, and paid for with contributions solicited by the Downtown parents who organize the Taste of Tribeca food festival.
For the past 25 years, that event has accepted food contributed by dozens of eateries, and sold these “tastes” at a street fair, to raise money for two beloved local public schools: P.S. 234 and P.S. 150. Earlier this month, however, mounting concerns about the pandemic coronavirus forced the first-ever cancellation of the event. Realizing that this tragedy represented an opportunity to repay decades of generosity from local restaurants, at a time when these establishments are facing financial ruin, the organizers established a Taste of Tribeca Community Fund, and created a contribution portal on GoFundMe, which can be found here: https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/taste-of-tribeca-community-fundTaste of Tribeca board member Bettina Teodoro explains that, “this is a campaign to help our neighborhood restaurants and the emergency room at New York Presbyterian-Lower Manhattan Hospital, by buying meals from the former to feed entire shifts at the latter.” In just the last three days, 84 donors have contributed over $12,000, which is more than half of the project’s overall goal of $20,000.
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“We’d like to do this as often and as much as we can,” Ms. Teodoro adds, “and if means allow we will branch further afield to other hospitals in the City. It’s a work in progress, but our team will do the best we can to help as many people and businesses as we can.”
Among the Lower Manhattan restaurants supplying food (and receiving financial support from the Taste of Tribeca Community Fund) are Zuckers Bagels, Paisley, Anejo, City Vineyard, Khe-Yo, Restaurant Marc Forgione, and Maman.
“Our aim — to feed 100 hospital workers at a time, at a cost of $10 per person — is simple, but the benefits are far-reaching,” Ms. Teodoro reflects. “An order of this size will help to keep open a restaurant that at this time is relying solely on take-out and delivery orders. And the gift of a nourishing, delicious meal will help to refuel our tired and hungry doctors, nurses and medical support staff.”
The organizers are reaching out to other hospitals around the City and exploring delivery options. The response has been so overwhelming that the project’s scope has already expanded from to cover emergency staff at Mount Sinai, NYU Langone, and Bellevue Hospital.
The team behind the Community Fund emphasizes that no donation is too small, and 100 percent of all contributions (minus a small processing fee) will go directly to the purchase of meals for an entire shift of hospital workers. “The more money we raise, the more shifts we can serve, the more restaurants we can support, and the more we can expand this program to other area hospitals,” Ms. Teodoro observes.
Taste of Tribeca is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, all donations are tax-deductible, within the limits prescribed by law. The organizers will send all donors a receipt acknowledging their contribution.
Matthew Fenton
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Gimme Shelter
City Takes Over FiDi Hotel to House Homeless
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A guard posted to the lobby of the Radisson New York Wall Street Hotel demands that a reporter leave on Monday afternoon, after refusing to answer questions about homeless people being sheltered there.
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The administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio is housing several dozen homeless people in a luxury hotel in the Financial District. In a story first reported by the New York Post, the Radisson New York Wall Street Hotel (located at the corner of William and Pine Streets), which has been closed in the wake of the pandemic coronavirus, is being used (at least temporarily) as shelter for homeless adults.
The Broadsheet could not ascertain whether this is an interim measure, or if the City’s Department of Homeless Services (DHS) intends to house its clients at this site indefinitely. Also unclear is whether the hotel is being used as a quarantine facility, in the wake of reports that more than 100 residents in the City’s homeless shelter system have tested positive for the coronavirus, and two have died.
When a reporter approached the front door of the hotel on Monday afternoon to inquire, security guards in surgical masks and plastic ponchos refused to answer questions, demanded that he stop taking photographs, and ordered him to leave. The DHS did not return calls asking for comment.
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Biking through traffic seven years ago at lunch hour in downtown Manhattan compared to the dearth of people and traffic after the Corona virus epidemic is a huge contrast. Footage is sped up, so although it may look a but scary, the ride was totally safe!
Thanks and be well! -Esther R.
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Bravo to the Frontline Workers!
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Scanning Rector Place from his window the other night, Lower Manhattan resident Marcello de Peralta captured heartfelt community appreciation for workers at the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic.
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Seaport Dog Walkers Maintain Social Distancing; Their Dogs, Well, That’s Another Matter
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FiDi resident Mike Devereaux sent photos of Pier 16 morning dog walks
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Grim Harbingers
Local Luminaries Claimed by Pandemic, with Tally of Losses Poised to Grow
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A truck parked on Spruce Street, outside of New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital, that appears to be intended for use as a temporary morgue.
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Hospitals around New York, already coping with a tsunami of patients made critically ill by the pandemic coronavirus, have begun to prepare for a second onslaught: a wave of deceased victims.
Like healthcare facilities throughout the five boroughs, New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital now has an unmarked, refrigerated truck parked outside. On Spruce Street, surrounded by traffic barricades and caution tape, the trailer’s back end is discretely cloaked by a white tent, connecting it to a nearby exit from the building. This will allow movement between the doors and the truck, concealed from public view. As is the case at more than a dozen other hospitals around Manhattan, this truck appears to be earmarked for use as a temporary morgue.
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Eyes to the Sky
March 30 – April 12, 2020
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“Stars of the Forest: Elegy for 9/11”
by Naoto Nakagawa
Collection of National September 11 Memorial & Museum
Published with permission of the artist.
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Field guide to nightly entertainment
Are you missing the buzz at gatherings in theaters and movie houses? While we continue to learn how to dodge threats of the pandemic to our physical health, spring is arriving with opportunities to nurture mind and body in the safety of the outdoors. When I challenge my eyes to find planet Venus high in the west shortly after sunset, it could be that I am giving a boost to my immune system. Besides, it is a delightful pursuit for people of all ages every clear evening. Venus appears high in the west as a point of white light, the Evening Star, in blue sky about half an hour after sunset. Sunset is shortly after 7:15pm this week. The goddess planet increases in brilliance and decreases in altitude as the sky darkens: look for Venus all night until she sets in the west-northwest at about 11:30pm.
The early bird show continues to the left of Venus, in the south to southwest, where Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens, appears as the sky darkens. Then, find a lookout to the northeast horizon about 90 minutes after sunset to receive the golden light of the second brightest star in our sky, Arcturus.
In dark sky locations, at nightfall, from east to west, find Leo the Lion, The Big Dog, the triangular head of Taurus the Bull and Orion the Hunter. They are visible until about midnight. For a lifetime field guide to the stars through the year, consider purchasing a star wheel aka planisphere.
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A note about artist Naoto Nakagawa’s painting, “Stars of the Forest.” It began as a reflection on “a glorious moment in nature’s drama.” Its beauty, like a stroll in a natural landscape and stargazing, is especially heartening as we suffer the COVID19 pandemic. Naoto Nakagawa started the painting a week before 9/11. He states, “At the time, I was unaware that it would be an elegy for that disaster. … after working on it for three months, I came to realize what is was about. The inner light that permeates the entire surface represents the victims of 9/11, expressed as shining stars.The image holds both the tragedy now being experienced around the world and the infinite beauty of nature and the human spirit.”
Resources
Judy Isacoff
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Where to Get Care
Lower Manhattan Health Resources for Residents with Concerns
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Government officials are asking that people with non-urgent health problems avoid showing up at hospital emergency rooms, which are already overburdened.
Instead, they ask that patients who have concerns consult with their personal physicians. Those in need of non-emergency medical help can also call (or walk into) one of the five Lower Manhattan urgent care clinics that remain open. As of Thursday afternoon, these are:
• CityMD Financial District (24 Broad Street). No appointment necessary. 646-647-1259.
• CityMD Fulton (138 Fulton Street). No appointment necessary. 212-271-4896.
• CityMD Tribeca (87 Chambers Street). No appointment necessary. 347-745-8321.
• NYU Langone at Trinity (111 Broadway). Appointment required. 212-263-9700.
• Mount Sinai Doctors (225 Greenwich Street, fifth floor). No appointment necessary. 212-298-2720.
That noted, anyone experiencing dangerous symptoms (such as trouble breathing or dangerous spikes in body temperature) is encouraged to go to a hospital emergency room.
Two Lower Manhattan healthcare providers are also offering Virtual Visits, in which patients can consult over the phone or video link with a physician or nurse practitioner.
To schedule such a session with NYU Langone, please browse: NYULangone.org, and click on Virtual Urgent Care. To make an appointment with New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital, please browse NYP.org, and click on Virtual Urgent Care. Patients enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program are advised not to cancel or reschedule existing appointments. Clinic staff will be contacting you to make arrangements to convert these sessions into a tele-visits.
All program participants with prescriptions for their certified WTC-related conditions are strongly encouraged to sign up for Optum Home Delivery which allows for 90-day prescription fills and delivers directly to members by mail.
For more information, please call Optum at 855-640–0005, Option 2. For members who prefer to pick up prescriptions at retail pharmacies, the program is waiving early medication refill limits on 30-day prescription maintenance medications. Please call Optum at 855-640–0005, Option 3 for more information.
The World Trade Center Health Program is also covering limited COVID-19 testing for members with certain certified World Trade Center-related conditions that may put them at higher risk of illness from COVID-19. In addition to testing, treatment for COVID-19 is also covered, contingent on certain criteria being met, including that the member was eligible for COVID-19 testing, the treatment is authorized by the program, and the treatment is not experimental. Coverage of COVID-19 treatment costs requires approval by the program’s administrator, on a case-by-case basis.
Matthew Fenton
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Desperate Times for Street Food Vendors
Council Member and Advocacy Group Petition for Funds and to Suspend Most Enforcement Actions Toward Food Carts
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Street vendors, who are mostly ineligible for benefits like unemployment or health insurance, have recently suffered losses of more than 80 percent of their usual revenue.
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As the pandemic coronavirus continues to grip New York, one cohort of the Downtown community is experiencing a heightened level of distress, according to City Council member Margaret Chin and a non-profit advocacy group based in Lower Manhattan. To read more…
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The Niou Deal
Assembly Member Proposes Finance Reform as Funding Mechanism for Affordable Housing
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State Assembly member Yuh-Line Niou: “When you go shopping in New York City, how much extra do you pay for sales tax? This transfer tax of one-half of one percent is less than one-sixteenth of what you pay. But it would raise billions for public housing.”
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Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday that planning must begin immediately for how to rebuild the wreckage of the economy, once the health crisis brought on by the pandemic cononavirus has abated.
“We have to start to plan the pivot back to economic functionality,” he said during a press conference at the Jacob Javits Convention Center on Manhattan’s west side, where he announced the start of construction on a temporary hospital. “You can’t stop the economy forever.” To read more…Matthew Fenton
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Going to the Mattresses
Lower Manhattan Hunkers Down, as Coronavirus Crisis Grinds On
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Multiple residents of Lower Manhattan have now tested positive for the pandemic coronavirus, including one tenant at Gateway Plaza in Battery Park City, who has been hospitalized and is breathing with the assistance of a mechanical ventilator, according to a range of sources with direct knowledge of the circumstances.
In a separate development, a resident of Battery Park City died on Saturday after plunging from the 16th floor of his building at 400 Chambers Street, in an apparent suicide.
On a more encouraging note, a teacher at P.S./I.S. 276 (also located in Battery Park City), who exhibited symptoms that warranted a test for coronavirus, has been confirmed to be free of the disease.
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WANTED:
Your Coronavirus story in one hundred words.
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coveni
covidi
covici
Maryna Lansky
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Necessity Is the Mother of Intervention
Repurposing of Rivington House Might Help Meet Need for Clinical Capacity Arising from Pandemic
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Rivington House on the Lower East Side
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A Lower Manhattan building steeped in controversy may become a lifeline for people infected by the pandemic COVID-19 virus. In a story first reported by Crain’s New York, Rivington House is being considered as a possible treatment site.
The Lower East Side building served for decades as an HIV/AIDS care facility. But in 2014, the structure was acquired by real estate speculators, who paid a fraction of its market value, because a deed restriction that committed the building to use as a clinic. To read more…
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Meditations in an Emergency
Our Hometown and the Myth of Eternal Return
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You tell yourself that you’ve seen this story before, and more than once: edifices falling; waters rising. And you reflect that the worst situations are not those that can’t get any worse. The worst situations are the ones that are going to get worse before they get better. So you hunker down.
You recall the Old Man deciding, a lifetime ago, that since you were too old for fairy tales, you were perhaps old enough for true confessions. To read more…
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A Lifeline for Mom-and-Pop Shops
Amid Coron-Apocalypse, City Offers Loans and Grants for Struggling Small Businesses
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The administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio has inaugurated a program to aid small businesses that have experienced financial hardship because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Firms with fewer than 100 employees, which have undergone sales decreases of 25 percent or more will be eligible for zero interest loans of up to $75,000 to help mitigate losses in profit. The City’s Department of Small Business Services is also offering small businesses with fewer than five employees a grant to cover 40 percent of payroll costs for two months, to help retain employees.
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1800 -Ludwig van Beethoven leads the premiere of his First Symphony in Vienna
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1513 – Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon sights what is known today as Florida
1800 – Ludwig van Beethoven leads the premiere of his First Symphony in Vienna
1900 – The U.S. Congress passes the Foraker Act, allowing partial autonomy to Puerto Rico
1902 – “Electric Theatre”, the first full-time movie theatre in the United States, opens in Los Angeles
1972 – Actor Charlie Chaplin returns to the United States for the first time since being labeled a communist during the Red Scare in the 1930s
1992 – In New York city, mafia boss John Gotti is sentenced to life in prison based on murder and racketeering charges.
2006 – Over 60 tornadoes breakout in the United States; Tennessee is hardest hit with 29 deaths
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Births
742 – Charlemagne, Frankish king (d. 814)
1788 – Wilhelmine Reichard, first German female balloonist (d. 1848)
1862 – Nicholas Murray Butler, American philosopher and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1947)
1875 – Walter Chrysler, founded Chrysler (d. 1940)
1957 – Hank Steinbrenner, American businessman, co-owner of the NY Yankees
Deaths
1502 – Arthur, Prince of Wales (b. 1486)
1872 – Samuel Morse, American painter and academic, invented the Morse Code (b. 1791)
2005 – Pope John Paul II (b. 1920)
2013 – Jesus Franco, Spanish director, screenwriter, producer and actor (b. 1930)
Max Sano
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395 South End Avenue,
New York, NY 10280
212-912-1106
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No part of this document may be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher © 2020
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