The BroadshetDAILY ~ Freedom of Movement ~ Alliance Revamps Bus Fleet to Make Hitching a Ride More Hygienic

Freedom of Movement

Alliance Revamps Bus Fleet to Make Hitching a Ride More Hygienic

The Downtown Connection shuttle, which ferries passengers (free of charge) between more than 30 local stops that link residential areas with business and shopping districts, is operated by the Downtown Alliance, in partnership with the Battery Park City Authority.

As of Thursday, the Downtown Connection shuttle bus has a new look, a new fleet, and new onboard systems to safeguard against the spread of communicable airborne diseases.

The new vehicles, operated by US Coachways, are configured with forward-facing seats, with each row separated by plastic shields to facilitate socially distant riding. The new design also eliminates the standing room that the old bus fleet contained, because, “during a pandemic, we didn’t want passengers positioned above other, seated riders,” explains Jessica Lappin, president of the Downtown Alliance, which operates the shuttle as a public service to the Lower Manhattan community.”

The new buses also contain a filtration system that siphons cabin air through an ultraviolet-C light source, which acts as a powerful disinfectant. (In laboratory tests, this technique—which is also used to sterilize water, but is harmless to humans—has been shown to kill more than 90 percent of microbial contaminants.) The process works by disrupting the genetic base pairing of microbes, which destroys the ability of bacteria and viruses to reproduce. In addition to these safeguards, the Alliance is implementing a rigorous daily cleaning and disinfection routine.

Two things haven’t changed, however. The new buses still sport the distinctive red livery that has made them a familiar part of the Lower Manhattan streetscape. And the service is still free.

“With the changes to our fleet, we are not only committing ourselves to continuing a high standard of service, but also to doing what we can to protect the health of our ridership,” adds Ms. Lappin.

The mission of the Downtown Alliance is to enhance Lower Manhattan for businesses, residents and visitors. In addition to the Downtown Connection shuttle, the Alliance also provides local security and trash pickup, as well as operating the business improvement district, or BID, that covers the area south of Chambers Street.) The Alliance and its sister organization, the Downtown Lower Manhattan Association, also produce research, information, and advocacy designed to brand Lower Manhattan as a global model of a 21st century central business district.

Matthew Fenton

Gimme Shelter

Citys Plan to House Homeless in FiDi Hotel

Lower Manhattan residents and community leaders are scrambling to formulate a response to the announcement, circulated last Friday evening, that the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to use a hotel in the Financial District as a homeless shelter.

The hotel, known as the Radisson New York Wall Street, is located at 52 William Street, between Wall and Pine Streets. Housing homeless persons there is actually not a new development. As the Broadsheet reported six months ago… To read more…

Unsuitable

Federal Appeals Court Quashes Suits Against BPCA By September 11 Cleanup Workers

A federal appeals court in Lower Manhattan on Monday dismissed the final cluster of personal injury lawsuits against the Battery Park City Authority (BCPA) arising from the cleanup of toxic debris following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a 2019 decision by U.S. District Court judge Alvin Hellerstein, who tossed out the same bundle of 124 suits against the Authority, brought by rescue, recovery and cleanup workers who were made sick by exposure to hazardous materials while laboring in the community during the weeks and months after the destruction of the World Trade Center. To read more…

Playing Hooky for Health

More Than Half of All Students at Downtown Schools Opt for Remote Learning

As children are slated to return to public elementary schools today (along with public middle and high schools on Thursday), slightly more than half of all students in nine Lower Manhattan public schools plan to stay home and focus on remote learning, according to statistics from a State Department of Health (DOH) website.

The DOH’s School COVID-19 Report Card site contains preliminary data about how many students are expected to return to each school throughout the State, relative to the overall size of every school’s student body.

The nine Downtown schools included in this analysis are P.S/I.S. 276, P.S. 89, I.S. 289, P.S. 234, P.S. 343 (Peck Slip), P.S. 397 (Spruce Street), and P.S. 150, as well as Millennium High School and Stuyvesant High School. To read more…

CLASSIFIEDS & PERSONALS

Swaps & Trades, Respectable Employment, Lost and Found

To place a listing, contact editor@ebroadsheet.com

DOWNTOWN CALENDAR

Friday October 2

8:30AM

Battery Park City Authority on the Esplanade Plaza (south of North Cove Marina)

Improve balance, strength and focus through gentle exercises. The sights and sounds of the river provide a serene background for the ancient flowing postures. Program is first come, first served for up to 12 participants. Masks and contact information required upon arrival. Spatial parameters will be set. Participants must remain 6 ft apart for the duration of the program. All programs will be held in accordance with New York State reopening guidance. Esplanade Plaza.

12NOON

Poets House

Poet and educator Tyree Daye reads from his forthcoming second collection Cardinal (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), from Raleigh, NC.

6:30PM

Fraunces Tavern Museum

Preserving the Past is a digital lecture that takes a comprehensive look at the architecture, design, and history of 54 Pearl Street, one of the oldest buildings in New York City. Led by historian Mary Tsaltas-Ottomanelli, the lecture will explore three hundred years of the building’s history – from its early construction on some of the city’s oldest landfill, to the extensive restoration in the 20th century, to how the building continues to survive surrounded by skyscrapers.

Saturday October 3

10AM

Battery Park City Authority in South Cove

South Cove is a special place in autumn, and what better time than Saturday mornings to practice your art! Participants are expected to bring their own drawing and painting supplies, including drawing boards and containers of water if they are planning to paint. BPCA will supply drawing paper and watercolor paper only. Program is first come, first served for up to 20 participants. Masks and contact information required upon arrival. Activity is self-guided. Participants must remain 6 ft apart for the duration of the program. All programs will be held in accordance with New York State reopening guidance.

11AM – 5PM

South Street Seaport Museum

Though the South Street Seaport Museum’s indoor spaces remain closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, visitors may explore the tall ship Wavertree. The Museum will allow no more than 35 guests on board the ship at any time to encourage social distancing from different households. All guests above the age of 2 will be required to wear a face covering at all times aboard Wavertree and at the Museum’s Open-Air Pop-Up Gift Shop Booth on Pier 16.

In tandem with Wavertree Open Days in October, Bowne & Co. will be setting up presses on the steps of 209-211 Water Street. Demonstrations will illustrate the 19th century printing process with a variety of presses and equipment from the Museum’s Printing History Collection. Items printed throughout the day will be given away as a tangible reminder of the printing experience, all for free.

Sunday October 4

11AM-5PM

South Street Seaport Museum

Though the South Street Seaport Museum’s indoor spaces remain closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, visitors may explore the tall ship Wavertree. The Museum will allow no more than 35 guests on board the ship at any time to encourage social distancing from different households. All guests above the age of 2 will be required to wear a face covering at all times aboard Wavertree and at the Museum’s Open-Air Pop-Up Gift Shop Booth on Pier 16.

In tandem with Wavertree Open Days in October, Bowne & Co. will be setting up presses on the steps of 209-211 Water Street. Demonstrations will illustrate the 19th century printing process with a variety of presses and equipment from the Museum’s Printing History Collection. Items printed throughout the day will be given away as a tangible reminder of the printing experience, all for free

2-4PM

South Street Seaport Museum

From our living rooms and kitchens, and even from the deck of Wavertree, join us for our round-robin of shared sea songs, featuring members of The New York Packet and friends. Listen in, lead or request a song, and belt out the choruses for your neighbors to hear. Hosted by singers from the New York Packet.

Getting a Corner on the Market

Retail Developer Wins Years-Long Struggle for Control of Legendary Bank Building

When the financial upheaval unleashed by the pandemic coronavirus begins to settle, a long-neglected local landmark may resume its erstwhile status as an iconic Lower Manhattan public space.

The building, 23 Wall Street (at the corner of Broad Street), is a former tabernacle of American capitalism. To read more…

‘A Fraudulent Scheme’

FiDi Renters Win Recompense for Years of Illegal Rent Overcharges

Rentals tenants in a Financial District building, who sued their landlord to demand restitution for years of illegally high rent, have won a $5-million settlement. The building is the luxury rental tower at 63-67 Wall Street.

Last November, Tallen Todorovich, a renter in 63-67 Wall Street filed suit, seeking class-action status on behalf of all current and former tenants, and alleging that they had not been given rent-stabilized leases for their apartments, even though the building received tax abatements under a program intended for rent-stabilized buildings.

This action (along with half a dozen other, similar suits) stemmed from a June, 2019 ruling by New York State’s highest court, which found that as many as 5,000 Lower Manhattan apartments had been illegally deprived of rent stabilization benefits.

Bionomics Begins at Home

BPCA Launches Ten-Year Sustainability Plan

The Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) has begun implementation of a landmark plan to “achieve progressive sustainability targets over the next decade, and lay the groundwork for continued sustainability action after 2030.”

The Battery Park City Sustainability Plan focuses on three broad categories of goals.

• The first of these is “Resource Management & Reduction,” which aims to reduce the demand for energy and water in the community, while promoting reuse of resources and minimizing waste.

• The second, labeled “Innovation & Inspiration,” seeks to leverage Battery Park City initiatives as scalable models for other urban developments around the nation and the world.

• And the third, termed “Education & Collaboration” is designed to raise local awareness of sustainability-related issues and actions.

Quatrain Alley

Words Come to Life Amid New Installation in Battery Park City

Poets House—a library, creative space, and meeting place that invites poets and the public to step into the living tradition of poetry, while cultivating a wider audience for the art—will celebrate its tenth anniversary in Battery Park City by launching the Poetry Path, an immersive public art installation running the northern length of Battery Park City, from Rockefeller and Teardrop Parks to the North Cove Marina. To read more…

Rice and Beans

They are better

together.

Me and Jayden

We are better

together.

Josh, PS1 student

TODAY IN HISTORY

October 2

“Where Is Everybody?” is the first episode of the American anthology television series The Twilight Zone. It was originally broadcast on October 2, 1959 on CBS.

829 – Theophilos becomes Byzantine Emperor.

1470 – War of the Roses: King Edward IV of England escapes to Flanders, only to return the following March to reclaim his throne.

1780 – American Revolutionary War: John André, a British Army officer, is hanged as a spy by the Continental Army.

1925 – John Logie Baird performs the first test of a working television system.

1942 – World War II: Ocean Liner RMS Queen Mary accidentally rams and sinks HMS Curacoa, killing 337 crewmen aboard Curacoa.

1959 – Rod Serling’s anthology series The Twilight Zone premieres on CBS. The first episode is “Where Is Everybody?”

1967 – Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as the first African-American justice of the United States Supreme Court.

2002 – The Beltway sniper attacks begin, extending over three weeks.

2006 – Five Amish girls are murdered in a shooting at a school in Pennsylvania.

2018 – Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Grouch Marx and Eden Hartford

Births

1800 – Nat Turner, American slave and uprising leader (d. 1831)

1847 – Paul von Hindenburg, German field marshal and politician, 2nd President of Germany (d. 1934)

1869 – Mahatma Gandhi, Indian freedom fighter, activist philosopher (d. 1948)

1890 – Groucho Marx, American comedian and actor (d. 1977)

1897 – Bud Abbott, American comedian (d. 1974)

1937 – Johnnie Cochran, American lawyer (d. 2005)

1951 – Sting, English singer-songwriter, bass player, and actor

Deaths

1264 – Pope Urban IV

1764 – William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1720)

1803 – Samuel Adams, American philosopher and politician, 4th Governor of Massachusetts (b. 1722)

1947 – P. D. Ouspensky, Russian-English mathematician & philosopher (b. 1878)

1953 – John Marin, American painter (b. 1870)

1968 – Marcel Duchamp, French painter and sculptor (b. 1887)

1985 – Rock Hudson, American actor (b. 1925)

Credits include wikipedia and other internet sources

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