Downtown Express

Page 1

Volume 25, Number 18

Koch on LIFe, aIds & FILm P. 6-7, 19

FebruArY 6-FebruArY 19, 2013

FacInG eVIctIon, seaPort shoPs PLead For summer BY TERESE LOEB KREUZER he clock is ticking for the tenants of Pier 17 in the South Street Seaport, but so far, there has been no reprieve from the lease termination notices issued by their landlord, The Howard Hughes Corp., who wants them out of there by April 30. Howard Hughes has a longterm lease on the pier. After Superstorm Sandy blew through on Oct. 29, 2012, Howard Hughes shut the pier down to inspect it for damage, reopening it on Dec. 6. However, some of Pier 17’s 72 merchants never reopened. “The hurricane dealt a blow to the entire Seaport, nobody will

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Continued on page 11 Downtown Express photo by Terese Loeb Kreuzer

A happy Vince McGowan, right, recently retired from the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy. It was an emotional annoucement for him and the conservancy’s executive director, Tessa Huxley.

Vietnam to 9/11 to Sandy: A veteran of the three retires in B.P.C. BY TERESE LOEB KREUZER Executives Tessa Huxley and Robert Serpico don’t usually cry at board meetings, but both had tears in their eyes Jan. 29 when Huxley announced Vince McGowan’s retirement from the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy. McGowan joined the conservancy in January 2000 as assistant executive director. Previously, he had held executive positions at the Hudson River Park Trust and its predecessor, the Hudson River Park Conservancy. Between 1998 and 2000, he created routes and docking locations for New York Water Taxi. His earlier career included stints as a bar owner, four years of service in the Marines (two of them in Vietnam) and several years in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s with the Rand

Corporation “helping to organize the people in Guatemala to overthrow the oppressive government there.” His bond with Huxley and Serpico, chief financial officer of the Battery Park City Authority, was forged on 9/11. At the time, Serpico was president of the neighborhood conservancy. “When the buildings fell, he was literally thrown into the window of Chase Manhattan Bank,” McGowan recalled. McGowan himself was on the corner of Vesey and West Sts. when the first building came down. “I started to run because things were falling right around me,” he said. “I’ve been in combat too many times to not understand the consequences.”

tearFuL mother: Parents, saVe your KIds From Guns

He had a throwaway camera that he grabbed from a kiosk whose owner had already fled. “As I was running, I was taking pictures with this little camera of fire-sticks hitting in front of me,” he said. “I was waiting for one to take me out but I got to that cutout by the American Express entrance and I dove in there and that’s when the dust cloud swept by me and buried me in five feet of dust.” He said it was as frightening as anything he had experienced in Vietnam. “Having been under severe fire, when you think this is not going to end well, it’s extremely terrifying,” he stated. “But you go through a moment just coming to grips with yourself saying, ‘OK this

BY SAM SPOKONY Just after hundreds of Lower East Side parents and children walked together in an emotional rally against gun and youth violence, the mother of Raphael Ward — the 16-year-old Baruch Houses resident who was shot and killed on Jan. 4 — spoke candidly and forcefully to that crowd. Though she never would have asked to be placed upon this pedestal of grief, Arlene Delgado knew that the happy memories of her child might just be enough to spur the change her neighborhood needs.

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5 15 CANAL ST RE ET • N YC 10 013 • C OPYRIG HT © 2013 N YC COMMU N ITY MED IA , LLC


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